I hate ChatGPT

[highplainsdem]

I've posted this elsewhere in replies in this thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217597931

From a few of my replies there:

I hate Chat GPT and every threat it represents to teachers, to

writers and other creators, and to everyone using it - especially students - taking an easy and ultimately crippling way to produce something via machine, rather than learning to think and write and create ON THEIR OWN.

It's the creative equivalent of claiming you can climb if you can stand on an escalator or get in an elevator.

Its nonfiction is riddled with non-facts.

Its fiction is a bastardization of everything it's scraped online, WITHOUT PERMISSION or IDENTIFICATION OF SOURCES.

If you don't think we have an idiocracy now, wait till use of Chat GPT and other AI becomes more widespread.

In response to Chin music wondering what AI thinks of us, and the security implications:

I'm most worried at the moment about how it will encourage laziness and

cheating and dumb people down.

As well as putting a lot of writers out of work if readers and the film and TV audience are willing to settle for third-rate, formulaic writing. There are too many companies that would be happy to use Chat GPT if they think they can get away with it.

In response to sellitman agreeing but saying it's still an interesting topic:

The problem is that treating it as entertaining, like a super Magic 8 Ball,

encourages people to see it as harmless. Amusing rather than threatening and subversive of our society and human accomplishments and creativity. It isn't just another tool. It's a replacement.

In response to Sympthsical being bothered that a poem ChatGPT was asked to write about Newsmax "read like something someone deep in the trenches of the Right would put together":

That's because Chat GPT is being programmed by scraping everything off the internet,

so the people behind this have had to hire humans, usually very low-paid and in poor countries, to try to remove all the violence, porn including child abuse, and profanity it's picked up. And it picks up conspiracy theories. Chat GPT can be used to create or flesh out conspiracy theories.

[GusBob]

1. Agreed

Please let’s not have “ what chat bot said about XYZ” posts

Please

[chowder66]

2. +1

[hlthe2b]

3. I agree. Though there will be "detecting" software soon, it will turn into a never ending race to

continually identify text from its latest version... Plus it is so easy to manipulate us with selective information.

[highplainsdem]

5. Yes. One risk I saw pointed out recently is that Chat GPT could be used

to generate lots of fairly convincing fake "scientific" articles on Covid to spread even more misinformation.

[snowybirdie]

4. I've seen

several posts here using this technology. I have and will continue to block these posters. Lazy way to post and try and convey ideas.

[highplainsdem]

7. We're likely to see (if we haven't already seen) OPs and maybe replies

here that are generated by Chat GPT but aren't identified as such and aren't about Chat GPT but are about any other subjects. Either from people who think Chat GPT will make them sound more knowledgeable, or from trolls trying to post messages that they want to sound vaguely Democratic but still undermine Democratic arguments, which for most RWers would be like trying to speak a foreign language. Chat GPT can be told to write in anyone's writing style, from any point of view.

[brooklynite]

6. Awaiting equally angry rants against Cliff Notes, Wikipedia.....

Technological change is part of life. Most students will actually take the time to research and learn.

[highplainsdem]

8. I've been using PCs since the mid-1980s and first got online and moderated

a political conference then. And if you think Chat GPT is like Cliffs Notes and Wikipedia, you've ignored most of the recent news stories about it.

[GusBob]

9. Except

It’s not just about academics. A salesman I know is using it to handle customers in various situations

My understanding is this is only the released public version.

At a recent medical lecture, not to get boring, an AI program was able to look at an image of an eye structure and determine if the subject was male or female without any other information

Fascinated, researchers delved into the program but were unable to discover how it was able to explain exactly how it came up with that information. No such luck, it was a mystery or secret or what?

The lecturer described it as a dark hole of AI.

‘Open the Bombay doors HAL’
‘ I’m sorry Dave I can’t do that’

[Elessar Zappa]

10. We're gonna have to learn to live with it, somehow.

I agree that there are problematic aspects of it but AI is here to stay. There will be positive results from AI as well, especially in the medical field.

[ymetca]

11. Having worked for many years

in the bookselling business, I can tell you with complete confidence that ChatGPT (or systems like it) simply will not be resisted by the various businesses that can profit from it by firing writers, artists, etc. Any business that churns out content for money will not be able to compete using 'real' talent (whatever that is). And the buying public simply will not care, nor be able to tell the difference. That tells us something, does it not?

So your bullshit job writing copy or code all day just went up in smoke. Not because you are not talented. But because your talent is wasted on such dull, boring, repetitive, throw-away 'content'.

In reality, the only reason you're doing the job at all is to make money, like everyone else. Sorry, but your talent is just labor, and we all know how much that is valued, so good luck with your "continued journey"! Sincerely yours, HRbot 3.0.

What I find most chuckle-worthy about ChatGPT is that it aced the Wharton University MBA test. The test is now officially.. bullshit! If I am a CEO, why would I continue to employ legions of MBA's when this gizmo already has all the answers? Another bullshit industry, going the way of the typing pool.

We should, in fact, be glad that AI tech is demonstrating just how many bullshit jobs there are. Most jobs are bullshit jobs. The history of labor is mostly just one bullshit job after another.

I think we're all surprised how it's the middle-class 'thinking' jobs that are now most at risk, rather than the manual labor ones.

Suddenly that Universal Basic Income idea doesn't seem so outlandish anymore.

[IcyPeas]

12. the DU poem....

was just a demonstration of what it can do. It was the first time I ever used it - but I have been hearing about it.

I think this is a good discussion to be having. Many people still haven't ever heard of AI technology. Your replies are very informative and thought provoking.

☮️

[48656c6c6f20]

13. It's not looking good for you

I am sorry to hear that someone has posted negative comments about me. As a language model, I do not have feelings or opinions, so I cannot take offense. My purpose is to assist users with information and respond to their questions to the best of my ability based on the data I have been trained on. Is there anything else I can help you with?

[highplainsdem]

14. You're a DUer who's been here since August 2005.

[48656c6c6f20]

18. Right

Don't get your point. But let me check chatgpt.


It appears that this person is indicating that you are a member of the website DU (Democratic Underground) and that you have been an active member since August 2005. It's also possible that "DUer" is a term used to refer to members of the website.

[highplainsdem]

19. So you thought it would be cute to feed my post into ChatGPT for its response?

And its earlier response was reply 13?

You didn't bother to identify it as such. I'd guessed it was, but you chose to post as if you were a chatbot...and there are some online, sadly. Which is why I pointed out that you aren't one.

Re the earlier response:

My purpose is to assist users with information and respond to their questions to the best of my ability based on the data I have been trained on.

When the data ChatGPT has "trained on" is ripped off from humans, it's basically scrambled plagiarism.

ChatGPT would be more useful if it provided data on its sources. As Wikipedia does. But of course those references would be much, much more extensive. Possibly page after page of references for each sentence.

And it still gets a lot of stuff wrong, as CNET found out when it tried to use ChatGPT to write articles, supposedly had humans editing them, and still had to apologize for lots of very basic mistakes in the articles.

We do not need ChatGPT and OpenAI.

We do need the human skills and creativity they threaten.

[GusBob]

20. Spock

Fascinating

[ismnotwasm]

15. It's not going away

[LostOne4Ever]

16. Stable Diffusion/ Midjourney are doing the same exact thing to commercial artists!

Stable Diffusion/ Midjourney are doing the same exact thing to commercial artists!

No concern about copyright or all the artists (who already are ripped off and exploited) who are going to lose not only their livelihood, but their dreams of living off their art!

Not only that but using an AI that used their own art to put them out of a job too!

https://m.

&t=2667s&pp=2AHrFJACAQ%3D%3D

[highplainsdem]

17. DALL-E is the one I've been reading about...and yes, it rips off artists and doesn't give

them compensation or credit. Just as the writing ChatGPT does is a rip-off of writers.

[LostOne4Ever]

21. There is a lawsuit on the AI art front

I hope they win and it sets up precedent to protect all artists and writers from this abuse of technology.

This type of tech should be for helping professional writers and artists, not stealing their copyrights and jobs so CEOs and other corporate vultures can make more profit!

https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/23558946/ai-art-lawsuit-stability-stable-diffusion-deviantart-midjourney

[highplainsdem]

22. Good! I agree with what they're doing. See this Lounge thread and my replies there, especially

reply 8:

https://democraticunderground.com/10181757981

[LostOne4Ever]

23. I completely agree

But as a person who is hoping to one day hone my skills enough to be a professional illustrator or animator of some sort, I am incredibly worried that my dream won’t exist anymore once (or if) I get to that point.

These lawsuits feel like my only ray of hope.

To quote the academy award winning animator/director Hayao Miyazaki

I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.

[highplainsdem]

24. I understand. AI-generated "art" - fake art - threatens artists of all ages,

since generally artists never need to retire. So even older artists should realize AI threatens their plans to work for a few more decades.

But it can be heartbreaking for young artists, or aspiring artists of any age, to have to wonder if they will have any chance of being recognized and rewarded for their abilities.

It's disgusting that corporations are eager to use AI to replace artists and other content creators, if it can increase their profits. But we know capitalism, without regulation, can be heartless and destructive.

What's been saddening for me are the indications that a lot of people who apparently envied artists, but weren't willing to put the time and work into developing skills and honing talent themselves, seem thrilled by the idea that using AI somehow makes them equally creative.

Lots of professional writers have had possibly well-intentioned but clueless people tell them, "I have a great idea for a novel! I'll tell you if you agree to write it and split the money it makes with me."

Now some of those people who don't see the almost infinite distance between the basic idea "family isolated for months in a haunted hotel" and Stephen King's The Shining are probably thinking ChatGPT can bridge that distance for them. You can tell ChatGPT to write in any famous author's style and it can churn out some mimicry.

And some writers who have sold some of their work are beginning to use AI to IMO take over their own writing. See this thread I posted a month ago: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217495259 .

And if that AI-using writer and publishers really think AI is the way to go, they need to think long and hard about the very first reply I got there, from Srkdqltr: "So the reader can tell ChatGPT what they want to read and bypass the author altogether?"

Because they can bypass the publisher and bookseller, too. And they will, if publishers and booksellers, or industries profiting from any art, try to get audiences to accept AI-generated art as something they should want.

[dalton99a]

25. +1

[hunter]

26. I regard a shocking number of real people as simple automatons...

... endlessly echoing whatever crap they absorb from their television or the internet -- no spark of creativity at all.

As Theodore Sturgeon noted, "ninety percent of everything is crap."

That may be from George Orwell, who wrote, In much more than nine cases out of ten the only objectively truthful criticism would be "This book is worthless ..."

How's this any different? Who the fuck cares where the crap comes from?

One important critical thinking skill is to ignore all this crap.

[highplainsdem]

27. The danger of AI is that it removes any need for critical thinking and

creativity, for all too many people who'll find it tempting.

And you know, the judgment that something is crap has often been followed by the thought, "I can do better than this!" Or at least, more cynically, "I can do at least as well as this, so if this artist can sell their work, so can I!"

But if the crap is generated by AI and people are paying for it and applauding it, and AI can produce it in minutes, that human reaction and aspiration will be much less likely to happen.

And that will be tragic, for individuals and society as a whole.

[hunter]

33. My parents are artists who always had day jobs until my dad retired with a pension.

Now my parents are full time artists.

My sister has been a television actor on and off for about forty years now, since she was a teen. It's never paid her bills.

Professional sports is a similar art. The vast majority of high school athletes are never going to support themselves as professionals athletes.

My parents generally had jobs related to their art. My sister doesn't.

My kids are artists with day jobs. One of my kids sometimes sells poetry, of all things.

Art is something humans just do. We humans are all naturally born artists.

I don't think it's the aspirations that drive us forward, it's the inhibitions that hold us back. The inhibitions start with parents who tell their children art is a waste of time and societies that punish people for their art.

I was fortunate to grow up in a household immersed in art. So was my wife. We raised our own children in the same sort of environment.

Somehow, without any explicit training, our children learned to provide food and shelter for themselves while pursuing their arts.

In a very real sense every aspiring artist is competing against art created as an automated industrial process. Nothing has changed.

[Prairie_Seagull]

28. I'd like to see an even handedly empaneled ethics round table on AI.

I believe if we actually see and hear opposing opinions, we would also see who has them and I bet the ones profiting would have the loudest voices. Shouldn't this give us pause? How many more good jobs do we need to see flushed before we wise up. I don't need a PHD or MBA see that this is not to desk jocky, work-a-day peoples benefit.

We are going to be finding out fairly soon what labor truly is. Buy some boots and gloves.

Huge things start out as whispers.

Edit to add: I would like to know what EarlG, Elad and Skinner think about AI in general and more specifically ChatGPT??

[ancianita]

30. AMEN.

Edit to add: I would like to know what EarlG, Elad and Skinner think about AI in general and more specifically ChatGPT?

[hunter]

34. Let's strive to flush every last crappy job down the toilet.

The problem with our society today is that only the billionaires seem to benefit from any sort of technical progress.

We could probably be living in some sort of Star Trek utopia today if not for billionaire class. We could be living in a world where everyone enjoys their work and can tell any rotten employer to go fuck themselves without fear of starvation and homelessness for themselves.

With today's technology it's pretty easy to imagine thirty hour work weeks with comfortable living wages and safe pleasant working conditions for all.

[ancianita]

29. I hate ANY AI that "hallucinates."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination_(artificial_intelligence)

[Polybius]

31. How would you feel about true AI then?

Like having a personal C3PO?

[gulliver]

32. ChatGPT is way overhyped, like Full Self-Driving (FSD)

Remember when FSD was going to eliminate all the truck driver jobs? It was always complete BS. Same thing with ChatGPT.

Most people, even very smart people, have a naive view of computers. They see ChatGPT spit out some computer code or a piece of "creative writing," and they think "OMG, everyone's going to be out of a job!"

Nope. Not even close.

As you point out, ChatGPT's writing sucks. Maureen Dowd has a column about it this morning, in fact. My Interview with AI Shakespeare.

The plagiarism scare is upside down. People are worried students will have ChatGPT write their term papers. But there is already a thriving plagiarism market out there. Google is a plagiarism engine. The worry a student who wants to plagiarize from even a vastly improved ChatGPT might have is, well, why wouldn't the teacher just ask ChatGPT if it wrote the paper the student turned in?

The bigger plagiarism issue, imo, is the potential for ChatGPT and Dall-E and the like to use the work of humans (or, I suppose, other programs) without attribution or compensation. And I don't think that should be a problem either.