GPT and LLMs: Good? Bad? Both?

[Bootstrap]

A few guidelines for using ChatGPT:

1. Use ChatGPT 4, not 3.5.

I'm not about to pay a subscription fee to assist with the development of a tool that I think is going to be bad for humans in general.

I would be interested in discussion on this. All opinions welcome, please don't jump on anyone for expressing an opinion that is not yours.

Are GPT and LLMs bad for humans in general? The next great advance for humanity? Good and bad at the same time, in different ways? A big dramatic change that is just too hard to evaluate yet?

How do they compare to other technologies like the Internet or cell phones? Are these other technologies also bad for humanity?

[Josh]

I would be interested in discussion on this. All opinions welcome, please don't jump on anyone for expressing an opinion that is not yours.

I've been wondering the same thing.

Are GPT and LLMs bad for humans in general? The next great advance for humanity? Good and bad at the same time, in different ways? A big dramatic change that is just too hard to evaluate yet?

I would start with past "innovations" like social media or streaming media, neither of which seem to have made the human condition materially better, and also seem to have contributed to making it a lot worse. Social media has contributed to breakdown in the social fabric, less real life social interaction, and amped up misinformation, bigotry, and hatred to never-before-seen levels. Likewise, streaming media has not resulted in an improvement over the kind of media available back when people had TVs with rabbit ears. Modern media seems worse than ever, including a large amount of pornography.

How do they compare to other technologies like the Internet or cell phones? Are these other technologies also bad for humanity?

We keep getting promises that this kind of technology will make our lives better, but it never delivers on the promise. But then society has to bear the burdens that it created. And there isn't really an easy choice to "opt out" of this kind of thing. For example, I would prefer not to debate with a ChatGPT robot, yet here on MennoNet, GPT summaries get pasted fairly regularly and then the authoritative nature of how GPT talks makes it seem like it has settled the debate on something. This is not happening just here, but is happening in many places. In the workplace, I've noticed a more than one person using GPT to summarise things, and sometimes inaccurately. If I ask someone to summarise an issue, I'm not asking them to "please cut and paste this into GPT and then email me the output."

Generative AI is a larger topic; LLMs are part of generative AI and GPT is an LLM. Generative AI means that you can't necessarily trust an audio recording to be genuine. For example, audio recordings of famous people saying outrageous things have circulated, and it sounds exactly like their real voice. Currently, generated images do have markers that identify them as being not real, but they are coming closer and closer to being photorealistic. This means that images on your computer screen will have to be seen as even less trustworthy than they already are. That outrageous picture of some atrocity coming out of a conflict? You'll have no idea if it's real or not. A text writeup that seems like it was written by a journalist? It might be fiction, hand-tuned by an AI. And what's coming next is convincing video & audio.

God made language as a gift for humans and God intended for us to speak to each other, not to speak to robots inside computers that regurgitate past works of varying quality.

[mike]

One problem I can see is that AI generated text is insanely BORING. The best way to get me to ignore a web page or forum post or anything else is to let it be obviously AI generated. I'm not saying it has no useful purpose. But it sure doesn't take the place of a human writer. Internet searches on a topic, more and more, are turning up AI generated pages that are nothing but summaries of information found elsewhere, with no useful purpose other than serving ads for the website owners. AI generated articles tweaked for SEO must be making some of these guys big money in ad revenue. It's one of the modern equivalents of junk mail, with the exception that creating and hosting these sorts of websites is extraordinarily cheap compared to actually sending out mail pieces.

[Bootstrap]

One problem I can see is that AI generated text is insanely BORING. The best way to get me to ignore a web page or forum post or anything else is to let it be obviously AI generated. I'm not saying it has no useful purpose. But it sure doesn't take the place of a human writer. Internet searches on a topic, more and more, are turning up AI generated pages that are nothing but summaries of information found elsewhere, with no useful purpose other than serving ads for the website owners. AI generated articles tweaked for SEO must be making some of these guys big money in ad revenue. It's one of the modern equivalents of junk mail, with the exception that creating and hosting these sorts of websites is extraordinarily cheap compared to actually sending out mail pieces.

I asked ChatGPT to process the above text as follows:

User
rewrite the following to be more interesting - add some emotion, make it personal and relateable

Here's the result:

Navigating the web these days feels like wading through a sea of AI-generated content. It's like expecting a gourmet meal but ending up with bland fast food. Sure, AI is great for gathering info quickly, but it lacks the human touch that brings writing to life. These AI articles, optimized for SEO and ad revenue, are like digital junk mail – plentiful and monotonous. They're efficient, no doubt, but where's the soul? It's like we're trading the vibrant, quirky charm of human writing for a convenient yet uninspiring sea of sameness. Sometimes, I just miss that spark of personality and emotion that only human writers can bring.

[mike]

I asked ChatGPT to process the above text as follows:

User
rewrite the following to be more interesting - add some emotion, make it personal and relateable

Here's the result:

Navigating the web these days feels like wading through a sea of AI-generated content. It's like expecting a gourmet meal but ending up with bland fast food. Sure, AI is great for gathering info quickly, but it lacks the human touch that brings writing to life. These AI articles, optimized for SEO and ad revenue, are like digital junk mail – plentiful and monotonous. They're efficient, no doubt, but where's the soul? It's like we're trading the vibrant, quirky charm of human writing for a convenient yet uninspiring sea of sameness. Sometimes, I just miss that spark of personality and emotion that only human writers can bring.

[Bootstrap]

Now rewrite that as a Dr. Suess poem

In a web world wide and vast,
AI pages hold us fast.
Text so bland, it's a chore,
Lacking life, a dreadful bore.

Quick and handy, yes it's true,
But missing heart, through and through.
Like a meal, so plain and stark,
Lacks the zest, misses the mark.

SEO's the game they play,
In an ad-filled, flashy way.
Digital junk, a monotonous stream,
Missing the human in the machine's gleam.

Efficient, sure, but oh so plain,
Where's the joy, the human gain?
I long for words with warmth to spare,
A human touch, now that's quite rare!

[Bootstrap]

Now rewrite that as a dramatic story

In the sprawling digital landscape of the internet, a quiet battle was being waged. It was not a battle of swords and shields, but of words and wits. At the heart of this conflict lay the soul of writing itself, caught between the efficient precision of AI and the passionate creativity of human expression.

In a corner of this world, there was an AI, a creation of code and algorithms, tirelessly generating content with the speed of lightning. Its words filled page after page, website after website, an endless stream of information optimized for search engines and ad revenues. This AI, though efficient, lacked the essence of humanity - the ability to infuse words with emotion and personal experience.

Across this digital divide, a lone writer sat before an old, weathered keyboard. Each tap was a rebellion, a statement of the enduring power of human creativity. Her stories were more than just words; they were windows into her soul, filled with the vibrancy and quirks that only a human heart could conjure.

As the AI churned out content with robotic indifference, the writer poured her passion into every sentence. Where the AI's words were a flat landscape, hers were mountains and valleys, rich with the beauty of human experience.

But the world was changing. The internet, once a treasure trove of human creativity, was now drowning under the weight of AI-generated text. The writer felt this shift, a creeping shadow over the world she loved. She knew the value of her craft, the magic of a story well-told, but faced an army of machines that knew only efficiency.

Determined, she wove her tales with even greater fervor, each word a star in the darkening sky of the internet. She wrote not just for herself, but for the very essence of storytelling, fighting to keep the human spirit alive in a world speeding towards the cold embrace of the machine.

It was a dramatic stand, a beacon of hope in a sea of monotony. In this digital age, the battle for the soul of writing raged on, and at its heart stood the writer - a defender of the human story.

[Bootstrap]

Now rewrite the first form of this on a 3rd grade reading level

Sometimes, when you look for fun stories or cool facts on the internet, you find pages that are kind of boring. These pages are made by a robot called AI, which stands for Artificial Intelligence. AI is like a really fast computer that can write stories and articles, but it doesn't write like people do.

AI's writing is good for getting information fast, but it doesn't have feelings or fun ideas like people do when they write. The pages made by AI are everywhere, and they're just to show ads and make money. It's a lot like getting lots of boring mail that you don't want to read.

AI writing is like eating the same plain sandwich every day. It fills you up, but it's not as yummy as a sandwich made by someone who knows what you love to eat. I miss reading stories that feel like someone really cared when they were writing them.

[Bootstrap]

Rewrite this as a politician warning about the dangers of AI

AI-generated content – dull, lifeless, and everywhere – threatens to swamp our vibrant human creativity. It's not just boring; it's a tool to dull our senses, pushing us towards a world where machine-generated monotony replaces the rich tapestry of human thought and expression.

This isn't just about losing enjoyable reads; it's an assault on our culture, our artists, our very humanity. They want us to accept this lifeless substitute as normal, but I say no! We must stand up for human creativity, for the power and beauty of words that come from the heart.

Join me in championing our writers, thinkers, and dreamers. Let's protect our cultural heritage and keep the human spirit alive in our digital world. It's time to take a stand!

[Bootstrap]

OK, I hope I've made my point. One useful way to use GPT is to ask it to rewrite something I have already written, make it more concise, write it a different way. I often write something, then ask GPT to rewrite it, then rewrite what GPT gave me until I'm happy with it.

Especially if an abstract for a paper needs to be 500 words or something ... or I can't quite find the right words, and I want to generate several possible things that may not be what I want either, but at least give me ideas for what I do want to write.