[ExI] chatgpt test 2: mostly successful was RE: chatgpt test 1: fail

Tara Maya tara at taramayastales.com
Mon Apr 3 04:22:49 UTC 2023




> On Apr 2, 2023, at 7:14 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
> Now you see the nature of the game I am proposing: ask ChatGPT something you
> already know a lot about, see if it comes back with anything unlikely to be
> found on the internet, and anything that even vaguely resembles insight or
> innovation.


In my extensive attempts to write a novel with ChatGPT, I found that once it had decided I was asking for something "bad" it would lock down into Chiding Mode. For instance, I was trying to enlist ChatGPT's help to imagine the backstory of a character who became a murderous wendigo. ChatGPT would not do this, because it seemed to be hard programmed to inform me that murder is wrong. In this case, I couldn't get it unlocked even after reminding it that wendigos don't exist and the character in question was the bad guy in a fiction story who would be defeated by the hero. ChatGPT can not distinguish fact from fiction, although in some circumstances, it gives the facsimile of doing so.

Basically, if you ask to outline a "young adult adventure story" it can deliver a pretty solid outline to you the same way it does facts about bexarotene. But if you have a character dissolve it in warm ethanol to get past the blood-brain barrier, it would give you the same warning as if you were asking with the intention of taking it yourself. At least, this was my experience.

I also never prodded ChatGPT into coming up with an original plot or storyline. The value of its output came in the fact that it could throw out so many cliche ideas from so many genres that I, as the writer, was inspired to combine ideas in various ways. 

Now, I have to be honest; this is also true of human writers. None of us have truly original ideas. The difference between a cliche story and an "original" one is that the later takes old ideas and twists them a bit. 

Tara Maya
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