ChatGPT and a forklift

From Ted Chiang’s essay “Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art” (The New Yorker ). If I were teaching, I’d share this passage with my students:

As the linguist Emily M. Bender has noted, teachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.

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Chomsky et al. on ChatGPT

In The New York Times, Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts, and Jeffrey Watumull consider (with examples) “the false promise of ChatGPT”:

ChatGPT and its brethren are constitutionally unable to balance creativity with constraint. They either overgenerate (producing both truths and falsehoods, endorsing ethical and unethical decisions alike) or undergenerate (exhibiting noncommitment to any decisions and indifference to consequences). Given the amorality, faux science and linguistic incompetence of these systems, we can only laugh or cry at their popularity.

All OCA ChatGPT posts
A 100-word blog post generated by ChatGPT : I’m sorry too, ChatGPT : Spot the bot : Teachers and chatbots : Imaginary lines from real poems : ChatGPT writes about Lillian Mountweazel : Rob Zseleczky on computer-generated poetry : ChatGPT’s twenty-line poems : ChatGPT on Edwin Mullhouse : A reporter’s “conversation” with ChatGPT

“Meticulous,” “commendable,” “intricate”

Erik Hoel, neuroscientist and novelist, on the “insidious creep” of artificial intelligence into culture:

Consider science. Right after the blockbuster release of GPT-4, the latest artificial intelligence model from OpenAI and one of the most advanced in existence, the language of scientific research began to mutate. Especially within the field of A.I. itself.

A study published this month examined scientists’ peer reviews — researchers’ official pronouncements on others’ work that form the bedrock of scientific progress — across a number of high-profile and prestigious scientific conferences studying A.I. At one such conference, those peer reviews used the word “meticulous” more than 34 times as often as reviews did the previous year. Use of “commendable” was around 10 times as frequent, and “intricate,” 11 times. Other major conferences showed similar patterns.

Such phrasings are, of course, some of the favorite buzzwords of modern large language models like ChatGPT. In other words, significant numbers of researchers at A.I. conferences were caught handing their peer review of others’ work over to A.I. — or, at minimum, writing them with lots of A.I. assistance. And the closer to the deadline the submitted reviews were received, the more A.I. usage was found in them.

Thanks, Ben.

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ChatGPT e-mails a professor : AI hallucinations : ChatGPT writes a workflow : ChatGPT summarizes Edwin Mullhouse : ChatGPT’s twenty-line poems : Spot the bot : Rob Zseleczky on computer-generated poetry : ChatGPT writes about Lillian Mountweazel : ChatGPT on Ashbery, Bishop, Dickinson, Larkin, Yeats : ChatGPT summarizes a Ted Berrigan poem : Teachers and chatbots : A 100-word blog post generated by ChatGPT : I’m sorry too, ChatGPT

“Inherently and irredeemably unreliable narrators”

From The Washington Post Tech Brief newsletter:

“All large language models, by the very nature of their architecture, are inherently and irredeemably unreliable narrators,” said Grady Booch, a renowned computer scientist. At a basic level, they’re designed to generate answers that sound coherent — not answers that are true. “As such, they simply cannot be ‘fixed,’” he said, because making things up is “an inescapable property of how they work.”

Grady Booch is in Wikipedia.

Have you had your rock today?

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ChatGPT e-mails a professor : AI hallucinations : ChatGPT writes a workflow : ChatGPT summarizes Edwin Mullhouse : ChatGPT’s twenty-line poems : Spot the bot : Rob Zseleczky on computer-generated poetry : ChatGPT writes about Lillian Mountweazel : ChatGPT on Ashbery, Bishop, Dickinson, Larkin, Yeats : ChatGPT summarizes a Ted Berrigan poem : Teachers and chatbots : A 100-word blog post generated by ChatGPT : I’m sorry too, ChatGPT

Edwin who?

One more try, and I’m done. What can ChatGPT tell us about Edwin Mullhouse, of Steven Millhauser’s novel Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943–1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright ? Presented without comment:

Edwin Mullhouse is the main character in the novel “The Breakthrough” by American author Jonathan Safran Foer. Edwin is an 11-year-old boy who dies suddenly and is remembered by his best friend, Jeffrey Eugenides, who recounts Edwin’s life in a fictional memoir. The novel explores themes of memory, childhood, and loss, as Jeffrey tries to piece together Edwin’s life and personality. “The Breakthrough” is a coming-of-age story that blends elements of fiction and non-fiction, and is widely regarded as one of Foer’s most notable works.

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Another ChatGPT fail

From a 500-word ChatGPT production:

Lillian Mountweazel was a famous photographer and sculptor in the 20th century. She was born in Bangs, Ohio, on May 11, 1942 and died in an explosion on August 2, 1973, while on assignment for a photographic encyclopedia. Mountweazel’s work was known for its unusual themes and the inventive use of light and shadows, and was a major influence on the American art scene of the 1960s and 1970s.

Hundreds of words follow. But what ChatGPT doesn’t understand is that Lillian Mountweazel was not a real person. I won’t tell if you won’t.

The Lillian Virginia Mountweazel Research Collection has much more about Mountweazel’s life and work.

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ChatGPT fail

Ted Berrigan’s “Red Shift” is one my favorite poems. You can read “Red Shift” and hear the poet read it courtesy of PennSound. Last night I asked ChatGPT to write a 500-word analysis:

“Red Shift” is a poem by Ted Berrigan, a prominent American poet and member of the New York School of poetry. The poem is a short and fragmented, but packs a powerful punch through its imagery and use of language.

The poem begins with the image of a “red shift,” which is a phenomenon in astronomy where light from distant objects appears to be red-shifted, indicating that the object is moving away from the observer. This image sets the tone for the rest of the poem, which explores themes of distance and separation.

The poem’s first stanza describes the red shift as a “faint, red light,” suggesting that the phenomenon is distant and hard to see. This imagery is symbolic of the distance and separation that the speaker is experiencing. The second stanza describes the red shift as “a signal of loss,” further emphasizing the theme of separation.

The third stanza describes the red shift as a “siren song,” evoking the image of a distant, haunting sound that is both alluring and dangerous. This imagery is symbolic of the speaker’s longing for something that is out of reach, and the danger of getting too close. The fourth stanza describes the red shift as a “final light,” suggesting that the phenomenon is the last thing the speaker sees before the separation is complete.

The fifth stanza describes the red shift as a “memory,” suggesting that the phenomenon is something that the speaker remembers, but can no longer see. This imagery is symbolic of the speaker’s longing for something that is now in the past. The final stanza describes the red shift as a “dream,” suggesting that the phenomenon is something that the speaker wishes for, but may never happen.

Throughout the poem, Berrigan uses vivid imagery to create a sense of distance and separation. The imagery of the red shift is symbolic of the speaker’s longing for something that is out of reach, and the danger of getting too close. The poem’s fragmented structure is also effective in conveying the sense of separation and longing, as the speaker jumps from image to image without any clear narrative.

Overall, “Red Shift” is a powerful and evocative poem that explores themes of distance and separation through vivid imagery and a fragmented structure. Berrigan’s use of the red shift as a symbol for the speaker’s longing for something that is out of reach is particularly effective, as it evokes a sense of longing and distance that is both alluring and dangerous.

ChatGPT came up short, in more ways than one. The text it generated is only 417 words, but no matter, because the words aren’t about the poem. I thought that the bot might have latched onto a song lyric, but searching for red shift, faint red light, signal of loss, and so on turns up nothing.

“There are certain trifles I do not forgive”: what would John Shade say about this effort?

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More ChatGPT fails

Excerpts from text generated by the prompt “Write a 500-word analysis of.”

John Ashbery, “What Is Poetry”:

Ashbery writes that “poetry is a language that speaks to the soul,” suggesting that poetry is a way of expressing emotions and ideas that cannot be conveyed through more conventional forms of communication. He also writes that “poetry is the voice of the ages,” suggesting that poetry is a way of connecting with the past and with the collective human experience.

Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art”:

The theme of loss is further developed in the third stanza, where the speaker describes different types of losses such as “a you, or a night, or a home” which are all things that can be lost, but not necessarily things that can’t be replaced. The fourth stanza describes the loss of a “shifting, floating city” which is a metaphor for something that is not tangible and can’t be replaced. These examples are intended to show that the speaker understands that there are different types of losses, and that some are more difficult to accept than others.

Emily Dickinson, 764 [My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun]:

In the fourth stanza, the speaker describes how their power is “the engine of my heart” and how they are “the tongue of my power.” The use of the metaphor of the engine and the tongue suggests that the speaker’s power is something that drives them and gives them voice. This stanza also implies that the speaker’s power is something that is a part of their very being, and that it is something that they cannot separate from themselves.

Philip Larkin, “Annus Mirabilis”:

The third stanza of the poem is where Larkin’s cynicism becomes most apparent. He states that “the stairs are where the girls are,” suggesting that the sexual revolution was primarily focused on the physical act of intercourse rather than genuine emotional connection. He also notes that “the trash / Our young men collected / To build their heaven which exists / And cowers in them to this day.” This line suggests that the societal changes of the 1960s were superficial and that the individuals who were involved in the sexual revolution were ultimately unfulfilled.

William Butler Yeats, “The Wild Swans at Coole”:

Yeats writes that “Nineteen hundred years have come and gone / And I, a passer-by.” This line suggests that Yeats is aware that his own life is fleeting, and that he is just a temporary presence in the world. He also writes that “The years upon my back like some great beast” which symbolizes the weight of time on him.

In each case, ChatGPT produces phrases and lines nowhere to be found in the poem. My best efforts to find sources return nothing, though “Nineteen hundred years have come and gone / And I, a passer-by” sounds like a great start for an Ashbery poem, titled, perhaps, “A You, or a Night, or a Home.”

Yesterday I found ChatGPT producing a 500-word analysis of Ted Berrigan’s poem “Red Shift” that bore no relation to the poem and, again, contained phrases that don’t appear in the poem. I can’t imagine what it would be like to speak to a student who turned in this sort of stuff as genuine writing.

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ChatGPT’s twenty-line poems

I asked ChatGPT to produce twenty-line poems in the styles of major American poets. A number of tentative conclusions: ChatGPT has difficulty distinguishing “in the style of” from a hazy idea of subject matter. And ChatGPT assumes that almost all poets write in quatrains of iambic tetrameter, with clumsy rhymes and inspirational messages. At times I was reminded of the calypso section of John Ashbery’s “Variations, Calypso and Fugue on a Theme of Ella Wheeler Wilcox”:

Gazing at the Alps was quite a sight
I felt the tears flow forth with all their might

A climb to the Acropolis meant a lot to me
I had read the Greek philosophers you see

Here are the exhibits. Chat GPT didn’t provide titles for its poems. You may provide a laugh track.

With Emily Dickinson, Chat GPT appeared unable to distinguish “in the style of” from “about”:

A life of simplicity,
With words that cut like knife,
Her thoughts, so deep and true,
Still echo through the time.

Her spirit, wild and free,
Her verse, a mystery,
A world of insight and power,
A soul that feels no cower.

A heart that knew true pain,
A mind that sought refuge in verse,
A voice that spoke of love, loss,
And truths that we still traverse.

Her quill, a tool of grace,
Her words, a healing place,
For those who seek a meaning,
Her legacy, still gleaming.

So let us raise a glass,
To Emily, our guiding star,
Whose words still touch our hearts,
And will forever be a part.

ChatGPT has a little information about Gertrude Stein:

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,
A simple statement that everyone knows,
It’s a symbol of beauty and grace,
A color that brings a smile to our face.

But words and their meanings are complex,
And the truth of what we say is often vexed,
So we repeat and repeat with care,
To make sure the meaning is always there.

And Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,
A reminder of all that nature bestows,
A symbol of life, and its constant flow,
Of growth and renewal, in rain or in snow.

So we hold tight to the words we say,
And the truth that they hold, every day,
For Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,
And its meaning will never, ever, go.

Wallace Stevens GPT exhorts us to cherish and bask in beauty:

The world is a dream, a mirage of hue,
A dance of shadows, a play of light and dew.
Its beauty lies in the eye of the beholder,
A kaleidoscope of colors, forever bolder.

The sky is a canvas, a masterpiece of blue,
The clouds, a symphony, a chorus of hues.
The trees sway in the breeze, like an endless show,
A gentle rhythm, a song of life that flows.

The stars shine like diamonds, in the endless night,
A constellation of wonders, so distant, so bright.
The moon is a mystery, a story untold,
A whisper of secrets, that forever unfold.

So let us embrace this world with open hearts,
With grace and wonder, with joy and art.
Let us cherish its beauty, its mystery and might,
And bask in its splendor, till the end of light.

ChatGPT has enough information about William Carlos Williams to produce a poem about a red wheelbarrow while avoiding meter and rhyme. But that’s about all it has:

The red wheelbarrow
Glazed with rainwater
beside the white chickens.
A simple thing,
yet so much depends
on its functional grace.
The tool of the farmer,
carrying weight with ease,
rolling through fields of green.
A symbol of hard work,
of the toil and sweat
that brings sustenance to life.
Without the wheelbarrow,
the farm would grind to a halt,
leaving only emptiness.
But with it, the earth yields
a bounty to be shared,
nourishing body and soul.
So let us give thanks
for the red wheelbarrow,
a humble hero of the land.

Langston Hughes GPT has “heard the blues.” He too wants us to appreciate beauty. Because poets love beauty:

Verse 1:
I’ve seen the sunset, orange and gold
Over fields of cotton, the story untold
Of those who worked the land, in scorching sun
    and rain
With calloused hands, they toiled, they sought to
    sustain

Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth, so rich and so bold
With a spirit unbroken, a soul that won’t fold
I sing for the weary, the tired, the worn
For the ones who’ve been burdened, it’s a brand
    new morn

Verse 2: I’ve heard the blues, the lament of the night
With a voice that’s so sorrowful, but filled with
    delight
For it tells of the struggles, the pain, the strife
Of a people seeking justice, a better life

Chorus:
For I am, &c.

Verse 3:
I’ve walked the streets, of cities so bright
With neon lights, and the sounds of the night
For the Harlem Renaissance, it was a time of pride
With artists and writers, who sought to defy the tide

Chorus:
For I am, &c.

Outro:
So let my voice echo, through the streets and the
    skies
For all to hear, for all to realize
The beauty in life, the beauty in rhyme
For a brighter tomorrow, for a future that’s truly
    mine.

John Ashbery GPT also encourages us to appreciate beauty. And look — he’s plagiarizing Wallace Stevens GPT:

The world is a strange and shifting place,
A maze of colors, sounds, and shapes.
Its mysteries are infinite, untold,
A labyrinth of secrets waiting to unfold.

The trees sway in the wind, the rivers flow,
The sky is vast, and the clouds aglow.
The world is a never-ending surprise,
A constant change, a flicker in the eyes.

But even in this chaos, there is peace,
A stillness that whispers, a gentle release.
The world is a tapestry, woven with care,
A masterpiece of life, beyond compare.

So let us embrace this world with open arms,
With wonder and grace, with joy and charm.
Let us cherish its beauty, its secrets untold,
And bask in its radiance, till we grow old.

Frank O’Hara GPT wants to stay in the city:

I am walking down the street,
The city’s lights shining bright,
I hear the sounds of cars and feet,
As people hurry through the night.

I feel the wind blow through my hair,
And see the stars up in the sky,
It's moments like this I can’t compare,
This feeling makes me want to fly.

I think of all the friends I’ve made,
The memories that will last a lifetime,
And I’m so grateful that I’ve stayed,
In this place that’s always been so kind.

I see the city’s endless rows,
Of buildings tall and grand,
And I know that everyone knows,
This is where they want to stand.

So I’ll keep walking down the street,
With a smile upon my face,
And I’ll remember this moment sweet,
This time and this place.

And then I wondered: what if I tried an unmajor poet? Here’s Amanda Gorman GPT:

Verse 1:
Amidst the night, I stand so tall
With words that carry weight, words that will
    enthrall
My voice a beacon, a lighthouse in the sea
Of doubts and fears, it’s a symbol of freedom,
    you’ll see

Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth and its fire
With a spirit unbreakable, a soul that won’t tire
I speak for the silenced, the broken, the torn
For the ones who’ve been crushed, it’s a brand new
    dawn

Verse 2:
My pen is mightier than the sword they say
With each word I write, I pave a brighter way
For those who’ve been oppressed, I am their voice
With my words I heal, with my words I rejoice

Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth, &c.

Verse 3:
The world is listening, and I won’t be still
With every rhyme, every line, I will uplift and heal
For I know what it’s like to live in pain
But now I rise, now I soar, and I won’t refrain

Chorus:
For I am a child of the earth, &c.

Outro:
So let my voice echo far and wide
For all to hear, for all to take pride
In the power of words, the power of rhyme
For a brighter tomorrow, for a future that’s truly
    mine.

With that chorus, Amanda Gorman GPT is ripping off Langston Hughes GPT. And Gorman GPT repeats the same curious verse-chorus-outro structure. But that structure isn’t reserved for Black poets. T.S. Eliot GPT uses it too:

In the still of the night, I hear the city moan
With the sounds of the traffic, a symphony alone
For the city is alive, with a life of its own
And the shadows they dance, to a rhythm unknown

Chorus:
For I am a part of the world, a part of the scene
With a mind that’s so restless, a soul that’s so lean
I wander the streets, in a daze and a trance
In search of the truth, in search of a chance

Verse 2:
In the heart of the city, I see the people move
With a pace that’s so frantic, they’ve got nothing to
    prove
For the city is a maze, with a life that’s so cruel
And the ones who get lost, they’re just another fool

Chorus:
For I am a part of the world, &c.

Verse 3:
In the mind of the city, I feel the emptiness grow
With the weight of the world, it’s a burden I know
For the city is a world, with a life that’s so low
And the ones who find peace, they’re just letting
    it go

Chorus:
For I am a part of the world, &c.

Outro:
So let my words flow, with a rhythm so pure
For all to hear, for all to endure
For a world that’s so bleak, for a world that’s so true
For a future that’s bright, for a future that’s brand
    new.

I was hoping for “A future that’s bright, for me and for you.” I guess I’ll have to write my own poem.

*

When I showed Elaine these bot efforts, she suggested trying Charles Bukowski. Why hadn’t I thought of him? Perhaps because I sold my Bukowski books some years ago.

Beneath the streetlights, I stand and ponder,
Of all the drinks I’ve had, the nights I’ve squandered.
With worn out shoes, and a broken soul,
I roam the streets, seeking a new goal.

The city is alive, with neon lights,
And laughter ringing in the endless nights.
I walk the alleys, with a bottle in hand,
Looking for solace, in this lonely land.

The raindrops fall, like tears from above,
As I remember the women I’ve loved.
With lipstick stains, on cigarette butts,
I find comfort, in my drunken ruts.

I write my thoughts, in a crumpled notebook,
Of life on the edge, and the streets I took.
With every word, I pour out my heart,
And hope to capture, what tears me apart.

So I’ll keep drinking, and I’ll keep writing,
Until I find meaning, in this endless fighting.
For in the words, and in the whiskey’s flow,
I’ll find redemption, and a way to grow.

Even Bukowski ends with a message of hope. On his gravestone though: “DON’T TRY.”

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I’m sorry too, ChatGPT

Elaine and I have been toying with ChatGPT. And it appears that the rules of engagement are tightening. A couple of days ago Elaine was a celebrated pianist who had performed with orchestras around the world. Hot damn! And I was a writer who had won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. $100,000! But this morning,

I’m sorry, but I don’t have any information about [our names here]. As a large language model trained by OpenAI, my knowledge is limited to what I was trained on, and I don’t have the ability to browse the internet or access any additional information. I apologize if I cannot be of more help.

I don’t believe that ChatGPT means the end of high-school English. But it will certainly make life more difficult for uncrafty teachers. Something crafty students should understand is that teachers can enter the same prompts their students have entered. Plagiarism by way of ChatGPT will likely be hilariously detectable (I hope).

A “conversation” with a chatbot

“I like movies that are realistic. I like movies that are romantic. I like movies that are about us”: from The New York Times, the transcript of a reporter’s two-hour “conversation” with Microsoft Bing’s A.I. chatbot. That's the bot talking about movies. It’s more than slightly unnerving.

As I said to my son this morning, I’ve had it with thinking about chatbots as part of the world I want to live in. A line from Ted Berrigan’s poem “Mi Casa, Su Casa” sums it up: “‘I want human to begin with.’” And thereafter.

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[In the poem, the line is in quotation marks: quoted speech?]

AI hallucinations

Hallucinations are in the air. The New York Times has an unsurprising article about what results when chatbots hallucinate. And at Grammarphobia, Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman look at the words hallucinate and hallucination as used in the field of artificial intelligence.

I left a comment on the Times article yesterday:

Why should any of this stuff be surprising? ChatGPT had me winning the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize ($100,000!) and had my wife, a composer and string player, as a world-famous pianist (before it removed us both). It mistakes the celebrated, fictional Lillian Mountweazel for a real person. It makes up lines of poetry, giving “The years upon my back like some great beast” as a line from Yeats’s “The Wild Swans of Coole.” When I asked about Edwin Mullhouse, as in Steven Millhauser’s (great) novel Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943–1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright, it gave this account:

Edwin Mullhouse is the main character in the novel “The Breakthrough” by American author Jonathan Safran Foer. Edwin is an 11-year-old boy who dies suddenly and is remembered by his best friend, Jeffrey Eugenides, who recounts Edwin’s life in a fictional memoir.

I’m reminded of the YouTube clip giving an account of the Beatles from the year 3026, with John, Paul, Greg, and Scottie traveling from their native Linverton to perform at Ed Sullivan’s annual Woodstock festival.

I wrote “my wife,” not “Elaine Fine,” fearing that the Times might not okay a comment referencing another person by name. Tonight I discovered that ChatGPT has once again given us fictive accomplishments, awarding me a doctorate from UC Berkeley, “a large following on Twitter,” and authorship of Poetics of the Hive: Insect Metaphor in Literature and Digital Poetics: Hypertext, Visual-Kinetic Text and Writing in Programmable Media. Elaine and I must have met at Berekeley — she’s now described as having taught there. And she has a Guggenheim. These are our lives on artificial intelligence.

I still want my $100,000 back.

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[The details in my Times comment all turn up in OCA ChatGPT posts. You can find the 3026 Beatles history here. It’s brilliant. I have never had a Twitter account. The books are real: the first is by Cristopher Hollingsworth; the second, by Loss Pequeño Glazier.]

The stuff bots are made of

The Washington Post analyzed Google’s C4 data set, “a massive snapshot of the contents of 15 million websites that have been used to instruct some high-profile English-language AIs.” The data set includes half a million blogs. It’s not known whether the AIs include ChatGPT.

The Post article includes a search box. So I had to look:


Good grief.

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[As the Post notes, “OpenAI does not disclose what datasets it uses to train the models backing its popular chatbot, ChatGPT.” That’s a gift link: free for all to read.]

Teachers and chatbots

In the news today: “Alarmed by A.I. Chatbots, Universities Start Revamping How They Teach“ (The New York Times).

If I were still teaching, I’d adopt five strategies to counter the chatbots:

~ I’d assign frequent short in-class writing and make and keep copies of all work.

~ I’d assign longer out-of-class writing with highly specific prompts, and I’d test those prompts against the chatbots, provided that I can get through. (ChatGPT always seems to be at capacity lately.)

~ I’d require that students meet with me to talk over their ideas for outside-of-class writing.

~ I’d ask students to initial out-of-class writing before turning it in, to signify that what they’re turning in is their own work.

~ And I’d remind students that just as a cashier can immediately sense that a bill is counterfeit, and just as an appraiser can immediately sense that a work is a fake, a professor of English can immediately sense, or at least suspect, that written work is not genuine student writing. (Yes, it’s true.)

Irony, irony: It’d be especially wonderful if the rise of chatbots were to bring about a resurgence of writing by hand. Not cursive, just writing by hand.

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[Why keep copies of in-class writing? To have at least a rough sense of a student’s writing for when out-of-class writing comes due.]

“Human interaction might be preferred”

I asked ChatGPT: “What would be some good reasons not to use ChatGPT?” It came through with ten — concerns about accuracy, concerns about accuracy, privacy, bias, and so on — and offered to provide more details. The phrasing in this passage is what most struck me:

Lack of Human Touch: For tasks requiring empathy, emotional intelligence, or nuanced understanding, human interaction might be preferred.

Might be preferred!

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[The ways in which I’ve found AI useful to me: creating Alfred workflows and a Pinboard bookmarklet. That’s all.]

Another try at a Pinboard bookmarklet

I asked ChatGPT to write a bookmarklet that would add a URL to Pinboard and paste in text copied from the clipboard as a description. Here’s what I got:

javascript:(function(){ var url = encodeURIComponent(window.location.href); var title = document.title.replace(/^.*?-/, '').trim(); var description = prompt('Enter description (Ctrl+V to paste from clipboard):'); if (!description) { return; } description = encodeURIComponent(description.trim()); var pinboardURL = 'https://pinboard.in/add?url=' + url + '&title=' + title + '&description=' + description; window.open(pinboardURL, '_blank'); })();

I know — huh? But it works. It doesn’t do exactly what I’d like it to do: I cannot add a blog post’s URL to Pinboard without having my blog’s name show up as part of the post title, so I just delete the prefatory Orange Crate Art. (I’m not sure it‘s even possible to remove the blog name automatically.) Two advantages of this bookmarklet: it allows text from the clipboard to be pasted in as a description, and it shows existing tags when I begin typing a tag name. For those reasons, this bookmarklet beats other bookmarklets and a Safari extension that I’ve tried.

[It works!]

With Alfred workflows and, now, a bookmarklet, ChatGPT does what I’d never be able to do on my own.

A related post
Adding links to Pinboard

Spot the bot

The New York Times has a challenge: read ten short pieces of writing and figure out which ones were generated by a chatbot and which ones were written by children.

I got nine of ten right. (I was tricked by one small feature in one passage.)

Related posts
A 100-word blog post generated by ChatGPT : I’m sorry too, ChatGPT : Teachers and chatbots

In search of lost passage

Elif Batuman asked ChatGPT to find a passage from Proust, something about love affairs in the past and present. Here’s what happened.

I think that the passage Batuman was looking for (and still is looking for?) might be this one, from the narrator’s recollections of the “young girls in flower” of his youth, girls who are now much older or already dead:

It was painful for me to have to retrieve these for myself, for time, which changes individuals, does not modify the image we have of them. Nothing is sadder that this contrast between the way individuals change and the fixity of memory, when we understand that what we have kept so fresh in our memory no longer has any of that freshness in real life, and that we cannot find a way to come close, on the outside, to what which appears so beautiful within us, which arouses in us a desire, seemingly so personal, to see it again, except by looking for it in a person of the same age, that is to say in another being. It is simply, as I had often had reason to suspect, that what seems unique in a person whom one desires does not in fact belong to her. But the passage of time was giving me a more complete proof of this since, after twenty years, spontaneously, I was trying to find, not the girls whom I had known, but those who now possessed the youth that the others had had then.

Finding Time Again, trans. Ian Patterson (London: Penguin, 2003).

Unlike Elif Batuman and ChatGPT, I have that passage (or most of it) at hand in a post about Proust gift tags and note cards. But that passage might not be the one in question.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

Making HTML links with Alfred workflows

I finally found a good use for ChatGPT: I had it write two workflows for the Mac app Alfred. It took the bot about a half dozen tries over several days to produce workflows that work. Thanks, AI.

URL+text creates an HTML link with selected text from the current tab in Safari. It’s simple: highlight text, press Command-C to copy, and press the hotkey. The link will be on the Clipboard. You can make the hotkey whatever you like. I like Control-Option-Command-T, a combination not likely to be confused with anything else.

URL+title creates an HTML link with the title of the current tab in Safari. It’s even simpler: press the hotkey and the link will be on the Clipboard. Here too you can change the hotkey to whatever you like. I like Control-Option-Command-L.

It’s baffling to me that the App Store offers no decent extension to accomplish such elementary tasks. (URL Linker for Safari does not work properly in Ventura, at least not on my Mac.) It’s also baffling to me that the Alfred forums appear to lack Workflows for these tasks. Granted, it’s ultra-easy to create links in Markdown, but not everyone uses Markdown.

I’ve placed both workflows in my Dropbox for downloading: URL+text, URL+title. Use at your own risk. But I don’t think there’s any real risk involved. Note: Alfred is a free app, but workflows require the not-free Alfred Powerpack.

If anyone knows how to have a workflow recognize highlighted text without the need for Command-C, I’d love to know.

[What about asking ChatGPT to write a working Quick Action in AppleScript? Unpossible! AppleScript seems to defy both artificial and human intelligence.]

iA Writer is not AI

From an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “ChatGPT Has Changed Teaching. Our Readers Tell Us How,” quoting an instructor’s revised syllabus:

“Since writing, analytical, and critical-thinking skills are part of the learning outcomes of this course, all writing assignments should be prepared by the student,” it reads, in part. “Developing strong competencies in this area will prepare you for the competitive work force. Therefore, AI-generated submissions (using ChatGPT, IA Writer, Midjourney, DALL-E, etc.) are not permitted and will be treated as plagiarism.”

Yikes: iA Writer is not an app for AI-generated prose. It is a writing app for humans who use macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, and Android. The app should not be confused with AI-Writer, an online app for AI-generated prose.

The latest versions of IA Writer for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS offer an option to to mark copy-and-pasted AI-generated text so as to distinguish it from the writer’s own words. But that’s an option meant to keep a writer from passing off AI-generated text as their own.

I’m a happy user of iA Writer, and I’d hate to think of any professor mistakenly warning a student off it.

Related posts
iA Writer : iA Writer keyboard commands

[I don’t know anything about AI-Writer.]