ChatGPT
Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing, Baby...
If anyone out there in Substack Land is anxious they will be replaced by Artificial Intelligence, this post’s for you.
The question is, where does ChatGPT get its information, the sort of information that could be massaged into a style that uniquely identifies you as a person?
Of course, the assumption is that personality and style are intrinsically related.
They say that the best predictor of future behaviour (one component of personality) is past behaviour.
This is bad news for some.
Of course, it is often possible to extract a random paragraph from any established or famous or classical writer, and analyze it for pattern and rhythm. Throw in the subject matter, and the author seems to rise from the mist, not in sharp relief but as a shadow whose general shape implies something you’ve heard or read.
This naturally tends toward the issue of identity.
Given a certain person (add descriptors here), they have a high probability of writing in X style about Y subject.
Good advice would be to recognize these constraints and throw them off.
Think in a different way, from a different point of view. Assume the politics and attitude of someone you detest and see if you can make a go of it, a believable facsimile. Are you still visible behind the charade?
Not just identity, but the capacity for empathy is significant.
Does ChatGPT write with that inborn sense of empathy that is instantly recognizable?
***
I like hockey.
In fact, I have known and lived among college hockey players: some of my best friends were hockey players. Among the latter I should include they are now in IT, and have all their teeth, natural as far as I know.
I have never been a fanatic, but one friend (you know who you are) sat in the Church balcony Sunday morning glued to the screen of her smart phone as the US-Canada finals began.
I totally get it.
To reveal a little too much, I skated as a youngster and wore one of those long tailed knit caps with the pompom on the end. They were mostly striped and red, white and blue. Never saw a green striped one, but I wasn’t looking at the time.
The girls mostly wore pink parkas with fluffy collars, and white figure skates.
I was proud of my racing blades with two white racing stripes, but for the look of them, not for competition. Never bore a stick; never slapped a puck.
All that may change since Sunday morning’s win in Milano.
My nonchalant attitude changed when Jack Hughes broke his teeth.
***
A Canadian friend who played at college, broke his leg. After that, he became the Women’s Hockey Coach.
The college offered no scholarships for hockey but they had a deal with the Fire Department that applied to everyone, not just athletes.
The contract was, if a student bunker was in the station when the alarm bell went off, he was committed to sprinting for his yellow jacket and leaping up on the back running board of Engine No. 9.
More than once, I would hook my arm around the horizontal bar as the engine revved and bumped out the clanking garage doors while shrugging into the coat.
The worst was when the hockey players had been out for a late night, so compromised they could not tell the difference between a urinal and someone else’s unoccupied bunk bed.
Enough of that: Jack Hughes’ attitude changed American culture.
His image, grinning, bloody, jubilant, is already immortal the Tuesday after the finals.
At very least, I will now admit to being a diehard professional hockey fan.
Take that, ChatGPT.