Chatbot Training
Ethan Mollick writes the Substack newsletter One Useful Thing, mostly about how the latest scientific research can be applied in everyday situations, but more recently focusing on how to get the most from artificial intelligence programs (AI). Back in January he wrote a practically minded post about how to give the ChatGPT the right prompts. The biggest mistake people make, he says, is engaging with the program as if it were a person, by asking it questions and trying to carry on a conversation.
Human conversation is the thing that language AI is least good at. Nor is it particularly good at giving life advice or presenting the type of factual information you might want from an internet search. You have to check its facts—and even its math. It will make up answers that sound good linguistically, but could be little more than the output of random autocomplete calculations about what word is most likely to come next in a string of natural language.
If you want or need to use an AI like ChatGPT, you should be familiar with the subject matter, in other words, before you rely on it to write up a presentation to put your name on.
What it can do is help you get over writer’s block. It can help remind you of different aspects of a topic to discuss that you might have forgotten about. It can help you organize your thoughts, in other words. In a pinch, it could help you do things such as write basic email correspondence—all the more helpful if you need to do so in English, but it isn’t your natural language (something pointed out on the Hard Fork podcast recommended in comments by The Original Optimum).
Dr. Mollick’s post, How to … use ChatGPT to boost your writing, is self-recommending, as they say. Some of the top comments below the article also offer practical ideas. Needless to say, his is not a voice of worry, but of welcome for the possibilities that are coming. He sees the AI as an innovative new tool promising great improvements for human thriving.
USA Today:
Artist wins Sony World Photography contest, declines award because image was AI-generated
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/18/sony-photography-award-ai-generated-image/11686577002/
Good day all.
Eventful few days 'round here. Friday evening stop-in at the ER ended up as a stay-over with a Saturday morning "emergency" gallbladder removal, due to infection. My surgeon and all associated medical personnel were wonderful throughout and I was home by Sat evening. Fortunately for me, none of the employees who saw me in various states of undress are people I work with in my "on-the-clock" hours at the hospital. That would be. . .awkward.
I'll be off work for a few days of recovery - hoping to be back by this Thursday as we're short-staffed in my department these days (staffing is fine, until vacation/sick calls makes it not fine). I tried to go to work yesterday morning and was lectured by (in order): my boss, my wife, and my mother, who all were pulling no punches (metaphorical thankfully) in reminding me that as much as I love Superman, I'm only human.
Ah well, at least I've been able to finish off a couple novels so far.