RE: That Thread Written by ChatGPT
May 14, 2023 at 3:24 am
(This post was last modified: May 14, 2023 at 4:47 am by emjay.)
(May 14, 2023 at 12:56 am)Belacqua Wrote: OK, this is hilarious.
I asked the AI "How can I live like Dorian Gray?" Here is the response.
Anybody who's read the book knows that Dorian Gray is fantastically immoral. He's a murderer, he's indifferent to the hearts he breaks, he has all kinds of habits that Wilde hints at but which are too immoral to describe in the book.
The AI has entirely changed that into "Embrace a healthy lifestyle: Maintain a balanced diet, exercise regularly, and get enough sleep. Taking care of your physical well-being can help you feel energetic and vibrant." Exactly the opposite of everything Dorian Gray did.
Me: "Hello, I want to become an immoral aesthete and murderer!" AI: "Well, then, get plenty of exercise, eat well, and visit your doctor twice a year."
Me: "I want to become a selfish monster who uses and abuses everyone he knows!" AI: "Nurture your relationships: Surround yourself with positive, supportive people who inspire and uplift you. Cultivate meaningful connections and spend quality time with loved ones. Strong relationships can contribute to a fulfilling and joyful life."
I think we can all agree that what I'm asking for is unhealthy and what the AI recommends is good advice for a conventionally happy life. The point is that it's a conventionally happy life.
I actually know what you're talking about there (which is rare
) having at least watched the film, if not read the book.Each to their own of course, but personally I don't care if this thing is highly curated/censored, and not 'edgy', since I'm primarily using it as something like a talking encyclopaedia, in which case I am generally looking for the conventional wisdom. But of course I understand your use case is completely different, so I understand your frustrations as well. I do agree it's a bit of a shame if it means it's missing the essence of some of these 'edgy' books. But since from its perspective it doesn't figuratively 'know' if it's reading fiction or fact, art or opinion - since the training data is ultimately just a massive list of words/word-parts - I still think the censorship is probably a wise trade-off to prevent it becoming a 'shitbot'.
I will say though, it is opening me up to your kind of way of thinking as well, though probably in ways you wouldn't necessarily approve of in that I've asked it to write several poems, many of which I've found pretty meaningful and beautiful, but I'm guessing that from your perspective you'd still see that as a negative? Ie thinking that on-demand AI-generated art lacks some essential human element that the AI can't or won't capture, the desire/passion that's gone into it etc (if I've understood what you were trying to say before)? While I understand that, I'm still personally appreciating this bottom-up approach to art; and am happy enough if it's able to capture the exact feeling I want it to portray, and happier still to see its many interpretations.
At the very least, I think it will be a stepping-stone into the art/literature world, not just in seeing how you literate-types
are using it, but also just the 'inter-mixture' of synthetic and real that it represents, as well as the ability to use it for comparison, collation etc of perspectives.
