This Post Written by an Actual Human
Photo by Pixabay
I got my feelings hurt…by a bot. An internet robot. It’s my own fault. I’ve heard so much about ChatGPT, the language processing bot thingy, that I decided to let artificial intelligence write my blog post for me. Some people might call that cheating, but I thought it would be fun. I thought it would be easy. I thought I could get away with it.
Maybe it was a busy day at OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, or maybe it was user error. But as it turned out, I could have written my own post and painted my house in the time it took me to set up my account and figure out how to use it. I didn’t, but I could have.
First I got something called a bad gateway error. I had no idea what that meant. I’m not all that tech savvy as you probably guessed from my use of the technical term, “thingy.”
Then I got a message saying all systems were busy at the moment and would I mind taking a break and trying back later. Would I mind? I never mind taking a break. So I went away for the weekend.
When I came back, I sat down at my computer, logged in and ta-da, my ChatGPT writing assistant was ready to work. That was fortunate because I wasn’t. It was a really good weekend.
There were two disclaimers, but neither of them worried me. First ChatGPT confessed that it may occasionally generate incorrect information. I didn’t see that as a problem because…well…so do I.
It also admitted it has limited knowledge of the world and events after 2021. My limited knowledge goes further back than 2021 and I’ve never let that stop me.
So I typed in my request: Write an essay about ChatGPT in the style of Dorothy Rosby. I was hoping it would sound like I wrote it—only better. I was hoping it would make me sound clever and witty. I was hoping it wouldn’t ask, “Who’s Dorothy Rosby?”
I’m proud to say it didn’t. It just started writing and poof! It was done faster than you can say, “What does GPT stand for?” Honestly if I were racing ChatGPT to write a post, it would have finished before I’d even wrapped up the first of my usual preliminary solitaire games.
I decided then and there that ChatGPT was going to be the best thing that’s happened to my writing career since the invention of spellcheck. I was thrilled! And then I read what it wrote.
There were two problems with it. One, it was way too short. You might not see that as a problem.
Two, it stunk. And that’s when it hit me. In order to write an essay in my style, ChatGPT had scoured the internet for other things I’ve written. And based on what it found there it wrote insipid drivel. Inane claptrap. Trite twaddle. What does that say about my style? Don’t answer that.
I noticed right off that the essay included the word “quirky” eight times. I don’t use quirky that often. I don’t use any word that often. As I’ve just demonstrated, I have an extensive vocabulary—and a thesaurus.
And ChatGPT is not only inaccurate, it’s a liar. Writing as though it were me, it started by saying, “I want to introduce you to my friend ChatGPT.” It said we met while I was drinking coffee and lazing around one afternoon. I don’t drink coffee and if it were really my friend, it would know that. It was kind of right about the lazing around part though. Lucky guess.
It said I was “impressed by its vast knowledge.” Was not! Okay, maybe a little. But it also said I was “charmed by its humor and witticism.” What witticism? It said we “engaged in delightful banter and a lively exchange of ideas.” Did not! I made one request and it did all the talking—or rather writing. And delightful and lively are not the words that came to mind when I read what it wrote—in my style.
In the end the whole effort was a monumental waste of time. Not only that, it made me mistrust AI even more than I did already. Even worse, it made me question everything I’ve ever published online. And after all that, I still had to write my own darn blog post.
Dorothy Rosby will continue writing her own blog posts for the foreseeable future.