Son Lucas, a fraction of your age and thus able to control the internet the way you control your shower temperature, recently spent a minute showing me a new thingie on my laptop.
It’s ChatGPT and is, lacking a better term, automated writing. I ordered it to to produce “A story about pluses and minuses of living in Ukiah, CA.” Within a split-second, which means less than one second, the following story was already being typed on my screen:
“Ukiah is a city in Mendocino County, California, with a population of around 16,000 people. One of the good aspects of living in Ukiah is its natural beauty. The city is surrounded by forests, hills, and vineyards, and is a short drive from the Pacific coast. The area has a mild Mediterranean climate, with warm, dry summers and mild, wet winters.
“Another good aspect of living in Ukiah is its vibrant arts and culture scene. The city is home to a number of galleries, museums, and theaters, as well as a thriving music and food scene. There are also many outdoor recreational opportunities in the area, such as hiking, biking, and fishing.
“On the downside, the economy of Ukiah can be a challenge for some residents. The city has a relatively high unemployment rate, and the cost of living is higher than the national average. Additionally, the city has struggled with crime in the past, and some parts of the city may not be as safe as others.
“Overall, Ukiah has its pros and cons like any other city. The natural beauty of the area, vibrant arts scene, and recreational opportunities can be attractive to some, but the economic challenges and crime may be a deterrent for others.”
The complete story was finished in 20 seconds or less. I challenge you to detect anything that would distinguish it from the average story in your average travel magazine article written by your average travel writer. If the next glossy issue of “Sonoma County Today!” were to be filled from front to back with stories generated by this writing machine no one, from its editor to its readers, would detect anything amiss.
The writing is bland yet descriptive, suggests sufficient knowledge of the area to convince anyone the author had, at minimum, at least passed through the region at some point and made a cursory study of its characteristics. If you were dissatisfied with the story as written, you could simply instruct the robot to remove all negative remarks and instead emphasize Ukiah’s wonderful wines, gorgeous sunsets and the 16-story luxury hotel currently being built in the center of town.
And 20 seconds later it will be done. Again.
There isn’t a high school English teacher in Northern California who wouldn’t be delighted with essays of this quality being turned in on assignments. Later, of course, that teacher would realize all of her 10th grade students write better compositions than she would be able to put together.
What’s the future for automatic writing? Well, it puts an end to newspaper columnists for one, and guarantees unemployment lines for poets, who were rendered obsolete as of last week. (Lucas requested a poem on “How to Hotwire a Car” and was provided four stanzas of six rhyming lines, each of surprising complexity and know-how, though a bit clumsy around the edges. The human-free writing program “understood” hot-wiring required targeting the red wire, and made a point of admonishing readers the activity was potentially illegal. And it rhymed.
A related cyber tool toy complements this fake writing one. It produces artworks from written suggestions, and at my command provided a drawing of Bob Dylan and Karl Marx playing ukuleles on a beach in Jamaica. Next, as requested, it printed a drawing of cows driving cars with pianos on the roof.
Then Lucas dreamed up a painting of golden retrievers as they might appear on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and was rewarded with Michelangelo-esque caricatures of winged dogs cavorting among angels and clouds.
In the end it’s just one more step along the path to social doom, I suppose. Soon enough our brains will shrink and fingers will disappear, with only pudgy lumps and outsized thumbs, the better to manipulate our cell phones.
It remains to be seen how future generations will be able to pluck individual Doritos out of bags, or open cans of Red Bull, but I’m confident mankind’s abilities to adapt to to changing circumstances will bring a happy solution.
I’ll even suggest ChatGPT write a story about it.
Terrifying and intriguing. I’m not happy to hear that poets have been deemed obsolete, just as I’m readying my poetry collection for publication (my first poetry book to be published in over 20 years). Timing is everything!
Way too early to size up ChatGPT and its cousins, but TW Kramer makes a salient point: The program’s style is…um (what’s the word?)…anodyne! (“somewhat dull”). For the nonce, that’s an important wall between human brain and artificial brain. ‘Tis an amazing, scary development. I’m not sure which is more, but “amazing” trumps “scary” in my first reaction. Manmade writing ain’t dead yet!