by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The thing about the OpenAI ChatGPT is it’s so new that we don’t have any frame of reference in our collective mindspace to understand What It All Means. As such, each individual imbues it with their own hopes and dreams. In short, it’s existence is something of a Rorschach Test.
From what I can from people’s reactions to using OpenAI ChatGPT on Twitter, here are some of the initial hot takes.
First, you have people who know what they’re talking about when it comes to AI and programming. They generally roll their eyes at how exciting everyone is getting. I suppose these people are so focused on the promise of Artificial General Intelligence that they just don’t see what the big deal is about an advanced chatbot.
This reaction reminds me of how a lot of old school programmers on Usenet back in the day were completely blase about the Web because not only did it use the old-as-hell TCP/IP but they saw the implementation of HTML used by early Web browsers as nothing more than a clumsy “hack.”
Next, there are people who are unhappy that they can’t destroy the world (yet) using a chatbot. They bitch and complain that all their nefarious plots are hampered because the chatbot has been NERFed as to be “unusable” for their eager plans for global domination. They all come across as rather spiteful, bitter people.
Then there are people who seemingly think that because ChatGPT can’t do everything they want it to do that it will fail. These are often the same people who blather on about how they want a subscription service or how OpenAI simply MUST charge for the service as soon as possible.
Then there are the fucking idiots who are so intellectually lazy that they think all their (homework) problems are solved and they can just sit back and never think — or write — again. These are usually younger people and the fact that we may raise a generation who doesn’t even know HOW to write is rather alarming, to say the least.
As for me, I’m very much in wait-and-see mode. I just don’t know what to think of it. I do think that 2023 will probably be the breakout year for a number of different technologies, chatbots included.
