Thoughts on ChatGPT and Clouds
(By Elizabeth Tuico) Artificial intelligence (AI) is in the headlines, or more specifically, generative AI for natural language. ChatGPT has captured the world’s curiosity since the product launched in November 2022. What is it?
Created by OpenAI, ChatGPT stands for chat generative pre-trained transformer. The system is built on a large language model called GPT-3 that is programmed by humans. This free, open-source program writes anything from a simple command such as history papers, recipes, computer code, lyrics, and poetry. One noticeable caveat: the current version only incorporates a record of events through 2021, but expect that to be temporary. GPT-4 is under development.
OpenAI’s core driver is to do good (even though it’s the brainchild of Elon Musk). ChatGPT won’t teach users to do anything harmful like creating instructions to make a gun. Its mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. OpenAI also developed another free, open-source program called Dall-e 2, a new AI system that creates realistic images and art from a description in natural language.
Exploring ChatGPT
After waiting one morning to sign up because ChatGPT reached capacity, my window opened. The sign in process was easy. In a few minutes, I was exploring ChatGPT.
OpenAI is quick to list the system’s limitations:
ChatGPT sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers.
ChatGPT is sensitive to tweaks to the input phrasing or attempting the same prompt multiple times.
The model is often excessively verbose and overuses certain phrases, such as restating that it’s a language model trained by OpenAI.
Our current models usually guess what the user intended.
ChatGPT will sometimes respond to harmful instructions or exhibit biased behavior.
Experiment #1
Below are two poems about clouds. Can you tell which one was created by ChatGPT?
White puffs in the sky,
Drifting, flowing, ever high.
A canvas painted by the breeze,
Shifting shapes, as if to tease.
Sometimes they're wispy and thin,
Other times they're plump and grin.
They play hide and seek with the sun,
And dance a graceful, fluffy run.
They bring the rain, they bring the snow,
They bring the storm, and the rainbow.
They're the stuff of dreams and myths,
The stuff of beauty and of wisps.
So let us watch the clouds go by,
And let our hearts and minds take flight.
For in the clouds, there's magic found,
A wonder that never loses sight.
***
Tumbling, floating forward
Falling from the sky
Until a white Cirrus
Taught you how to fly
An Arctic wind blowing from behind
Serves you at last
From the stern of a life’s ship
Falling forward, speeding past
Searching for a warm sirocco
To ease the fall from grace
Firmly guiding you
To that splendid, far off place
Hold on tight
To the wisp of a cloud below
See your life, past and present
And a future you’ll never know
Here’s what happened when I asked ChatGPT to write about clouds in the style of James Joyce:
Clouds, oh clouds, in sky so vast and blue, A canvas for your shapes and forms to view.
Soft billows, fluffy white, or dark and gray, A symphony of colors, each one to play.
In Joyce's style, I'll write of clouds that loom, Of shapes that shift and change, like a dream's zoom.
A massive elephant, a ship in full sail, A dragon's head, a bird's wing, a snail's trail.
They drift and float, a symphony of white, A dance of shapes in the blue and bright.
A metaphor for life, in constant flow, A change in form, a change in show.
The clouds, they come, the clouds, they go, A reminder that nothing, nothing lasts, you know.
A fleeting beauty, a momentary bliss, A symphony of clouds, a canvas of bliss.
Theater of the Absurd
OpenAI’s statement that ChatGPT sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers is intriguing. In a recent story on CBS Sunday Morning, the network explored the ChatGPT revolution. The CBS reporter typed the following command into ChatGPT: Tell me about the first woman president of the United States.
The authoritative ChatGPT response was:
The first woman president of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton, served as the 45th President of the United States from January 20, 2017 to January 20, 2025.
ChatGPT learned how to write by examining millions of articles on the Internet. As we know, not everything on the Internet is true, resulting in absurd (yet confident) generated output.
Business Case Uses for ChatGPT
A friend recently expressed her concern about the impact of ChatGPT on my content writing business. After all, version 4 is slated to be even more powerful. Will clients phase me out and switch to AI?
Below are some tasks ChatGPT can help organizations with:
Automate the content creation process for drip email campaigns, social media posts, blogs, and product descriptions.
Build customer-facing conversational chatbots capable of going off script.
Translate business reports and marketing deliverables from one language to another.
Translate the information contained in a table or spreadsheet into text.
Write HR and training manuals.
Experiment #2
ChatGPT isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it kind of technology. Every output requires an edit – perhaps even a hard rewrite. During my experiment, I asked ChatGPT to write marketing copy about disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) in the style of IBM:
Disasters can happen at any time, putting your business operations at risk. But with IBM's Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), you can protect your critical data and systems, and ensure continuity of operations in the event of an emergency.
Our DRaaS solution is built on IBM Cloud, providing you with a scalable, secure, and reliable platform for your disaster recovery needs. Our service allows you to replicate your entire IT environment to a secondary location, providing you with a failover option in case of a disaster.
With IBM's DRaaS, you'll have the peace of mind knowing that your data is protected and your systems are recoverable, minimizing downtime and maximizing business continuity. Our team of experts will work with you to design and implement a disaster recovery plan tailored to your specific needs. Contact us today to learn more.
I don’t freelance for IBM but do write for a smaller DRaaS provider. What ChatGPT created is a good start but more details specific to IBM’s solutions are required. I can’t turn in a piece that doesn’t highlight the company’s differentiators. Right now, ChatGPT isn’t programmed with that information.
Authenticity
AI will change how people work, but it is designed to complement humans not compete against us. Jobs that involve repetitive tasks and little reasoning will be replaced, and other employment areas will evolve for humans as AI matures. I also believe that authenticity will win out in the end.
Machine learning probably won’t ever replicate the nuances and emotions of humans. Humans always respond to authenticity. I can ask AI to write music in the style of Beethoven, and a perfectly fine sonata will quickly appear on my screen. But will the piece reflect Beethoven’s struggle? (After all, the guy was deaf and lost his immortal beloved.) His pain was his authenticity and his kryptonite. It’s why we respond to Beethoven’s music. I bet AI will never fully replicate human emotions, and content (mostly) created by humans will rise to the top.
At this point, am I afraid to lose clients to AI? The answer is no. Will I need to adapt to incorporate more natural language generation into my work process? The answer is yes, and I’m looking forward to it. We can’t move forward if we stop learning.
Elizabeth Tuico owns Rebel Road Creative, a marketing strategy and content writing consultancy in Washington, D.C.
Want to know more? Read this article from Johns Hopkins University on Where Is ChatGPT Taking Us?
FOOTNOTES:
1) ChatGPT wrote the first poem about clouds. The second is a collaboration between me and an old friend.
2) ChatGPT really likes to use commas.
3) In the meantime, it’s getting harder to access ChatGPT. I tried returning several times to run more experiments, but was denied. Below is one quirky message that popped up:
Write an acrostic poem about the status of ChatGPT.
C: ChatGPT is currently down
H: Huge demand has caused the site to crash
A: All users will have to wait
T: Time is needed for the servers to catch up
G: Go grab a coffee and check back soon
P: Patience is key in this situation
T: Trust that the team is working hard to fix it up