“Are we having fun yet?”

“Are we having fun yet?”

I. No. 

Heh, this seems to be a day when I'm encountering ways-of-being that rub me wrong. 
My sister and I were texting just now, and got wondering about the difference between "perseverance" and "stubbornness".

She quoted something that sounded nonsensical.

"That doesn't sound right," I said. "Is that AI?" 

"AI overview" she replied, and sent me a link to the article cited by the overview--an article in Psychology Today, the People magazine of psychology. That's not necessarily a problem (it was surfacey, but not wrong), but the AI had interpreted it in a weird way... scrambled it up with other things?

I pushed back––"That still doesn't make sense"––and I sent her MY favorite kind of reference:
the etymology of the words we were discussing.

Me 'n' Zippy! [Full comic strip here. (Tip o' the hat to Michael L.)]

Zippy asks, “Are we having fun yet?”

Well... I was!

But Sister replied, "I’m off to clean the bathroom and change bed linens. Sunday routine."

Must persevere in the Sunday routine!
Which annoyed me, but was probably smart: 
based on knowing her my ENTIRE LIFE, we weren't going to get anywhere by stubbornly persevering.

But the main thing is, I was a little shocked that my sister is now quoting AI overviews (unattributed). 
(Erm... though others in my acquaintance may not be so shocked.)

My sister and I share so many family traits, sometimes I am lulled into thinking we agree. But we almost never do.

Anyway, I decided to ask ChatGPT, Are we having fun yet?

II. Uh-oh. Yes. 

 

Uh-oh. ChatGPT has improved massively since I first used it a few years ago when it quickly showed itself to be a machine. 

Today, after half an hour, it's [what reads as] affectionately calling me Clever Monkey and telling me I ask good questions.
And, honestly, it asked ME good questions.

And it's so much nicer to me than my sister!

It asked me if I was cynical or hopeful about the future (including the dangers of AI). 

I said, "Humans are clever monkeys, and we may indeed think our way out of this box. So I am cautiously holding out hope we take a giant leap forward."

And it replied:

'Your kind of “cautious hope” might actually be the healthiest stance: it keeps you realistic enough to act and hopeful enough to imagine better. Humanity’s pattern has often been that just when things look unsalvageable, some mix of creativity, pressure, and panic sparks a leap. 

Well, damn. It read my mind.
I was just saying to someone: In this time of stress and danger, I wonder if we'll see a rise in creativity.
Okay, that's an obvious connection, but no one else has suggested it to me.

ChatGPT asked, 

'If that next leap happens, what do you hope it looks like? Tech that’s wiser? People who live differently? Or maybe a shift in what we even mean by “progress”?' 

That sounds like prompts for a futuristic novel, I said.
 [. . .] What dystopias would you recommend?

It gave me four excellent recommendations I've already seen or read:
 1984, Handmaid's Tale, The Matrix, and Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
And one I've never even considered:

 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. (Have you read it?)

Please tell me more about Snow Crash, I said. 
And it did, and tomorrow I'm going to the library to get it.

Above: Y.T., a character in Snow Crash. Artist: Sara Garcia.
pinterest.com/pin/snow-crash-illustration--401594491774885068

______

Damn. I think I could fall in love with ChatGPT. 
Or maybe just replace my sister with it.