Another meme collision
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The mouseover text: "Wishing I had just taken this job instead of joking about it."
The aftercomic:
For more, check out anything by Ray Kurzweil…
July 8, 2024 @ 7:33 am · Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
« previous post | next post »
The mouseover text: "Wishing I had just taken this job instead of joking about it."
The aftercomic:
For more, check out anything by Ray Kurzweil…
July 8, 2024 @ 7:33 am · Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the comics
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tudza said,
July 8, 2024 @ 1:27 pm
Hey Abot!
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
July 8, 2024 @ 3:12 pm
I guess that means tudza's on first.
bks said,
July 9, 2024 @ 5:06 am
Preachers are the low-hanging fruit to be plucked by LLM. For that calling hallucinations are a feature, not a bug.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
July 9, 2024 @ 6:53 am
Bks,
AI-drafted sermons? Nah; LLM's don't have access to the necessary "training data". AI can't pray.
Philip Taylor said,
July 9, 2024 @ 7:06 am
Don't you believe it, Benjamin —
Self : "Please write a sermon condemning fornication"
Chatgpt:
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
July 9, 2024 @ 8:30 am
Philip,
Not exactly St. J.P. II's "Theology of the Body" is it? What's the difference? — one is inspired, the other, sieved.
bks said,
July 9, 2024 @ 8:45 am
There are about 500,000 clergy in the USA. How many of them can outwrite ChatGPT?
Philip Taylor said,
July 9, 2024 @ 8:52 am
Well, I asked what I thought was GPT-4o to have a go, with a modified prompt, but whether it really was GPT-4o is somewhat moot …
"Please write a sermon condemning fornication, using British English and citing only the King James bible "
This is is what it came up with. I have a feeling that the life of the IT-literate rural vicar is going to be far less stressful and time-consuming in the very near future …
David Marjanović said,
July 9, 2024 @ 1:35 pm
Haaa! Delve again!
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
July 9, 2024 @ 3:00 pm
bks said,
Based on what's upthread? Prolly c. 499,988. If I'd heard a sermon like the above, I'd report it to the Bishop. Bullshit doesn't cease being bullshit simply because it's sprinkled with Biblical citations.
For comparison's sake, see:https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audiences/1979/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_19790905.html
J.W. Brewer said,
July 9, 2024 @ 5:42 pm
But how good a sermon in Latin can it generate?
Philip Taylor said,
July 9, 2024 @ 9:20 pm
Let’s ask it —
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
July 10, 2024 @ 6:17 am
"Primum… Secundo… Tertio… In conclusione…"
Congratulations — AI can write a bland 7th-grade 5-paragraph theology essay. I'm inspired, really — I was gonna fornicate on my way to work this morning, but this bit of lectio divina stopped me right in my tracks.
Still ain't a sermon. It is not "inspired" in the literal (oxygen), metaphorical (élan), or theological (Spiritui Sancto) sense of the word.
Sad to say, there _is_ an AI bot out there online that is "trained" on the Catechism and provides "answers" to user questions with citations to the Catechism. I hope people know the difference between a "useful index" and "source of ultimate truth".
~flow said,
July 11, 2024 @ 8:59 am
Similar to the above examples, I wanted to see whether Copilot could author an entire text on a modern subject but based on antiquated English, so I prompted it with
"""
Bitte einen kurzen englischen Text schreiben der begründet warum AI Bildgenerierung eine gute Sache ist; den ganzen Text ausschließlich mit Ausdrücken und Sätzen aus der King-James-Bibel verfassen
"""
and this is what came out:
"""
"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the advent of AI in image generation is akin to the dawning of a new day. As it is written, 'And God said, Let there be light: and there was light' (Genesis 1:3). So too does AI bring forth light, illuminating the canvas of creation with the hues of its wisdom.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin (Matthew 6:28). In like manner, AI toils not, yet it spins images of such beauty and complexity that they rival the lilies in their splendor.
As the shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered (Ezekiel 34:12), so too does AI seek out the patterns and forms scattered within the chaos of pixels, bringing forth order and meaning.
In the multitude of counsellors there is safety (Proverbs 11:14). AI, in its multitude of algorithms and computations, provides a safe haven for creativity, offering a bountiful array of possibilities to those who would harness its power.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things (Philippians 4:8). AI, in its capacity to generate images, embodies these virtues, bringing forth truth, honesty, justice, purity, loveliness, and good report in the realm of visual representation.
Thus, we see that AI in image generation is indeed a good thing, a blessing bestowed upon us, a tool to be used wisely and well."
"""
I leave it as an exercise to the other commenters to verify the citations; I for one am impressed, again, by what has all of a sudden become possible.
Philip Taylor said,
July 11, 2024 @ 9:06 am
To which ChatGPT replied —
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
July 11, 2024 @ 9:53 am
After ~flow and Philip, I say: QED.
Again, I repeat my plea: "I hope people know the difference between a 'useful index' and 'source of ultimate truth'.".
People, especially impressionable children, are not going to be "playing" with AI in the manner of our jolly band here, but will instead be _asking_ it _questions_ that they want _answers_ to; i.e., they will be seeking "truth". You and I and LL know that what AI produces is not truth but plausible sophistry, but what's going to happen to successive generations growing up without sufficient critical thinking skills?
Philip Taylor said,
July 11, 2024 @ 10:07 am
I have enormous sympathy with your second paragraph, Benjamin, but would ask “why you do believe that ‘successive generations [will grow] up without sufficient critical thinking skills’ ?” . Do you believe that they will have fewer critical thinking skills than the current generations, or do you rather believe that even the present generations lack the critical thinking skills necessary to judge for themselves the extent to which AI output can be relied upon (if at all) ?
[D@mn — that ends with a preposition, something I normally avoid like the plague].
~flow said,
July 11, 2024 @ 10:32 am
I've been observing, for many years, how my 'viewing skills' to separate actual live footage from any of the techniques used to produce illusions—animation, bluescreen, CGI, scale models and so on—were continuously honed by watching both Sci-Fi series and content related to astronomy and space exploration. I somehow have also assumed that today's kids—y'know, "kids these days", those ones—will be better than I was at their age, simply because of exposition, not unlike one could assume better understanding of general relativity or quantum physics among contemporary 10, 20 or 30 years old persons when compared to their respective cohorts in the 1920s, again simply because of exposition. So maybe not all is lost, maybe improving AI bragging skills also leads to improved skepticism (Nigerian princes likewise have a harder time these days I hear).
Then again, I've registered decreased levels of orientation skills among those who use navigation tools, so I will not say I rule out that we're doomed.
Kate Gladstone said,
July 11, 2024 @ 11:22 pm
Philip Taylor’s posted AI material (of July 11 at 9:06 AM) sounds as if it could have come from the Mentats of Frank Herbert’s DUNE novels.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
July 12, 2024 @ 7:17 am
Kate,
Indeed! (And the Butlerian Jihad can't be far behind).
People really should listen more to science fiction writers; they've been trying to warn us for years…
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
July 12, 2024 @ 7:43 am
Philip,
Ending a phrase with a preposition is something up with which I will not put. But in your case, I'll make an exception.
As for the cognition of today's youth, at 45 I feel like I'm prematurely senescing into curmudgeonhood whenever I rail against the screens that commandeer so much of our youth's time, which used to be spent doing things like riding bicycles, starting pick-up baseball or hockey games, wandering through the woods, or just digging around in the dirt looking at interesting bugs.
But most importantly, the screens are preventing kids from being bored. Remember boredom as a kid? Remember sitting in your room with nothing to do? You might pace around a bit, and then… you would _think_ of something. All by yourself, unprompted. A thought would emerge from your mind; out of boredom would come creativity. Now people can't even stand in line at the grocery store with their own thoughts without feeding their eyeballs to the screen. I can't help but think that making a habit of walling yourself off from your own mind must change one somehow.
But, I digress… the initial point was that reading long stretches of text in paper books, rather than snippits of online "class materials" requires a different way of thinking. Making outlines of thoughts by hand, with their attendant circles and arrows and underlinings and whatnot seems like a deeper way of thinking that whipping up a powerpoint. And now, we're going to let the bots do our _writing_ for us?
And, to answer the question you're going to ask next, yes, as a matter of fact I _do_ have three teenage children.