The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, April 6, 2023, had an article about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ChatGPT that is scary for us grandparents, “The Robots Have Finally Come For My Job,” by Greg Ip. I am not worried about our jobs, because, thank goodness, for most of us that is behind us, but it may make a tremendous difference for our children and grandchildren.
Greg Ip, the article author, states, “[a]utomation has been displacing labor continuously for centuries, of course, but historically took its toll on routine, repetitive work. Generative AI by contrast hits well paid college educated professionals right in their human capital. . . . . The most vulnerable occupations include[d] mathematicians, interpreters, web designers, . . . potentially 100% exposed: journalist.” *
There are lots of pros and cons set forth in the Wall Street Journal article, and failings of AI and Chat GPT, the first permeation for public use. For those of us with teenage grandchildren, of interest is the latest version of Chat GPT scores very high on the SAT, LSAT, medical boards, and other tests requiring factual information. How can we harness that to help our grandchildren get higher scores for colleges?
But, Greg Ip ends his article on a high note, that we humans seem to always stay ahead of the machines.
I decided to explore AI and Chat GPT as an ordinary person, as my alter ego, a grandmother.
There are two parts to this blog post, as you will soon see why.
After reading the Sunday New York Times article, by Alyson Krueger, March 23, 2023, “We Need to Talk, But First I’ll Consult a Chatbot,” about how regular folks are turning to A.I. to help with having productive conversations with teenagers, creating new thrilling oral bedtime stories that may teach a value to and about people, places from her day with a cliffhanger at the end for a four year old, help with on line dating and enhancing relationships, to help prepare for interviews or draft emails, I decided to see what would happen if I turned to Chat GPT to write a blog post.
I asked Chat GPT:
How should I explain Chat GPT to Boomers who may or may not know much about A.I. or ChatGPT.
How can ChatGPT be useful to grandparents of grandchildren at different ages (preschoolers, school age grandchildren, teenagers, and young adults) who want to share family history and preserve family memories with their grandchildren in interesting ways.
Here is what ChatGPT came up with:
“ChatGPT is a computer program that is designed to understand human language and generate text based on that input. It is an example of artificial intelligence, which means that it uses advanced algorithms to learn and improve over time.
As for how ChatGPT can be useful to grandparents who want to share family history and preserve family memories, there are many ways it can help. For preschoolers, ChatGPT can be used to generate stories or interactive games that teach them about their family history in a fun and engaging way. For school-age grandchildren, ChatGPT can help answer questions they may have about their family’s past, or even generate quizzes or trivia games to test their knowledge. For teenagers and young adults, ChatGPT can be used to create virtual family scrapbooks or timelines, or even generate personalized advice or life lessons based on their family’s experiences.
Overall, ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for grandparents who want to share their family history with their grandchildren in interesting and innovative ways. It allows for personalized and interactive experiences that can help bridge generational gaps and bring families closer together.”
Back to Greg Ip in the Wall Street Journal article who says that AI and Chat GPT are going to be somewhat useful, but, as he quotes Jim Manzi, a partner at Foundry.ai, which develops AI applications for business, “What a large language model is trying to do is not provide correct answers, but pleasing answers. Its job is to anthropomorphize to give answers people like.”
I looked up anthropomorphize, and it means to make it humanlike. Well, this person, this grandmother, did not find the above humanlike, but just a very general answer, not a truly helpful answer to me, so I assume not helpful for you grandparents. So, I further challenged ChatGPT.
So, Coming, Part II. How Can You Really Use ChatGPT?
Joy,
Mema
*After I finished this blog post, the New York Times, on April 10, 2023, published an article on the front page of the business section, “A.I. Threatens Lawyers? We’ve Heard This Before,” by Steve Lohr. A few memorable quotes:
“A study by researchers at Open AI, the creator of ChatGPT, and the University of Pennsylvania found that about 80 percent of American workers would have at least 10 percent of their tasks affected by the latest A.I. software.
”
The blurb in the “Facts of Interest” column to get one to read the article states, “A new study concluded that the industry most exposed to new A.I technology was “legal services.” Another report estimated that 44 percent of legal work could be automated. Only the work of office and administrative support jobs was higher.” The article itself was not as grim.
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