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February 4, 2023
Censorship at schools
February 9, 2023
QUESTION (to ChatGP): Explain what chatgpt is and some things is can and cannot do.
Even having used ChatGPT since its initial release, I’m still amazed by it. I’ve used it for entertainment, sitting with my son and authoring kids’ books and sequels, changing character speech patterns, attitudes, behaviors or adding a moral to the story after the fact. It has helped me optimize JSON inputs, Python code and MySQL queries. The limits of it’s capabilities seem limited only by my effort or imagination…
ANSWER (from ChatGPT): ChatGPT is a conversational AI language model developed by OpenAI. It uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like text responses to user inputs.
ChatGPT can perform a variety of natural language processing tasks, such as text completion, text generation, question answering, and dialogue management. It can understand and respond to a wide range of topics, from general knowledge to specific domains, such as sports or technology.
However, ChatGPT has some limitations. It has a knowledge cutoff, so it may not have the most up-to-date information. Additionally, ChatGPT is not capable of performing actions in the real world, it only generates text-based responses. Its responses are also limited by the data it was trained on and can sometimes exhibit biases and inaccuracies.
Here are some examples of interesting things you can put in a chat with ChatGPT:
- Quirky and fun questions: Ask ChatGPT to tell you a joke, riddle, or pun. You can also ask it to generate a random pickup line or a poem.
- Pop culture references: Chat about your favorite TV shows, movies, or books and ask ChatGPT for recommendations based on your interests.
- History and current events: ChatGPT has been trained on a large corpus of text and has information on a wide range of historical events and current news. Ask it questions about historical figures, current events, or even geography.
- Science and technology: ChatGPT is knowledgeable about various fields of science and technology. Ask it questions about physics, biology, chemistry, or the latest advancements in AI.
- Creative writing prompts: Give ChatGPT a creative writing prompt and see what story or poem it comes up with.
- Personal advice: Ask ChatGPT for advice on personal issues such as relationships, work-life balance, or mental health.
- Translation: ChatGPT can translate text from one language to another. Try asking it to translate a sentence or phrase into a different language.
These are just a few examples of interesting things you can chat about with ChatGPT. The possibilities are endless, so feel free to get creative and have fun with it!
I was fortunate enough to be an early adopter and have garnered a free PRO subscription for the next year. Today I was on a conference call where we were diagnosing some behavioral issues between RedHat’s OpenShift and F5’s Container Ingress Services. As much as a joke as anything else (as I’d been teased in touting ChatGPT’s capabilities), I asked it to create an AS3 manifest to create a Virtual Server with more than one iRule, referencing already existing iRules.
There was a bit of stunned silence as I explained the results and that we’d been using a singular designation of “iRule”: [ instead of “iRules”: [. We made the change, things worked and everyone on the call busted out in laughter.
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In a lab class in 1973 at University I had to repeat 5 classical, physics experiments and write a report on each of them. One of my experiments was the Millikan Oil Drop experiment, first conducted by the American physicist Robert Millikan in 1909. The purpose of the experiment was to determine the electrical charge of an electron. The experiment took me several hours to finish. The enormous number of calculations using the experimental data took me many more hours to calculate the charge using a Summit calculator that could only do multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. To determine square roots I had to estimate a root and then square it to see how close my answer was. This was laborious but gave me a great understanding of what was going on in the electric field. Fast forward to 1978 when I had the opportunity to repeat the experiment and do the calculations on a programmable calculator, taking only a fraction of the time required in 1973. I did have to write a program for the calculator, which was constructive, but I did not get any feeling for the variability of the electric field. My experimental speed was faster and the answer more accurate, but I did not have the same view into the performance of the experiment.
Now I would like to draw an analogy between my experimental experience and how ChatGPT may affect a student’s learning experience. Educators are concerned about determining whether a report, or essay, etc. truly represents a student’s capability. But maybe AI, like ChatGPT, will become ubiquitous and the true test will be in how a student uses it, similar to my calculator experience. Is AI a tool or a master?