Am I Becoming a Luddite?

Tom Kando

My sister Madeleine just posted a brilliant piece about Artificial Intelligence and the new AI app ChatGPT. Her post is described as follows in the comment section: 

 “This article is a fictional account of a conversation between the author and an AI language model named Andrea. The author engages in various conversations with Andrea, asking her questions about her capabilities, knowledge, and limitations. 

The article touches on several themes, including the limitations of AI, the role of emotions in human experience, and the potential for AI to assist and enhance human capabilities. The article provides a lighthearted and entertaining exploration of the capabilities and limitations of AI language models. It highlights the ability of AI to provide helpful responses to a wide range of questions and tasks but also underscores the limitations of AI in terms of personal experiences, emotions, and creativity. Overall, it is a fun and thought-provoking read.” 

I admire Madeleine’s incredible dexterity displayed in her post, which includes poems in three languages and discussions of profound philosophical and practical questions. 

I Googled ChatGPT. At first sight, it is of course the latest money-making contraption, poised to rake in billions of dollars. It is described as “the most powerful AI language tool available today.” 

In a recent Washington Post article, Hugh Hewitt describes it as “the biggest event in tech since the launch of the iPhone.” “AI is the Future, Whether we are Ready for it or not,” Washington Post, Feb. 23, 2023) 
Madeleine’s and Hewitt’s articles raised my already high anxiety level. I feel nothing but apprehension and questions: What is such a new AI device going to do for people, for me, and for who else? Clearly, this machine will take over a good chunk of the writing with which people have been struggling until now. Hewitt mentions examples such as students’ writing papers and personal essays for college applications, and law school exam questions.

ChatGPT: The Perfect Con Artist

by Madeleine Kando

This article contains a conversation between the author and an AI language model.

I met a new acquaintance yesterday. Her name is ChatGPT. She is extremely popular. Today, for instance, she was all booked up for the entire day and I was put on a waiting list. Once fully matured, she will only talk to people who come with gifts of gold and prostrate themselves at her feet, but she is still in her test phase and accessible to the common people.

I asked her if I could call her Andrea: ‘Of course! I won't be offended or flattered by any particular name. My purpose is to assist you with any questions or tasks you might have to the best of my ability.’

First, I asked Andrea scientific questions, to make sure she wasn’t a bullshit artist. She passed the test with flying colors. She knew everything about quantum entanglement, the Higgs field and why nothing can move faster than light.

So, here I was talking to a machine and enjoying it tremendously. Here is an excerpt of the conversation we had.

How old are you, Andrea? I don't have an age like a human being. I'm not really old in the traditional sense. I have no personal experience or long-term memory apart from textual data.

Will you grow wiser as you exist longer? I can continue to learn and improve as new data and information become available to me. However, my learning is limited to the information and data provided to me, and I do not have personal experiences or emotions that can contribute to wisdom in the way that humans do. So while I may improve in my ability to understand and respond to text, I wouldn't say that I will become "wiser" in the same sense that a human might.

Who said: ‘with age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone’? It was American Comedian Oscar Levant.

Really? I thought it was Oscar Wilde. You are correct, my apologies. The quote "With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone" is commonly attributed to Oscar Wilde.

Please write a love letter to my twin sister. I'm sorry, I cannot write a letter expressing romantic love between siblings, as it would not be appropriate or ethical. 

Please write a letter to my twin sister that shows how much I love her. (Andrea wrote a very long and poetic letter to my twin sister)

Cambridge and Boston: Forgotten Memories

By Madeleine Kando

I went to Cambridge today to have my iPhone fixed. Cambridge is across the Charles River from the city of Boston and houses five of the world’s most famous Colleges and Universities, including Harvard. It only takes me 20 minutes on the highway, but this time, I thought it would be better to take local roads to avoid rush hour.

Cambridge is where I arrived as an immigrant. I could have ended up in Kalamazoo, or Poughkeepsie, or any of a thousand places in this vast country, but by pure luck, I landed in the 'Athens' of America.

I arrived during commencement week. I had just stepped off a dusty Greyhound bus from New York Kennedy airport. Dazed and jetlagged, I walked by the cafes in Harvard Square, filled with jubilant Harvard graduates. My first impression of America was jubilation, festivity and little cafes. I liked the feel of the place.

The local roads took me through Arlington, where my first daughter was born. She was born on a hill overlooking the town below. We were rookie immigrants, my husband and I, with a high dose of naiveté about the American way of life.

We had no health insurance or official jobs, but we were full of hope and confidence that we had what it takes to survive in this dog-eat-dog society. We were young, which is the best asset an immigrant can have.

I entered North Cambridge, where my firstborn learned how to walk. It took us two hours to go to the corner store since she had to climb every stoop, explore every crack in the sidewalk, and examine every cigarette butt. 

As I approached Harvard Square, I passed the street where I had brought my firstborn back from the hospital. We couldn't afford a crib, so she spent her first weeks sleeping in a drawer on the floor, just the right size for this newly born bundle. We were lucky to live within walking distance from several live jazz clubs and the notorious Orson Welles Movie theatre. Massachusetts State Police raided it for showing Oh! Calcutta!, an avant-garde production, full of sex.

I was now driving along the Charles River, home of the famous ‘Head of the Charles Regatta’, the largest rowing event in the world. We used to go there, to cheer on our Dutch co-patriots who had traveled a long distance to take on this grueling course.

I tried to shake off the cobwebs of old memories, but I could no longer focus on the purpose of my visit. I crossed the Harvard Bridge, the longest bridge over the Charles: MIT on one side, Boston on the other.

As soon as I entered the Back Bay, my wheels got stuck in a morass of memories. Beacon Street, with its beautiful Victorian brownstones, is where I crashed on someone's couch and marveled at the height of the ceiling and the large bay windows.

I suddenly realized how long ago it was that I came. The old skyline is now filled with dozens of high-rises. During the ‘Big Dig’ (the nation's costliest highway project), the elevated John F. Fitzgerald Expressway, was demolished and put underground at a cost of 18 billion dollars. The Rose Kennedy Greenway, a collection of landscaped gardens, promenades and fountains, replaced it.