Just wow! Many years ago, my life as a C+ photographer shifted dramatically with my first digital camera and the instant feedback it provided. I think this post and the possibility of using CHAD (my ChatGPT buddy) as my Spanish coach may just open a similar door to language learning. Who knows? But, I'm off to try. Thanks to each of you.
Thanks for sharing that, Joyce. Please do update us when you've tried out CHAD as a Spanish coach — curious to see what your thoughts are after some further testing.
I will ... I'm blundering along trying to figure out an effective way to use it. First road bump was finding out that to get Voice, it's $19.95 a month. Just about to get over that hurdle but want to find a process that would be effective. I know all the reasons why I *should* be speaking but haven't yet got past all the excuses I've formed for not speaking. I even feel intimidated to speak to an AI. ;-) Puedo hacerlo. Quizás lentamente. Thanks!
Nov 10, 2023·edited Nov 10, 2023Liked by Jeremy Caplan
Very interesting. But I'm very guarded about the information ChatGPT provides. I'm a copywriter and my clients rely on me to present accurate information. So, I verify and cross-check what these AIs generate, and they often vary between misguided info and complete rubbish. They handle basic common-knowledge topics well, but become increasingly unreliable with topics of greater depth or nuance.
Misguided info is often incorrect information the AI found elsewhere (especially listicles—boy, these AIs love sourcing from listicles), thus repeating incorrect information written by a human. That's not only common, but because the AI tends to rewrite the information without the benefit of context, it can even obscure incorrect facts or make them hard to correlate (which is why I prefer Perplexity, as it gives me citations to check). Basically, genAIs easily create falsehoods containing kernels of truth.
Rubbish info is plain fiction, and I've frequently experienced this with ChatGPT, Bard, and smaller AIs (like Pi.ai - great for a chat, but often enormously factually incorrect). Recently, a colleague told me how he used Bard to generate a list of his published academic papers, and the AI produced a very impressive and entirely fictional list. He was astounded, and he's an AI fundie!
My point is to tread carefully when using these AIs to 'tutor' you on a subject. They are very, very error-prone, to the point that I can sometimes spot when a client gives me AI-generated copy. These AIs are great for finding sources (if they provide citations), but they don't critically vet their information, and the more layered and nuanced a topic, the more likely they are to get facts wrong or mix true points with fictional narratives.
Thanks, James, for a helpful reminder about where things can go wrong and the limitations of these still quite-early versions of gen AI bots. I prefer to use the AIs, in most cases, as language engines, summarizing/translating/outlining information that they're given, rather than as "knowledge engines" asked to come up with answers to factual questions (as in that published academic paper list example you noted). That limits the extent of the hallucination problem. And tutoring can also be based on information you feed through PDFs etc. though I agree that in this terrain as well, caution and skepticism is appropriate.
An excellent example of quality journalism – informative, unbiased, and well-structured. Thank you for the article. I would recommend you to use a task tracker to plan your articles: https://bordio.com/
Just wow! Many years ago, my life as a C+ photographer shifted dramatically with my first digital camera and the instant feedback it provided. I think this post and the possibility of using CHAD (my ChatGPT buddy) as my Spanish coach may just open a similar door to language learning. Who knows? But, I'm off to try. Thanks to each of you.
Thanks for sharing that, Joyce. Please do update us when you've tried out CHAD as a Spanish coach — curious to see what your thoughts are after some further testing.
I will ... I'm blundering along trying to figure out an effective way to use it. First road bump was finding out that to get Voice, it's $19.95 a month. Just about to get over that hurdle but want to find a process that would be effective. I know all the reasons why I *should* be speaking but haven't yet got past all the excuses I've formed for not speaking. I even feel intimidated to speak to an AI. ;-) Puedo hacerlo. Quizás lentamente. Thanks!
What a post. Every bit of just fascinating. Thank you
Great examples of real-world use right now!
Awesome stuff, thanks!
Very interesting. But I'm very guarded about the information ChatGPT provides. I'm a copywriter and my clients rely on me to present accurate information. So, I verify and cross-check what these AIs generate, and they often vary between misguided info and complete rubbish. They handle basic common-knowledge topics well, but become increasingly unreliable with topics of greater depth or nuance.
Misguided info is often incorrect information the AI found elsewhere (especially listicles—boy, these AIs love sourcing from listicles), thus repeating incorrect information written by a human. That's not only common, but because the AI tends to rewrite the information without the benefit of context, it can even obscure incorrect facts or make them hard to correlate (which is why I prefer Perplexity, as it gives me citations to check). Basically, genAIs easily create falsehoods containing kernels of truth.
Rubbish info is plain fiction, and I've frequently experienced this with ChatGPT, Bard, and smaller AIs (like Pi.ai - great for a chat, but often enormously factually incorrect). Recently, a colleague told me how he used Bard to generate a list of his published academic papers, and the AI produced a very impressive and entirely fictional list. He was astounded, and he's an AI fundie!
My point is to tread carefully when using these AIs to 'tutor' you on a subject. They are very, very error-prone, to the point that I can sometimes spot when a client gives me AI-generated copy. These AIs are great for finding sources (if they provide citations), but they don't critically vet their information, and the more layered and nuanced a topic, the more likely they are to get facts wrong or mix true points with fictional narratives.
Thanks, James, for a helpful reminder about where things can go wrong and the limitations of these still quite-early versions of gen AI bots. I prefer to use the AIs, in most cases, as language engines, summarizing/translating/outlining information that they're given, rather than as "knowledge engines" asked to come up with answers to factual questions (as in that published academic paper list example you noted). That limits the extent of the hallucination problem. And tutoring can also be based on information you feed through PDFs etc. though I agree that in this terrain as well, caution and skepticism is appropriate.
Fantastic, thanks so much!
Great share! Thanks for sharing 😊
An excellent example of quality journalism – informative, unbiased, and well-structured. Thank you for the article. I would recommend you to use a task tracker to plan your articles: https://bordio.com/