Tag Archives: ChatGPT

Imagination is your superpower

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About a year ago I wrote an update on the hype around AI [see ‘Update on position of AI on hype curve: it cannot dream’ on July 26th, 2023].  Gartner’s hype curve has a ‘peak of inflated expectations’, followed by a ‘trough of disillusionment’ then an upward ‘slope of enlightenment’ leading to a ‘plateau of productivity’ [see ‘Hype cycle’ on September 23rd 2015].  It is unclear where AI is on the hype curve.  Tech companies are still pretty excited about it and advertising is beginning to claim that all sorts of products are augmented by AI.  Maybe there is a hint of unfulfilled expectations which suggest being on the downward slope towards a trough of disillusionment; however, these analyses can really only be performed retrospectively.  It is clear that we can create algorithms capable of artificial generative intelligence which can accomplish levels of creativity similar to a human in a specific task.  However, we cannot create artificial general intelligence that can perform like a human across a wide range of tasks and achieve sentience.  Current artificial intelligence algorithms consume our words, images and decisions to replay them to us.  Shannon Vallor has suggested that AI algorithms are ‘giant mirrors made of code’ and that ‘these mirrors know no more of the lived experience of thinking and feeling than our bedroom mirrors know our inner aches and pains’.  The challenge facing us is that AI will make us lazy and that we will lose the capacity to think and solve new problems creatively.  Instead of making myself a cup of coffee and sitting down to gather my thoughts and dream up a short piece for this blog, I could have put the title into ChatGPT and the task would have been done in about two minutes.  I just did and it told me that imagination is a truly powerful force that fuels creativity, innovation and problem-solving allowing us to envision new possibilities, create stories and invent technologies.  Imagination is the key to unlocking potential and driving progress.  This is remarkably similar to parts of an article in the FT newspaper on November 25, 2023 by Martin Allen Morales titled ‘We need imagination to realise the good, not just stave off the bad’.  What is missing from the ChatGPT version is the recognition that imagination is a human superpower and without it we have no hope of ever achieving anything beyond what already exists.

Sources

Becky Hogge, Through the looking glass, FT Weekend, May 29, 2024.

Martin Allen Morales, We need imagination to realise the good, not just stave off the bad, FT Weekend, November 25, 2023.

Shannon Vallor, The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking, OUP, April, 2024.

Update on position of AI on hype curve: it cannot dream

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Decorative image of a flowerIt would appear that I was wrong in 2020 when I suggested that artificial intelligence was near the top of its hype curve [see ‘Where is AI on the hype curve?‘ on August 12th, 2020].  In the past few months the hype has reached new levels.  Initially, there were warnings about the imminent takeover of global society by artificial intelligence; however, recently the pendulum has swung back towards a more measured concern that the nature of many jobs will be changed by artificial intelligence with some jobs disappearing and others being created.  I believe that the bottom-line is that while terrific advances have been made with large language models, such as ChatGPT, artificial intelligence is artificial but it is not intelligent [see ‘Inducing chatbots to write nonsense‘ on February 15th, 2023].  It cannot dream.  It is not creative or inventive, largely because it is very powerful applied statistics which needs data based on what has happened or been produced already.  So, if you are involved in solving mysteries (ill-defined, vague and indeterminate problems) rather than puzzles [see ‘Puzzles and mysteries‘ on November 25th, 2020] then you are unlikely to be replaced by artificial intelligence in the foreseeable future [see ‘When will you be replaced by a computer?‘ on November 20th, 2019].  Not that you should trust my predictions of the future! [see ‘Predicting the future through holistic awareness‘ on January 6th, 2021]

Inducing chatbots to write nonsense

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titanium dental implant face profile technical pictureThe chatbot, ChatGPT developed by OpenAI, has been in the news recently and is the subject of much discussion in universities primarily because of its potential use by students to complete their coursework assignments but also the positive uses to which it might be applied. After last week’s invitations to edit two special issues in different journals on cosmetic dentistry and wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) [‘Wire arc additive manufacturing and cosmetic dentistry?‘ on February 8th, 2023], I did a little research in the scientific literature to find out if anyone had published research on using WAAM to make parts for cosmetic dentistry but found nothing.  I was not surprised – the level of precision achievable with WAAM is about 1 millimetre which would be insufficient for most applications in cosmetic dentistry.  Then, I signed up for a free trial with ChatGPT and conducted an experiment by asking it to write about wire arc additive manufacturing and cosmetic dentistry.  The chatbot produced 128 words about how WAAM is becoming increasing popular in cosmetic dentistry because of its accuracy and precision also because a wide range of materials can be used allowing a match to the colour and texture of teeth.  I repeated the experiment and the chatbot produced 142 different words, again stating that dental prostheses can be produced using WAAM with high precision and accuracy to match a patient’s existing teeth in colour so that restorations appear natural and undetectable.  In each case the six or seven sentences were well-written and included some facts that were used to construct a set of false statements, which superficially appeared reasonable; however, only a modicum of knowledge would be required to identify the fallacious rationale.  Some of my colleagues are already exploring incorporating the chatbot into students’ coursework by asking students to use it to generate a description of a technical topic and then asking them to critique its output in order to assess their understanding of the topic.  I expect chatbots will improve rapidly but for the moment it is relatively easy to induce them to write nonsense.

Bibliography

Li Y, Su C, Zhu J. Comprehensive review of wire arc additive manufacturing: Hardware system, physical process, monitoring, property characterization, application and future prospects. Results in Engineering,100330, 2021.

Image: www.authoritydental.org CC BY 2.0 downloaded from https://www.flickr.com/photos/dental-photos/50730990757