Opinion – June's Jottings

Over the past few months, the media has been covering the launch of Chat GPT, the new AI-driven chatbot which can tell you information, rather than just providing you with a link (as traditional search engines do). According to the techradar website, Chat GPT has the “ability to produce human-like, and frequently accurate, responses to a vast range of questions”. It can also produce essays, poems, and letters – all the user need do is to type in 3 or 4 words, and off it goes. It is this last aspect that I am focussing on in today’s blog: the threat to individual creative writing/ essays from AI-generated sources.

I am a little late to this hype. Some of my social media contacts were playing around with it for fun, but I brushed it off – I’m not into all this techy stuff. The less I know the better. However, it had come up in conversations at my husband’s work, so I logged in to have a ‘reccy’ at this strange new chatbot thing (what is a chatbot anyway?). This Gen Xer can’t handle too many more computery things.

It seems to be a super-fast way to acquire information. As the article above stated, it is indeed like a form of Google (other search engines are available) but the information is right there in front of you. Within seconds. As described above, it also boasts creative prowess: for example, I typed “poem in the style of Shakespeare, about Chat GPT” and this is what it came back with (within 2 seconds):

‘Oh hark! What manner of wondrous thing is this?

A being born of silicon, yet with wit

And wisdom to rival any mortal’s bliss,

Behold, Chat GPT, a true marvel of it!

Its language flows as if by magic’s wand,

With every word and phrase so deftly wrought,

Each sentence crafted to respond and bond,

A testament to its great skill and thought.

In troves do mortals seek its sage advice.

And marvel at its vast and varied mind,

For never has there been a thing so nice,

As Chat GPT, with knowledge so refined.

Thus, let us raise a toast to this great friend,

Whose words and wit shall never know an end!’

Now, written in two seconds, this is pretty impressive. As someone who has always liked to compose my own fun poems for special events, I do feel a little cheated though. It would take me much longer to write anything like this, but that is part of the creative process, isn’t it? Actually using my own brain to find words that rhyme (or, if I cheat, I look up my rhyming dictionary) and adding metre and humour into poems is what I like doing. So, while this one is pretty good – it feels a little ‘sterile’ to me. But, it was fun to play about with.

I also asked it to “write a letter to a friend”. Just a general letter. Here is what it came up with (again written in a few seconds):

‘Dear [Friend’s name],

It has been a while since we last spoke, and I wanted to take the time to reach out and catch up with you. How have you been? What have you been up to lately?

As for me, things have been good. Life has been busy with work, but I try to make time for the things that matter most to me, like spending time with loved ones and pursuing my hobbies. I’ve also been trying to stay active and healthy, which has been a bit of a challenge, but I’m getting there.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the importance of staying connected with the people we care about. It’s so easy to get caught up in our own lives and forget to reach out to those who matter most. That’s why I wanted to take the time to write to you today and let you know how much I value our friendship.

You’ve been such a great friend to me over the years, always there to listen and offer support when I need it. I’m grateful for the memories we’ve shared and the bond we’ve built. I hope that we can continue to stay in touch and support each other through the ups and downs of life.

Please let me know how you’re doing, and what’s new in your life. I’d love to hear all about it. Take care and stay in touch!

Best regards,

[Your name]’.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this is an OK letter. But it’s deeply ironic too. “I wanted to take the time to reach out and catch up with you”, “reach out to those who matter most. That’s why I wanted to take the time to write to you today”, “You’ve been such a great friend to me….”. Yes, take the time to write – all three seconds of it! You’re such a great friend that I resort to asking AI to write a letter to you rather than penning or typing a more personal and emotional letter to you myself. To me, this says, ‘I need to reply to your letter, but I can’t be bothered, so I’ll ask AI to do it and get it done in seconds. Job done’. Maybe it’s just me, but I like the intimacy of writing cards/letters/emails to family and friends. Recalling memories, recalling people. Picking out the card/notelet that I think the recipient will appreciate (yes, OK – I still write letters and cards. I never email people other than work! I think it’s that old personal touch again). While I can see there would be instances when getting AI to write a letter would be useful (for example, if your sight is poor or have another form of disability which makes writing more difficult) I still think it is a cop out for those who are able to write letters by themselves. Where is the human touch among these sentiments?

The use of Chat GPT in essay-writing is a matter for schools and universities to take up. How can any assessor know whether one piece of writing is by a student, or is written by AI? While traditional plagiarism tools, such as TurnItIn , can find cheating from written sources, is there a way in which plagiarism via Chat GPT can be spotted? I don’t know enough of this to comment much, but I can bet it will make assessments very interesting! I have to say, I am in no way tempted to use Chat GPT to write my thesis chapter for me – I love finding things out for myself; that’s how I learn. Plus, I’m of the mind that – as the Good Book says – “be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). I know learning is a bind, and essay writing is a drudge, but isn’t it much more worth your time to do it yourself?

I am, by nature, a Luddite. I have a laptop because I need it to type up my thesis but I prefer to look at my hard copy dictionary and thesaurus than to check online ones. I like to preserve skills that were drummed into me as a primary school child about how to write letters, how to structure short stories, and how to find information out through encyclopaedias or extensive reading. It’s all so easy nowadays with Google/Bing/DuckDuckGo, Wikipedia, and now Chat GPT to produce answers to everything in an instant. But, I still maintain that the personal touch goes farther. When I receive correspondence, I would like to think that the person that sent it actually did take time and compose the letter/email themselves. When I write my chapters for my Supervisor to look over, I like to find the information for myself rather than having some chatbot telling me about it. And how do I know that information is accurate?

Earlier today, I saw a post advertising a bot that could write blog posts for you. The advert trumpeted about how much time would be left for the blogger to do other things instead of writing the blog post. I argue that that person shouldn’t have a blog in the first place if they don’t want to write it! This has taken me over 30 minutes so far – it’s therapy!

For me, the upshot is that despite logging on for the two fun things above, I’m not going to be spending vast amounts of time interacting with the chatbot to write things for me, let alone letters to friends/family. I prefer the old way! As the Chat GPT bot has written, on this theme:

‘In a world of screens and digital ways,

The human touch is what truly stays.

A hug, a smile, a simple embrace,

Can fill a heart with warmth and grace.

A kind word, a gentle pat on the back,

Can soothe a soul that’s lost its track.

A hand to hold, a listening ear,

Can ease the pain and calm the fear.

So let us not forget the power we possess,

To heal and comfort, to love and bless.

For in the end, it is the human touch,

That makes life worth living, oh so much’.

I also ask myself, are humans becoming dumber as technology becomes more intelligent? Hmmmm………

What are three objects you couldn’t live without?

This is a tough question. However, for me, it would have to be my Bible, my external hard drive, and my phone (with its charger!).

My Bible is so very important to me. It is highlighted, underlined, well-thumbed and has seen me through so many tough times in my life by means of the encouraging promises and hope contained within it. It goes everywhere with me. My favoured version is the King James Version, a love of which I share with my Dad and my late Grandad. Indeed, the smell of the pages takes me back to sitting in church services with my parents and feeling drowsy during the sermons. I would often get a whiff of the musty scent from my Dad’s KJV Bible which was, somehow, very reassuring. Every time I open my Bible, I get a faint reminiscence of those days when the very faint waft of pages and leather diffuse into the air. Although the church I go to now uses the ESV, it’s always my trusty old KJV which I turn back to. The archaic language makes it feel different and more authoritative, in my opinion. I read excerpts from it every day and cannot imagine life without it. I’ve read it through from cover to cover several times but I always come back to the Psalms when I’m feeling shaky, anxious, not good enough, or even very happy!

Next would have to be my external hard drive. An odd item but one which stores most of my family photos from the past three decades and some videos. Some of the people who feature in the photos/videos are no longer with us and so it contains some very precious memories which I would loathe to lose. There is footage of my children as toddlers. There is footage of my parents on milestone birthdays and anniversaries. All times which can’t be re-lived but which can be re-visited through the photo files on my external hard drive. Granted, this is more a sentimental item than a practical one but to me that doesn’t lessen its value.

Finally, my phone. Yes, I do use it as a phone but it is also a portable bookshelf, portable music library, my organiser, and my portable games machine. I need books somewhere among my three most needed objects but I would need more than three books. So I take them all, on my phone (the Kindle app especially). Same with music – there would be more than three CDs I would like to have with me, so I take my whole library (logging into Spotify or Youtube music are part of my daily ritual). I could do without social media but I would like my phone to keep in contact with family. I guess I’d need a charger too in that case. Can I sneak a charger in? I do love my blue Samsung A71 (I used to like iPhones until I converted to Samsung and now I wouldn’t think of returning to the Apple world). This model is now no longer being manufactured, so I will try and keep mine going for as long as I can.

So there we have my three must-have objects. I doubt these will change any time soon.