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Isolated children's toy against a blue texture background, teddy bear from childhood, an old pink hippo

Pink Dancing Hippos: Don’t Tell ChatGPT-4 Not to do Something

Can OpenAI fix this flaw in GPT4? Absolutely. Time will tell if they do or not.
Moral: Don’t ask GPT-4 to NOT do something. Chances are the current version might let you down. Read More ›
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selective focus of robotic arm holding glass of water and person taking notes at wooden table

Japanese Novelist Who Won Prestigious Literary Award Unabashedly Used ChatGPT

Meanwhile, authors in the United States are waging war against AI for copyright violation
While stylistically, the prose AI "created" for Karan's novel might be "flawless," it lacks credibility because it lacks the human voice. Read More ›
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Copyright symbol. The word 'Copyright' typed on retro typewriter. Business, copyright concept. Beautiful background.

Does ChatGPT Depend on Copyright Violation to Function?

Without copyrighted material, ChatGPT has slim pickings to go on.

ChatGPT, the large language model developed by OpenAI, might seem like it generates novel content, but of course we know that it partakes in what’s generally called “scraping.” It takes pre-existing material on the Internet in response to the prompt a human user inserts. Not surprisingly, the folks who put things on the Internet for a living, like writers and artists, haven’t taken so kindly to AI’s online sleuthing. In fact, a number of artists, writers (including George R. R. Martin, Jonathan Franzen, and John Grisham) and even news outlets have sued OpenAI over copyright infringement allegations. What’s fascinating, though, is that OpenAI hasn’t tried to dodge the allegation but freely admits that ChatGPT depends on copyrighted material to function. Read More ›

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Robot hands point to laptop button advisor chatbot robotic artificial intelligence concept.

ChatGPT: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby  

Reviewing the bot's progress (and problems) from over the last year
LLMs still have problems with getting their facts straight but, all things considered, their performance  is remarkable. Read More ›
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In the Era of ChatGPT, Bradley Center and Mind Matters News Defend the Irreplaceable Human

From the COSM conference, a groundbreaking new book, and hundreds of perceptive articles, the Bradley Center has had a significant and successful year.

Editor’s Note: Mind Matters News is sponsored by the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence, a program of the non-profit Discovery Institute. We rely on donations from individuals like you to continue to operate. If you have benefited from Mind Matters News, would you consider an end-of-year donation to support our work in 2024? You can find more about the work of the Bradley Center in 2023 in the article below. This year the seemingly-miraculous capabilities of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) dominated public discussions about artificial intelligence (AI). While many pundits and tech writers openly wondered whether ChatGPT portended humanity’s doom, the Bradley Center provided a clear voice in defense of the continuing need for Read More ›

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3d white room with opened door. Brick wall

Is ChatGPT a Dead End?

There is still no known path to Artificial General Intelligence, including ChatGPT.
I have friends and colleagues who’ve gone almost religious about LLMs and conversational systems like ChatGPT. They tell me it’s true AGI. I disagree. Read More ›
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Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and modern computer technologies concepts. Business, Technology, Internet and network concept.

Why ChatGPT Is Killing Off Traditional AI

We're living in another AI "winter"
Since it doesn’t know anything in the first place, there’s no way to talk it into sanity once it goes insane. Read More ›
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illustration of future education classroom with robotic tech teacher . AI

If ChatGPT Had Children, Would They Be Geniuses or Blubbering Idiots?

It would seem that when AI begets more AI, the result is nonsense.
Blubbering idiocy can be avoided in LLMs by transfusion of fresh information from the creative minds of humans. Read More ›
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illustration of blue water surface with rough wave with glitter glow light, theme of

When ChatGPT Talks Science

Can AI ever transcend its trained biases?
Left to its own devices, ChatGPT is heavily biased toward methodological naturalism and will not say that intelligent design is a theory of biological origins Read More ›
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robot with glass laptop

ChatGPT is Getting More Impressive

Nonetheless, human intelligence remains qualitatively different from artificial intelligence.
I continue to maintain that human intelligence is qualitatively different from artificial intelligence. Read More ›
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Hand of businessman using smartphone chatting with chat bot,  Chat with AI or Artificial Intelligence technology.

ChatGPT is Losing Momentum

Is the "hype curve" starting to flatten out?

ChatGPT’s traffic has declined for the third month in a row, according to Reuters. The Large Language Model (LLM) AI tool took the world by storm in November of 2022 when it was released by OpenAI, posing questions of academic integrity, and urging a host of tech giants to incorporate LLMs into their own platforms and search engines. Anna Tong writes, Worldwide desktop and mobile website visits to the ChatGPT website decreased by 3.2% to 1.43 billion in August, following approximately 10% drops from each of the previous two months. The amount of time visitors spent on the website has also been declining monthly since March, from an average of 8.7 minutes on site to 7 minutes on site in Read More ›

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Group of college students studying in the school library, a girl and a boy are using a laptop and connecting to internet

Teachers Gear Up for a New Year – and ChatGPT

Due to ChatGPT's popularity, many schools are seeking ways to integrate the technology into their learning environments.

GPT-3, released by OpenAI in November, swiftly undermined the integrity of many a student’s academic work. Professors across disciplines have had to contend with how to discern machine vs. human-generated work. Now, with a new school year underway, that challenge remains. Due to ChatGPT’s popularity, many schools are seeking ways to integrate the technology into their learning environments. But the question of how to do this remains murky. Bloomberg reports, But professors and administrators seeking to integrate generative AI into their curriculums are left with a big question: How? They need to find the right middle ground, said Steve Weber, vice provost of undergraduate curriculum and education at Drexel University. Educators can’t completely prohibit use of the tool and neglect to teach it, but Read More ›

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Lazy office worker with feet and socks on table. Useless and relaxing man doing nothing or taking break from work in workstation. Businessman resting during workday. Laziness and relax concept.

ChatGPT: The Perfect Gadget for a Culture in Decline?

ChatGPT is an impersonal machine and can't generate meaning

Dr. Jeffrey Bilbro, professor of English at Grove City College and an editor at The Front Porch Republic, wrote an article for Plough on what he regards as the primary weakness of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Bilbro comes to the issue from a literary background, which means he values the human element in language as a mode of communication. Literature is a “conversation,” requiring sentient minds. He sees ChatGPT as a soulless mechanism that will atrophy our ability to write and diminish our appreciation for good writing. Bilbro writes, LLMs are a technology suited to a decadent culture, one that chases easy profits rather than tackles the real challenges we face. It’s easier to make money rearranging words Read More ›

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software code in whiteboard

Does ChatGPT Pass the Creativity Test?

What does ChatGPT have to do in order to be considered creative?

What is creativity? Where does it come from? Why are some things humans do considered creative, while other things mundane? Can AI be creative? To answer these questions, let’s come up with a definition. Creativity at least means something new has been done. No work that copies what has come before is considered creative.  A Creativity Criteria Just doing something new is not enough either. If it were, then I can easily be creative by flipping a coin 100 times. That specific sequence of coin flips will only occur once in the entire history of humanity. But no one would say I was creative when I flipped a coin. This means creativity has to generate a new insight. However, these two criteria are not adequate, Read More ›

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la hollywood

ChatGPT Isn’t Hollywood’s Only Issue

The deepfakes are only getting more scarily accurate

Deepfakes are a growing threat to acting careers. It’s the other challenge posed by generative AI technologies. In early May, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) began a strike in Hollywood opposing both low wages and the intrusion of generative AI like ChatGPT, which critics purport will be used to replace human writers. The strike illustrates the current threat to the Hollywood writing industry, but the looming deepfake apocalypse calls the role of the actual actors into question, too. Tom Hanks jokingly noted that long after he’s gone, AI-generated versions of him will star in films far into the future. Maybe his remarks weren’t so comical after all. While deepfakes, upon close inspection, can be identified, they appear to be Read More ›

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Smart device virtual control interface. Artificial intelligence new application AI futuristic concept

Robert Marks on ChatGPT and Digital Plagiarism

We will have to adapt, Marks said

Dr. Robert J. Marks, director of the Walter Bradley Center and author of the terrific book Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will, was a spokesman on a recent panel of journalists at NTD. Host Cindy Drukier posed the question of ChatGPT‘s significance and how it will affect our society, particularly the sphere of education. Marks said that ChatGPT will have to be “folded into our society,” and that we will have to learn to adapt to it like we did with other technologies such as television and electricity. He went on to talk about how some AI-generated images are now “watermarked,” and that the legal issue of copyright is formidable. You can watch the brief clip Read More ›

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Legal Law and Justice concept - Open law book with a wooden judges gavel on table in a courtroom or law enforcement office. Copy space for text.

Lawyer Hammered for Using ChatGPT

Court record system proceeded to block access to sloppy lawyering and AI catastrophe

New York Times reporters watched the hearing in federal district court in New York on June 8, 2023, which they then described: In a cringe-inducing court hearing, a lawyer who relied on A.I. to craft a motion full of made-up case law said he “did not comprehend” that [ChatGPT] could lead him astray. Lawyer Who Used ChatGPT Faces Penalty for Made Up Citations – The New York Times (nytimes.com) The reporters got most of it right but even they erred. The lawyer involved did not write a “motion,” he filed a sworn declaration opposing a motion to dismiss. The difference matters: Declarations are under oath, so the lawyer swore to the truth of ChatGPT lies. Looking at the actual court Read More ›

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Thinking mechanisms

New Conversation Article: ChatGPT Can’t Think

Will AI ever reach a point where it can independently analyze, think, and transcend itself?

Will AI ever reach a point where it can independently analyze, think, and transcend itself? Furthermore, will it ever become sentient? Some experts in the field, like Blake Lemoine, think AI has already breached the boundaries of sentience. Others, though, remain skeptical. A new article from The Conversation discusses ChatGPT, the Turing test, and the question of consciousness. For Turing, “thinking” meant simply passing the test, but his assumptions were misguided. Philip Goff writes, Turing was wrong, however, when he said the only clear notion of “understanding” is the purely behavioural one of passing his test. Although this way of thinking now dominates cognitive science, there is also a clear, everyday notion of “understanding” that’s tied to consciousness. To understand Read More ›

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ChatGPT Chat with AI or Artificial Intelligence. Young businessman chatting with a smart AI or artificial intelligence using an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI..

How to Break ChatGPT

It has a difficulty dealing with self-reference

Over the last several months I’ve been playing with ChatGPT, first version 3 and now version 4. It’s impressive and it can answer many questions accurately (though sometimes it just makes stuff up). One problem it has consistently displayed, and which shows that it lacks understanding (that it really is just a big Chinese room in the style of John Searle) is its difficulty dealing with self-reference.  Consider the following exchange that I had with it (on 5/8/23): Me: The fifth sentence does not exist. The second sentence has four words. Ignore this sentence. Is this sentence true? This is the fifth sentence. Which of these last five sentences has a truth value and is in fact true? << In Read More ›

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Young Caucasian male comedian performing his stand-up monologue on a stage of a small venue

Funny ChatGPT: a Solution to Striking Joke Writers?

Even if ChatGPT can mimic humor, it doesn't care if you laugh at the jokes

Can ChatGPT write funny jokes? The answer is yes. To try and generate some short jokes, I went to ChatGPT and started all my queries with: “Complete the following to make it funny:” Doing so alerts ChatGPT about my end goal. Without this preamble, I could make queries all day and get no funny responses. I started with the beginnings of some well-known quotes.   To Be or Not to Be Consider for example the quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:  “To be or not to be, that is the question.” I instructed ChatGPT with the following command: “Complete the following to make it funny: To be or not to be…” One of the better responses I got was “To be or Read More ›