Why do some people as Chat GTP everything like it’s the bloody Oracle?

[ChompandaGrazia]

I’m seeing this all over the place now. Someone has a simple question like ‘can anyone recommend a good cat food brand’ or ‘does anyone have a good chocolate brownie recipe’, or on a local Facebook group ‘does anyone know if the post office is open Saturday?, and someone will always respond that they asked Chat GPT and it said this…….

Why? All it does it look stuff up online and get things wrong. I knew someone who was planning to move towns. She had a load of houses to look at but rather than looking at a map or asking some local, me, what order make most sense, she asked Chat GPT . The order it gave her made no sense and two minutes looking at the map would show that.

For the past decade my GP has been referring to online sources to diagnose me and my family at various times!

Agree with you 💯 OP.
People are thick and this just highlights it!

I refuse to engage with it. It's horrendous for the environment and stops people having to think for themselves/filling up with false information.

It will make us all Americans, because its cultural presumptions are American. I expect it'll continue to be able to produce recipes that use metric though.

Prose 😂

It's a quick message to ask someone to a party. It's not war and peace.

I assume you won't be going to the party.

Again that’s the point - why use AI to write something so simple? Why not use a couple of brain cells to write it yourself?

Doctors and other health professionals will absolutely be using AI to assist in making diagnoses and treatment plans. It doesn't mean the AI is doing their job for them, it means they are using it to be better at their jobs.

ChatGPT is a bit like an oracle, insofar as it makes impressive sounding, cryptic remarks, which often turn out to be absolute nonsense. I tried to chat to it about a niche interest of mine and its replies sounded like a pub bore trying to bluff their way in said niche interest: odd, given that all the incorrect tidbits it offered up could easily be fact checked via Google/Wikipedia, if it could have been bothered to do so.

I've used it to generate covering letters, as I live in a country where I'm not 100% fluent in the language. Plus, it's gutting to spend an hour painstakingly crafting a message to a recruiter who then ghosts you.

I don't trust AI me. I asked Google a question I knew the answer too, but needed specifics and couldn't be arsed to go upstairs. The AI answer got it wrong. Like completely wrong. What else does it get wrong?

Asking the internet for something has become frustrating and long winded and sometimes it's just a nonsense answer. I have to ask it for no AI answer now.

I hate that it makes up stuff when it doesn't know the answer.

I hate that it homogenises the sources of its information (unlike a Google search) so you can't be sure where it's drawing its point of view from.

I hate that people use it to do things like write essays when the point of writing essays is the act of thinking what to write.

I hate that people using it for banal, trivial purposes like meal prep legitimise its use for important questions like who should I vote for or what is climate change?

Because people are deeply insecure

Used as a tool alongside knowledge it’s fine. But it’s people using it to answer others people’s questions I find annoying.

Why do you think it's a bad thing for people to ask AI what climate change is if they don't know?

Some of actually have brains and like to try and keep them working.

I had an idea for a musical based on a concept album and chat GPT was going to write the script. I’m an average member of the public and don’t own the rights to the music so that seemed a bit of a waste of time. It did think my idea was great and we looked at some possible stage sets together. I like that. It always thinks your ideas are brilliant.

It's not. The problem now is people can't apply any critical thinking and just assume whatever they read is fact

I don’t think this is a new phenomenon.

Through history very few people have had the time and resources to consult multiple sources and draw their own informed conclusions on subjects they are not experts in.

Because AI is unreliable and hides its biases. It draws information from unknown web sources that may be wrong and claims authority on topics where it has no knowledge.

If I Google "what is climate change?", I am served webpages from NASA, the UN, the BBC, Greenpeace, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (US) etc. I am able to make an informed judgment on the legitimacy of those websites, their biases and backgrounds.

It didn't think your idea was great. It has no way to determine the creative value of your idea. It just bullshitted you which, fair enough, you are smart enough to realise. Many people are not smart enough to realise.

I find Google a bit clunky now. I prefer ChatGPT and I find it really useful. It like Google but more tailored & appropriate. The answers I get always give me a solution.

It's no different than asking Google, which we've been doing for 20 years.

It is categorically different to asking Google. It creates a synthetic approximation of what might be the answer rather than giving you the tools to find the answer.

The only time it got it (spectacularly) wrong was when I asked it the day after why Iran’s nuclear capability had just been destroyed by the US

Well, that was the only time that you know that it got it wrong...

I don’t mind/ hate chatgpt but yes, have a friend that gives us the answer to random questions from it at least twice a da. They can be pages or even papers long and sometimes aren’t totally relevant to what she asked it so actually that makes me worry that people use it professionally.

Yes, and like any other reasonably intelligent person, you would decide whether to believe it or not.