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.

What’s actually wrong with getting it to produce meal plans and itineraries?

You should try reading threads on the MN gardening boards, where dozens of experienced gardeners can read a "Plant id please" request from a poster, immediately recognise the greenery in the photo and correctly identify the plant in question. They reply and tell the OP what it is.

Shortly to be followed by a string of other posters who haven't a clue, know sweet FA about gardening but have a wild guess because they googled the image, or who have used some plant app or other which misidentifies it as something else entirely.
This really winds up the expert gardeners who have already answered.

Agree, but I do think people are people are getting dumber, much dumber

What criteria would you use to decide whether to believe it or not?

Now it is.
Imagine you are a healthy eating blogger/recipe planner. You post recipes and meal plans on your page and some people are subscribed but a lot of your hits come from people googling "vegetarian meal plan" or healthy dinner ideas..you do lots of SEO and the hits on your page is enough to generate some add revenue.

Then AI enters the field. It scrapes all the healthy eating bloggers webpages for content and this is fed into it's model. Now when people Google healthy eating plan they don't bother clicking through on your webpage, AI has provided a meal plan based on 1000s of meat plans.

So overtime you stop writing the blog because it's not worth it/noone reads it..everyone else stops to..increasingly the only meal plans online are meal plans created by AI. And they are copying each other. In time it's going to get weird and less helpful not more. See shrimp Jesus and the weird descent of AI art.

But besides, i came understand using AI to write your own meal plan. I dont get people who see a post on Mumsnet etc asking for a meal plan and say "Chat GPT says..."

Sorry that was a response to a quote about it being really good at writing meal plans but the quote got edited out of my reply

🤣

I actually wonder if this is what a GP does sometimes.

I'll be asking them to please examine and prescribe something to fix this problematic area of my body that's showing signs of disease - and they'll respond by having a cursory poke around, then consult their computer screen, check what I've already been prescribed last time, then tell me I must be fine now after xyz!

Telling them I'm not fine I'm still unwell seems to leave them stumped. They seem to have lost the ability to look at the person in front of them and accurately assess what's likely to be going on.

On occasion I've been prescribed something for a condition I don't have, know I don't have and a quick Google image search would clearly show anybody I don't have. Almost as if they've run my symptoms through a chat bot instead of actually looking at their patient...

GPs have always had resources they use, I've never understood why it confuses people so much. They can't know everything plus all the latest updates off the top of their head, it's not humanly possible. They have the underpinning knowledge to interpret those resources.

Exactly this. We are just going to end up with no original content. It has its uses and place, I use it myself. But some people are using it for everything.

No original content and no experts left

Has Google got its own AI because now you get a load of AI rubbish that you have to scroll through to get to the list of websites. The AI stuff is sometimes wrong because it's obviously just been collected from everything in the google list.

It’s great for translating, very useful and quick.

@Hendil Yes, Google has its own AI called Gemini.
As for other AI bots I have tried, you need to ask the right questions to get decent answers.
You also need to have enough knowledge to assess whether the answers are correct or not.
A recent example: I asked Chat GPT to give me a list of restaurants open for Sunday lunch in a particular European city. I gave it 2 or 3 sorts of cuisine as well as specifying which areas in the city suited me.
It came out with total rubbish, because it had a) no local knowledge and b) only trawled various American websites, some of which, Tripadvisor is a good example, have not been updated since Covid.
In addition to giving me names of places I already knew were NOT open or had been closed for a number of years (because I can Google and I have local knowledge) it gave me the wrong addresses for some establishments - by which I mean REALLY WRONG not just the wrong house number, but in a completely different part of the city - leading me to "correct it" but also to discount its usability for specific requirements.
I was just "playing" with it, so no great harm done, but I would have been very stuck had I been relying on it.

You would probably be delighted if I was your DC’s English teacher as I get fantastic results and am a kind and dedicated professional. No I would not accept an AI essay from a student - but I have my GCSEs, A Levels, Degree, PGCE and Masters …. So I don’t actually need to be able to craft an essay - I can do it excellently.
What a silly argument - I imagine you also think teachers should wear school uniform!

I’m alright thanks - my DD got brilliant English grades thanks to a fantastic teacher who somehow managed to get by without Chat GPT..

Why is it so difficult to just do the job that you get paid for instead of relying on AI to do it for you? Pure laziness and cutting corners. I’m a physio - what you are effectively saying is I should be using Chat GPT for patient treatment plans? Would you really find that acceptable? Of course not. So what if they take you ages to write - it’s what you signed up for and get paid to do!

Are you 100% sure @Cappuccino5
that your DD’s teacher did not use AI? And if still teaching does not use it now? I would say 80% of teachers I know (and discuss on forums with) use AI. It just means I work a 55 hour week instead of a 60 hour week. Surely anybody with any sense would do the same, unless they particularly want to spend more time on the less important part of the job as - guess what - times move on.

All your cutting comments about laziness are frankly hilarious to me - and I imagine other teachers on here. Writing a model paragraph is hardly comparable to a patient treatment plan. I can assure you the paperwork I have to do for the students I teach is still very much done the old fashioned way. AI provides a service that enables teachers to do the job I get paid for - which is teach. I assume you carry around great tomes of medical books, lots of paper and a plethora of pens to handwrite every treatment plan, before filing in your cabinet and checking your Rolodex for your next customer? Or have you moved with the times to improve efficiency??

Are the translations accurate?

It annoys me on MN and Facebook when people say I asked ChatGTP, a quick google suggests it makes me think of the annoying primary school kids who’d say “My Mum says ….”

Medical specialists are more and more using AI. For diagnosis it has proven to be superior to humans. Both are used in an ideal situation

Are you 100% sure that your DD’s teacher did not use AI?

Funnily enough Chat GPT didn’t exist back in 2014-2019 so thankfully yes!

I assume you carry around great tomes of medical books, lots of paper and a plethora of pens to handwrite every treatment plan, before filing in your cabinet and checking your Rolodex for your next customer?

As for this spectacularly ignorant comment, I have this thing called a brain and didn’t spend both my undergraduate and masters degrees learning in depth anatomy, physiology and treatment techniques for nothing. I’d be seriously concerned if any physio felt the need to consult their ‘medical books’ during a typical day! This may be another shock to you but yes, I have to hand write all of my notes in black ink for legal reasons. This is very much standard both on the wards and in theatres of many hospitals. Hard copies are kept + stored in patient records. Sorry to disappoint!

I think it is a very useful tool. It saves time over googling everything and searches the internet for me within seconds normally. I use it for work and leisure.

If you don't like it don't use it. It's not mandatory.

My Gp and several consultants I have seen over the years absolutely look at reference books during appointments

Zealous chatgpt proponents are definitely the new linkedin wankers 😆

To the point they won't acknowledge just how often AI is wrong and provides false information. And continually using it will erode your ability to pick up on the fact that it's wrong.

People using it for meal planners, colour charts, whatever, fire in. Outsourcing your own thinking to it though is a disastrous step for humanity.