Why do people treat ChatGPT like it’s the Delphic Oracle?

[HolyRigatone]

Don’t get me wrong, I think ChatGPT is great for some stuff, but some people seem to be treating it like the font of all wisdom.

Talking about their problems to it, taking relationship advice from it, getting it to counsel them.

It’s not perfect and it gets things wrong all the time, I’m not sure I’d be sharing my deepest secrets with it or making life-decisions based on it’s outpourings.

Or am I just a stupid old Luddite?

Same as AI, Delphic oracle is BS.

@catinateacup

For me, using AI effectively is not just typing a question and accepting whatever appears. It is a combination of analytical judgement and methodological control over the process. The value I bring lies in several areas.

First, I know which sources and perspectives need to be included in the analysis. AI will generate information from patterns in its training data, but it does not inherently know which historians, datasets, institutions, or primary materials are most authoritative for a specific topic. I guide the model toward those sources.

Second, I understand how to structure prompts so the output reflects the level of analysis required. The wording, framing, and constraints in the prompt determine whether the output is shallow summary or structured analysis.

Third, I treat AI output as the first stage of analysis rather than the final answer. I can iterate on the response, ask follow-up prompts, interrogate assumptions, and push the model toward deeper synthesis or alternative interpretations.
Fourth, I know how to identify the core analytical domains of a topic for example strategic context, operational dynamics, historical precedent, technological factors, or policy implications. That structure guides the AI’s output toward something usable rather than a loose collection of facts.

Fifth, I can distinguish between credible information and AI hallucinations. That means checking plausibility, identifying inconsistencies, and cross-referencing claims against known sources or established scholarship.

Sixth, I use AI to accelerate research and pattern recognition, but the judgement about what matters, what is reliable, and what conclusions follow still comes from human expertise.

In that sense, the difference is not the tool itself. Anyone can ask a question. The difference lies in how the tool is directed, interrogated, and interpreted. My role is essentially to function as the analyst who designs the inquiry, evaluates the outputs, and converts raw information into structured insight.

Sorry to disappoint, but copilot is run on chatgpt.

It runs using OpenAI models as well as some other models (I think Microsoft have started using Claude and others) but it's still a different model in functionality to ChatGPT

'it runs using OAI models' then 'still a different model'

Um which is it? The OAI API is the OAI API. Microsoft can't change the way the models work.

As below, if you are using copilot, you are using OAI. So the assertion that using copilot is different from OAI is wrong.

From Microsoft's own website;

Copilot will continue to be powered by OpenAI’s latest models, and now our customers will have the flexibility to use Anthropic models too—starting in Researcher or when building agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio. The addition of Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4.1 advances our commitment to bring the best AI innovation from across the industry to Microsoft 365 Copilot, tuned for work and tailored to your business needs.

Core Models: The foundation consists of OpenAI’s GPT-4, GPT-4o, and the advanced GPT-5 (for reasoning).

Anthropic Models: In Copilot Studio, users can select from Anthropic's Claude 3.5, 3.7, and 4 models (Sonnet and Opus) for advanced tasks.

Image Generation: Copilot utilizes DALL-E 3 for generating images from text prompts. (This is OAI)

Performance Models: For faster, smaller tasks, models like GPT-4.1 mini or Claude Haiku 4.5 are used.

Architecture: The system uses Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF) to optimize conversations.

Unless you are doing deep research or using copilot studio, you are using OAI API.

Gosh, that all sounds like a lot more trouble and work than just doing it yourself, no? I’m in a similar kind of role, and I don’t need a “first stage of analysis” because I already know the field. To me, all your stages sound like overcomplications of something you would usually be well used to doing already. Eg:

1. if you know which sources to use, why not just use those sources direct rather than spending time “guiding” an AI “towards” them? Plus, most sources I need are proprietary data, not freely available. It’s unethical to be feeding them into AI; plus it would take longer for do that than to just read the sources. Otherwise, if I don’t, how do I know where the AI is going wrong?
2. Sounds time consuming and tedious. Also boring. Much more so than just reading the sources, which are at least intellectually interesting.
3. Why do you need a first stage of analysis if you know the field?
4. Pretty easy to do yourself; why get an AI to do it?
5. You wouldn’t have to do this if you’d done the work yourself. Sounds like you’ve created two extra stages in the work just to avoid doing the actual work. And how do you know what the AI has got wrong without reading the sources yourself anyway?
6. Human judgment should be there at every step in the process, not just as a “guide” or an editor.

The important question: is the resulting work any good? How can you tell, if you aren’t giving the thing just as much attention as if you just cut out the middleman/AI anyway? What you describe sounds time consuming, frustrating, bitty, and really just ultimately not very enjoyable.

I do my job because I enjoy the intellectual challenge and the material. Why would I want to edit terrible AI prose instead? Or spend my time thinking up prompts? It sounds boring as all hell; and makes me wonder whether you actually enjoy or are any good at your job? What do you do if people ask you questions about your reports in a meeting? Or want to know more depth than is in your paper? Or need additional data? Do you ever worry that someone’s going to ask you a question about it, and you won’t know because you haven’t read the sources yourself? What if someone else in your field notices you’re using AI — won’t you be embarrassed?

I think the difference is that I’m not using AI instead of knowing the field. I’m using it because I know the field.
If someone doesn’t know the subject, AI tends to produce shallow or misleading work. But if you already understand the literature, the debates, and the key sources, AI becomes useful for a different reason: speed and synthesis.
For example, I’m not feeding proprietary sources into it or replacing direct reading. The sources still come first. What AI helps with is things like:

• rapidly generating comparative frameworks
• testing alternative analytical structures
• surfacing lines of inquiry I might not initially consider
• summarising large bodies of secondary literature so I can quickly identify what is worth reading in depth

In other words, the intellectual work isn’t being outsourced. The model is just accelerating parts of the process that are normally slow or repetitive.

“Why would I spend time thinking up prompts?”

Prompting isn’t really the work it’s just another way of structuring a research question. Analysts already spend time framing questions, deciding angles, and testing interpretations. Prompting is essentially doing that with a tool that can respond immediately.

“What do you do if people ask you questions about your reports?”

The same thing anyone does: answer them based on the research behind the report. AI doesn’t replace the sources or the reading. It just helps organise and explore the material faster.

If anything, using it to test counterarguments or alternative interpretations can make you more prepared for questions, not less.

“What if someone asks for more depth than is in the paper?”

Then you go back to the underlying sources and expand the analysis exactly the same as any other research process. AI doesn’t remove that foundation; it just helps accelerate parts of the synthesis stage.

“Do you worry someone will ask something you don’t know because you haven’t read the sources?”

That risk exists whether AI is used or not. Responsible use still means reading and understanding the sources. AI is not a substitute for that.

“What if people in your field notice you’re using AI — wouldn’t that be embarrassing?”

Most fields are already discussing and experimenting with AI tools. What matters is how responsibly and transparently the tool is used, not whether it exists in the workflow at all.

Using a tool to accelerate research isn’t fundamentally different from using databases, search engines, statistical software, or reference managers. They all changed how work gets done, but the core expertise still belongs to the researcher.

I just don’t see the usefulness to be honest. In terms of summarising large bodies of secondary literature — I haven’t found AI accurately to summarise this at all. It abstracts what looks like a framework from a text or source; but it inevitably misses key points or gets the emphasis slightly wrong. It misses out whole chunks of articles or papers where it isn’t quite sure what to do with them. Whole strands of thought get omitted. It’s bad at detail; but it’s also bad at abstraction, because it produces a plausible summary, but often the plausible summary isn’t quite right when you read the actual paper, and I don’t know how you’d ever “see” that if you don’t also do all the secondary reading yourself too.

AI is like a patient undergrad student in terms of its grasp of concepts: always getting there, but never quite completely right. I find I have to do more to teach it than is worth my time to do. It has a natural tendency to gloss over nuance and it can get sort of there in refining down technical concepts, but it only gets so far. Dealing with AI is like the least enjoyable of teaching — except you don’t even have the satisfaction of having helped another human learn the field 😆

I actually agree with a lot of what you’re saying. AI summaries are often imperfect, and I certainly wouldn’t rely on them as a substitute for reading the literature. It does tend to smooth over nuance, occasionally misplace emphasis, and it can miss entire strands of argument if you’re not careful. If someone tried to use it as a shortcut to avoid reading the sources, I think the result would indeed be poor work.

I cannot ever imagine asking chatgpt for relationship advice or counselling it just seems bonkers why anyone would go to an ai robot or whatever it is for actual human advice. Maybe I haven’t felt that low yet so I shouldn’t judge really.

People don’t usually use AI instead of people they use it because it’s fast, available anytime, and good for thinking things through or getting a starting point before going deeper or asking others.

Yes but it knows what to say,and how to structure them properly and professionally.

It's very handy for legal matters or dealing with authorities.

For some things it’s pretty useless, and I don’t take its word as gospel, but for some things it’s really handy. Eg recipes based on my dietary needs and preferences which it’s learned over time, and I’ve tried some amazing new dishes. Also make up - I asked it to suggest what make up would suit me as I haven’t updated mine for years - and then I ordered the products and shades it suggested. I asked it to show me a photo of what I’d look like wearing those products and it’s actually pretty accurate now I have them all, I’m really happy with the end result.

I can understand if you feel like that. And honestly, if it’s not for you that’s no problem. Some people find the platform helpful to use as a sounding board. Enjoy your day

What do you think of people who read self help books or who look up generic relationship advice online? Is that bonkers behaviour?

But those people aren’t mistaking this for therapy, or for any kind of genuine “interaction” or personal advice. If I read “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, I’m not misled into thinking that I’m getting anything that approaches a therapeutic relationship.

But it doesn’t really matter what it’s called if it delivers the required result. I commented on this thread that it helped
me with an anxiety issue in a way that therapy and hypnotherapy didn’t. I’m not mistaking it for either of those two, but it delivered the result I needed. Arguably it’s a different form of self help, but more interactive. It worked for me to resolve an issue, and is helping on an ongoing basis, other methods will work for others. I’m not mistaking it for anything it isn’t. It’s an AI tool that I used to benefit me. I’m not thinking it’s a real person.

It looks like the same long winded waffle it gives even when people say they’ve trained to not to prattle on though. I don’t think any of that seems like a detailed intelligence, surely it’s common sense to know that any politician, but especially the prime minister, getting their cock out and swinging it around during question time would have the speaker trying to retain order and there’d be nobody taking him seriously ever again and he’d have memes made about him for a very long time, if not forever.

Like I say, this type of thought is the same as the stuff my head comes up with, especially when I can’t sleep, but part of the fun of that is using my imagination to make up the scenarios and sometimes I might might message randomly and be like “would you rather have permanent itchy minge or permanent itchy bumhole” because she likes this type of stupid question stuff too.

I don’t know, I guess I feel like asking chat gpt what would happen in these made up unrealistic scenarios takes away my use of imagination and that’s the main thing I like about pondering this type of useless stuff 😂

Where did you find that out?

Do you realise that that post was ai generated? that “what you’re describing is actually” was the first give away for me and when it’s combined with a long winded numerical breakdown with bullet points is another give away, and that “if you want I can tell you about this other thing too” is another give away. I don’t intend this to be a sneery reply, I wasn’t sure if you were intentionally asking someone else to generate you an answer, or if you hadn’t realised it was ai generated and my mentioning the indicators was to maybe help others reading who don’t spot it

The pp using it to generate a reply to op kind of proves the point the op and other people on this thread are making. If op wanted discuss her views with ai she could ask ai herself and it’s a bit tone deaf for someone to read a thread where people are expressing a concern that the threads on here and elsewhere online, will just end up with ai generated responses to other ai responses.

YOU ARE IN NO WAY UNREASONABLE
Every, and I do mean every time I have glanced at the AI slop the search engines insist on pushing to the top of results, it has been utterly useless and/or plain wrong (for things I don't know and want to/ things I do know about respectively).
Beyond annoying. People who rely on it appear to have deliberately switched off their brains.

a friend did have that point at the times he said its more the value of the conversation itself that people prefer

but some may consider it the same, mine is dale Carnegie books

excatly the same on here with different threads etc