AI: Questions are the Answer
When I began as an intern in the Youngstown Vindicator newsroom in 1981, the personal computer wasn’t a thing yet.? Neither was the World Wide Web. the iPhone was decades in the future.
The evolution of technology over the course of my career demanded a lot of time to keep up with an ever-changing landscape and to figure out how new technology would affect communications.
It still does, most recently and notably with the advent of generative AI.? Anyone who isn’t making a serious investment of time and energy in understanding AI is going to be pulling a Rip Van Winkle real soon.*
In that spirit, I was playing around with three of the better-known generative AI models this morning.
I wrote a five-word story about retirement: “Never set the alarm again.”
Then I asked Microsoft’s Co-Pilot to write a five-word story about retirement. Here’s what it offered me: “Sunset years:?Memories linger, whispers fade. ??”
Apparently, my request for a five-word story was understood more as a suggestion than a mandate.? The setting sun graphic was a nice touch but overall this story felt a bit more like death than retirement.
I turned to ChatGPT with the same request and here’s what I got: “Adventures cease; memories begin life.”
Hmm.? Well, it’s five words anyway.
Google’s Gemini came up with this five-word story for me: “Alarm silent, sunrise, adventure awaits.”
Apparently it’s counting on the sunrise to awaken me but at least adventure awaits.
I decided to see how the models did with improving my original effort.
I asked Gemini to “improve this five-word story about retirement: ‘Never set the alarm again’.”
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It responded not only with its suggested version, but a rather lengthy defense of its effort (shown in its entirety in italics):
Here's an improved version of the five-word story about retirement:
Sunrise greets, no alarm's call, freedom dawns.
This version expands on the original by:
?When given the same request to improve my five-word story, Co-Pilot responded with this: “Alarm silenced, dreams awaken.”???
Again, Co-Pilot refused to be boxed in by a word count, but perhaps it felt that the inclusion of a graphic counted toward the word count.? To be honest, I felt that its four-word edit actually was an improvement over my effort.
I asked ChatGPT for an improvement but at last look its black circle was still just pulsing and pondering the question with no response in sight. Or at least not until I upgrade to ChatGPT 4.0. ?
Of course, there are a lot more pertinent questions than these five-word story prompts that you might want to be asking – notably including how AI is going to affect your communications in the near future, because it certainly will. ?
PS – If you happen to be in northeast Ohio on March 21, 2024, you can attend a meeting of the Youngstown Press Club in which AI thought leader Nikita Roy, a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists, will be discussing the use of AI in the news industry.? You can get tickets at www.youngstownpressclub.com.