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We are having the wrong debate about ChatGPT and AI
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What Mr Altman inadvertently showed us is that what is really driving the hype and widespread use of large language models like ChatGPT is that they are fun.
ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
Leif Weatherby
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This spring, OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, advertised a new model of ChatGPT by showcasing its ability to write fiction. Mr Altman had prompted the bot to write a story about grief, in the style of “metafiction” (a self-reflexive genre in which the narrator weaves personal details into the story).
It duly generated a winding tale that compares grieving a dead loved one to the loss function – technical jargon for a bit of the maths that makes modern artificial intelligence (AI) systems work.
