In 1976, my mother bought me a personal calculator. It was the bog standard, no memory or logarithms. The fanciest thing it offered was the square root option. I had no idea what a square root was, but I could now calculate it. I loved my calculator and in a parallel universe; I am sure there is a version of me that went off to become a scientist.
My friends acquired other grander calculators and over the years mine was surpassed with any number of sophisticated functionality, but I was never tempted to upgrade or replace it because a strange thing happened. My calculator started to malfunction. Tap in even the simplest of sums and it would give weird and random results. At first I loved it because my friends would ask to borrow it and then be flummoxed by the weird answers it gave. Later, I loved it because it was unique and nobody else had such a flawed device. In my mind the calculator knew the answers but it preferred to have fun and spit out mathematical nonsense.
For me, working with ChatGPT and other AI solutions feels a lot like working with my old calculator. Ask a simple question and receive a comprehensive and confident response, but you are never quite sure if it is accurate or not. In truth, there is a part of me that gets excited when I know the AI is making it up. Like a conversation I had recently with GPT about artist dead for more than seventy years. It confidently listed many well know painters and illustrators but would insist on adding David Hockney. Now I know he’s getting on a bit, but the last time I checked, Mr Hockney is still with us. The AI just wouldn’t admit it.
Death seemed more interested in talking about fashion.
More recently, last week. I setup a local version of a Chat AI, one that you can give a personality and character traits. (Alpaca chat.) The first thing I did was setup a version of the Grim Reaper that was optimistically cheerful in all situations. To my surprise, it almost worked. I could have a conversation with Death and it kind of made sense. (Best not to question why I chose death, let’s just say it’s a comic book project I’m working on.)
Death and I happily chatted about the after-world and how my dead relatives would probably help me choose between heaven and hell, when suddenly Death seemed more interested in talking about fashion. Maybe I was just too boring for it.
Half of me hopes AI remains weird and unpredictable just like my old calculator, but I suspect all that randomness will be removed and we will end up with a useful albeit sterile digital assistant that helps us but isn’t much fun.
I still have my faulty old calculator tucked away in the attic. I think I might dig it out and pop a battery in, to see what the square root of 60 might be.
Sean Briggs has spent 30+ years working in the publishing world. He now makes a living as a traditional and digital artist.