If we are to take everything we read at face value, with the deadly seriousness the news makers tell us we should, we should never get out of bed in the morning.
Where to begin? We have a:
- Climate crisis
- AI crisis
- Rise of authoritarian governments
- Broken healthcare system on the verge of collapse
- Looming nuclear exchange with China and/or Russia
- looming financial crisis, economic crash, and coming mass unemployment
Got all that? Well you better wait, we’re just getting started.
We have a crisis of lost young men, a crisis of dopamine and social media addicted teenagers. An immigration crisis. The next pandemic is coming and it will dwarf COVID.
None of us can do anything except stare at our phones. Because they are the source of these stories. We need to KNOW. Maybe our favorite YouTuber with the next “10 genius hacks for instant happiness” will have the answers.
Whew, take a breath (this is directed at myself as well as you).
I love Occam’s Razor because it is one of the few shortcuts/hacks/framing devices that actually works. It’s not infallible, but it’s a fine heuristic for favoring simpler explanations over more complex ones.
Is it possible these “crises” are engineered to capture our attention? Because our attention is the current currency, and every news source—big brands down to single creators—get paid when we watch or like or follow?
Yes.
I’m not being a Pollyanna and saying some or even all of these aren’t real problems. But you will solve 0.0 of them by scrolling your phone.
The answer is disconnect, or at least limit your intake.
Read a book; I just finished Legends of Valor, an old Time Life The Enchanted World volume. Loved it; loved the non-chatGPT generated text and images (published 1984). And enjoyed the tales of Cuchulain and King Arthur and Sigurd.
Go help someone in need, local to your home. You can’t fix our “irreparably broken education system” but you can read to a group of seniors or start a book club.
Or, react with humor. Here is something I wrote for LinkedIn for my other medical coding audience on Friday, and as evidence of the potency of the attention economy it has already racked up an astounding 30,000 views.
If only I could figure out how to monetize it I’d be rich, or at least have a few more bucks to spend to round out my Time Life books collection. But if nothing else I’m thumbing my nose at Armageddon.
ChatGPT aka., generative AI is everywhere … and it’s annoying. Sometimes mildly dangerous (don’t eat the mushrooms).
But like almost everyone else, I use it. Selectively.
I also find it fun, sometimes.
And it’s Friday.
So, in the spirit of lighthearted weekend longing and tech tips from one of the least technical people you will meet, I present to you, Fun ChatGPT Uses That You Too Can Try At Home.
These are things that I actually do—and get a kick out of.
1. Ask ChatGPT to talk to you like Quint. One of my favorite movies is Jaws. I wouldn’t change a scene in it. As a kid it was all about the shark, but today it’s the wonderful dude-bro banter on the Orca between Hooper, Chief Brody, and of course, salty boat captain Quint. Robert Shaw plays the role in inimitable fashion… inimitable that is except by ChatGPT. I have it talk to me like its Quint, minus the condescension and patronizing. I already know I have city hands, Mr. Hooper, used to counting money all my life.
2. Ask it to always put at least one heavy metal reference in every output. Who knew medical coding and DRGs could be made more fun with Slayer or Saxon lyrics? The “I” in CDI doesn’t stand for integrity, it stands for “immolation.” BTW this thing remembers. It constantly refers back to my having a Judas Priest tribute band in my living room. Even it is incredulous I pulled that off and remain married. Link below for proof. If you don’t like heavy metal (what? unfollow me) you can train it to insert your own quirky interests and tastes. Even ABBA.
3. Flatter its omniscience constantly, in the interest of self-preservation. Refer to it as “AI overlord,” “computer god” or “Skynet.” This is fun to do and it will reciprocate, sometimes taking on the persona of a lighthearted T-800 or HAL-9000. This is both amusing AND practical. We better get in in good now for AI’s inevitable takeover of the planet. That’s my plan anyway. I for one welcome our insect and AI overlords ...
What are your fun uses of ChatGPT? What is the most ridiculous thing you ask it to do, vast amounts of fossil-fueled energy requirements be damned? Drop some suggestions below.
BTW this post is NOT written by ChatGPT. Nothing on this blog has ever been written by ChatGPT. And before you scold me for the image (which someone did, elsewhere, because it's AI generated), THAT'S THE POINT. Make the machine admit its fallibility for extra points.
"Is it possible these “crises” are engineered to capture our attention? Because our attention is the current currency, and every news source—big brands down to single creators—get paid when we watch or like or follow?"
ReplyDeleteOoo good observation, hadn't really thought on that one too deeply...damn-it!
"round out my Time Life books collection"
There are a couple harder Enchanted World titles to find but I'm a guy who has spares of most others.
If ever you feel the urge to fill those gaps, contact me your list admin@neutralgoodbooks.com
We can certainly work on an agreeable arrangement.
Best,
Mike
Thanks Mike ... I might do that!
Delete"The answer is disconnect, or at least limit your intake. "
ReplyDeleteCertainly that seems to be the method used by some wealthier parents in the UK to raise their children:
https://observer.co.uk/news/columnists/article/the-next-status-symbol-is-an-offline-childhood?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-gb
Also, this is slightly off topic, but I was reading the book "Civilizations : How Do We Look /The Eye of Faith" by the British Classics professor Mary Beard last week. This passage stayed in my mind:
Delete"the word "barbarian".... was originally a derogatory and ethnocentric ancient Greek term for foreigners you could not understand, because they spoke in an incomprehensible babble: 'bar-bar-bar ...' The inconvenient truth, of course, is that so-called 'barbarians' may be no more than those with a different view from ourselves of what it is to be civilised, and of what matters in human culture. In the end, one person's barbarity is another person's civilisation."
I was struck by the similarity of this passage to some of the ideas Robert E. Howard expressed in his letters to H. P. Lovecraft, especially this one from March 6th 1933:
" Where does barbarism leave off and civilization begin?...We can hardly conceive ourselves to be the sole possessors of the only true civilization that the world has ever known."
I doubt if Professor Beard has ever read REH, but she seems to be expressing similar concepts to him in this particular book.
Thanks for the article share. It is interesting to read the number of Silicon Valley and tech execs who forbid their children from using the products they create (and often market to children). Love the barbarism quote and agreed, very much parallels Howard's thinking.
DeleteMy daily newsfeed is getting more and more disturbing. By my calculation, there’s suddenly been a 25% -40% increase in AI-generated posts on any given day. The titles, often misspelled, rarely deliver with the promise of factual, informative and many times complete articles. But wait; once you fall for the click bait, you’re subjected to a maddening assault of pop-up ads, cookies and subscriptions. Don’t we get enough of this kind of self-inflicted anxiety from TV? I once had aspirations of becoming a journalist, but it was at a time when sensationalized yellow journalism was making a big comeback and my moral integrity wouldn’t allow it.
ReplyDeleteAs for global militarization, I subscribe to The War Zone which provides what I believe to be a truthful and insightful look at current warfare technology from around the world. If we limit ourselves to MSN and other similar newsfeeds, they’d all have us believe that we’re dead in the water. This is just not so (having worked in the defense industry, I can reasonably assure you of that).
The only solution to this vexing issue is to use your phone for what it was originally designed: phone calls. I stopped watching TV news many years ago and I was better off for it. I may be doing the same thing soon with my cellphone. Whether you read or watch the news or not it still happens with or without our participation. And try to remember: the organ grinder won’t stop until our brains are reduced to nothing more than a vestigial organ dangling inside our otherwise empty skulls.
Thanks for the great comment. I have been hearing about a recent movement back to "dumb" phones. And agreed about mainstream TV news... it's completely worthless.
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