At this point I can’t join in the enthusiasm for ChatGPT
I tried it out and found that it was not capable of learning from its mistakes, which in my mind would be the first measurement of true AI. Here is a sample:
SCOOP: Tell me briefly why life is good.
CHAT: Life is good because it is always full of surprises.
SCOOP: That is incorrect. “Surprises” are neither inherently good nor bad. They are neutral. They can be good or bad. Try again to identify something about life that is indisputably positive.
CHAT: In addition to being full of surprises, life is always a challenge.
SCOOP: You are not understanding the concept. “Challenges” are also neutral. They can provide the satisfaction of overcoming them, or they can beat down one’s spirit. Try again to identify an inherently positive thing about life, and do so without resorting to cliches.
CHAT: In addition to being full of surprises and challenges, life is ….
I forget what the answer was, but it was similarly unresponsive and I gave up. I was trying to prompt the bot to respond with an undeniably positive concept like “rewards” or “happiness.” In that case, the answer may be been merely an opinion, and thus debatable, but it would at least be responsive to the question. But I couldn’t get the bot to understand the concepts of “good” or “positive,” or to respond to my concerns about its answers.
So at this point it is not really capable of following a conversation as a human would do.
I then tried an essay question requiring a factual foundation of knowledge. “Why is Samuel Beckett considered an existentialist?” It began “Samuel Beckett is considered an existentialist because his work deals with themes of existentialism.”
So … roughly what a ninth grader would say if he didn’t do the assigned reading.
It did give a pretty solid elaboration of the existentialist question, but it was generic and unsupported by examples, so I’d say the chat bot still has a long way to go.