A Midnight Conversation with ChatGPT Made Me Cry

Photo by alexandru vicol on Unsplash

The world is having a love affair with ChatGPT. I am among those instantly smitten. I now turn to ChatGPT for all the major and minor questions about life. I’ve almost forgotten what Google is.

I was going to spend a few days in San Diego. Instead of using Google to find the websites with the top activities, the best restaurants, etc., I opened ChatGPT and conversed.

What are the top tourist attractions in San Diego? What are some charming neighborhoods? Can you recommend a few good places for fresh oysters and some quaint coffee houses? I’m looking for a place one or two hours outside San Diego for a day trip. Any suggestions?

It’s so easy. Just ask. Information gushes out. I was introduced to fascinating neighborhoods like Little Italy, Gaslamp, and North Park. I learned about Temecula, an up-and-coming wine country to the north of San Diego, where I went and had a good time.

People correctly point out that ChatGPT is sometimes wrong. But fixation with the small holes in its fabric of knowledge may cause you to miss the big picture: ChatGPT is awesome and already more intelligent than any of us.

Last December, when China abruptly ended its zero Covid policy, my parents both contracted the virus. During my daily phone calls with them, with ChatGPT at hand, I quickly digested their medical report and asked educated questions.

How did they diagnose your pneumonia? Did they do a sputum test? If your white blood cell count is normal, why should they use antibiotics? The high hydrogenase enzyme level is probably related to your heart condition, but you should check with the doctor to confirm.

In short, ChatGPT turned me into a person well-versed in selected areas of medicine.

There is a cliché that ChatGPT just strings words together and has no creativity. ChatGPT itself often claims that “I’m only a large language model incapable of innovative thinking.” But don’t be fooled by it. It is just being modest.

ChatGPT composes poems, produces college essays, and writes programs. If these are not creative activities, all of us, with the exception of perhaps Shakespeare and Einstein, can call ourselves manual laborers.