[Opinion] ChatGPT, chewing language, and “gooey” thoughts

[Romolo]

The ”unifying” tone of GPT-enhanced language is an illusion and a trap. What it really is, is a goo. There is a muddiness, a soupiness to the GPT-lingo. It’s over-chewed. It’s stretched-out. The color is pale. It so tempting to brush up a paragraph, to inject some GPT-botox into an opinion or a reaction, to make it sharper, wittier, dazzling, all-encompassing, but the truth is, no one is impressed. Goo will be goo.

Language is so crucial to the magician. Words are magic. Words are bones... Knowing something‘s true name gives you power over it. (Ursula Le Guin) Those words can also be imperfect, they must be. They are a ladder. When we formulate something, especially on a forum, there must be room for mistakes, even for nonsense or horseshit. Because all we say gets stirred and merged in with the rest, solve et coagula…

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Only today I was considering a description of ChatGPT as "chewing gum for the brain". So yes, I feel you have hit upon a good description!

 

[Faria]

People dont read anyway. One guy in town here has five giant OPEN signs because he got sick of so many people asking if he was open despite the one large LED Open sign. People pull my door, but there is a huge PUSH sign on it.

Write a book, and people read only your chapter headings. If you write something triggering like Alex Jones Is A Martian as a post title and post something completely different, replies will only be about Alex Jones and Martians. So GPT or not, nobody is reading it. There are few who can. And of those, even fewer do.