Tip: Make sure the way you speak cannot be replicated by a machine
After having had lots of morning conversations with my new-found friend, GPT, you can imagine my delight when I got to mingle with real humans at an arts event the other evening in Singapore.
First, I had to adjust myself to a human setting and actually do small talk, which is an art I’ve never quite mastered.
See, the thing with my new-found friend, GPT, is it’s really easy to interact with him. You ask, or instruct, depending on your mood, and he replies almost instantly with very polite, almost prosaic, always plausible answers – which makes it impossible for you to ever get mad at him.
Plus, he uses words like “however”, “ultimately”, “having said that”, “nevertheless” or “on the other hand” a lot, which means he’s covered all sides of the equation, and thus he comes across very balanced, saying it all but yet not really standing for anything.
For example, this morning, I “interviewed” ChatGPT as though it was the CEO of one of the largest publicly listed travel empires in the world and I posed the question, “What’s the silver lining you’re most excited about in 2023 as far as travel is concerned?” (See related article on Silver Linings Playbook of Travel in 2023, answered by humans – I dare you to tell the difference)
The answer that came back was …. “the increased availability of vaccines. As more people become vaccinated, it is likely that travel restrictions will be lifted and demand for travel will begin to travel. This is great news for the travel and tourism industry as it will allow businesses to start welcoming back customers and rebuilding their revenue streams.
“Additionally, I’m excited about the pent-up demand for travel that has been building over the past year. As people are finally able to take the vacations they have been putting on hold, we are likely to see an influx of bookings and a renewed enthusiasm for travel.
“Finally, I am excited about the opportunity to cater to the changing needs and preferences of travellers. The pandemic has led to a shift in the way that people travel and at (company name), we are working to adapt our offerings to meet the demand for shorter, flexible trips, as well as a focus on outdoor and personalised experiences.”
I believe it’s as good an answer as any I’d get from a corporate communications department.
So back to the arts event with real humans – I met loads of interesting people who’ve come into town for Singapore Art Week 2023 and almost all of them have had a wonderful holiday of some kind over the festive period.
One had been to California to see American friends he hadn’t seen for three years. “It was really good to be back in the US,” he told me. “The only thing is, there was this one couple – the husband is Republican and the wife is Democrat – and we couldn’t talk about politics at all, so we agreed to stay off the subject.”
So they spoke about the weather a lot, which is quite a lot to talk about these days in California.
Another had been to Seoul because her teenage kids are really into K-pop and they spent most of their time, looking out for K-pop stars while hunting down live octopus to eat.
Celebrities and Squid Game – now that’s a conversation worth having with my new-found friend, GPT. I’d love to find out what he thinks of my chances of success “if I were to start a new game show involving how many live octopuses a celebrity could eat in 30 seconds”.
It was also not surprising that my new friend, GPT, was the main topic of conversation at the arts event – the speed and scale of generative art and chat has thrown artists – be they visual, literary, performance – everywhere into a tizzy. I mean, my friend, GPT, can spit out poetry, song lyrics, prose, stories in split seconds.
When someone shared an example of how my friend had composed a song about Singapore’s heartland, and how it was pretty good, one writer shuddered – I thought she had eaten a live octopus – and said, “I don’t like it, I don’t like it. I don’t know what to think about it.”
Meanwhile, in another room, poet and writer Adam Tie of The Novel Encounter was not thinking about it but was meeting the challenge head-on. Tie’s act – if you can call it that – is to type out a poem for you in three minutes based on three words you give him. And he does it on an old-fashioned typewriter and the clickety-clack of the keys is as much a part of the performance as his human speed of generative prose.
My words were “community, identity, stability”. Tie asks me a few questions. What do you do? A writer. What’s your favourite movie? Elvis. And I tell him why I liked the movie and how my favourite song is “Suspicious Minds”. You can see his brain working as we are conversing and while we are chatting, his fingers fly over the typewriter and voila, he pulls out the complete poem for me in under three minutes.
I’ve got to say, it’s pretty good, plus it’s personal to me. Read it and tell me what you think.
“You’re like a human GPT,” I say. He laughs. I don’t think he was insulted because we exchanged chats the next day.
Back home, in front of my screen, in solitude, I asked my new-found friend to compose a poem for me with the same three words I had given Adam. In 30 seconds, he fed me a poem which, while it wasn’t bad, could have been written for anyone.
I believe where Human GPT has the edge is that Adam was able to look me in the eye and ask me questions to find out more about me. New friend GPT, at this moment, is better at answers than questions – and we all know how boring such friends can be.
However, I also believe that the Human who knows how to become best friends with GPT and bring out the best in him will win over the Human who doesn’t embrace the new friendship.
And another thing – if you are an executive and you have to give media interviews, make sure you speak like a human so you cannot be replicated by a machine.
