Like many people these days I've been hearing a lot about AI and chat bots (hmm, is it chat bot or chatbot?) so I decided to ask one if it knew anything about E. L. Moore. I thought, ok I'm writing a book about him, maybe these things have been trained on information I don't know about that they could point me to. Or maybe they could write the book for me since they can write undergrad essays :-)
Anyway, I decided to ask ChatGPT what it knew. Here's a transcript of our conversation:
Me: Do you know who E. L. Moore is?
ChatGPT: I'm sorry, but I don't have any information about a person named E. L. Moore. I am a large language model trained by OpenAI and I do not have access to the internet or any external information, so I can only provide answers based on the text that I have been trained on. Is there anything else I may be able to help you with?
Me: How about model railroads? Do you know anything about their history?
ChatGPT: Yes, model railroading is a hobby that involves creating miniature representations of real or fictional railroads. It has a long and interesting history. The earliest known model railroads were created in the 1840s, but it wasn't until the early 20th century that the hobby became more widespread, thanks in part to the development of electric model trains. Since then, model railroading has continued to evolve and grow in popularity, with enthusiasts all over the world creating increasingly sophisticated and detailed miniature railroads.
Me: Hmm, that's new to me. Can you tell me about those model railroads from the 1840s?
ChatGPT: As I mentioned earlier, I am a large language model trained by OpenAI and I do not have access to the internet or any external information. I am not able to provide specific details about the model railroads from the 1840s that you're asking about. I can only provide general information based on the text that I have been trained on.
Me: Being able to state that there were model railroads created in the 1840s is more a specific detail than general information. In order to make such a statement it would have had to have been based on some specific examples otherwise you're just repeating hearsay.
ChatGPT: I apologize if my response was not helpful. As a large language model, I do not have access to external information or the internet, so I can only provide answers based on the text that I have been trained on. The information I provided about model railroads being created in the 1840s was based on what I have learned from that training. I do not have the ability to verify or provide specific examples or details beyond what I have been trained on. Is there anything else I may be able to help you with?
It's smooth style is quite impressive as are its manners and rather formally polite way of stating when it doesn't know something, all of which puts it head and shoulders above many people :-) Even when I decided to be a self-righteous scold it it seemed to take it in its stride :-)
Ok, I admit that asking it such an esoteric question was unfair of me, but I was surprised when it seemed to contradict itself when it did appear to know a specific thing about model railroading even though it said it didn't know specifics. I guess this response was indeed a lot like people in that it was probably simply told some model railroads were created in the 1840s in contrast to being given specifics about some 1840s model railroads from which it then generated a smoothly conversational summary statement that the earliest known model railroads were created in the 1840s so as not to be a model railroading bore :-)
Wikipedia tells me, "The earliest model railways were the 'carpet railways' of the 1840s." and has a link to carpet railways to provide examples. ChatGPT's answer may have been a summary from Wikipedia's model railroad entry even though it wasn't accessing it in real-time. Maybe its trainer 'taught' it by typing in their take on what Wikipedia had to say on model railroading's history? I have no idea where it got its information.
And I have no idea where all this will lead, but it's something I'll be watching. For now though, it looks like I won't be outsourcing writing the E. L. Moore book to AI anytime soon :-)
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