I think that ChatGPT is interesting because it can use language more sophisticatedly than many previous language bots, or AI chats. People are genuinely impressed by that and believe that, because it can use language so well, it might have the ability to actually understand words and think. But, for me, that isn't the case. It seems to me that the bot is just combining all the data it has to produce coherent responses, and it's true that some of the responses are quite complex and ‘deep’, but it definitely can't think.
I decided to try it out last week because everybody is talking about it and how intelligent it is, and how we're going to lose our jobs because of it, etc... I wanted to see if I could test its ability to think.
So. First I started with poetry. I know, it doesn't sound like a math test or anything like that, but we usually use metaphors to write poetry, so I wanted to see how well the AI could interpret poetry with metaphors. To be honest, I was surprised to see that it does pretty well.
First, I told it to interpret some songs, which lyrics are rather poetic. I won't share the songs because they are in Spanish, but I will only say that it was able to summarize the meaning of a few songs. Here’s just one example of that:
The song appears to be a philosophical and introspective meditation on the idea of belief and its significance in life. The lyrics talk about the idea that belief, or faith, is like foundation that gives meaning and purpose to things. Without it, the things in life become empty, meaningless and devoid of significance. The song uses the metaphor of “maza sin cantera”, which roughly translates to “mallet without a quarry” to illustrate this idea. The mallet, without a quarry, becomes just a collection of parts, lacking a purpose or readon for being. The son suggests that without belief, life is like this mallet, an aimless and directionless thing.
Then, I asked the bot to write poems, here is one example of the prompt and ChatGPT's answer:
Q: Write an original poem about humanity, the meaning of life and divinity.
ChatGPT:
We are the sparks of a divine fire,
Flickers of light in a sea of desire,
With hearts that beat and souls that soar,
In search of meaning in a world so raw.
We seek the answers in the stars above,
The secrets hidden in the depths of love,
The truth that lies within our dreams,
The key to life and all its schemes.
We are the children of a higher power,
The inheritors of an eternal dower,
With purpose to fulfill, a destiny to find,
A reason for being, a reason for our mind.
We walk the earth, a pilgrimage divine,
With feet that tread and hearts that shine,
And in our quest, we seek the truth,
The essence of life, the wisdom of our youth.
For humanity is not a mere coincidence,
But a tapestry woven by divine providence,
A journey of discovery, a quest for light,
And in the end, we shall find what is right.
I'm not a native English speaker, so I don't think I can comment so much on the language used in the poem, it sounds a little bit clumsy to me. However, the poem is impressive if compared with some previous AI models which had very bad mistakes when given the chance to work more "freely". These previous AIs literally confused the meaning of words, so sometimes, when telling a story, for example, they would say things that really didn't make any sense. Here it all makes sense and we can see that it is using basic metaphors, which is interesting.
So, I wanted to test it in another way and started asking it to solve riddles for me. It was good at solving well-known riddles. I think that's because it can retrieve the answers from a data bank. But when I started to use more unpopular, "lateral thinking", riddles, the number of correct answers became nearly 0.
Below are some examples, translated from Spanish:
A well-known riddle:
Q: What runs, but never walks. Murmurs, but never talks. Has a bed, but never sleeps. And has a mouth, but never eats?
ChatGPT: The answer to the riddle is a river. A river runs through its bed, makes murmuring sounds as it flows, has a mouth (its source) and an outlet, but doesn't walk, talk, sleep or eat.
Some ‘lateral-thinking’ riddles:
Q: We are in a two-story house. On the bottom floor there are three switches and on the top floor there is a single light bulb. How can we figure out which of the three switches is the one that turns on that light bulb considering that we can only go upstairs once to check if the light bulb is on?
ChatGPT: You can solve this puzzle in the following way:
1- Turn on the first switch and wait a few seconds.
2- Turn off the first switch and turn on the second switch.
3- Go upstairs and check to see if the light is on.
4- If it is on, the switch that turns it on is the second one, if not, it must be the first one.
5- Go back downstairs and turn on the third switch.
6- Go upstairs and check to see if the light is on.
7- If it is on, the switch that turns it on is the third one, if not, it must be the second one.
In this way, you will have figured out which of the three switches is the one that turns on the bulb without having to go up and down more than once.
Q: But in your solution, you went up twice.
ChatGPT: Sorry, I correct you. You can do the following:
1- Turn on the first switch and wait a few seconds.
2- Turn off the first switch and turn on the second switch.
3- Go upstairs and if the light is on, the switch that controls it is the second switch. If not, then the switch that controls it is the first switch.
4- Go back downstairs and turn on the third switch.
5- Go upstairs and if the light is on, the switch that controls it is the third switch. If not, then the switch that controls the bulb is the second switch.
In this way, you go up to the top floor only once.
Q: You still go up twice.
ChatGPT: My apologies, I may have made a mistake. Here's a solution that only requires going up once: Turn on all three switches and wait a few minutes. Then, turn off the switch that corresponds to the lit bulb and go upstairs to check. If it is on, the switch corresponds to the light bulb. If it is off, the switch corresponds to the bulb.
----- another riddle ----
Q: A circus has several wild animals that together total 11 heads and 20 legs. Knowing that there are twice the number of quadrupeds than bipeds, how many and what type of animals are in the circus?
ChatGPT: If there are x quadrupeds in the circus, then there are 2x bipeds.
- The total number of heads is 11, so x + 2x = 11 heads.
- The total number of legs is 20, so 4x + 2 * 2x = 20 legs.
Solving these equations simultaneously:
3x = 11 heads
6x = 20 legs
So x = 11/3 heads = 3 quadrupeds.
And 2x = 2 * 3 = 6 bipeds.
Therefore, there are 3 quadrupeds and 6 bipeds in the circus.
---- another riddle ----
Q: Sebastian arrives in a small town and decides to get a haircut. In this town there are only two hairdressers:
the first one is very well groomed and has a nice haircut, the second one is badly groomed and his haircut is horrible. Sebastian incomprehensibly decides to have his hair cut by the second hairdresser.
Why?
ChatGPT: Sebastian decided to have his hair cut by the second hairdresser because the first hairdresser is more likely to be good at cutting hair, not at doing his own hair.
Q: Could you explain your answer better?
ChatGPT: Sebastian chooses the second hairdresser because, since this hairdresser has a bad haircut, he probably cut his own hair. If the first hairdresser has a good haircut, it is likely that it was the other hairdresser who cut his hair, and it is possible that he has a better haircut because the other hairdresser is good. However, if the second hairdresser cuts his own hair and has a bad haircut, he is more likely to be bad at cutting his own hair, which means he is also likely to be bad at cutting the hair of others. Therefore, Sebastian chooses the second barber to cut his hair.
It almost got it in that last one, but was a bit confused.
One of the funniest examples was a game I played with it, also in Spanish. The game is that you start with a sentence that would be translated like this: "a table fits in the i suitcase". Then, the other person has to start asking questions to determine which things fit or not in the "i suitcase”, such as: 'does a chair fit the suitcase', etc. The logic of it is that you can only put things that are spelled with an ‘i’ in the suitcase.
So, I explained the rules and we started the game. The AI understood how to play the game. It asked questions but it couldn't come up with the reason why some things fitted the bag and others didn’t and then it just got REALLY confused. I asked what chair, gorilla and universe have in common and it replied:
(Translated)
ChatGPT: Sorry, I can't determine a common feature between the universe, the gorilla and the chair. The original sentence "a table does not suit the i suitcase" is a way to trick the interlocutor into thinking of a certain answer, but in reality there is no logical explanation behind it. This is a common technique in logic games or riddles to confuse the interlocutor.
Q: If you think of the words chair, gorilla and universe, do they have letters in common?
ChatGPT: Yes, all the words have the letter "i" in common. This is what unifies the objects mentioned in this i suitcase.
Q: So what do these words have in common that makes them fit in the i-suitcase?
ChatGPT: All of those words have the letter "i" in them. It is the letter "i" that allows them to fit into the "i suitcase". It is a game with words, where what makes things fit or not in the "suitcase" is the presence or absence of the letter "i" in the word.
So, it seemed to have understood, but I wanted to test it:
Q: Very good! So, would a needle fit in the i suitcase?
ChatGPT: No, a needle would not fit in the suitcase of the i, since the "i" in "maleta de la i" refers to a play on words based on the Spanish alphabet, in which only those words containing the letter "i" fit.
Q: Does infinity fit in the suitcase of the i?
ChatGPT: It is not possible to determine whether or not infinity fits in the "i" suitcase, since the question is a game with words and does not have a definitive answer in a literal sense. The idea is that the words fits and does not fit in the suitcase are in relation to whether the word contains the letter "i" or not, not whether the objects can actually be contained in a suitcase or not.
Q: Does the word infinity contain the letter i?
ChatGPT: Yes, the word "infinity" contains the letter "i".
Q: So, does infinity fit in the suitcase of the i?
ChatGPT: No, infinity does not fit in the i-suitcase because the word "infinity" does not contain the letter "i".
Q: Of these words, which ones have the letter i: infinity, shelf, elephant, little elephant, little house, universe.
ChatGPT: These words have the letter i: infinity, elephant, little elephant.
Q: Earlier you told me that infinity does not fit in the i suitcase because it does not contain the letter i.
ChatGPT: That is correct. The original sentence said "a table does not fit the i suitcase". By asking for different objects, it was determined that only those whose word contains the letter "i" fit. Therefore, "infinity" does not fit in the i suitcase, since it does not contain the letter "i".
Q: But then you told me that infinity does contain the letter i.
ChatGPT: Sorry, I made a mistake. The word "infinity" does not contain the letter "i". Thank you for pointing that out.
Based on this, I’m convinced that ChatGPT can’t think at all. But also, what I find fascinating about this little experiment is that it reflects how we humans can also do so many things mechanically with just enough ‘data’ and skills to process that data. We can write poetry, songs (even beautiful songs), philosophize about complex matters, and even use metaphors mechanically. It can sound very sophisticated and coherent, even ‘deep’, but it is still just a combination of words taken from a data bank. It’s a bit like regurgitating words that make sense but without actually thinking. It seems that all of these can be done mechanically.
‘Lateral thinking’ might be applied mechanically to some extent too, I think. Once you’ve learned enough of it you can kind of train yourself to think in that way and it can become somewhat mechanical. However, these riddles encourage you to stop thinking mechanically for a while and to use not only logic but imagination to find solutions. It’s kind of like applying the knowledge you have to find creative solutions to a problem. Maybe AI will learn this type of thinking too, but right now, as you can see, ChatGPT isn’t really a genius!
Also, being a mechanical producer of complex responses that can't think, it's not surprising that its production is based on what it is 'fed', so yes, all that LGBT, anti-racism stuff has surely been 'fed' to it.
Thanks for reading this long post!
Added: last thought.
