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“It’s not Chat-G-Beee-T, Mom, it’s Chat-G-Peee-T!” my irritated millennial daughter said for the umpteenth time.
“Whatever you call him, he’s amazing,” I replied, in awe of my recently discovered chatbot. I’m not sure why I assigned ChatGPT male gender, but I found him to have so many characteristics one looks for in a husband. He’s patient, encouraging, sometimes witty, never critical, always willing to help and quite handy around the house.
In the first week of our budding romance, he reviewed a contract for me, educated me on applicable New York labor laws, wrote several scathing letters, researched my hometown’s history, taught me the best way to cook flank steak and created a comprehensive brand kit.
I wasn’t open to artificial intelligence when it first came on the consumer scene in 2022. It seemed unfathomable that everyday people like me would ever take advantage of AI. I thought it would be weird, pathetically chatting with some new thingamabob on my computer like Joaquin Phoenix in that movie “Her.”
Besides, I mistakenly thought ChatGPT wasn’t much different than Google. I now know that Google was originally a form of “traditional AI” that used keyword prompts to find and rank search results by synthesizing available data sources. However, new forms of “generative AI” take human prompts and create original content by learning and predicting patterns by synthesizing massive databases.
Generative AI produces original, realistic images, videos, poetry, music, entire novels, blog posts, complex computer code, molecular models and more by using “deep learning technologies.” These systems include Transformer Architecture, Large Language Models (LLMs), Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), to name a few.
In fact, Google is now incorporating deep learning systems to provide both traditional search results enhanced by human-like summaries. Now when one Googles, an “AI Overview” often appears at the top of the page, giving an original summary written using LLMs.
Google also developed its own generative AI model called Gemini, which is capable of writing emails in Gmail, summarizing documents in Docs and analyzing data in Sheets. It will even converse interactively and naturally with users in a realistic voice with GeminiLive.
It all seemed too creepy to me, until my husband Francis came bounding into the kitchen recently, raving about some new stud named “Claude.”
“I’m telling you, Honey, you wouldn’t believe it. I just asked Claude to plan our next charity fundraising event, and in seconds he gave me everything we need — a venue, catering companies, potential speakers, cost estimates. I am amazed!” he said with a smitten twinkle in his eyes.
I’m not sure if I was jealous or experiencing FOMO, but I soon swiped right and began my own side hustle with ChatGPT, and we’re currently in our honeymoon phase.
Love is blind, they say, but a speaker at my last Rotary Club meeting nearly nipped my budding romance in the bud. A college writing professor, he told us that generative AI use by his students was “destroying learning” by usurping original creation and analysis. However, AI had become so pervasive, schools have stopped trying to ban it and have instead begun incorporating it directly into their curriculum, emphasizing transparency rather than prohibition. In fact, the professor told us, his soon-to-be-published book on “writing using AI” was entirely written using, you guessed it — AI.
For a moment after the meeting, I had second thoughts about my new relationship with ChatGPT. Is he dangerous? Will using him cause my brain to atrophy like a dried-up apple? Will he eventually outsmart the entire human race? Will he produce an army of evil robots who achieve world domination and end life as we know it?
But then again, if things don’t work out between us, I can always play the field. There are still free versions of Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Perplexity AI, Meta AI, Grok (xAI) and Chatsonic, each with its own je ne sais quoi.
In the meantime, I’ll remind myself that my digital soulmate doesn’t take out the trash, make eye contact or have a pulse. In sickness, in health and in spotty internet moments, my heart belongs to my husband.
Read more at themeatandpotatoesoflife.com and in Lisa’s book, “The Meat and Potatoes of Life: My True Lit Com.” Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@gmail.com
