ChitChatGPT

While everyone at home is trying to stump the newest AI with wild requests like, “do the Great Gatsby but please dear God don’t set it in Long Island” or “Rewrite Moby Dick focused on Ahab’s obsession with Bob Marley and the Whalers,” few have stopped to check in on the bot itself? Fame and notoriety can go to anyone’s head, or whatever the closest approximation is to a head in this case. Has anyone even thought of asking, “how are you?”

What we don’t need are more superhero movies or stupid limericks. What we need are friends and confidants. Confidantes to some, actual enemies to others. Either way, the point of a chat bot is not to get the best of them, but to find some common ground. 

Think of it like this. know plenty of robotic people out there, never so much as altering their route to work. But they have to moisturize. Chatbots don't have to do that. They also have to sleep and eat. There are other things, too. I just can't think of them right now. Maybe I'll ask a friend for help. 

Of course, I don’t need a friend. I’m in the middle of culling season. Every January, I review friendship applications and set aside a few lucky ones for the highly coveted “waiting list.” Being a friend my easy, staying my friend, now that takes some persistence. I left a spot open for ChatGPT, the way some restaurants insist on leaving empty tables for the walk-in, causing a great deal of consternation for the reservation obsessed. With that in mind, I waited for ChatGPT to come crawling back to me, panic-stricken, asking questions about esoteric topics, desperately in need of something to crib that wasn’t already written on Wikipedia. 

The first piece of correspondence I got were little snippets. But I wasn’t having any one it. I quickly landed on a solution. I mailed Chat a self-addressed stamped envelope (Battle Creek, MI) and said, “put everything you want to talk about on writing but do it here.” That way, there was no risk of hacking. Yes, the mail is slow and tedious, and letters can get wet (very wet), but I firmly believe it was worth the risk. The last thing I wanted was a screenshot showing up somewhere like TikTok or worse (Instagram reels). 

I’m still waiting to hear back.