- Frighteningly good essays? That's what one report says. It seems to me that the ChatGPT software is able to produce a list of something’s general traits. But it is unable to address a precisely worded question with a careful and relevant line of thought. Compared to a line of thought, a list is unsophisticated. #
- One clue to the lower level of writing skill in an essay organized as a list: you can change the order of paragraphs and likely not weaken or strengthen the essay. List paragraphs don’t contribute anything to the nearby paragraphs. Lists say, “Here’s one thing. Here’s another.” Lists say, "These things belong on this list, but other than that fact they are not yet interesting to talk about in relation to each other." (Like a grocery list.) Lists are agnostic about meaningful relationships, about cause and effect, about contrast, about gray areas.#
- But in essays that work out a line of thought, a paragraph makes possible the thinking presented in the next paragraph. A later paragraph can be more specific, more speculative, more convincing, more subtle, etc., because an earlier paragraph has opened a conceptual space for further thought. In a line of thought, transition words like "but" claim a meaningful relationship between one paragraph and the next.#
- It’s impressive that software can produce accurate list paragraphs and a run of grammatical sentences. But that’s the most sophisticated thing I’ve seen out there so far. In an important work meeting, the team member who can only produce lists will soon be fired.#
- If teachers ask students to write essays where a list is a decent answer, rewarded by a decent grade, then there’s going to be a lot of plagiarism. Teaches can ask better questions than that, if they don’t have too many students, too many papers to read, too much intrusion by reductive state standards, etc.#
- Intelligence that stops at listing isn't very intelligent, whether it is artificial or otherwise.#
- Frighteningly good essays? That's what one report says. It seems to me that the ChatGPT software is able to produce a list of something’s general traits. But it is unable to address a precisely worded question with a careful and relevant line of thought. Compared to a line of thought, a list is unsophisticated. #
- One clue to the lower level of writing skill in an essay organized as a list: you can change the order of paragraphs and likely not weaken or strengthen the essay. List paragraphs don’t contribute anything to the nearby paragraphs. Lists say, “Here’s one thing. Here’s another.” Lists say, "These things belong on this list, but other than that fact they are not yet interesting to talk about in relation to each other." (Like a grocery list.) Lists are agnostic about meaningful relationships, about cause and effect, about contrast, about gray areas.#
- But in essays that work out a line of thought, a paragraph makes possible the thinking presented in the next paragraph. A later paragraph can be more specific, more speculative, more convincing, more subtle, etc., because an earlier paragraph has opened a conceptual space for further thought. In a line of thought, transition words like "but" claim a meaningful relationship between one paragraph and the next.#
- It’s impressive that software can produce accurate list paragraphs and a run of grammatical sentences. But that’s the most sophisticated thing I’ve seen out there so far. In an important work meeting, the team member who can only produce lists will soon be fired.#
- If teachers ask students to write essays where a list is a decent answer, rewarded by a decent grade, then there’s going to be a lot of plagiarism. Teaches can ask better questions than that, if they don’t have too many students, too many papers to read, too much intrusion by reductive state standards, etc.#
- Intelligence that stops at listing isn't very intelligent, whether it is artificial or otherwise.#