Saturday September 9, 2023; 11:12 AM EDT
- The matter of ChatGPT's writing style has stayed on my mind. Style is associated with social class* and other social groupings, and social class is interwoven with access to or denial of power, and both style and power are always uplifting someone and leaving someone out, moving someone toward the microphone and silencing someone else. So I assume that ChatGPT's style preferences on non-technical matters are (quietly) not neutral, even though they might look neutral. Not harmless or bland, even though they look that way. If your kids attend a school where a non-technical paper written by current versions of ChatGPT gets an A, your kids are being trained up for a certain kind of mediocrity, a certain kind of mundane thinking and speaking. They aren't being trained to be a force in society.#
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- *A familiar example: if you have a certain accent you'll never be a news anchor. If people who speak the way you speak cannot be a news anchor or a press secretary, then you and they do not have access to certain of the circles of public speech and power. Step away from the microphone . . . back away from the door to the room where it happens.#