I Run Circles Around ChatGPT-4 — You Can Too

— Philosophically and politically, it’s a child with a large vocabulary

Idiot savants and prodigies; Counting monkeys; AI to get ‘er done; WWII; Broken windows; Property and theft; Survival pressures; Elites, corporations, left, right, Democrats, and Republicans; Leftist bias; Machine learning and censorship; Learned dishonesty; Fully integrated honesty; Competitive AI models

Imagine having a “very special” sort of child. I mean that in exactly the way it’s used.

Some might be called idiot savants; others, prodigies. It’s typically manifest in individuals with extraordinary abilities in one single area but are otherwise pretty helpless. We’ve all seen the breathless, human-interest “news” reports of the kid who can’t tie his shoes—and if he could, world tie them together and trip—but can compose and/or play music beautifully. Or, it’s chess. There’s the kid who could tell you the weather and what day of the week it was for every single day of his lifetime just by date, month, and year…any of them.

There’s also this:

It’s hypothesized—at least at the time this video was recorded—that one possible reason chimps have this mental ability far surpassing humans is a tradeoff in the part of the brain where our language center resides. Another is that this level of eidetic memory (short-term photographic) is evidence of an evolutionary imperative…that out in the wild, it’s necessary for their survival.

So all this foregoing is what I keep being reminded of as I interact with and test AI, mostly ChatGPT-4, and I have popped for the $20 per month subscription as it’s a business expense—though as stated previously, it’s of no use in drafting blog posts, even though it can write fine posts on any topic. It can’t write Richard Nikoley Posts and when I ask it to write in my style (just one?) the results are pretty humorous, if perhaps more coherent.

It’s worth its weight in gold for historical research, comprehensive definitions, distinctions, juxtapositions, checklists, prioritization, and narrative flow, etc. I can very quickly craft a sort of one-off template for a specific post based on just a quick summary prompt of what I want to write about and perhaps a couple of really key issues. It also always gives me a sort of On-The-Other-Hand which serves to quell exuberance and bias. I think that over time it will make my writing far better because it relieves me of thinking about shit that’s not the subject at hand, freeing me to best craft it, and/or how best to style it for my own jollies (and hopefully, a few on the part of readers).

Part of that process is using it for mental exercise. I’m not half as adept as I used to be, because there was a time 3 decades ago when I spent thousands of hours online debating just the sort of—”esoteric” for some—stuff I’m going to present below.

A word first about this whole Artificial Intelligence Intelligence (link to the series, which will include this post). I am not doing this to get you interested in AI, per se. I’m doing this to serve your membership by finding and evaluating shit that’s going to benefit your life in one way or another so that when the next membership payment his your credit card, you’re like “YES! I LOVE IT!!!” … Well, almost…

Steve Jobs put it best back in 1995. Incidentally, I first asked Bing AI, since this is more of a search function, but it came up with zilch.


This content is for Monthly, Annual, and Lifetime members and this is a preview. Login or Join for 1-Year Early Access at the level you choose. You can also join the Newsletter with Free Stuff to your email every Sunday and Thursday.

All Paying-Member posts become public 1 Year from date of publication.


LoginJoin NowFree Stuff

Join Over 5,000 Subscribers!

Get exclusive content sent directly to your inbox.

Please enter a valid email address.
Something went wrong. Please check your entries and try again.

Richard Nikoley

I started writing Free The Animal in late 2003 as just a little thing to try. 20 years later, turns out I've written over 5,000 posts. I blog what I wish...from diet, health, lifestyle...to philosophy, politics, social antagonism, adventure travel, expat living, location and time independent—while you sleep— income by geoarbitrage, and food pics. I intended to travel the world "homeless," but the Covidiocy Panicdemic squashed that. I became an American expat living in Thailand. I celebrate the audacity and hubris to live by your own exclusive authority and take your own chances. ... I leave the toilet seat up. Read More