We're excited to announce several updates to ChatGPT! Here's what's new:

• General performance: Among other improvements, users will notice that ChatGPT is now less likely to refuse to answer questions.
• Conversation history: You’ll soon be able to view past conversations with ChatGPT, rename your saved conversations and delete the ones you don’t want to keep. We are gradually rolling out this feature.
• Daily limit: To ensure a high-quality experience for all ChatGPT users, we are experimenting with a daily message cap. If you’re included in this group, you’ll be presented with an option to extend your access by providing feedback to ChatGPT.
  To see if you’re using the updated version, look for “ChatGPT Dec 15 Version” at the bottom of the screen.

https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notes

Edit: Some interactions with the bot I posted in the comments, if you are curious about potential prompts: https://tildes.net/~tech/13lj/lets_talk_about_chatgpt#comment-7lw6

I have been obsessively reading about ChatGPT since it came out. I'm going to skip introducing it for those who don't know yet (please go ahead and click the link, and do some googling), because I just.. need to vent.

I have experimented with it. A bunch. I'm also pretty familiar with GPT's capabilities from before. And ChatGPT still took me by surprise.

Still, as of four days ago, I did not believe we were there yet. Hell, I didn't believe we would get there within my lifetime, and now, it's there.

"But Adys, you don't understand the limitations!"

Yeah, no, see, I understand the limitations. I understand this is the version that is still in its infancy, is crippled by stupid decisions from OpenAI, is not running on GPT-4 yet, and doesn't yet have things such as some layer of eg. checking correctness.

But I also understand the potential. HN has been full of people crying out how we're not at AGI yet but DOES THIS MATTER? Planes are still decades away from displacing most bird jobs.

I think anyone who isn't currently in utter shock at how good ChatGPT is, is either:

• Somehow woefully misinformed (eg. the less tech literates I've shown it to have asked me "Can't Siri do this?")
• In complete denial about the potential of the technology
• Utterly thick

I want to cry on every corner of every street that we are at the edge of the AI revolution.

The "problems" that are left are not necessarily easy, but they're also not necessarily hard. For example, GPT's tendency to bullshit is problematic but there are ways to verify output, and those ways can themselves be automated and feed back into GPT.

I have never, in my life, been so taken aback by a technological advancement. I'm flashing back to the scene in Westworld: "It's not possible. Technology isn't there yet."

Like, no, this isn't skynet, person of interest, westworld, or anything like this. But it is something. Something very different, very unique. The world is about to completely change. And I want to stress this: EVERYONE I've seen argue against this has been in very obvious denial. I'll be happy to hear you out if you disagree, but if your only argument is that this isn't exactly the AI you expected / it can't solve the exact problem you throw at it, I'll refer you to better birds and faster horses.

Asking for a friend. 😉

In all seriousness, the question was inspired by the news out of Google and specifically @Whom's comment here.

What should non-technical laypeople know about AI?

The info doesn't have to be limited to just this particular news item either. What information would you want included in an AI 101 rundown? What is it currently used for? What will it do in the future? What are its limitations? What are its potentials?

And, of course, how should people interpret stuff like today's big news item?

So I'm reading Asimov's short-story anthology The Complete Robot, which contains stories written between 1939 and 1977, and I'm fascinated by several instances in which Asimov tries to predict the future of robotics.

When he gets it right is just as interesting as when he gets it wrong, as even when he's wrong, he's wrong in very interesting ways.

For example, it's very interesting how Asimov seems to think that everything must have a positronic brain (which often produces something either identical or very close consciousness), when in reality we now have numerous useful robots that have nothing of the sort.

So this made me thinking, I think I'd like to write a story that was just like that, an exploration of universal themes that is facilitated by simplified technology. A form of retrofuturism. And since I had the idea, obviously someone else had it before. I wanna read it! More recent stories, especially those with old-school robots and artificial intelligence. Any suggestions?

Also open to other medias, but books would be particularly helpful.

This thought just popped into my head, so it's still quite nebulous, but I want to float it out here, see what other's have to say about it, before I really dive into it.

Superorganisms are things like ant and termite colonies and beehives ... and, for the sci-fi minded, the Borg. The theory/idea is that the individual ants/termites/bees are not actually independent living beings (or at least, not exclusively), but closer to cells in a larger, distributed body, with a distributed intellect driving the colony to thrive and reproduce, which only happens when, eg, the beehive throws a swarm that eventually becomes a new beehive.

The "Earth as Gaia" theory is comparable, suggesting that all of the life forms on Earth form an amorphous, distributed superintelligence that is trying to reproduce ... which would happen once humans colonize Mars, or meteor strikes on the Earth successfully transfer living organisms to another celestial body where life ultimately takes root.

So ... you see where I'm going with this? Is it a feasible idea to consider the Internet itself as a nascent AI superorganism, made up of both the humans (and, increasingly, the bots) that use it, as well as the assorted hardware and software that comprises it?

I'm confident I'm not the first person to entertain this idea, and I expect that, as soon as I start searching the 'Net for this topic, I'll find plenty on it. Just wanted to post the idea while it was still just my idea.

And of course, if I never post here again ... assume the Internet took me out.