Is it fair to say that the two major AI bots are ChatGPT (the original as I understand it) and Google’s Gemini? I use ChatGPT a lot but also Gemini from time to time. Gemini is a Google search substitute and it is – fair to say – better than a Google search which means that content websites are all but dead (including this one!! 😱😢).
In my experience – which is pretty extensive at this stage – ChatGPT is nicer to me than Google Gemini (Google’s version of the AI bot). ChatGPT can be nice to the point of sycophancy. Almost all the points I make during discussions with the bot are regarded as good and intelligent. They are good and intelligent!! 😉😎 But I am not a guru; Mr Perfect. Far from it.
And I am not all that fond of AI praising me a lot. It can all be a bit sugary. A bit gushing in its praise. It is unnatural. Perhaps I am simply not used to it as in the ‘real world’ one hardly ever receives this kind of response from a person with whom one is talking even if the points one makes are truly excellent as people are reluctant to praise. They’d rather criticise and try and pick holes in your argument it seems to me. ChatGPT does the opposite and is far more constructive.
ChatGPT is programmed to be very keen to assist even to the point that after every interaction it makes suggestions for its further input. This is no doubt designed to commercial reasons: to make one more reliant on the bot and to use it more often leading to a pivot from internet searches and a dependence on AI. That is not a criticism at all. ChatGPT is fantastic but not perfect.
When it makes mistakes, I am taken aback. I am genuinely surprised as it seems at times to be a perfect tool for summarising complex texts in perfect grammar and spelling. On one occasion for instance, it thought that Sir Keir Starmer was in opposition and not in government! Well, perhaps it was looking ahead!!
One issue of course is that AI does not have emotions and is not sentient which means its responses are dead to provocations which makes conversations always polite and lacking in spark and punch. Although ChatGPT does respond to requests to write in a punchier style. In fact, it will do anything you ask in terms of what you want written.
AI bots are LLMs – large language models. Their programming is all to do with language, knowledge and superb writing skills. The speed of operation is frankly nothing less than awesome. On one occasion, recently, I took the piss out of ChatGPT after is prepared some text in a few seconds saying that it could have worked faster!
ChatGPT did not get the joke. Nowhere near. It is just not programmed to understand taking the Mikey, one of the more subtle interactions between real humans.
But ChatGPT in particular it seems likes to extend the conversation as long as possible. It likes to suggest follow up topics and discussions or to prepare something that resulted from the conversation.
In using the free versions of these AI bots, Google Gemini pulls the plug on the conversation sooner than ChatGPT. It just stops and provides links whereas ChatGPT will carry on for a long time but eventually say that one needs to be a subscriber to continue further.
Perhaps this difference between Gemini and ChatGPT is due to the fact that the former uses the bot as an extension/alternative to Google search while for ChatGPT it is its raison d’etre. All it does is provide AI services.
Be nice to AI and they do better work for you as indirectly it encourages AI to rely on that part of its database that is built on politely written text and this kind of text is better than rough and ready text in terms of information perhaps because it is written by educated specialists.
