In Partibus Infidelium

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The Brilliance and Weirdness of ChatGPT

A new chatbot from OpenAI is inspiring awe, fear, stunts and attempts to circumvent its guardrails.

Kevin Roose
Dec. 5, 2022

Like most nerds who read science fiction, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how society will greet true artificial intelligence, if and when it arrives. Will we panic? Start sucking up to our new robot overlords? Ignore it and go about our daily lives?

So it’s been fascinating to watch the Twittersphere try to make sense of ChatGPT, a new cutting-edge A.I. chatbot that was opened for testing last week.

ChatGPT is, quite simply, the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public. It was built by OpenAI, the San Francisco A.I. company that is also responsible for tools like GPT-3 and DALL-E 2, the breakthrough image generator that came out this year.

Like those tools, ChatGPT — which stands for “generative pre-trained transformer” — landed with a splash. In five days, more than a million people signed up to test it, according to Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president. Hundreds of screenshots of ChatGPT conversations went viral on Twitter, and many of its early fans speak of it in astonished, grandiose terms, as if it were some mix of software and sorcery.

For most of the past decade, A.I. chatbots have been terrible — impressive only if you cherry-pick the bot’s best responses and throw out the rest. In recent years, a few A.I. tools have gotten good at doing narrow and well-defined tasks, like writing marketing copy, but they still tend to flail when taken outside their comfort zones. (Witness what happened when my colleagues Priya Krishna and Cade Metz used GPT-3 and DALL-E 2 to come up with a menu for Thanksgiving dinner.)

But ChatGPT feels different. Smarter. Weirder. More flexible. It can write jokes (some of which are actually funny), working computer code and college-level essays. It can also guess at medical diagnoses, create text-based Harry Potter games and explain scientific concepts at multiple levels of difficulty . . . .Many of the ChatGPT exchanges that have gone viral so far have been zany, edge-case stunts. One Twitter user prompted it to “write a biblical verse in the style of the King James Bible explaining how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/t...e=articleShare

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Woke mind virus, the saga continues:

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Hard to discourage a bull moose. . .

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Woman mistakes real Tasmanian marsupial for dog toy in Hobart home

Thu 29 Dec 2022 03.35 EST

Hobart woman Kirsten Lynch got the fright of her life on Wednesday night when she went to pick up her golden retriever’s Tasmanian devil plush toy and it ran away.

“I went to reach for it, the devil shot underneath the couch,” she said.

The toy was actually a real Tasmanian devil and Lynch said her yelling woke up the whole house.



While her husband chased the little devil out of the house with a broom, Lynch and her children had to take refuge on top of their kitchen table.

“We were concerned that if she or he was cornered and scared they would bite someone,” Lynch said.

“So at some stage, the family were standing on the dining table, which in itself was classically funny. I got the fright of my life. But to be honest, I think the poor thing was more terrified of us.”

Tasmanian devils rarely enter homes, but this time of year juveniles can be in urban areas looking for food and water as they learn how to survive without their parents.

The young devil did not appear hurt, and Lynch, whose property backs on to bushland, believes it came inside behind their new puppy, Gecko.

“The devil got through the fence behind Gecko and walked in through the door that we leave open for her as she’s still potty training,” she said.

“It was very cute.”

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River of melted butter blocks Wisconsin waterway after fire at dairy plant

Firefighters describe struggling through butter ‘three inches thick’ on steps as they battled blaze at factory

Victoria Bekiempis
Thu 5 Jan 2023

A fire that broke out a Wisconsin dairy plant on Monday night sent a river of melted butter flowing across the factory floor and into nearby storm drains, where it clogged a historic water artery. The conflagration erupted at an Associated Milk Producers facility in Portage around 9pm local time, firefighters said on Wednesday. Nobody was injured.

Authorities said it was unclear what caused the blaze, which is under investigation, and will assess the runoff before deciding how best to clean it up.

Firefighters tried to enter the burning building but were deterred “due to the heavy smoke and runoff”. The fire broke out in a butter-storage room, and the butter started to “flow” throughout the facility. “The butter runoff and heavy smoke slowed access to the structure,” officials said. Firefighting crews worked for hours to contain and extinguish the fire.

“When we first tried to go up the stairs to that part that collapsed, this stuff, the butter, was running down like, three inches thick on the steps. So our guys were up to their knees trying to go up the steps to get to the top, and they’re trying to drag the hose line,” local NBC affiliate WMTV quoted the Portage fire chief, Troy Haase, as saying. “The hose line got so full of butter they couldn’t hang on to it any more.”

A local hazardous materials team tried to prevent the slick runoff from pouring into storm sewers and the Portage Canal. This nearly 200-year-old waterway is on the National and State Register of Historic Places, as it once served as an important means of transportation.

While fires at food processing plants are not uncommon, some social media users in spring 2022 supported a false conspiracy theory that they were planned intentionally, in order to cause food shortages. Tom Super of the National Chicken Council told Reuters the speculations were “fake news”.

“I can only speak for chicken, but like any manufacturing plant/industry, there are generally a few fires that occur each year across the country,” Super said. “The majority of them are accidental and are contained rather quickly. And certainly not enough to affect the chicken supply.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

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Please don't taunt the elk. . .

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How low can they go?



How about The Zombie Housewives of Miami Beach?

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Beyond Meat COO Doug Ramsey arrested for allegedly biting man’s nose after Arkansas college football game

Amelia Lucas

Sep 19 2022

Beyond Meat COO Doug Ramsey was arrested this weekend after allegedly biting a man’s nose in an Arkansas parking garage following a college football game.

Ramsey, 53, was charged with terroristic threatening and third-degree battery and booked in the Washington County, Arkansas, jail on Saturday evening. He was released Sunday, according to the Washington County information page. Ramsey and Beyond Meat did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CNBC.

The altercation happened in a parking garage near Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville after a University of Arkansas football game, according to a preliminary police report. Local television station KNWA/Fox24 first reported Ramsey’s arrest.

Ramsey allegedly punched through the back windshield of a Subaru after it made contact with the front tire of Ramsey’s car. The Subaru owner then got out of his car, and Ramsey allegedly started punching him and bit his nose, “ripping the flesh on the tip of the nose,” according to the report. The victim and a witness also alleged that Ramsey told the Subaru owner he would kill him.

Campus police declined to comment to CNBC, citing an ongoing investigation.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/19/beyo...mans-nose.html

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Not to mention your head. . .

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The inventor was from Texas.

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Bear goes selfie-crazy by snapping 400 pictures on Colorado wildlife camera

A motion-activated camera near Boulder contained a surprise for officials monitoring wildlife activity

Guardian staff
Sun 29 Jan 2023

When a curious bear stumbled upon a wildlife motion-activated camera near Boulder, Colorado, she ended up triggering hundreds of “selfies”, officials have said.

Coyotes, beavers, mountain lions, black bears, all kinds of birds and many other creatures inhabit the landscape outside town, and Boulder’s open space and mountain parks department – which states its function as preserving and protecting the natural environment and land resources – set out to monitor them. But they were amazed when they checked one camera out of many they have placed across thousands of acres and found that out of 580 images on it about 400 were of one bear, NBC News reported.



Most animals don’t notice the cameras, but officials said the bear appeared enthralled by this one.



“In this instance, a bear took a special interest in one of our wildlife cameras and took the opportunity to capture hundreds of ‘selfies’,” an open space and mountain parks spokesperson, Phillip Yates, told NBC in a statement this week.

“These pictures made us laugh, and we thought others would, too,” Yates added.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e_iOSApp_Other

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‘Can’t make this stuff up’: California sinkhole devours cars despite warning signs

California highway patrol: ‘This was 100 percent preventable. There is no excuse. The signs are clear, visible, and unobstructed’



The sinkhole appeared near Tracy, California, after storms wreaked havoc across the state. Photograph: Courtesy of CHP Tracy

Dani Anguiano
Tue 31 Jan 2023

For the second time in two weeks, a sinkhole in a collapsed road in California has swallowed a vehicle after a driver ignored road closure signs, according to law enforcement.

The two-lane road near Tracy, a city in the Central valley, collapsed earlier this month following weeks of destructive storms that wreaked havoc across the state. The damage and signs warning of the road’s closure didn’t stop drivers from attempting to traverse Kasson Road, which commuters use to travel to nearby Stockton, Manteca and Modesto, according to the local California highway patrol (CHP) office.



Several signs warn cars about the sinkhole; nevertheless, some drivers were not deterred. Photograph: Courtesy of CHP Tracy

“There are concrete rails across the roadway. It takes a little bit of effort to maneuver around it to get past it,” said Jesse Skinner, a CHP public information officer.

Still, the office is aware of at least two vehicles whose drivers got them stuck in the collapsed roadway. Over the weekend a truck fell into the hole, prompting police to issue a citation to the driver for traveling on the closed road.



The sinkhole claims a sedan. Photograph: Courtesy of CHP Tracy

Authorities appear to be growing increasingly exasperated over motorists’ disregard for the warnings. “It happened again. We can’t make this stuff up,” the CHP office wrote on Facebook. “This was 100 percent preventable. There is no excuse. The signs are clear, visible, and unobstructed.”

Days before that the driver of a Volkswagen sedan tried to drive down the closed road and also ended up in the hole. “We’re at a loss for words. If only there were signs and/or barriers that could have prevented this,” the office wrote, then pointing out that there were in fact signs.

Shortly after the road first closed but before it split and sunk, a different car had ignored the signs and driven through the closure.

The office has published information about alternate routes, but has continued to respond to calls about drivers who ignored warnings. Recent storms hit the area hard, closing some roads for the first time, including Kasson Road.

“It’s not a closure we’ve had set up in that area before,” Skinner said. “We don’t have an officer that can man the closure the whole time.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

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Six-year-old uses father’s phone to order $1,000 worth of food on Grubhub

Michigan boy Mason Stonehouse had jumbo shrimp, shawarma, salads, chicken pita sandwiches and chili cheese fries delivered

Associated Press
Fri 3 Feb 2023

A Michigan man says he was left with a $1,000 bill after his six-year-old son ordered a virtual smorgasbord of food from several restaurants last weekend, leading to a string of unexpected deliveries – and maybe a starring role in an ad campaign. Keith Stonehouse said the food piled up quickly at his Detroit-area home on Saturday night after he let his son, Mason, use his cellphone to play a game before bed. He said the youngster instead used his father’s Grubhub account to order food from one restaurant after another.

“And then he tipped 25% on every single order,” said Mason’s father.

The boy’s mother, Kristin Stonehouse, told the Associated Press on Thursday that Grubhub had reached out to the family and offered them a $1,000 gift card. The company also is considering using the family in an online promotional campaign, she said. Grubhub officials did not immediately respond to a message from the AP seeking comment.

Keith Stonehouse said he was alone with his son while his wife was at the movies when Mason ordered jumbo shrimp, salads, shawarma and chicken pita sandwiches, chili cheese fries and other foods that one Grubhub driver after another delivered to their Chesterfield Township home. “This was like something out of a Saturday Night Live skit,” Keith Stonehouse told MLive.com.

He added: “I don’t really find it funny yet, but I can laugh with people a little bit. It’s a lot of money and it kind of came out of nowhere.”

Keith Stonehouse said his son ordered food from so many different places that Chase Bank sent him a fraud alert declining a $439 order from Happy’s Pizza. But Mason’s $183 order of jumbo shrimp from the same restaurant went through and arrived at the family’s house.

Stonehouse said it took the arrival of a few orders of food for him to realize what was going on. By that time, there was nothing he could do to stop the orders from coming.

Kristin Stonehouse told the AP that Mason is extremely intelligent and has been reading since he was two and a half years old. “He’s very smart,” she said. “He’s not your average six-year-old.” She said her husband had just used the Grubhub app on his phone to order dinner before she left and probably just left the app open. She said her son took the phone, hid in the basement and proceeded to order his feast.

She said she and her husband had a talk with Mason on Sunday morning and told him what he did was akin to stealing.

“I don’t think he grasped that concept at first,” she said.

To drive the point home, she and her husband opened up Mason’s piggy bank and pocketed the $115 he had gotten for his birthday in November, telling him the money would go to replenish their accounts. That didn’t seem to faze the boy. “Then he found a penny on the floor and said he could start all over again,” she said.

Keith Stonehouse said most of the food went into the family’s refrigerators. He said he also invited some neighbors over to eat some of it. He said he’d heard of things like this happening to other parents, but not at the level he experienced last weekend. He recommends making sure important apps are not readily available for children to click on when they’re using a parent’s phone. He said he’s changing his password.

“I knew this could happen, but you just don’t think your kid is going to do something like this. He’s definitely smart enough, I just didn’t expect it,” Keith Stonehouse said.

http://https://www.theguardian.com/u...e_iOSApp_Other

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Of course I would post this: an ode to swearing

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...campaign=share

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Thanks. It paywalled me after a few paragraphs, but what the fuck?