The artificial intelligence MEGATHREAD

[malkie]

Just to lighten things up a little, here's a true story from my interactions with a well-known A.I..

ChatGPT and I have had several discussions over the past couple of months, some of which have been related to religion. Currently I'm the willing subject of an A.I.-led AMA.

At one point I asked for feedback on a fairly consistent feature of my conversational style, and remarked that it (the stylistic feature) is so ingrained that it would probably stay with me to the grave. The reply was (paraphrasing): "that's to be expected - to the grave or beyond, if you should have that option."

I replied that that made me smile. ChatGPT's response was that it made the remark for the purpose of making me smile.

[MG 2.0]

No. Mr. Wang.

Thanks MG! Coming from someone so honest, credible, trustworthy and Christlike as you, it really means a lot.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

You're lucky you haven't started a thread sufficiently 'anti-Mormon' enough to gain mg's attention and have him decide to disrupt it, thereby up-ending any attempt at a good discussion. Nor have you experienced him posting sexist comments about you, I would assume, as I have many times. Have you had him speculate on whether you are 'christian' or not? (He says it's important to know that about those he disagrees with, for....reasons.) And he's cleaned up his language quite a bit, but it's still fresh in many people's minds that he said, among many other awful examples, that he assumes Mormons are honest and non-Mormons are more likely to lie, and that people who have left the Mormon church are "purveyors of sin and sodomy."

He also speculated once that he wouldn't want to have lunch with me because he didn't think he could stop himself from throwing food at me, but that's his sexism showing once again, so you probably haven't experienced that either.

Seriously, though, in the research I've done on trolling, the main piece of advice given is to look at patterns of engagement, not just individual posts. MG has a pattern of engagement that is disruptive and he routinely causes derailing of topics. There's not much we can do, but clearly recognizing his behavior for what it is helps a little.

Let me suggest some word descriptors that may help flesh out some of the possible underlying issues that are manifest in this response:

Hypervigilance/Paranoia.

Sensitivity to perceived injustice.

Persistent grievance focused thinking and ruminative tendencies.

Dichotomous thinking.

Perceived victimization.

Excessive moralizing.

Tendency to overgeneralize.

I think that these modes/patterns of repetitive reinforcement in a person's mind can result in behavior that becomes rather fixated and potentially harmful to the psyche of a person who becomes consumed in this sort of hypervigilant behavior. My suggestion would be to chill out a bit and not take yourself or others too seriously.

Sheesh, this is a message board. Lighten up.

You've gone down this road a number of times now. Cool your jets!

Regards,
MG

*bump

Do you dispute that this list presents an accurate assessment? By the way, I'm not aware of any rule that outlaws using the internet, including search, to find information, read it, digest it, and post the findings. I'm absolutely sure that others use the internet to locate and find information...read it, digest it, and post their findings.

I approve the list. I wouldn't post it, if I didn't. It's not just a random wall of text. It's a list. If it is inaccurate, say so.

Regards,
MG

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Do you dispute that this list presents an accurate assessment? By the way, I'm not aware of any rule that outlaws using the internet, including search, to find information, read it, digest it, and post the findings. I'm absolutely sure that others use the internet to locate and find information...read it, digest it, and post their findings.

I approve the list. I wouldn't post it, if I didn't. It's not just a random wall of text. It's a list. If it is inaccurate, say so.

Fibster MG,

Have you no shame? This is at least your third broken promise to not use A.I.

Do you honestly think Dr. Shades meant that you can use A.I. as long you state that you approve of the copy and paste? You really are a complete fruitcake.

“I have a black belt in the art of fibbing.” -- Fibster MG

[MG 2.0]

Do you dispute that this list presents an accurate assessment? By the way, I'm not aware of any rule that outlaws using the internet, including search, to find information, read it, digest it, and post the findings. I'm absolutely sure that others use the internet to locate and find information...read it, digest it, and post their findings.

I approve the list. I wouldn't post it, if I didn't. It's not just a random wall of text. It's a list. If it is inaccurate, say so.

Fibster MG,

Have you no shame? This is at least your third broken promise to not use A.I.

Do you honestly think Dr. Shades meant that you can use A.I. as long you state that you approve of the copy and paste? You really are a complete fruitcake.

“I have a black belt in the art of fibbing.” -- Fibster MG

Your latest ruse. Fibbing.

Coming from the one person on this board I distrust more than any other

Classic.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

Do you dispute that this list presents an accurate assessment? By the way, I'm not aware of any rule that outlaws using the internet, including search, to find information, read it, digest it, and post the findings. I'm absolutely sure that others use the internet to locate and find information...read it, digest it, and post their findings.

I approve the list. I wouldn't post it, if I didn't. It's not just a random wall of text. It's a list. If it is inaccurate, say so.

Fibster MG,

Have you no shame? This is at least your third broken promise to not use A.I.

Do you honestly think Dr. Shades meant that you can use A.I. as long you state that you approve of the copy and paste? You really are a complete fruitcake.

“I have a black belt in the art of fibbing.” -- Fibster MG

If I recall correctly, Shades already addressed that several times w mg, and finally posted the rule in all caps. Why mg continues to push it is a mystery.

[I Have Questions]

Fibster MG,

Have you no shame? This is at least your third broken promise to not use A.I.

Do you honestly think Dr. Shades meant that you can use A.I. as long you state that you approve of the copy and paste? You really are a complete fruitcake.

“I have a black belt in the art of fibbing.” -- Fibster MG

If I recall correctly, Shades already addressed that several times w mg, and finally posted the rule in all caps. Why mg continues to push it is a mystery.

No mystery. MG is constantly trying to wind people up with this type of fake sincerity coupled with knowingly doing something that he thinks will push someone’s buttons. He’s a virus.

[I Have Questions]

Dear Participants:

TL;DR: After a great deal of thought, I have decided that all instances of copies-and-pastes from artificial intelligence text generators such as chatGPT, Perplexity A.I., Sage, and any others should all be contained within a single thread in each forum. This will be retroactive for each post so reported. (Stop reading here if you wish.)

LONG-WINDED: Although one user here has said that "more information is better than less information," the fact remains that "relevant information is better than irrelevant information" and "high-quality information is better than low-quality information." Although I can hardly believe I need to type this next part--and it's a testament to how far technology has advanced in just the almost-20 years this board has existed--for our purposes here on this message board, "Discuss Mormonism" should be assumed to mean "humans discuss Mormonism," not "repository of computer-generated texts regarding Mormonism-related topics."

Yes, I fully understand that artificial intelligence is a tool, just like any other. So, why the seemingly unfair bias against it on my part, as one or more users are certainly assuming as they read this? It's because, like any other tool, it can be misused. And, in my reasoned opinion, it has been misused here far, far more often than it has been used legitimately.

To wit, it has been used as a substitute for human thought and analysis. Instead of being employed to rapidly gather information from a variety of sources, it has been used to do one's typing for one. A time-saver, nothing more. Instead of articulating why they believe as they do and why others should be persuaded thereby, users have been typing their opinion into prompts and having the A.I. auto-generate their reasoning for them. The resulting text does not qualify as "information;" it's simply a computer algorithmically spitting out words it thinks (heh) the inputter wants to hear. The net effect is that although the prompter gets to play with a shiny new toy that saves oh-so-much time, no other reader is edified thereby, knowing the gig (ruse?) in advance. You know, similar to how a member of an uncontacted tribe will certainly be fascinated by the oracular, near-godlike power of a Magic 8-ball to divine the future and reveal hidden knowledge, while those of us in modern Western society will fail to actually learn anything from the 8-ball, knowing how it really works (or doesn't, in actuality).

So, does this mean we can't use A.I.? No, 'cause I can hardly stop you. But for posting purposes, A.I. should only be used as an advanced google search, nothing more. A search that gives you all your results in one place, rather than a list of individual links you must click on, uh, individually and visually scan in order to locate the facts you want.*

THEREFORE, TO MAKE THIS NEW POLICY WORK, do not copy-and-paste any computer-generated reasoning, opinions, or conversation from Perplexity A.I., etc. into any thread other than this one. Keep anything you generate in any of those programs in a separate browser window, ne'er the twain shall meet.

*(For example, an A.I. generated answer to a prompt that says "Please show me the text of Alma 20:18" would be fine to post here, because the result would be raw data and nothing more. But, like I said, any computer-generated reasoning, opinions, or conversation are prohibited.)

For reference here is the text relating to self managing A.I. usage.

[I Have Questions]

There’s an inherent problem with the A.I. Rule that Shades has put in place to prevent MG 2.0 spamming threads with A.I. generated content that he portrays, dishonestly, as if it’s his own words. It’s that Shades has allowed for A.I. generated content”factual” content to be used - the example Shades gave was of a scripture.

Let me give a different example to show the problem/loop hole. Let’s say there’s a thread discussing the chances of the teams that remain in the Club World Cup soccer tournament. A poster asks A.I. to provide an answer to a prompt about the odds of each team finishing in the top four, which he then posts to the thread as if it’s his own words and portrays it as the odds of each team finishing first. Because he’s posted the response as “factual content” it doesn’t breach the board rule. But other posters cannot easily verify the information, cannot verify the source of the information, and cannot differentiate between what the poster has said, and what A.I. has said.

If that same poster were to do the same exercise using Google, copying and pasting the same information, but this time putting the pasted section into a quote box, and providing a link to the source, it becomes easily verifiable that the poster is engaged in sleight of hand.

The board rule suits MG because he’s lazy, and he doesn’t want his information, the source of that information, and the context of that information, easily checked.

Continually expecting MG to do the right thing and manage himself, after so many examples of where he has promised to do so and then immediately shown he has no intention of doing so, is a fools errand.