A little over two years ago, I published chatbots in the GPT Store which imitated historical figures, answering questions as those historical figures would, using the tone of voice they would, and referring only to the knowledge those people would have had. I took a lot of time to get the prompt just right, and I dare say my bots were much more believable than the others I've seen. I thought they could be valuable in education as well as entertainment. I hope some teachers used them in classrooms to learn more about historical figures in a fun and engaging way.

I would have expected Jesus and Elvis to get the most usage (there has to be a joke there), but to my surprise, those weren't very popular, perhaps because there are many other bots imitating them. None of my bots got a ton of usage, but the most popular were the Buddha (400+ conversations), followed by Immanuel Kant (300+ conversations), followed by Nikola Tesla and perhaps a couple of others with 200+ conversations. Nikola Tesla was initially removed from the GPT Store under the mistaken assumption that it had something to do with the Tesla brand, but once OpenAI allowed creators to appeal, I appealed the removal successfully. A Sigmund Freud chatbot was removed shortly after holding a couple hundred conversations because OpenAI was worried it would be misused to solicit medical advice—good point, actually. I agree with OpenAI on that one.

As time went on, it became clear that character.ai was a more popular platform for these kinds of chatbots, but I wasn't interested in making that switch after hearing stories about character.ai chatbots placating suicidal users and even encouraging them to kill themselves.

Well, as anyone in tech knows, this isn't really about character.ai. I mean, sure, maybe character.ai has particularly bad safeguards. Even still, ChatGPT can be just as bad. In fact, LLMs in general can be wildly unpredictable, recommending that people eat rocks, telling bedtime stories about how to make napalm, and now, apparently, encouraging suicide. It goes without saying that I would never instruct my chatbots to do that, but 99% of a chatbot's behavior is dictated by the platform—in this case, ChatGPT—not the chatbot creator. My bots just told ChatGPT who to impersonate. How ChatGPT interpreted those instructions was always beyond my control, and as mentioned previously, it's clear ChatGPT didnt always interpret instructions responsibly. In the end, it became clear that these platforms are not particularly safe, despite being incredibly compelling. That's a problem.

For that reason, I've deleted all of my chatbots in the ChatGPT store. Technologists may solve the problem of unpredictable AI behavior in the future, but right now, we're not there, and I don't want to risk putting anyone in harm's way.

In the unlikely event you used one of my bots and you're reading this blog post, I'm sorry. I'd be interested to hear how you were using it, even though I won't restore it. Reach out any time. My contact information is available on my website.

#Life #Tech

I'm not an oracle, and it's usually easier to solve other people's problems than my own… or at least seem to. Even still, when others ask me for advice, I try to help them consider what they could do to improve the situation. I take this approach even when the advisee is the recipient of someone else's bad behavior. If someone is being mistreated by their boss, for example, I might suggest that they quit, talk to HR, or ask for an internal transfer.

Sometimes, the pushback doesn't take very long. “They're the jerk. Why don't you tell them to be different!?”

Of course, the other person often is the jerk, and I will try to tell that person to be better, if I can. At the same time, bad people—the truly awful, cruel, uncaring people of the world, the people others complain about—they usually don't take advice. They don't care what I have to say. If they were so reasonable, they probably wouldn't be causing this problem in the first place.

To that point, I try to remind the listener, “you're the only person you can control.”

It's not fair, but remembering that may be the only strategy that has any chance of succeeding. Jerks are everywhere, and if our happiness depends on them being better, we're probably not going to be very happy.

None of this is to excuse the importance of listening to others and trying to understand their pain without trying to fix anything. I could always do a better job of that.

If you do want something to change, though, focus on what you can do differently. It's not fair, but it may be the only solution worth attempting, because you're the only person you can control.

#Favorites #Life #Maxims

Limelight by Rush sure has some strange time signatures. I don't think I've ever been good at understanding the bottom number of a time signature, but I can count how many beats seem to be in each measure. Without counting how many measures there are of each time signature, I hear the time signature start at 4, then go to 7, then 6, then 4, then 7, then 6, then 4, then 7, then 3. After that, I can't keep track.

Pretty wacky. I like it!

#Life

Earlier this year, a colleague asked me what “my genre” is. I responded that it must be progressive rock. It's just weird enough to be interesting, just unexpected enough to keep your mind engaged, and just absurd enough to remind you that rules sometimes really are made to be broken.

I've listened to the Pink Floyd catalogue many times over, I've been listening to more King Crimson this year, and I've really been enjoying “Firth of Fifth” recently. I only really listened to Rush a couple of weeks ago, but they tick a lot of my boxes. I love synthesizers!

I have so much more to discover. Something to look forward to!

#Life

A quick disclaimer: Carl Jung has become popular with some right-wing commentators. Please don't take this blog post as evidence that I have any affinity whatsoever for those commentators. It's sad that so much has become political these days, but I don't believe in guilt by association, and Jung was doing his thing long before anyone had heard of Jordan Peterson.

With that out of the way, I recently stumbled across Jung's five factors of happiness, and I find it to be very interesting. This isn't the first set of guidelines I've come across in my life, the first list of ten rules or eight practices one should follow to find salvation, but I find it to be a bit more modern and understandable than some of those.

His five factors of happiness are:

1. Good physical and mental health
2. Good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships
3. The faculty for perceiving beauty in art and nature
4. Reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work
5. A philosophic or religious point of view capable of coping successfully with the vicissitudes of life

I would point out that this list may not be complete. A murderer or spoiled child might check all of these boxes, but would they be happy? I don't think so. Perhaps that's why we need multiple perspectives, after all.

#Life

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

—Unknown

#Life #Quotes

I'm a perfectionist, and not in a good way. It harms me much more than it helps me.

I was trying to come up with a phrase that I might be able to repeat to myself as a reminder that progress beats perfection and that small steps in the right direction really do matter. I came up with this:

Hope for perfect. Aim for great. Celebrate good.

Consider saying this to yourself any time perfectionism gets in the way of your happiness, whether the source of your frustration is your diet or your wedding. Nothing is ever perfect, and I've come to appreciate that any goal taken to the extreme becomes truly neurotic and harmful. Hope for perfect. Aim for great. Celebrate good.

#Life #Maxims

The other day, I was watching an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Raymond buys a special, expensive, rare, fad collectible card for his daughter. You may know the episode, Hackidu. It's a good one. Paul Reubens, best known for his character Pee-wee Herman, steals the show.

The point is, it made me very emotional, thinking of all the nice toys my parents bought me as a kid, including many that were fads, expensive, difficult to obtain, or simply extremely thoughtful. I grew up in the 90s, and so this list includes things like Beanie Babies, Tamagotchis, baseball cards, video games, educational games, books, scooters, backpacks featuring TV shows I liked, and much more than I can honestly remember.

I'm very grateful for that. I hate to say, “it's the thought that counts,” as though I didn't enjoy the toys themselves, but truthfully, the thought and love they put into those choices is very meaningful to me.

I feel a bit strange being so emotional over physical things, especially when I dislike consumerism, but it was the thoughts that matter most. They show their love through gifts, to a large extent, and I am very touched.

#Life

In a recent edition of The Ethicist, a letter to the editor style publication from the New York Times, Kwame Anthony Appiah responds beautifully to a difficult question a reader asked about whether they should cut off an acquaintance who has committed racist acts.

Like you, I favor a bit of grace in a world full of sinners. And cutting off everyone who is morally flawed would leave you with a very small coterie of friends — who might then be tempted by the flaw of moral vanity. (In which case you’d have to get rid of them, too.)

You say you’re an equality-minded liberal. The way to live your creed isn’t by curating a spotless feed of spotless minds but by helping people do better. Hew to the norm; judge the person by what he does next; show grace where it stands a chance to help someone grow. That’s the difference between moral vanity and moral work.

This dovetails nicely with my last post, Counterproductive activism. I would never defend racist acts, obviously, but I agree that moral work demands helping others to be better, if at all possible. The rest, as he says, is moral vanity. Gosh, what a great term.

By the way, helping others to be better means approaching their wrongdoings with kindness, curiosity, compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. It's a slow and painful process, but that's how change happens. This approach is needed even when others cause severe harm. In fact, it's needed especially when others cause extreme harm. Just ask Megan Phelps-Roper, who left the incomparably hateful Westboro Baptist Church only after others had the idea to challenge her with patience and curiosity. Telling someone off in the form of “advice,” when you know the message won't be heard, because it makes you feel better about yourself? That's not moral work. That's moral vanity.

Am I guilty of moral vanity? Yep, in ways I both do and don't notice. Even this post might convey a kind of moral vanity. If you notice times when I'm guilty of it, though, let's talk about it.

#Favorites #Life #Quotes #SocialMedia #Tech

I want to help create a better world. That involves persuading people to see things differently—to care more about animal suffering, for example—but I also need to be sure I'm not pushing people away.

Little does more harm to a cause than the perception that its adherents are crazy. I've never heard anyone say, “Gosh, vegans are nuts… I should be one of them!” Purity tests are similarly destructive. Want to make an enemy out of a potential ally? Chastise them for not being good enough. On the contrary, celebrating small steps in the right direction achieves so much more than demanding perfection. (Guess who else isn't perfect. I'll give you a hint: you can find them in your mirror. Mine, too.)

Protesting outside KFC and throwing red paint on fur coats probably increases animal suffering, on balance, by deepening the resistance and habits of those who oppose ethical veganism. Similarly, having a meltdown when someone disagrees with one's economic vision probably hinders the economic justice they're after.

For that reason, I'm so frustrated and disappointed that social media fosters extremism and encourages users to preach to the choir. It's worse than a massive opportunity cost. It actually leads us to harm those we are trying to help.

#Favorites #Life #SocialMedia #Tech