On November 30, without much fanfare in my world, a new Artificial Intelligence tool called ChatGPT was released that could be as disruptive as Google or smartphones or affordable green energy. Less than a week later, on December 3, my programmer son-in-law blew our socks off with a demo. He showed us how he kept building more and more complex prompts to a query that in its final form compared the philosophies of Descartes, Nietzsche, and Bugs Bunny (who the software even correctly identified as fictional). The written response was cogent and fairly convincing–and went a lot deeper than, say, Wikipedia. And in its basic form, it apparently doesn’t even crawl the Internet!
Just one day later, Chris Brogan raved about the tool and gave another example in his newsletter; he asked ChatGPT to write a newsletter article about itself. While it didn’t produce work that I would turn in to a client, it’s better than at least 50 percent of the business writing that crosses my desk. He also used another tool, DALL-E, to create shockingly realistic graphics of things that don’t exist. Chris doesn’t have a public archive of his newsletters, so, unfortunately, I can’t link to his article and examples.
One day after Chris, the New York Times jumped in. One of its examples gives instructions for removing a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR (I hope the sandwich isn’t as old as the VCR!). Here are the first five sentences:
King James Version VCR cleaning tip written by ChatGPT
While news and opinions about ChatGPT seem to be popping up everywhere, you might shrug your shoulders and think, “so what?”
That would be a dangerous mistake! Dozens if not hundreds of industries could face fundamental shifts. Writing of all kinds (commercial, academic, literary, philosophical, instructional, etc.), obviously. But also design, fine art, computer programming, marketing, teaching, office administration, human resources, engineering…it would be a long list. It raises issues around ethics, staffing, training, research, library science, intellectual property–and perhaps most crucially, a future where bots and AI engines make decisions independent of their human creators.
In other words, this might be how we get to HAL, the infamous AI computer that went rogue in the 1968 movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Why am I going on about this? Because I want you to be forewarned and prepared.
Before deciding if my advice is worth paying attention to, you may find it helpful to consider my history with technology trends:
Although I’m not a professional trendspotter, I do pay attention. I’m a sponge for news and keep notes that sometimes find their way into books, blog posts, or speeches. I may not personally use some of these technologies, but knowing that they’re out there and what they can do influences my consulting recommendations.
I tend to wait for new technologies to be reasonably affordable and user-friendly, so I’m rarely in the very first wave, but it’s not unusual for me to be well ahead of others. I got my first computer (an original Mac) in 1984 because the learning curve was far less than for PCs of that era, my first laser printer in 1985–and that combination allowed me to disrupt and dominate my local resume industry by offering low-cost while-you-wait service. I got my very underpowered first laptop in 1986, which gave my travel and interview journalism and book writing a huge jumpstart. I made my first Skype video call, to New Zealand, in 1998 and had been on Zoom for about three years before the pandemic made it popular.
I knew about the online world in 1984. But it was too hard to use back then. I tried it for the first time in 1987 (and even dipped my toe into social media as it existed in that era), using Compuserve. But I didn’t like the primitive and buggy interface, hated trying to keep track of user names that consisted of long series of numbers with a random period in the middle, and was constantly frustrated by the balky connection that kept tossing me off–and left after a few months. I waited until 1994 and AOL’s easy interface before going back. And within a year, I had my first of many overseas marketing clients: a vitamin company in the UK.
In the green world, I follow innovations fairly closely. I put solar on the roof of my then-258-year-old farmhouse in 2001, LED lighting throughout the house around 2013-14, and a green heating system somewhere around 2015. I’ve been telling people for years about powerful innovations like a Frisbee-sized hydroelectric power generator that doesn’t require a dam, wind turbines made of old 55-gallon drums that spin on a vertical axis and can generate power at a far larger wind speed range, and the disruptive power of 3D printing.
But sometimes I wait, even if I’m recommending certain tools to others. I didn’t get a smartphone, digital camera, 3-in-1 printer, or color monitor until the bugs were worked out and the prices were slashed. Now, I wonder how I ever managed without those tools. And I still don’t have an electric car or a color printer.
So with this background, I will call ChatGPT a very big deal indeed.
It’s likely that I’d see the potential impact anyway, but it’s especially obvious because I’m reading a book called The Anticipatory Organization by Daniel Burris, which focuses on the need to focus on disruptive trends and the benefit of being the disruptor rather than the disrupted. (I’ll be reviewing it in my January Clean and Green Club newsletter; if you don’t subscribe yet, please visit http://goingbeyondsustainability.com, scroll to “Get your monthly Clean and Green Club Newsletter at no cost,” and fill out the simple form. You’ll find lots of interesting information on your way to the subscription form, too :-).
Once I get a chance to play with ChatGPT directly, I will probably have more to say about it. Unfortunately, with all this buzz, there’s now a waiting list, so I’ll have to delay that particular experience.
DT forces out Attorney General Jeff Sessions for not being enough of a yes-man, and replaces him with someone expected to be a complete toady, who has stated publicly that he thinks the White House should replace Sessions with someone who will muzzle the Mueller investigation
Two years ago, possibly the most corrupt, venal, and dishonest presidential candidate ever nominated by a major party managed to come up with an apparent majority in the Electoral College.
Forbes leads 13 million Google results on DT bullying (screenshot)
Corrupt: Numerous scandals involving diverting business to his hotels in DC and Florida, daughter Ivanka’s role in government and thin line between her business and his politics, refusal to disclose his taxes and thus conflicts of interest, violation of the Constitutions Emoluments Clause from the moment he was sworn in…
Why do I say “:apparent majority”? We knew immediately, in November, 2016, that a lot of funny business went on; Green Party candidate Jill Stein filed for a recount in three key states (we still don’t know why key elements within the Democratic Party supported the Republican efforts to block these recounts, only one of which was carried out). We know now that at least one foreign government was actively interfering in the election. To me, this means the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania is not there legitimately.
The past 21 months have been a barrage of broken promises, broken treaties and international agreements…sabotaging the environment, education, and the safety net…diverting billions in tax breaks to those who are already among the wealthiest people and corporations in history, while slashing funds to human services…inciting violence against his opponents…attacking people of color, women, disabled people, the press, his critics, and others…tearing immigrant children from their families and imprisoning them, and failing to keep good records of what kids they stole from whom…threatening the citizenship of children born in the US…appointing a proven liar and probable multiple sexual predator to the Supreme Court…blaming others every time something goes wrong (which is frequent)…appointing corrupt Cabinet members who snack at the public trough while making no pretense of actually carrying out their departmental mandates–it’s far too long a list to fully document here; it would go on for hundreds of pages. I am more ashamed of this administration than of any previous one. Being an American is embarrassing these days.
It is time for this disgraceful man to leave office–preferably in handcuffs. It is time for his enablers in Congress to step down and apologize to the American people. It is well-past time. We have at least two paths to get him out: impeachment and the 25th Amendment *removal for incompetence).
After I posted something opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, I received this comment from someone who prefers not to be named:
I voted for Hillary and most Democrats. Hillary lost. Trump won. The Republicans won. They get to govern and part of governing is choosing and confirming a judges. You can voice opposition, but when you are not in the majority, there is little else you can do. You are best advised to stop tilting at windmills with meaningless protests, petitions, and propaganda and instead find better candidates, finance them, work your precincts, get out your vote, win your elections, and become the majority again.
US Supreme Court building, Washington, DC
This is my response:
1. A little history lesson. Judges on both sides of the spectrum have been successfully blocked if enough people see them as extremist. Nixon failed to get Hainsworth and Carswell. LBJ couldn’t get sitting SCOTUS Justice Abe Fortas into the Chief Justice seat. Reagan failed with Bork.
2. Kavanaugh’s positions on presidential power alone disqualify him as extremist. He wants to preclude any possibility that DT can be held accountable for his many crimes. Even some Republicans are saying Helsinki was treasonous. And DT was fully aware on the day he took office that he was violating the domestic and foreign emoluments clauses of the Constitution. And then there are DT’s consistent violations of so many other laws. (Click here for a listing of specifically criminal activity and here for an Atlantic Magazine piece on DT scandals, many of which involve criminal activity; both contain several source links–and both were published well before the current kerfluffle.) Since he is an Executive Branch absolutist, it would not surprise me if Kavanaugh even wanted to overturn 215 years of precedent and say that the courts have no power to declare something unconstitutional–something John Marshall created as Chief Justice during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency in his ruling in Marbury v. Madison, 1803 and does not actually appear in the Constitution. Right now, the courts are our best check on executive overreach or criminal behavior other than public pressure.
3. Lawrence Tribe, noted legal scholar, has stated that a president under investigation should not be allowed to appoint the person who will ultimately decide his fate. This has gained some traction and makes more sense to me than attempting to use the despicable McConnell precedent that allowed the theft of one seat from the Democrats (with the cooperation of Obama, who should have fought it much harder).
4. You talk about majorities. Let’s remember that even as weak a candidate as she was, Hillary won the popular vote with about 3,000,000 more than DT. If that group were a city, it would be bigger than the in-city-limits population of every city in the country other than NYC or L.A.. Bigger than Chicago or Houston, nearly twice as big as Philadelphia.
My wife and I were both deeply moved watching a filmed performance of George Takei’s Broadway musical, “Allegiance,” set primarily in an isolated internment camp holding Japanese-Americans during World War II.
“Allegiance” musical-logo
While according to Wikipedia, the play exaggerates the anti-Japanese racism and conditions at the camps in pursuit of the salable story, it has a whole lot to say about ethics, families whose values conflict, and prejudice—98 percent of which still applies even if that is true. Each major character pursues his or her own truth, and acts in the way s/he feels is best for both the person and the wider Japanese-American community. But those ways are in such conflict that a family is torn asunder for 60 years.
Even if the story hadn’t been so engaging, the quality of singing is amazingly high, especially from Lea Salonga (Keiko) and Christopheren Nomura (Tatsuo).
Takei (who is absolutely brilliant as the grandfather and also plays the very emotional role of the male lead as an old man) says he worked on this project for 10 years. But the show ran only several months. Fortunately, it was preserved on film.
It is worth remembering that the Japanese-Americans, many of them citizens, were rounded up during the administration of FDR, a liberal Democrat. That their property was confiscated, their freedom taken away, and the conditions in the camps were often miserable. And that once they were allowed to enlist, Japanese-American men were put in situations where massive numbers would die.
Now, under a right-wing Republican president Takei could not have anticipated when he and his colleagues started work, other ethnic and religious groups are being targeted. We who are not part of those groups must ensure that what happened to the Japanese in America and their Japanese-American US citizen children must never happen again to any ethnic or religious group.
I have been a fan of your since you took office. However, after following your Facebook link to the Planned Parenthood funding survey, I have to say I felt tricked, deceived, and betrayed.
I’ve used this blog to call out unethical marketing from various companies over the years. And even though you and I share many political views (including a strong commitment to women’s rights)—I have to call you out on this.
The initial question that led to the dead end
I had no problem with the initial one-question survey. But then I opted in to the follow-up questions.
First, as a survey instrument, the questions were useless. Each had only a yes or no option, written in language that showed a clear bias toward one answer. Yes, you’ll be able to prepare a press release that could cite a number like 95 percent of respondents—but it’s meaningless. You’d be laughed off the page, or worse, publicly shamed, by journalists who bother to look at the source data.
Second, after I checked off my answers and tried to submit, my phone took me to a page demanding money. I say demanding rather than asking, because there was no way out except by giving money. My submit button was refused when I left the field blank and refused again when I put in a zero. And when I exited the page without contributing, it tried to post to my Facebook page that I had just contributed to you. I have no way of knowing if my responses were actually counted—but I can tell you I did not appreciate being trapped and manipulated like this.
I don’t have a problem being asked for money at the end of a survey, when it’s my choice whether to give or not. But this felt like a shakedown, quite frankly. It left a very bad taste.
I would find this unacceptable from any politician and any charity. But since you were “the very first member of Congress to put her official daily schedule, personal financial disclosure and federal earmark requests online” and cited by The New York Times for your commitment to transparency, I find this an especially bitter pill.
As a marketer, I am saddened to see you resorting to Trumpian tactics based in dishonesty and lack of transparency. You’re better than this. In Michelle Obama’s famous line, “When they go low, we go high.”
Sincerely,
Shel Horowitz, marketing strategist and copywriter
I’ve been reading Ryan’s stuff for a couple of years now, and I’m very far from either conservatism or Christianity. But I still read him. Here’s the comment I posted on his blog that explains why:
I get some posts like those as well. And Ryan, while you and I are poles apart politically (I think Obama has sold out to the conservatives), and while I do consider myself a person of faith, I don’t happen to be a Christian, or particularly religious. But for me, those are not reasons to unsub. You always keep a civil tone, and I think core disagreements force me to rethink my positions, justify them to myself, and sometimes find them wanting and shift. If you were nasty about it, that’d be different. (I don’t read much of Dan Kennedy anymore because he’s way too shrill in his conservatism. I do read Clayton Makepeace, and have even contributed a few articles to his conservative news site as “The Unabashed Progressive”–but I tend to turn off when he goes political).
Anyway, in spite of my ultra-crowded in-box, I’m continuing to read your stuff even as I’ve cut back on a lot of others 🙂
And I love both your commitment to ethics (which I share) and your copywriting/marketing smarts.
I trust also that if you read my blog, you wouldn’t be turned off by the unabashedly progressive positions I often take.
One of the group members, Professor Allan Elder, wrote back with a long comment; here’s a piece of it:
The concern I have with all the books you recommend is they espouse a certain set of behaviors without explaining the reasoning behind them. For the casual reader (which is nearly all), this leads to prescription without understanding.
This is my response:
It’s true that my list focuses heavily on books that talk more about the behavior than the philosophy behind them. A book like The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid is based on a simple economic construct: there is money to be made helping the world’s poorest improve their lives. Yet several of the authors I mention would, I’m quite sure, be very comfortable showing their roots in Kant and John Stuart Mill.
I don’t see this as a problem; I actually see it as a strength. Self-interest can motivate positive changes in behavior, and thus in society, that more abstract thinking cannot. Those who would never voluntarily expose themselves to deep philosophical thinking start to create changes in the culture–and those who find their curiosity engaged will go deeper.
A practical example from my own life: as a teenager, I got involved with food co-ops, not because I had any particular consciousness at that time about the problems caused by our society’s choices in food policy, but because I was a starving student and it was a way to get good cheap food. But from that beginning based purely in narrow self-interest, I grew to understand some of the very complex web of policy, philosophy, and culture that have caused our food system to be the way it is. Thirty-five years later, I can talk about food issues on a much deeper level–but I still recruit people to eat better by engaging in their own self-interest: better health, better taste, etc. If they seem open to it, I start bringing in issues like the positive impact of supporting the local economy (which can then, in turn, open the door to a larger discussion of ethics issues).
In short, I think the literature has ample place for books rooted in either the philosophical or the practical, because different people will be drawn to the different schemes, and either one is a starting point for understanding the other 🙂
Of course philosophers pay attention to practical matters first, only they use a fancy word: “Praxis.” I didn’t mention that in my response.
Sorry—I’m not buying it! Call me naive, but I’m the parent of both a teenage boy and a bit-past-teenaged girl. Among their friends, I see a delightfully high awareness about the importance of an ethical, socially conscious lifestyle, and about the importance of leaving the world better than they found it. And I think that kids raised in the era brought about by the transparency inherent in social media will be more likely, not less, to follow an ethical path.
The study is from a respected ethics organization, the Josephson Ethics Institute. While I’ve long known their work, and respect it, I can only hope they’re wrong this time. Faith in human goodness is part of what keeps me going.
While visiting Minneapolis, I took in the opening day of the new Ben Franklin exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in downtown Saint Paul. I’ve long ben a Franklin fan. To me, his far-reaching curiosity, big-picture viewpoint, multiple interests, creativity, willingness to question authority and even make fun of it, media and persuasion skills, dedication to the public good, and rise from poverty to a comfortable (even hedonistic) lifestyle are all traits that today’s entrepreneurs can learn from.
No one can question that he made many important contributions in science (adding vastly to our knowledge of electricity, inventing a safer and more fuel-efficient wood stove), diplomacy/statesmanship (bringing France in as a powerful and game-changing ally against the British during the Revolution, oldest member of the Constitutional Convention), literature and communication (best-selling author/journalist/printer/publisher who was successful enough to retire from printing at 42, and propagandist for causes and philosophies he believed in), entrepreneurship (training and funding printers for a multistate network to print and distribute his works, anticipating the Internet by about 200 years and the modern franchise system by at least a century), as well as civic good (co-founding a public library, public hospital, fire department, fire insurance company, postal system, philosophical society).
But what struck me were some of the contradictions—there are many others, but these two in particular need a second look: Slavery
Franklin became convinced late in life that slavery was evil, and served as president of an anti-slavery society. Yet he not only owned slaves for over 40 years, but often published ads from slave-hunters in his periodicals, and refused to put his name on much of his earliest anti-slavery writing.
Integrity
Franklin is well-known for his moralizing, his aphorisms, and his commitment to honesty and integrity. Yet he broke his apprenticeship to his brother, ran away to Philadelphia before it was completed, and started as a printer without the papers necessary to show he qualified as a journeyman.
While none of us are perfect, it does seem that these areas of Franklin’s life, among others, need careful examination, with more detail than was provided by this traveling exhibit (which seemed to be aimed largely at children).
