~ The Old Sachem ~ A New System

By Bill Stewart

Recently I visited my son Bob and his family in Basalt, Colorado, which is next to Aspen. We decided to create a chat AI article about Saugus and the result follows. We only asked for 500 words to keep the article short. Here is the article we created that was published in last week’s Saugus Advocate to demonstrate the use of this new system of writing.

  Saugus, Massachusetts, has a rich and fascinating history that dates back over 400 years. The town was first settled in 1629 by English colonists led by Sir Richard Saltonstall, making it one of the oldest European-founded towns in the United States.

  During its early years, Saugus played a significant role in the iron industry. In 1646, the Saugus Iron Works was established, becoming the first integrated ironworks in North America. This industrial complex was responsible for producing iron products such as tools, nails and even cannons. The Saugus Iron Works operated until 1668 and has since been preserved as a National Historic Site, providing visitors with a glimpse into early colonial industry.

  In addition to its involvement in the iron industry, Saugus also had strong agricultural roots. The fertile land surrounding the town allowed for successful farming, and early settlers relied heavily on agriculture for sustenance. Over time, the economy diversified, and different industries thrived, including shoe manufacturing and leatherworking.

  During the American Revolutionary War, Saugus played a part in the fight for independence. Many residents joined the Continental Army and fought in various battles, including the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The town also served as a strategic location due to its proximity to Boston, making it a vital supply area for American troops.

  As the 19th century arrived, Saugus experienced rapid industrialization and urbanization. The advent of the railroad in the mid-1800s brought increased transportation and economic opportunities to the town. Factories and mills sprouted up, attracting both workers and new residents seeking employment.

Now that you’ve seen the result, info on chatAI follows. The data was taken from Google and Wikipedia.

ChatGPT is a form of generative AI – a tool that lets users enter prompts to receive humanlike images, text or videos that are created by AI.

ChatGPT is similar to the automated chat services found on customer service websites, as people can ask it questions or request clarification to ChatGPT’s replies. The GPT stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer,” which refers to how ChatGPT processes requests and formulates responses. ChatGPT is trained with reinforcement learning through human feedback and reward models that rank the best responses. This feedback helps augment ChatGPT with machine learning to improve future responses.

OpenAI – an AI research company – created and launched ChatGPT in November 2022. It was founded by a group of entrepreneurs and researchers, including Elon Musk and Sam Altman, in 2015. OpenAI is backed by several investors, with Microsoft being the most notable. OpenAI also created Dall-E, an AI text-to-art generator.

ChatGPT works through its Generative Pre-trained Transformer, which uses specialized algorithms to find patterns within data sequences. ChatGPT uses the GPT-3 language model, a neural network machine learning model and the third generation of Generative Pre-trained Transformer. The transformer pulls from a significant amount of data to formulate a response.

ChatGPT uses deep learning – a subset of machine learning – to produce humanlike text through transformer neural networks. The transformer predicts text, including the next word, sentence or paragraph, based on its training data’s typical sequence. Training begins with generic data, then moves to more tailored data for a specific task. ChatGPT was trained with online text to learn the human language, and then it used transcripts to learn the basics of conversations.

Human trainers provide conversations and rank the responses. These reward models help determine the best answers. To keep training the chatbot, users can upvote or downvote its response by clicking on “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” icons beside the answer. Users can also provide additional written feedback to improve and fine-tune future dialogue.

Users can ask ChatGPT a variety of questions, including simple or more complex questions, such as, “What is the meaning of life?” or “What year did New York become a state?” ChatGPT is proficient with STEM disciplines and can debug or write code. There is no limitation to the types of questions to ask ChatGPT. However, ChatGPT uses data up to the year 2021, so it has no knowledge of events and data past that year. And since it is a conversational chatbot, users can ask for more information or ask it to try again when generating text.

Some limitations of ChatGPT:

• It does not fully understand the complexity of human language. ChatGPT is trained to generate words based on input. Because of this, responses may seem shallow and lack true insight.
• Lack of knowledge for data and events after 2021. The training data ends with 2021 content. ChatGPT can provide incorrect information based on the data from which it pulls. If ChatGPT does not fully understand the query, it may also provide an inaccurate response. ChatGPT is still being trained, so feedback is recommended when an answer is incorrect.
• Responses can sound like a machine and unnatural. Since ChatGPT predicts the next word, it may overuse words, such as “the” or “and.” Because of this, people still need to review and edit content to make it flow more naturally, like human writing.
• It summarizes, but does not cite sources. ChatGPT does not provide analysis or insight into any data or statistics. ChatGPT may provide several statistics but no real commentary on what these statistics mean or how they relate to the topic.
• It cannot understand sarcasm and irony. ChatGPT is based on a data set of text.
• It may focus on the wrong part of a question and not be able to shift. For example, if you ask ChatGPT, “Does a horse make a good pet based on its size?” and then ask it, “What about a cat?” ChatGPT may focus solely on the size of the animal versus giving information about having the animal as a pet. ChatGPT is not divergent and cannot shift its answer to cover multiple questions in a single response.

While ChatGPT may be helpful for some tasks, there are some ethical concerns that depend on how it is used, including bias, lack of privacy and security, and cheating in education and work.

One of the biggest ethical concerns with ChatGPT is its bias in training data. If the data the model pulls from has any bias, it is reflected in its output. ChatGPT also does not understand language that may be offensive or discriminatory. The data needs to be reviewed to avoid perpetuating bias, but including diverse and representative material can help control bias for accurate results.

As technology advances, ChatGPT may automate certain tasks that are completed by humans, such as data entry and processing, customer service and translation support. People are worried that it could replace their jobs, so it’s important to consider ChatGPT and AI’s effect on workers, using ChatGPT as support for job functions and creating new job opportunities to avoid loss of employment.

ChatGPT uses text based on input, so it could potentially reveal sensitive information. The model’s output can also track and profile individuals by collecting information from a prompt and associating this information with the user’s phone number and email. The information is then stored indefinitely.

  (Editor’s Note: Bill Stewart, better known to Saugus Advocate readers as “The Old Sachem,” writes a weekly column about sports – and sometimes he opines on current or historical events or famous people.)