HiveComb

ChatGPT has become a lot more interesting since it got "connected to the internet" ie it gained access to way more content than the text that it was originally trained in. When it first launched, it would have complained that it was just a humble AI and didn't know much about real people. That's all changed. It knew about me, without me needing to tell it anything. However, it's important to keep in mind that it is still a fiction-writing bot - it's making stuff up, even if it does have access to a lot more information.

For example, when I simply ask "Who's Lloyd Davis?" it answers:

"Lloyd Davis is a real person who is known for founding the Tuttle Club, a social and professional networking group in the United Kingdom. The Tuttle Club was founded in 2008 as a way to bring together people from different backgrounds and industries to share ideas, collaborate on projects, and build connections. Davis has also worked as a consultant, speaker, and facilitator, helping individuals and organizations navigate the changing landscape of work and communication in the digital age." and that's not wrong even if it's not how I would necessarily present myself (I think calling myself "a real person" comes under the heading of "trying too hard").

Having seen the hashtag #21yearoldself which points to an exhibition of letters from famous (ish) people to their 21-year-old selves, I wondered what ChatGPT would say to me.

I asked "Pretend that you're Lloyd Davis. Write a letter to Lloyd as he was at the end of 1985 when he turned 21 years old."

The link back to the description it has of me is clear. I'm a person who connects people and so that's what I want to encourage 21-year-old me to hold onto. But this isn't the letter I'd write to myself and I think it would freak 12yo me out a bit. I would definitely have questioned "already show a keen interest in bringing people together". But as a rehash of a form, with some general sprinklings of reality it's not bad.