Lipika, O My Darling!

 

Lipika, O My Darling!

(Time to read-4 mins)

(Disclaimer: This article is not for the tech-savvy or the tech-averse, but for the curious but tech-challenged reader.)

Love at first sight!

One look at her features, and I fell in love. She didn’t croon for me ‘Piya tu ab toh aajaa’, the hot, hit number from Caravan, the 1971 Bollywood film. Yet, I was besotted. She is young, fetching, enticing, enthralling, and enchanting. Bubbly, yet works quietly even though she is never at a loss for words.  

Lipika, My GENIE!

Recently, I learned the mantra to summon ChatGPT, a Genie who is at my beck and call, 24x7, and performs any writing task I assign in a matter of seconds. Considering her ready wit and rapid-fire replies, I guess ChatGPT must be a female. OpenAI has named it ChatGPT, a most prosaic name; but this smitten author chooses to call her Lipika, in remembrance of the world’s first author, Enheduanna, a lady.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an abbreviation for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer. That is a mouth-full, but let that not put you off. You do not need to know how it does what it does. As a user, you give a command (techies call it ‘input’), and it produces the text (output) ordered by you.

It is simple. That is its USP. You use Natural Language inputs, the language you use in conversation or written text, to key in the task; ChatGPT understands that, works at an amazing speed, and produces the result in a few seconds. Just like a Google/Siri/Alexa/Cortana Search, only better.

If my description does not make much sense to you, here is what ChatGPT has to say about itself (My command was for: A Note on ChatGPT in 50 words for the technology-challenged person):

ChatGPT is a natural language processing (NLP) model developed by OpenAI. It is designed to generate human-like text based on the input it receives. ChatGPT can be used to answer questions, engage in conversations, and perform other language-based tasks. It is trained on a large dataset of human language and can understand and respond to a wide range of inputs. ChatGPT is a useful tool for tasks that require understanding and generating human-like text, such as language translation or customer service.

She exceeded the word limit (output is in 81 words!), but never mind that minor slip. She gave an easy-to-understand note about herself.

Why did I sign up for ChatGPT?

Once asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory famously replied, “Because it’s there.” Those are said to be the most famous three (or four, if you are counting) words in mountaineering.

Same for me. I signed up coz others (mostly from the younger generation) have done that and are raving about it.  Also, because it is free. To survey the scenery, explore a little, and stay there if I like it, or leave if I don’t.

And for bragging rights. I signed up on 30 December 2022. Doesn’t that make me an early bird, since ChatGPT was launched on 30 November 2022 by OpenAI, an Artificial Intelligence research and deployment company that has a partnership with Microsoft? Many will sign up in 2023 or later. I can always say, I learned it in 2022, which is factual.

Tasks I assigned ChatGPT

• ·      A poem on Prayer for Universal Health, Happiness, and Prosperity
• ·      A poem on New Year wish by an ordinary, concerned citizen of India
• ·      A poem on forecast of global recession in 2023
• ·      A Hindi poem on New Year wish
• ·      A Prayer for Lord Jagannatha in Odia
• ·      A Prayer for Lord Jagannatha in Sambalpuri dialect of Odia
• ·      A limerick on ChatGPT
• ·      A limerick on DALL-E (about this AI tool, later)
• ·      A limerick about a spendthrift Indian wife  
• ·      A Note on ChatGPT in 50 words for the technology-challenged person
• ·      A Note on Domestic roof-top Solar Energy in Madhya Pradesh: Opportunities and Challenges.
• ·      A Petition to Bhopal Municipal Commissioner for Urgent Repair of Roads in Baghmugaliya Colony
• ·      A Petition to Bhopal Municipal Commissioner for installation of a Sewerage Treatment Plant at Laharpur
• ·      An affidavit to change my name from ‘Prasanna Kumar Dash’ to ‘Prasanna Dash’
• ·      Reply to Income Tax Officer, Bhopal that the Tax Demand raised on P. K. Dash vide his letter of December 27, 2022 is incorrect since the total tax due has already been paid
• ·      A limerick on an author named Dash

You may note that I have kept ChatGPT rather busy, but she has no complaints. She has not yet snapped at me for assigning inane, boring, or tough tasks. Occasionally, she has regretted that a particular task was outside of her capability since she had not been trained for it. A polite but candid confession, despite her gender.

What do you think of my ‘asks’? Maybe, the list tells more about me than about ChatGPT!

A few Illustrations

I refrain from reproducing all her replies and outputs. That would be oh, so boring. You are free to sign up, and ask your own serious, solemn, funny, frivolous, or very smart and intelligent questions. Go ahead, while it is still free.

I present below a few ChatGPT Limericks:

About a spendthrift Indian wife

There once was a spendthrift Indian wife

Whose shopping caused her husband much strife

He begged and he pleaded

But her wants never receded

Now they live in a home without a roof or a knife.

 

A limerick on an aspiring author named Dash

There once was an author named Dash

Who dreamed of publishing with panache

He wrote every day

In every which way

Hoping his book would make a splash.

 

(My own limerick on Dash)

There was an author named Dash

Who failed to make a splash,

Since his stories were pathetic,

He switched to limerick,

Hoping to be desi Ogden Nash.

 

Sorry, Genie, for grabbing your space!

Applications/Petitions, etc

She wrote a perfect letter to the Bhopal Municipal Commissioner requesting him to urgently repair the roads in Baghmugaliya Extension. She even mentioned the large number of potholes, a daily traffic hazard, and highlighted that these roads had not been repaired for several years. I had NOT provided these inputs. Did she pick it up from Google Earth? Or from the records of BMC? Or from my request to the Commissioner, a few months ago, by a WhatsApp message?

Feeling rather thrilled, I asked her to write a petition to the Bhopal Municipal Commissioner for installation of a Sewerage Treatment Plant at Laharpur since the abandoned irrigation tank has now become an open-air sewerage pond, and a great health hazard to the residents in the area. She mulled for a moment, and then assigned me a series of tasks:

• ·      mobilise public opinion
• ·      prepare a petition signed by several residents
• ·      attach documentary proof of any recent scientific study to substantiate your claim, and a few photographs
• ·      seek an appointment with the Commissioner, and
• ·      present the petition along with a delegation.

Was she taking sweet revenge for all the non-sensical tasks I had assigned her? Had I insulted her intelligence by asking for banal jobs? I am told that she can write python coding language, too!

Conclusion

It is time for a quick performance appraisal of my Genie. On a scale of 1 to 10, I award her 6. Very good at mundane, mechanical tasks (application, petition, affidavit), and reasonably good at creative tasks (poems, stories). I have not tested her alleged High IQ, which I will assess when I myself learn about that.

Don’t go by the assessment of this novice user. Search for erudite, scholarly articles on ChatGPT, and you would have loads of reading material. Keep your mind open. Sign Up (at openai.com you will find the link to ChatGPT), try it yourself, and form your own opinion.

A Question before I conclude. Will AI make writers and poets and painters redundant or even extinct? I fancy myself as an author. Do I have a serious rival in ChatGPT? Nah, she doesn’t have access to my personal memories and feeling and thoughts. Not yet, though. Who knows about the future? If DALL-E can paint a sunset on the Bhopal Lake in Van Gogh style, and ChatGPT can write a murder mystery at Mandu in the style of Agatha Christie, why can’t it write like Prasanna Dash?

Maybe, she will read up all my eleven books in a few seconds, scan my social media transactions, emails, eavesdrop on all my conversations, and easily figure out my profile, imitate my style, and begin writing liking Prasanna Dash. Maybe, even parodying me!

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 Digital Art for Lipika generated by DALL-E. My 'prompt' was:

“an impressionist oil painting of an Indian author, age 65, dictating; and a pretty American girl, age 25, typing on a laptop on a cruise boat at Bhopal lake at sunset”

Note: 

• Author's profile may be seen at http://amazon.com/author/pkdash
• Books by this author are available on Amazon.in, Kindle eBook, Flipkart, and Notion Press, Chennai.

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