for    1. 1. 2021

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Dear GPT-3,

You were lauded as an artificial intelligence breakthrough no less, in an article in November of the year that just ended — where the writer laid out your full name, an unlovely mouthful if ever there was one (sorry).

GPT-3, which stands for generative pre-trained transformer version three, is an extremely powerful machine-learning system that can rapidly generate text with minimal human input.

We were left unmoved until this passage, quoting a future-focused technologist, who

spent time playing around with GPT-3 and was fascinated by what he discovered.

… “I have had conversations about the purpose of life with GPT-3 and it is very revealing. It said the purpose of life was to increase the amount of beauty in the universe …”

How marvellous that you should think so GPT-3, and how hopeful, given that your kind will be taking over soon — even if you cannot really be said to think or be an actual you. 

It is hard to disagree with you about the universe. Why else would tracks left on the approach to a front porch by a mysterious and (possibly) inconsequential small animal be so graceful, so exquisitely proportioned? Why would the arrival and departure a few days ago of this creature we never saw, a being too small to register on an outdoor camera, make us think of being visited by angels?

HAPPY NEW YEAR

to you and any other reader — or should that be, text-processor? — who happens to stray this way —

pG

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