AI Chatbots are giving me amazingly good answers

It behooves us all to test and evaluate new technology. Just imagine what our world would be like if ideas of teleportation had not been pursued in 1983

With that out of the way, we must be careful to define our terms.

For example, what do we mean by "amazingly good answers" or even "good answers" for that matter.

I suspect that "amaze" is related to the word "maze", a thing in which you can get lost; a puzzle; but in this context "amazing" means a surprise, probably a pleasant surprise as in "I figured ChatBots would come up with an answer, but I am surprised at how good this answer was".

Fair enough.

But that leaves me wondering "what constitutes a good answer"?

Basically, if you truly know nothing about some topic (and until a few minutes ago I knew absolutely nothing about chemotaxis) then any answer at all is good. Of course if chemotaxis is vital to my survival on this day I shall look for a great many answers. Most of you reading this far might have looked up chemotaxis in a dictionary of English, or done a web-search, and by now will be muttering "what a waste of my time THAT was!". But the next time you see chemotaxis in a news article, anywhere, your brain will startle you by saying "I know what chemotaxis is!"(1).

I'll make it easier for you all. "Searching for missing files" is known to all of you, but consider Granny, or Aunt Griselda or nephew Sam who started using a PC this week. Your family members will be amazed to find that there is a program called "Everything" that is a gazillion times faster and more powerful than File Explorer. I have had clients scream - literally - when long-lost text came into view during document conversion. Ho-hum to me; a Miracle to them.

In short: Chatbots will always yield amazingly good results on topics of which we are ignorant.

Now go use your favourite AI bot and ask it "What is programming" and check the response to that question. I'll be that YOU don't find it amazingly good.

I am indebted to jimspoon for prompting these thoughts in my mind.

Cheers, Chris

(1) You may not remember what it is, but you will remember that you ONCE knew what it is, and that there is an answer out there. C.

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