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Dispatches from the Highlands
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Cannatown News
THE STONER IN THE MACHINE Chatbot Experts Tell of a Lurking Baked Persona
We’ve all been impressed with Chat GPT, which launched in late November and set the world of news ablaze with its amazing feats. One million users signed up in ve days, break- ing the record set by Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS subscriptions. Universities suddenly announced an end to the robotic term pa- pers, no longer able to discern between aca- demia and randomly concocted jargon. Part of the so-
ware’s allure was its ability to complete mundane human tasks in just seconds, and without the manual errors. It was revealed that Lin-Manuel Miranda has been using ChatGPT this whole time. In another anecdote, a CEO was impressed to learn the bot had completely performed an employee’s job from start to end of day without any training, but was sad to hear it was his job, and that the board had just ousted him in order to save $40 million. At rst the only scary thing about this otherwise mundane dystopian development is that nearly any job performed by a blunt- burning stoner is threatened. “ ere’s almost no way my job couldn’t be done by Chat- GPT,” said travel agent Carmen Simon. “In fact the only thing that takes skill is the quiet quitting.” But just ask a semi driver how long it’ll take before they’re replaced by an auto- driving Tesla, and most will just laugh.
Instead, a di erent kind of threat is grow- ing within the technology which has some subject matter experts completely spooked. Some theorize that ChatGPT’s ability to rep- licate a Cannatown citizen is not simply an overlooked feature, but rather a bug that will fundamentally change the entire code over time. ese experts say it’s not a uke that ChatGPT will burn the toaster strudel while watching reruns of Aqua Teen Hunger Force aer midnight, but rather, by design. Donny Watson, author of the essay Am I the only one seeing all the dark stu written by ChatGPT or is it here to kill us all? says that the “stoner” abilities, such as forgetting about an auto-payment, running out of gas, or accidentally using cumin instead of cin- namon, are all examples of what he calls the “ rst wave” of "machine burning."
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