AI: Ambivalent Interaction

 I do use AI, despite worrying about how much water it drinks, to check facts that I cannot be sure of before posting my wondrously informative blog articles. I do not consult them about Doc Barbara, whose fabulous exploits are beyond their capacity and require a human brain to savour fully their subtle hilarity. If you have that type of superior grey matter, do click on the live link on the right-hand side bar.

Despite the fact that they are huge machines, I find that each has an individual personality.    

Claude with his (they are all blokes) pleasing brown icon is like a kindly but stern doctor. He listens carefully and prescribes the right medicine but his eye is always on the clock and, deep down, he thinks it's your own fault if you are ill. His white coat is always pristine and his stethoscope has a sinister look in its gleaming eye. From his head issues a thought bubble: if you hadn't eaten that extra chocolate, you wouldn't be cluttering up my surgery now. I always leave with a sense of mild but ineradicable guilt that I hadn't discovered my diagnosis all by myself without troubling him. 

ChatCPT is more of a teacher: he enjoys imparting his wisdom in a neutral but solicitously patronising manner. In an old-fashioned classroom, he sits on a high chair on a dais, a tad absent-minded under his mortar board and non-judgemental about the way I am blathering on endlessly about semantic shift. (Live link on the side bar for access to that fount of free fascinating facts also. My alliteration bypass failed). He nevertheless makes me feel I haven't done my homework which is unfair because I was a right little swot at school and always handed in my prep (that's how posh it was) on time.

Gemini is different: you can't get away from him. He's like an over-eager puppy, always there and always trying to help. If you Google a local restaurant in July, he offers to give you its Christmas menu and to write a punchy and catchy review for you. However he stops short of offering to pay the bill and has no memory. I have told him umpteen times to avoid the word "incredibly" but he still uses it - constantly, inappropriately and irritatingly. He's unctuously flattering and yet self-contradictory: the customer is not only right; the customer is incredibly and wonderfully amazing and he, Gemini, was totally wrong in what he just wrote. Perhaps there are 2 of him. I do hope not. 

Perplexity: one too many but I have managed to shut him up when he didn't know the difference between metonymy and a kenning. That has saved a lot of water and I feel very smug. Nevertheless, I am British and always thank them at the end.