Blindsight GPT
 
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Blindsight GPT

An entity that sounds human, can process language and talk to you - but has no consiousness and no idea what it's talking about? I've seen that before. A couple of years ago I read a book, Blindsight by Peter Watts, that described an encounter between humans and an alien that had intelligence but not consciousness. The alien was described as "a Chinese room[a]"; while it gave syntactically correct replies to the messages the humans sent, it became obvious that it had no idea what it was talking about.

With ChatGPT[b], we now have that alien here on Earth, and I thought I'd see what it would make of some of the messages sent by the humans.

As we start, the humans have started to figure out that the alien is just faking it and they begin to send purposefully ambiguous messages.

Me

Our cousins lie about the family tree, with nieces and nephews and Neandertals. We do not like annoying cousins.

ChatGPT

It can be frustrating when family members provide false information about the family tree, especially when it comes to genealogy and tracing one's ancestry. However, it's important to remember that not everyone may have accurate information, and it's possible that there could be misunderstandings or inaccuracies passed down from previous generations. In such cases, it may be helpful to do some research and verify information with credible sources or other family members who may have better knowledge of the family history.

Me

We usually find our nephews with telescopes. They are hard as Hobblinites.

ChatGPT

I'm not sure what you mean by "finding our nephews with telescopes." It seems like a metaphor, but without more context it's difficult to interpret. As for the reference to "Hobblinites," it's possible that you are using a made-up term. Can you provide some additional information or clarify what you are trying to convey?

How did ChatGPT do compared to the alien known as Rorschach? Well, it did slightly better than Rorschach's We'd like to know about this tree[*][c] on the first message but still missed all the ambiguities. On the second message it did a lot better than You haven't mentioned your father at all[*][d], calling out the absurdity of the first sentence and correctly identifying Hobblinites as a made-up nonsense word.