What Do You Know About AI and ChatGPT?

Instead of a word of the day, I thought I’d share what’s been on my mind and bothering me for a while…

I admit to not knowing much at all about machine learning. As someone with a Minor in Creative Writing, it seems like a travesty to rely on an inanimate computer program to interpret what my brain and my heart might think.

I chatted (talked human to human) with someone who used to work for a large company and they wanted her to use AI to create documents, mainly because it would save them money. When she pushed back and said that she didn’t feel comfortable with that decision and that she was an expert in this particular field, she was terminated. True story. She got a lucrative settlement, but still…the ramifications are kind of scary, don’t you agree?

Funnily enough, I used AI to query “what is Chat GPT?” Here’s what this inanimate, nonhuman responded:

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that generates human-like text, code, and images in response to user prompts. Released on November 30, 2022, it uses large language models based on the generative pre-trained transformer architecture and runs on a freemium model.

What Does GPT Mean?

  • Generative: The model creates new content, such as text, answers, or code.
  • Pre-trained: It learned patterns from a massive dataset of books, articles, and websites before its public launch.
  • Transformer: It uses a deep learning neural network to understand the context and flow of conversation.

Key Capabilities

  • Conversational Chat: Answers questions, solves math problems, and remembers the context of a dialogue.
  • Writing and Editing: Drafts emails, essays, resumes, and creative stories.
  • Coding: Writes, debugs, and explains code in multiple programming languages.
  • Multimodal Tools: Handles text, voice conversations, web searches, and image generation.

I know that Professor Angel Boy really really despises AI, and in general, teachers generally view AI-generated content with deep concern, fearing it hurts critical thinking and academic honesty, though opinions range from total bans to cautious integration. Most faculty focus heavily on detection, assignment redesign, and clear syllabus policies. I think that it’s a clear form of cheating to use AI and not spend hours reading books, researching, and using their own brains to THINK.

  • Loss of Skills: Over 90% of faculty worry that relying on AI reduces student critical thinking, writing ability, and deep engagement with course material.
  • Hallucinations & Accuracy: Professors note that AI tools frequently invent fake sources, facts, and citations, turning research into a verification trap.
  • Cheating & Equity: Most instructors see a rise in unpermitted shortcuts, making it hard to grade who actually did the intellectual work.
  • Writing Style & Anomalies: Professors look for sudden shifts in tone, overly generic or formulaic structures, unusual formatting, and a lack of personal voice.
  • Draft & Version History: Instructors check Google Docs or version logs to see if a paper was written incrementally or pasted in all at once.
  • Oral Interrogations: When suspicious, many professors skip faulty AI detectors and simply ask the student to explain their paper or sources out loud.
  • Skepticism of Detectors: Many faculty know that tools like Turnitin or Copyleaks have false positives—especially for non-native English speakers—and hesitate to rely on them alone.

Don’t get me started on ChatBot…a computer program that simulates human conversation through text or voice. It helps users find information, answer questions, or complete tasks automatically.

Love him or hate him, but Bill Gates is also concerned about artificial intelligence because it is advancing at an unprecedented rate and threatens massive job displacement, security risks, and social upheaval without proper preparation or government plans.

Even Melinda Gates, whom I do respect, says she’s nervous about AI and warns that a lack of women and diverse voices in tech risks “baking bias” into AI systems.

At the end of the day, all of this non-human interaction makes me sad and I fear for the next generations. We need to think for ourselves, not rely on anyone or anything else.

Rant over.

Time As a Construct

Lately, I’ve been thinking about T-I-M-E. Time flies. I hate to be late; I like to be ON TIME. Does time really exist at all or have we been brainwashed to think iit does?

Too much thinking about time as ephemeral makes me anxious. Too much thinking about anything does the same thing. My non-logical mind has determined that TIME itself isn’t the issue; THINKING about it IS and it makes my brain melt, just like Dali’s clocks.

Salvador Dalí

 “Time doesn’t exist, clocks exist. Time is just an agreed upon construct.”
— David Foster Wallace

“It takes just one unattended moment for an hour to pass.”
― Sherod Santos, Square Inch Hours: Poems

Santos was born in South Carolina, graduated from San Diego State University, and studied at the University of California, Irvine. I never met him when I attended SDSU, but I knew ABOUT him; all of us who studied creative writing and poetry knew about “Rod” Santos and W.S. Merwin and Glover Davis, who was actually my professor.

David Foster Wallace was an acclaimed American writer known for his fiction, nonfiction, and critical essays that explored the complexities of consciousness, irony, and the human condition. Wallace wrote the novel Infinite Jest.

“The Persistence of Memory” is an iconic 1931 surrealist oil painting by Salvador Dalí, famous for its “melting” clocks draped over a desolate, dream-like landscape inspired by his Catalonian home. The painting uses a paranoiac-critical method to explore the subconscious, with the distorted clocks symbolizing the fluidity and subjectivity of time, influenced by Freudian psychology and potentially Einstein’s theory of relativity. From Google.

Could Leon Russell’s version of As Time Goes By be the best ever? I think so…mature Leon was awesome, too.

Haiku: Moon Owl

Every so often I need to dust off my mostly unused poetry brain cells (Creative Writing Minor) and I’m reminded of how much I loved writing haikus.

moonowlhaikuMoon Owl

Midnight sky, stars float
Inky black trees, silhouette
Owl hoots announce: moon

by me, Princess Rosebud
Enchanted Seashells
October 2015

Photo taken along California’s Central Coast

Older. Wiser. Better?

Many years later, still puzzling things out.

SELFIE PUZZLEStill the paramount focal point of any photo.
Still fabulously attired with beautifully coiffed and beribboned hair.
Still unable to fit round pieces into square shapes.
And yet, still, the world revolves around me.

And most importantly, still adorable.

P.S. I sent this post to hub and he emailed back that this has always been his favorite pic of me and it’s because I look so determined.