ChatGPT 3.5 vs 4.0
I’ve been having fun with ChatGPT lately. I paid the subscription fee to have access to 4.0 as well as to not be locked out during peak demand. I’m using it to add a fun twist to the reading assignments I provide to my Reading Development students. It’s fun to experiment with “style” prompts. That being said, there’s a tremendous difference in quality between 3.5 and 4.0.
I asked ChatGPT 3.5 the following: “provide a paragraph about an author, sitting with copies of their book, in a library, in the steampunk style of Edgar Rice Burroughs.”
I received the following reply: “In the dimly lit library, adorned with intricate brass gears and adorned with mesmerizing clockwork contraptions, sat the author, a figure of both mystery and wonder. Clad in a waistcoat of leather and goggles perched atop a mop of unruly hair, the author's gaze was fixed upon the copies of their latest novel, a tale woven with the threads of imagination and daring. The room echoed with the soft hissing of steam, while the air carried the faint scent of ink and aged parchment. With quill in hand, the author's eyes danced with excitement as they pondered the fantastical adventures awaiting their readers within the pages of their steampunk masterpiece.”
I gave the same prompt to ChatGPT 4.0. Here was the reply: “In the hushed grandeur of the library, amidst the labyrinthine stacks of parchment, they sat, surrounded by copies of their latest masterpiece. Their figure, draped in a mix of leather and brass, was a sight straight from the pages of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel. Goggles rested atop their head, reflecting the warm glow of the gas lamps that hung from the high, cog-and-gear-laden ceiling. Their hands, bearing the patina of years of ink and quill, moved with practiced grace over the hardbound copies, each one a testament to their imagination. They wore a vest of deep burgundy velvet, festooned with various brass accoutrements and pocket watches, their ticking a rhythmic counterpoint to the muffled rustle of turning pages. Here, in this cathedral of knowledge, they were not just a creator but a character from their own tales, a living, breathing testament to the vivid steampunk world they'd crafted. The scent of oiled leather and musty paper was strong, and the mechanical hum of the library's clockwork intricacies created a fitting soundtrack, blending the romantic with the industrial, the past with the future, much like their own prose.”
I then put the prompt into a popular AI art generator. Here’s the result.
I didn’t specify a gender. I used they / them pronouns in my prompt. Interestingly, the algorithm returned 4 images of obviously male characters.
The problem with the art generators is one of cost. If you want high quality, you have to pay a significant fee. The free generators return bland or useless results.
So why am I interested in this? As I’ve noted before, I think these natural language processors are a Gestalt Language Processor’s best friend. Indeed, we can ask it anything we want and it will generate countless scripts / gestalts for us to use … in most languages … in any style … in an instant. Technologically enabled echolalia in its infancy, but still quite functional.