ChatGPT, COVID, and the Almighty Underwater Chicken

ChatGPT, COVID, and the Almighty Underwater Chicken

It feels like nowadays everyone writes about ChatGPT and there are good reasons for it. ChatGPT is an impressive technology. It provides answers not as sequences of links or some other strange things. It writes text - understandable to everyone who can read and write.

Was there ever a new technology that suddenly was so present everywhere? Just open a newspaper and you will find articles about ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a hype. Is it worth the hype? This is something else. 

Whenever a new hype appears - especially those ones that could have impact on the society, it makes sense to think about technology, evidence and other related topics. But let's first start with the story of the Almighty Underwater Chicken.

The Almighty Underwater Chicken

There is a great TV show for children I like a lot, because it tells something about the relationship between epistemology and social life in an understandable and entertaining way: Roger and the Rottentrolls - Series 3, Episode 4: The Almighty Underwater Chicken. 

It is about some hand puppet folk (called the Rottentrolls). Someone of them is at a river and suddenly thinks he has seen a chicken in it (where the teller states that the Rottentroll should have noticed that he just saw the picture of a chicken on a plastic bag on the river's ground, but he didn't). When he comes home and tells the others about the chicken, someone replies that it was probably just the picture on a plastic bag. But some other Rottentroll appears (who likes playing tricks to the others) and explains that it is the appearance of the Almighty Underwater Chicken. That chicken appears every now and then and makes everyone's wishes come true (as long as one believes in it). The rather critical Rottentroll doubts about it, but he is told that the Almighty Underwater Chicken appears in many mysterious ways. So, he just claims "Hurray the Almighty Underwater Chicken".

Days later (the Rottentrolls already worship the Almight Underwater Chicken) princess Kate appears and after she sees what's going on, she decides to disprove the story of the Almighty Underwater Chicken: She asks one Rottentroll (who wished to be able to juggle) to show whether he is able to juggle the following day.

What happens next is, that during night this Rottentroll becomes aware that he cannot juggle. But since he does not want to disappoint the others (nor does he want the others' dreams to become not true), he practices all night juggling - and the next morning he can juggle.

Well, the end of the story is, that the Rottentroll who invented the Almighty Underwater Chicken tells everyone that he made it up.

One can easily see what the Almighty Underwater Chicken has to do with epistemology. But let's just forget the Almighty Underwater Chicken for a moment. And let's take a look on epistemology and social life from a different angle.

Let's go back a year or two: COVID

Let's go back a year or two. COVID was present everywhere. People died, but there were people who had some ideas how to reduce the problem. What happened (well, at least in Germany) was that even the public news wrote about studies. Vaccines were invented, some of them were more effective than others, some disappeared. People were suddenly aware of the FDA (respectively the European version of it, the EMA). Suddenly, people spoke about evidence. People were aware that it is not enough that someone just invents a new technology. An invention has to prove its' benefit. The risk of the technology has to be studied before it is widely applied. And people were aware that neither anecdotes nor single cases are sufficient to argue for or against a new technology. Even on the bus people spoke about double-blind studies.

Years ago, there were good reasons to assume that the COVID tragedy has some positive effect on the society. It felt like there was a sudden step towards enlightenment. There were some counter reactions as well, but it felt like a majority of people suddenly recognized the value of science: the critical (but non-subjective) testing of technology independent of the believe of the experimenters. 

Now, two years later, there is not much left of this optimistic impression. It looks like we fall back into old habits.

The Appearance of ChatGPT

Suddenly, there is this amazing technology online. And it is shocking to see how we welcome it with open arms. And while there is every now and then a report telling us that ChatGPT might not be the last word in wisdom, we find countless highly educated people who share their positive and euphoric ChatGPT anecdotes. And one finds countless examples, where even high school teachers integrate ChatGPT in teaching - with the argument, that pupils should learn how to use a technology (often with the additional comment that they should be taught a critical examination of new technology).

It is shocking.

There is a new technology who's effect is not known. We do not know whether its' integration into teaching has negative consequences. We do not know whether it is reasonable to make this technology open available. We do not know how often ChatGPT's could have bad or terrible consequences. But there are a number of positive anecdotes about it.

One could argue that the previous thoughts are just the typical reaction of an overcautious person. And one could argue that such kind of argumentation finally just destroys innovation. Just to remind ourselves: the argument "it kills innovation" was the argument against the FDA - the organization that stopped innovators killing people with their products.. 

There are countless articles about the need and the success of the FDA and there is no need to repeat them here. But just to make clear: a huge majority of things that are currently just few meters away from you are massively tested by law (not only the food that you eat, not only the machines that you currently use to read this text, ...).

Let's make our life easy. Let's ask some trivial questions: 

1. How often do you let your child speak alone with a complete stranger? (I know, it is a typical rhetorical trick to bring in a child, but I assume the argument is clear)
2. How often do you assume a complete stranger could help when you have questions or problems?
3. How often do you believe in what a complete stranger says?

One could argue that all previous questions are stupid: people have developed mechanisms to come to a conclusion whether or not a stranger could be trusted. This is correct. But none of the mechanisms work because of the simple fact that a software product is not human. Although it might give someone the feeling that one interacts with a human, because ChatGPT uses a human communation channel: it formulates text.

And to make one thing clear: we are far away from having any standardized testing procedures for technologies such as ChatGPT. In other words: no one knows today what exactly ChatGPT is able to provide.

Back to the Almighty Underwater Chicken

The story of the Almighty Underwater Chicken sounds typical for a children's story: there is some strange phenomenon, some misunderstanding, a villain, some blind believers, and an unbelievable naivety of some characters.

But whenever I read just another anecdote about ChatGPT, I have this strange feeling that we are much closer to the Rottentrolls than to the educated society we should be. Shouldn't we have learned more about how to be a little bit more cautious with new technology? Shouldn't we have learned more about being a bit more cautious with untested products provided by multi-billion companies?

We should make more and more explicit that ChatGPT is far from being a tested technology. We should ask lawmakers to propose testing procedures for such kind of technology before it is provided to countless people (and especially kids in school). And whenever someone tells another anecdote about ChatGPT, it is our duty to remind people that an anecdote cannot replace knowledge. 

Actually, I do believe that ChatGPT is a powerful technology that will massively influence our lives in the future - probably even more than internet search machines did. But before we join in the cheers about the Almighty Underwater Chicken, and before we spread the word that it makes our wishes come true, let's test it first. 

We should not and must not stop demanding evidence. Because of the simple reason: There is more and more the impression that one is surrounded by people who do not stop saying: "Hail the Almighty Underwater Chicken".

We must be aware that it finally might just turn out to be a plastic bag - and hopefully nothing more dangerous. Hurray the Almighty Underwater Chicken? No, forget it.

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