ChatGPT isn't an enemy, but a partner

ChatGPT’s flat, scripted creation (above) contrasts with Chan’s soulful and heartfelt expression in the 300-word letter writing competition, showing that artificial intelligence can’t outwit its human creative counterparts. [Wang Yuke / China Daily]

Neuron networks vs brain

To make sense of ChatGPT's limitations — emotionally lame and inept — we need to reverse-engineer how ChatGPT is developed.

The underlying technology of ChatGPT, or artificial intelligence in general, involves artificial or simulated neural networks that mimic the way human brains aggregate knowledge and form ideas through signals and among biological neurons. By its very nature, ChatGPT is a programmed tool trained on a colossal pool of existing data to identify patterns and tease out correlations that enable it to generate answers and make predictions.

However, it's too reductive to equate the neural networks that ChatGPT or AI, in general, is modeled on, with the complex biological networks that support human brains to function. In other words, while AI can simulate some of the processes involved in human brain functions, it's far from capturing and replicating the complexity and nuances of human thought and behavior, which are attributed to layered life experiences and thus emotional wisdom or, colloquially, "street smarts".

"In the human brain, knowledge and information are introduced through sensory input and are transmitted through neuron networks via electrical and chemical signals. The processing of such information involves complex interactions among neurons that are shaped by experience and learning. Neurons form connections with each other and strengthen or weaken these connections based on the frequency and timing of their activation," says Ken Ip, chairman of the Asia MarTech Society.

Machine learning, no matter how "deep" it's touted to be, is far removed from human learning in that the latter involves the relentless input of fodder from experiences, including "sensory input, social interactions, and a lifetime of accumulated knowledge and expertise", says Ip. "This allows humans to draw on a much wider range of information when generating ideas and solving problems, and to approach problems in a more intuitive way."

A complex and multifaceted ability, and emotional human intelligence that signals our superiority over other species, are rooted in both "nature and nurture", says Sreedev Sharma, founder of Sociobits, suggesting that AI is blessed with nurturing as it can be trained, but without nature.

The difference in the learning approach between ChatGPT and humans evokes the question: Does the emotional inadequacy in ChatGPT and other chatbots prevent them from producing creative works or results that emotionally resonate with the audience?

Ip's answer is an absolute "yes". "Its incapacity for broader contextual understanding and intuition that comes with human personal experience and expertise can handicap its imagination and artistic license to generate creative works that are emotionally relatable to the audience," he says.

A snippet of dialogue in a film script or novel generated by AI, solely based on existing data sets and content gleaned from the internet and cobbled together, may well be seen as clunky, awkward, stilted, dry and hollow after being chewed over and scrutinized, and which the audience can be hardly identified with. Few people could have a better say in that than renowned Hong Kong film director Teddy Chan Tak-sum.

ChatGPT's flat, scripted creation contrasts with Chan's soulful and heartfelt expression (above) in the 300-word letter writing competition, showing that artificial intelligence can't outwit its human creative counterparts. [Wang Yuke / China Daily]

Emotional alienation

After Chan and ChatGPT were brought together and challenged to write a 300-word letter "from a son to his father before he left his hometown to pursue a filmmaking career in Teddy Chan's style", he was more convinced that AI can't outwit its human creative counterparts.

A loose translation of Chan's version is:

"Today is Dec 7, 1990. I've got everything ready for my study abroad. I know you loathe my decision to pursue the film path.

"Do you remember the first and only time you slapped me? You wept. You promised it would be the last time. I was then filled with hatred and rage. But now, I'm overcome with nothing but guilt and remorse. I chose today for my departure not because I've saved enough money but because it's the 100th day of your death. I lit the last incense and kowtowed to your portrait before I left. If you meet mother in heaven, please send my best regards to her.

"I hope I could be your son again in the next life — a sensible, obedient, respectful and filial son! Belated remorse. Till we meet again in the next life.

"Your unfilial son".

While ChatGPT's rendition perfectly ticks all the boxes fed in the prompts, it's flat and mediocre in terms of its tone and effect of storytelling, says Chan. It reads more scholarly, scripted and programmed from an arbitrary collection of sources, and less spontaneous, fluid and heartfelt, which leaves a void at the core, emotionally alienating the readers, he explains.

Literary prowess aside, the author's personal experience would anchor him in the right frame of mind or memory to express through language, insists Chan. "The dearth of personal, firsthand experience in ChatGPT explains why nuanced, granular and vivid accounts are absent in its (son-to-father) letter. When you read it, you can barely feel it because the lines are just skin-deep without the power of offering a feeling of deja vu in your life," says Chan.

Rather than a total fabrication, Chan's letter was inspired by his true tales with his father. "My father's denial of my film director dream is real. He did slap me in the face. I do beat up myself for being too rebellious. So the 'letter' I wrote is very faithful to my experience. It's a true-to-life personal story that affords the letter flesh and bones, that prompts an emotional attachment and resonance among readers in stark contrast to the unrelatable AI rendition without truly individualized genesis," says Chan, demanding that arts exist for emotional correspondence.

"I can't imagine a day when ChatGPT can supplant writers, screenwriters and creatives in the film and TV industry because the chatbot, without emotion and sentience, is no parallel to humans," he adds.

Recently, an AI-generated photo titled Pseudomnesia: The Electrician won the creative open citatory at the Sony World Photography Award in the guise of a human photographer's entry. It not only grabbed headlines, sending shivers down the spine of the creative industry, it triggered a discourse on the future of photography and other creative genres.

Is the AI-made photography creative enough for the prize? To Siau Keng-leng, head professor at the Department of Information Systems at the City University of Hong Kong, the answer is in the affirmative.

"Creative is creative", and the creative industry shouldn't discriminate between human and AI iterations. What really matters is how artists are warming up to the powerfully capable AI technologies, adapt to the machine-human relationship, which is increasingly leaning toward symbiosis, and embrace it with an open mind, instead of dwelling on the question of being supplanted by ChatGPT or not, he argues. Encounters with AI are "inevitable".