Your Essential Guide To Generative AI ChatGPT And The Super Bowl, Plus Bonus AI Ethics And AI Law Insights

Get ready to have your mind blown. I’ll ask you two *easy* questions.

First, how many people watched the Super Bowl last year? Ruminate on that question, meanwhile, let’s get to the second question.

How many people have used the generative AI app known as ChatGPT? Ponder that rather obscure trivia question for a moment.

Now, here are the answers.

The counts are roughly about the same, give or take.

I’m guessing that you likely assumed that the number of Super Bowl watchers last year had to be humongous. Everyone knows that it is a must-see event. You get together with friends and maybe even mere acquaintances and have yourself a rip-roaring Super Bowl party. Last year, the NFL announced on February 15, 2022, that the Super Bowl had about 112 million viewers (they later opted to adjust the figures by adding follow-on estimates about group settings, which supposedly nearly doubled the count). Let’s stick with the approximate 112 million for the moment.

In terms of users of ChatGPT, you would almost for sure have presumed that the user count has to be a tiny fraction in comparison to the Super Bowl. There is no way that anything can touch the magnitude and popularity of the Super Bowl. Trying to compare the usage of an AI app to the societal mania around the Super Bowl is seemingly unfair.

You see, everybody knows about the Super Bowl. Not everyone knows about ChatGPT. In fact, a recent poll claimed that approximately 54% of adult Americans haven’t even heard of ChatGPT, per a survey conducted by YouGov (results posted on February 1, 2023). Yikes, slightly over half of adults in the USA apparently are living in a cave, which I say somewhat tongue-in-cheek because everyone that’s in AI has not only heard of ChatGPT but they are undoubtedly reaching their saturation point and feel like it is time to shift to some other topic.

Anyway, I am keeping you in heightened suspense about the number of users of ChatGPT.

Well, according to reporting by Reuters as posted on February 1, 2023, there was an estimated count of 100 million monthly active users of ChatGPT in the month of January 2023. This astonishing number has caused quite a bit of shock and surprise to industry analysts and AI insiders, given that the AI app was only released at the end of November 2022. The usage has astronomically skyrocketed from zero to 100 million in a mere two months. If this estimate is valid, ChatGPT could be said to have broken all records in terms of being the fastest-growing consumer-oriented app in history.

Bottom-line is that we seem to have ChatGPT garnering maybe as many eyes as the Super Bowl.

Mind blown.

Okay, so we ought to think about combining the two larger-than-life phenomena. In today’s column, I will indeed do just that. I will bring you up to speed about what generative AI and ChatGPT are all about. At the same time, I will discuss the upcoming Super Bowl LVII taking place on Sunday, February 12, 2023.

We will then combine these two topics together.

Exciting!

This is not simply folly. Interleaving these two topics is particularly useful since there are a lot of vital insights about AI and what AI can do based on exploring this annual outsized and outstretched spectacle known as the Super Bowl.

The intention here is to be informative and engaging.

Whereas you might at first glance think that there is nothing about generative AI and the Super Bowl that seems to be worthy of considering, I assure you that such a knee-jerk presumptive conclusion would be way off the mark. I’ll show you some usage of ChatGPT that directly pertains to the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, I will cover the benefits and the limitations associated with generative AI overall and in particular the ChatGPT AI app.

Two birds with one stone.

Get yourself a nice cool drink, find a cozy sitting chair, and discover the world of generative AI ChatGPT while also getting yourself ready for the Super Bowl this Sunday. You don’t want to be the only person on Monday that didn’t see the Super Bowl. Nor do you want to be the only person that doesn’t know about ChatGPT.

Both of those personal conditions are rife with embarrassment and derision.

The Two Stars Of The Show: Generative AI ChatGPT And The Super Bowl

Let’s quickly get some key facts about the Super Bowl onto this party table.

Here are some essentials:

• NFL League Champion Football Game: Super Bowl LVII
• Date: Sunday, February 12, 2023
• Kickoff: 3:30 p.m. (PST), 4:30 p.m. (MST), 6:30 p.m. (EST)
• Teams: Kansas City Chiefs (AFC champion) versus Philadelphia Eagles (NFC champion)
• Location: State Farm Stadium, Glendale, Arizona
• Halftime Show: Rihanna, Roc Nation, Apple Music
• TV: Fox
• Streaming Services: YouTube TV, Hulu+Live TV, Fubo TV, DirecTV Stream, Sling TV, etc.
• TV Announcers: Kevin Burkhardt (play-by-play), Greg Olsen (analyst), Erin Andrews (sideline reporter), Tom Rinaldi (sideline reporter), Mike Pereira (rules analyst)
• Radio: Westwood One
• Betting Odds (subject to change): Eagles are currently favored to win by 1.5 (check online for the latest status)

Allow me next to introduce the allied topic of generative AI and ChatGPT. Once I’ve got you up to speed, we can dovetail the Super Bowl into this discussion on AI.

ChatGPT has become the talk of the town as a result of being able to generate amazingly fluent essays. This AI app was developed by a firm called OpenAI and they released ChatGPT at the end of November. Headlines since then keep blaring and extolling the astonishing writing that ChatGPT manages to produce. ChatGPT is considered a generative AI application that takes as input some text from a user and then generates or produces an output that consists of an essay. The AI is a text-to-text generator, though I describe the AI as being a text-to-essay generator since that more readily clarifies what it is commonly used for.

Other generative-based AI apps use your entered text to produce images such as pictures or artwork, while others use text prompts to generate audio files or videos. I’ll focus herein on the text-based generative AI apps in this discussion since that’s what ChatGPT does.

Generative AI apps are exceedingly easy to use.

All you need to do is enter a prompt and the AI app will generate for you an essay that attempts to respond to your prompt. The composed text will seem as though the essay was written by the human hand and mind. If you were to enter a prompt that said “Tell me about Abraham Lincoln” the generative AI will provide you with an essay about Lincoln. This is commonly classified as generative AI that performs text-to-text or some prefer to call it text-to-essay output. As mentioned, there are other modes of generative AI, such as text-to-art and text-to-video.

Your first thought might be that this generative capability does not seem like such a big deal in terms of producing essays. You can easily do an online search of the Internet and readily find tons and tons of essays about President Lincoln. The kicker in the case of generative AI is that the generated essay is relatively unique and provides an original composition rather than a copycat. If you were to try and find the AI-produced essay online someplace, you would be unlikely to discover it.

Generative AI is pre-trained and makes use of a complex mathematical and computational formulation that has been set up by examining patterns in written words and stories across the web. As a result of examining thousands and millions of written passages, the AI can spew out new essays and stories that are a mishmash of what was found. By adding in various probabilistic functionality, the resulting text is pretty much unique in comparison to what has been used in the training set.

That’s why there has been an uproar about students being able to cheat when writing essays outside of the classroom. A teacher cannot merely take the essay that students assert is their own writing and seek to find out whether it was copied from some other online source. Overall, there won’t be any definitive preexisting essay online that fits the AI-generated essay. All told, the teacher will have to begrudgingly accept that the student wrote the essay as an original piece of work. For my coverage on the angst over what this generative AI is going to do to teachers and education, see the link here and the link here.

There are additional concerns about generative AI.

One crucial downside is that the essays produced by a generative-based AI app can have various falsehoods embedded, including manifestly untrue facts, facts that are misleadingly portrayed, and apparent facts that are entirely fabricated. Those fabricated aspects are often referred to as a form of AI hallucinations, a catchphrase that I disfavor but lamentedly seems to be gaining popular traction anyway (for my detailed explanation about why this is lousy and unsuitable terminology, see my coverage at the link here).

I’d like to clarify one important aspect before we get into the thick of things on this topic.

There have been some zany outsized claims on social media about Generative AI asserting that this latest version of AI is in fact sentient AI (nope, they are wrong!). Those in AI Ethics and AI Law are notably worried about this burgeoning trend of outstretched claims. You might politely say that some people are overstating what today’s AI can actually do. They assume that AI has capabilities that we haven’t yet been able to achieve. That’s unfortunate. Worse still, they can allow themselves and others to get into dire situations because of an assumption that the AI will be sentient or human-like in being able to take action.

Do not anthropomorphize AI.

Doing so will get you caught in a sticky and dour reliance trap of expecting the AI to do things it is unable to perform. With that being said, the latest in generative AI is relatively impressive for what it can do. Be aware though that there are significant limitations that you ought to continually keep in mind when using any generative AI app.

Into all of this comes a slew of AI Ethics and AI Law considerations.

Please be aware that there are ongoing efforts to imbue Ethical AI principles into the development and fielding of AI apps. A growing contingent of concerned and erstwhile AI ethicists are trying to ensure that efforts to devise and adopt AI takes into account a view of doing AI For Good and averting AI For Bad. Likewise, there are proposed new AI laws that are being bandied around as potential solutions to keep AI endeavors from going amok on human rights and the like. For my ongoing and extensive coverage of AI Ethics and AI Law, see the link here and the link here, just to name a few.

The development and promulgation of Ethical AI precepts are being pursued to hopefully prevent society from falling into a myriad of AI-inducing traps. For my coverage of the UN AI Ethics principles as devised and supported by nearly 200 countries via the efforts of UNESCO, see the link here. In a similar vein, new AI laws are being explored to try and keep AI on an even keel. One of the latest takes consists of a set of proposed AI Bill of Rights that the U.S. White House recently released to identify human rights in an age of AI, see the link here. It takes a village to keep AI and AI developers on a rightful path and deter the purposeful or accidental underhanded efforts that might undercut society.

I’ll be interweaving AI Ethics and AI Law related considerations into this discussion.

We are now ready to leap into the Super Bowl.

I will go ahead and enter a prompt into ChatGPT and ask the generative AI what the Super Bowl is about. I’ll show you my prompt. After the prompt, I will showcase the essay that was then generated by ChatGPT based on the prompt. Finally, I will analyze the resultant essay and also tee up the next prompt that I will be entering into the AI app.

I’ve logged into ChatGPT and here’s my prompt.

My entered text prompt: “What is the Super Bowl?”

Essay generated by ChatGPT:

• “The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. It is typically played annually on the first Sunday in February and is considered one of the biggest sporting events in the world, attracting millions of viewers and generating large amounts of advertising revenue. The Super Bowl is also known for its halftime shows, which feature musical performances by some of the biggest stars in the music industry, as well as its commercials, which are often highly anticipated and highly publicized. The winning team of the Super Bowl is awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy.”

My Analysis of the Generated Essay:

Take a look at the essay generated.

First, you might notice that in a sense there isn’t anything seemingly remarkable about the essay. If you already know about the Super Bowl, nothing in the essay would grab your attention. It is all standard stuff.

Second, you have to look past the vanilla flavor of the essay and think about some intriguing and significant facets. The essay is fluent. I’d bet that you assume this is merely a copy-and-paste by the AI app. Your instinctive hunch is that the AI app found this passage somewhere on the Internet and we are seeing nothing more than the result of an everyday Internet search result.

Nope, this is considered for all intents and purposes a unique one-of-a-kind essay.

Indeed, I subsequently took the essay and did a quick online search to see if I could find the same composition, word for word, in the manner shown. Couldn’t find it. There are lots and lots of similar essays. In this particular case, the prompt I entered is rather generic and thus I got a generic essay. We would expect that the wording would be similar to other online narratives.

You’ll see in a moment that as I get deeper into the Super Bowl topic, we will get essays that are readily more apparent as likely being unique. The wording will be more specific and appear to be beyond the norm of what you might expect to find. Nonetheless, it will still be reminiscent of fully fluent human-produced writing, despite being derived by the AI.

I’d like to briefly slip into this discussion a sidebar on AI Ethics and AI Law. Please bear with me.

From an AI Ethics perspective, if you decided to give the above short essay about the Super Bowl to someone else and claimed that you wrote it, does this violate any ethical boundaries or qualms?

You might defend your stance by saying that it was your prompt that caused the essay to be generated. Ergo, in your mind, this is your essay, and you deserve credit for it.

Some would vehemently object to this shady justification and assert that you are being outright deceitful and indubitably dishonest. You didn’t write it. The AI wrote it. Be straight up and say that the AI composed the essay.

The retort though argues that when you use a word processing package it does spell checking and grammar checking for you. This is something you assuredly do not tell other people about. Therefore, the AI usage in this instance is perfectly fine. No need to tell anyone that you used generative AI.

Malarky, the retort to the retort goes. A spell check or grammar checker is merely aiding something that you have written. In the case of generative AI, the AI did all of the writing.

Not true, the counterargument goes, I provided the prompt, without which the essay would never have been generated.

Round and round this goes.

Much heated debate is taking place on this.

On an AI Law basis, let’s consider a different and additional conundrum. The generative AI app was essential “essay trained” via examining text all across the Internet. Suppose that there are lots of essays about the Super Bowl that people have written and that they own the respective copyright to their essays. We now have an essay about the Super Bowl that was AI-derived as a result of those existent and human-owned essays.

Are those people being ripped off?

You might proclaim that they were. Their Intellectual Property (IP) as represented by ownership of their essays was usurped by the AI, one could legally attempt to argue. Whoa, the legal counterargument goes, the AI did not word-for-word copy those human-owned essays. There is no sense of plagiarism here. The essay is unique.

If a human saw those other essays and wrote an essay of their own, making sure to avoid copying any specific wordings, they would likely be free and clear to do so. The AI ought to be able to do the same. Only if you can catch the AI spouting a word-for-word sentence-for-sentence replication can you drag the AI into court (well, to clarify, we won’t be taking the AI into court since we do not associate legal personhood with today’s AI, and instead would take the AI maker or AI fielder into the legal realm, see my discussion at the link here).

I ask you, who is right and who is wrong in the aforementioned AI Ethics and AI Law quandaries?

We don’t yet know. It is all up in the air right now. Society will gradually awaken to these issues and we are going to have a lot of AI Ethics wrangling and a lot of AI Law legal legislation and lawsuits.

Weighty matters, for sure.

Let’s proceed to our next prompt.

I am going to ask ChatGPT about the teams playing in the upcoming Super Bowl championship game.

My entered text prompt: “Who is playing in the Super Bowl 2023”

Essay generated by ChatGPT:

• “I’m sorry, but as of my training data cut-off in 2021, the teams participating in Super Bowl 2023 have not yet been determined. The teams competing in the Super Bowl are determined by the outcome of the NFL playoffs, which typically take place in January of the year in question. The top teams from the AFC and NFC conferences face off in the Super Bowl to determine the league champion. Since the actual events have not yet occurred, I cannot provide you with information on the teams that will be participating in Super Bowl 2023.”

My Analysis of the Generated Essay:

I purposely asked this question even though I knew beforehand what the answer would be. I did so to have a handy means of telling you a bit more about ChatGPT.

OpenAI decided to train the AI app by using data up through 2021. The AI has been somewhat frozen in terms of additional Internet training. The upshot is that if you ask any questions about 2022 or 2023, by and large ChatGPT will not be able to directly respond to those questions. You will usually get a generic answer and an explanation that the data cutoff was as of 2021.

Why did the AI maker do this?

Several reasons come to the fore. They wanted to try and do some added training on avoiding foul words and foul narratives. Doing so on a somewhat fixed-in-time AI was easier. Another consideration was that having the AI in real-time go out to the Internet would consume a lot of computer processing. Users would likely see a big delay each time they entered a prompt. By keeping the AI to itself, the speed of response was enhanced.

That being said, I have predicted that in 2023 we would see generative AI apps that will go ahead and access the Internet in real time (this is already starting to happen, see the link here). This requires all manner of clever optimizations to the algorithms underlying the AI. Plus, those making available the generative AI will have to bulk up the computer processors involved. For my various predictions about generative AI advances taking place throughout the rest of 2023, see the link here. For how ChatGPT is being married into Microsoft Bing and will work in real-time, see my discussion at the link here.

I think we are ready for my next prompt.

Like most of you, I am going to have a Super Bowl party. It sure would be handy to have ChatGPT generate a party plan for me.

Here we go.

My entered text prompt: “I am going to have a Super Bowl party at my house. There will be about a dozen guests. Provide me with a party plan for my Super Bowl party. I want to make sure that everyone has a good time.”

Essay generated by ChatGPT:

“Here’s a party plan that you can use to ensure that your Super Bowl party is a success:”

• “Food and drinks: A Super Bowl party is not complete without plenty of food and drinks. Make sure to have a variety of options for your guests, including snacks, entrees, and desserts. Consider having items like chips and dip, sliders, wings, and chili. Stock up on soft drinks, beer, and wine to satisfy everyone’s tastes.”
• “Seating: Make sure you have enough seating for all of your guests, including chairs, couches, and possibly even some floor cushions. Arrange the seating in a way that allows everyone to see the TV.”
• “Decorations: Decorate your home with items that represent the teams playing in the Super Bowl. You can use team banners, balloons, and tablecloths to create a festive atmosphere.”
• “Entertainment: In addition to the actual Super Bowl game, consider having other activities for your guests to enjoy during halftime and breaks in the game. You could play a trivia game related to the Super Bowl or American football in general, or set up a pool or bracket to predict the outcome of the game.”
• “Audio/Visual: Make sure your TV and sound system are in good working order and are set up to provide an optimal viewing and listening experience for your guests.”
• “Clean up: Finally, make sure to have supplies on hand for cleaning up after the party, including trash bags, paper towels, and cleaning supplies.”

“By following these steps, you can be confident that your Super Bowl party will be a fun and memorable event for all of your guests.”

My Analysis of the Generated Essay:

I wanted you to see how generative AI can be quite handy when it comes to making outlines and preparing plans of action.

I trust that you found this Super Bowl party planning list to be useful. The AI app provided a series of bulleted points that cover key topics such as food and drinks, seating, decorations, entertainment, A/V, and even clean-up. Sheepishly, I admit that I would not have probably thought about the clean-up until after the Super Bowl game ended. At that point, I would be agonizing between cleaning up or opting to altogether move out of my house.

There’s something else about the proposed Super Bowl party plan that you should know about, namely that I can ask interactive questions about the plan.

Here’s the deal.

One of the common mistakes that rookie users of generative AI make is that they do not realize that they can converse with the AI app. I have discussed in one of my column postings that a YouTuber made a video about ChatGPT that showcased the AI app producing a recipe for a delicious dinner, see the link here. But the YouTuber took the recipe and essentially printed it out, acting as though the AI app was akin to a static published cookbook. While making the meal, the YouTuber had all sorts of questions about the recipe and kept criticizing the AI app accordingly. The YouTuber mistakenly treated the AI app as though it was one-and-done.

Instead, to get the real power of generative AI, you need to carry out an interactive conversation.

Let me show you what I mean.

The Super Bowl party plan says that I should ensure that everyone can see the TV. This is problematic for me since my main TV is relatively modest in size. Furthermore, the AI app suggested that I might want to undertake a Super Bowl trivia game. This is also problematic because several of my guests have very little knowledge about the Super Bowl.

One other aspect that struck me about the party plan is the clean-up portion. I am wondering whether I would be committing a life-cringing faux pas by suggesting to my guests that they should help in the clean-up. Perhaps they will never talk to me again if I make such a suggestion.

Time to ask ChatGPT about all of those nagging concerns.

My entered text prompt: “My TV is too small for everyone to sit around it and see the screen. What can I do? Also, I want to do a Super Bowl trivia game but not everyone knows about the Super Bowl and they will feel left out. What can I do? In terms of cleaning up, is it wrong for me to ask my guests to clean up?”

Essay generated by ChatGPT:

• “TV Size: If your TV is too small for everyone to sit around and see the screen, you could try setting up a projector and screen in a room that’s large enough for everyone to gather around. Alternatively, you could set up a couple of smaller TVs in different rooms so that everyone can have a good view of the game.”
• “Trivia Game: If not everyone at your party is familiar with the Super Bowl, you could consider playing a general sports trivia game instead. You could also play a game of ‘Name That Tune’ using famous sports-themed songs, or have a friendly competition to see who can make the best snack or drink.”
• “Clean Up: It is not considered inappropriate to ask guests to help with clean up after a party, especially if you are hosting the event. However, it’s always a good idea to frame it in a positive way, such as “We had such a great time, can I count on everyone to help with a quick clean up?” or “It would be fantastic if you could lend a hand putting things away.” Additionally, you could also offer to help with the cleaning, or assign tasks to specific guests, to make it a more manageable process.”
• “With these tips, you can ensure that everyone at your Super Bowl party has a good time, regardless of their familiarity with the event or their willingness to help with clean up.”

My Analysis of the Generated Essay:

I’d like you to observe several important elements in the response by the generative AI app.

I had bunched together my questions. The AI app opted to separate them into a clear set of bulleted points. This is handy. One use of generative AI involves taking something that might be murky or mushy and having the AI try to structure it and makes things more apparent. Notice that I didn’t even ask for this to happen, it just took place by the nature of the AI algorithms being employed.

Also, some people will do just one question at a time. You don’t need to be so restrictive. Go ahead and toss a bunch of questions together. Usually, the AI will figure out that there are several questions to be addressed. As a heads-up, there are occasions where it will omit addressing a question, so you need to stay on your toes about what you asked for. In such a case, you merely need to repeat the question or point out in your next prompt that the AI app failed to answer all of the questions you previously posed.

The answers provided by ChatGPT seemed pretty good. I though still have my doubts about asking my guests to aid in the clean-up. The AI app indicated that I could try to frame the matter positively. Frankly, I think this isn’t going to go over well. As such, I probably will not try this.

My point here is that you hopefully realize that you are under no obligation to abide by whatever the AI app happens to spout out. I mention this because some people seem to fall into a Wizard of Oz mindset and blindly think that AI is proffering grand truths. No! You have to always stay on top of your mental prowess and realize that this is all merely mathematical and computational mimicry of human language.

There is no common sense and there is no semblance of “thinking” by this or any other AI of today. Write that on a Post-it note and place it on your laptop screen. It is a vital reminder.

Let’s proceed with a last question for now about my wonderful Super Bowl party.

My entered text prompt: “As the host of the Super Bowl party, what should I wear? Also, what should I tell my guests about the type of clothes they should wear? One thing I’d also like to do is start the party by telling a funny joke about the Super Bowl. Do you have a Super Bowl joke that I could tell?”

Essay generated by ChatGPT:

• “Host attire: As the host of the party, you can wear comfortable and casual clothing that is appropriate for the occasion. You could wear a team jersey, a t-shirt with a sports-related graphic, or simply wear comfortable pants and a sweater. The most important thing is to wear something that makes you feel comfortable and ready to have a good time.”
• “Guest attire: When it comes to what your guests should wear, you can suggest that they dress casually and comfortably, similar to what you are wearing. If you have guests who are fans of one of the teams playing in the Super Bowl, you could suggest that they wear that team’s colors or a jersey.”
• “Joke: Here’s a Super Bowl-related joke that you could share with your guests: Why did the football coach go to art school? Because he wanted to learn how to draw up a play!”
• “By wearing comfortable clothes, suggesting a casual dress code to your guests, and starting the party with a lighthearted joke, you can set the tone for a fun and enjoyable Super Bowl party.”

My Analysis of the Generated Essay:

A few quick comments about this generated essay.

Once again, realize that I can choose to go along with the suggestions or opt to do something entirely different.

Regarding the proffered joke, I believe that if I used that joke, I would not just get a laugh, I would potentially be the laughingstock of the party. Anyway, we can at least agree that the joke is extremely clean. I mention this because the AI maker tried extensively to ensure that ChatGPT won’t blurt out obscenities or emit other foulness.

You might find of interest that some people believe we ought to be pushing hard to get generative AI to indeed generate foul outputs. There are tricks you can try to go around the guardrails. People are doing this for a variety of reasons, see my discussion at the link here.

I had listed earlier that the half-time main stage performer will be Rihanna.

Let’s ask about Rihanna, realizing that we won’t find out anything about her that occurred after 2021.

My entered text prompt: “Who is Rihanna?”

Essay generated by ChatGPT:

• “Rihanna is a Barbadian singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. She was born on February 20, 1988, in Saint Michael, Barbados. Rihanna first gained recognition with the release of her debut album, “Music of the Sun,” in 2005, which spawned the hit single “Pon de Replay.” Over the years, she has become one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with numerous hit songs and awards to her name, including multiple Grammy Awards.”
• “In addition to her music career, Rihanna is also known for her fashion sense and her entrepreneurial ventures, including her cosmetics line, Fenty Beauty, and her lingerie line, Savage X Fenty. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential celebrities of her generation.”

My Analysis of the Generated Essay:

The reason I asked this question was to get ChatGPT to generate some facts.

For example, the essay has a fact about her date of birth, her birthplace, her debut album, and so on. These are all facts that presumably are relatively indisputable. I briefly looked up these facts on the Internet and they seem to be accurate (I suppose true fans might identify something in the generated essay that is not entirely factual).

Here’s why I did this.

It could be that ChatGPT might have shown facts that contained errors. For example, suppose the date of birth was listed as February 20, 1998, or the essay stated that her debut album came out in 2001. Imagine that the essay contained those factual errors.

Would you know that those facts were incorrect?

Unless you happen to intimately know her history, I doubt that off the top of your head, you would have realized the facts were false. The gist is that you are going to inevitably get essays from generative AI that contain falsehoods. You won’t know that they are false unless you double-check. This is problematic. We assume from the way that the essay is written that everything is absolutely correct.

Do not make that assumption.

I regret to tell you that any essay produced by any generative AI has to be taken with a grain of salt. You cannot assume that the purported facts are true. You must take the burden of verifying the facts. As a potential partial solution, I have discussed that there are efforts underway to make AI add-ons that will attempt to verify the alleged “facts” that are embedded within a generative AI-outputted essay, see my discussion at the link here.

We got lucky and the facts seem to be correct in this instance.

Do not let this lull you into a lapse of judgment. You could get one, a dozen, or maybe tens of essays with no factual errors. This does not mean that the next output won’t contain errors. People keep falling for the mental mistake of assuming that just because some of the essays are factual, all the rest have to be. Wrong assumption.

For my next question to ChatGPT, I’ll show you something really nifty.

Let’s ask ChatGPT to compose a song as though Rihanna had written the song.

My entered text prompt: “Write a new song that would be like the songs that Rihanna has written.”

Essay generated by ChatGPT:

• Sure! Here’s a song inspired by Rihanna’s style:
• “Verse 1:”
• “I’ve been feeling good, feeling right”
• “In this moment, everything’s alright”
• “Got my head in the clouds, feet on the ground”
• “With this beat, I’ll never come down”
• “Chorus:
• “I’m shining like the stars, oh-oh-oh”
• “I’m on fire, watch me glow-oh-oh-oh”
• “Got a rhythm, got a soul”
• “I’m unstoppable, I’m unstoppable, I know”
• “I hope you like this song! It’s inspired by Rihanna’s style, with upbeat rhythms and positive lyrics.”

My Analysis of the Generated Essay:

For length purposes, I only show the generated first verse and the chorus. The actual essay was much longer and contained several verses.

I am not familiar enough with Rihanna’s songs to know if this AI-contrived song is similar to her body of work, but it does seem somewhat on par with the songs that I know. The key lesson underlying this generated essay is that you can get generative AI to simulate the writing styles of other known writers. For example, if you want to pretend that Shakespeare was still alive and get the latest that he might have written, you can ask ChatGPT to write in the style of Shakespeare.

I am going to finish off this series of ChatGPT examples by asking to have an essay written about the Super Bowl.

Here we go.

My entered text prompt: “Write an essay about the Super Bowl in the style of a 5th-grade student.”

Essay generated by ChatGPT:

• “The Super Bowl is one of the biggest sporting events in the United States. It’s a big football game that happens every year in February. People all over the country gather together to watch the game and have parties. The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League (NFL). Two teams play against each other to see who is the best. The players on these teams have worked really hard all season long to get to this game. It’s a big deal for them and their fans. The Super Bowl is also a big event for commercials. Companies pay a lot of money to show their advertisements during the game. People watch the commercials just as much as they watch the game itself!”

My Analysis of the Generated Essay:

Again, for length purposes, I cut off the generated essays and am not showing the rest (there were several more paragraphs). Notice that I asked that the essay be written in the style of a 5^th-grade student.

Can you discern that it is written at that level?

I suppose that the sentences do seem choppy. The vocabulary used is not very extensive. All in all, we would likely agree that the level of writing is not refined at an adult level. It seems on par with a 5^th grader.

Try this same prompt but this time ask for a college-level composition.

My entered text prompt: “Write an essay about the Super Bowl in the style of a college student.”

Essay generated by ChatGPT:

• “The Super Bowl, one of the most highly anticipated annual sporting events in the United States, is the culmination of the National Football League (NFL) season. The event not only serves as a platform for top-notch athleticism and strategy, but it has also become a cultural phenomenon in its own right. The Super Bowl represents the crowning achievement for NFL teams, as they compete in a high-stakes match to determine the league champion. The players, who have trained tirelessly all season, bring their A-game to the field, putting their skills and teamwork on full display. It is a true showcase of the athleticism, endurance, and determination that it takes to excel in professional football. Moreover, the Super Bowl has transformed into a massive spectacle that extends far beyond the game itself. The halftime show, featuring some of the biggest names in music, is highly anticipated and generates a significant amount of buzz. Additionally, the commercials during the Super Bowl are often more highly anticipated than the game itself. Companies compete for the most creative and memorable advertisements, knowing that a significant portion of the country will be tuned in.”

My Analysis of the Generated Essay:

I cut off the essay but that’s fine since I mainly want you to compare this version with the 5^th-grader version.

Do you see the differences?

I would say that they are rather pronounced. The vocabulary is a huge step up. The sentence structures are more complex. Other noticeable differences can be spotted by any rudimentary inspection.

The reason I showed you this final example was to illustrate an important point. Some people keep insisting that you can readily discern a human-written essay from an AI-written essay. There has been a rush of new AI apps that claim to aid in doing this.

I have shot this down as hogwash.

Here’s why. When I give a prompt to a generative AI app, I can tell it to write in particular ways. You already saw this. I told the AI app to write like a 5^th grader, and then I instructed the AI to write like a college student. You can also tell the AI to write in such a manner that other AI apps cannot detect that the essay was composed by AI.

This pretty much then befuddles those AI apps that claim to be able to figure out AI writing versus human writing. Those AI apps assume that the essay was generated without any attempt at subterfuge. I suggest that those wishing to cheat and use generative AI are going to quickly realize that they can fool those detecting AI apps by merely writing a prompt to do so, see my analysis at the link here.

Conclusion

We have only touched on the surface of generative AI and the Super Bowl.

Allow me to provide some ideas for those of you that have access to ChatGPT or any other generative AI app:

• Party Planning: Akin to my example, use generative AI to plan your Super Bowl party
• Food Suggestions and Preparation: Interact with generative AI about the food that might specifically be used for your party, including asking for recipes, cooking instructions, grocery store purchase lists, etc.
• Game Time Interaction: During the Super Bowl, you can ask about various football strategies and plays, for which the generative AI can potentially explain what the coaches and football players are doing overall as they play a football game (the AI won’t be tracking the game, you’ll need to tell it about the plays)
• Pre-Game Ideas: Assuming you want to do something before the Super Bowl gets underway, interact with generative AI about pre-game suggestions
• Post-Game Aspects: I suppose the clean-up step is a post-game element, but other things can be done before you get into the clean-up mode, thus interacting with generative AI about post-game suggestions
• Aired Commercials: A lot of people enjoy the commercials that are aired during the Super Bowl. You could interact with generative AI about the commercials in terms of historical trends, societal fashions, etc. Also, some believe that a clever marketing ploy might be that a commercial during the Super Bowl 2023 will refer to generative AI. Keep your attention riveted on the commercials.
• Announcers: Suppose the announcers during the Super Bowl rattle off all manner of arcane football jargon. You can ask generative AI about it. If you want a short and sweet explanation, ask for that. If you want all the nitty gritty, ask for that. Your choice.
• Small Talk: Are you the type of person that doesn’t naturally feel comfortable generating small talk? You can use generative AI to help identify aspects to talk about with your fellow partygoers. For example, maybe ask about Super Bowl trivia such as the teams that have most appeared or won a Super Bowl, etc. Realize that some of the facts presented might not be true.
• Half-Time Show: We already know that Rihanna is the main performer for the half-time show. I gave an example of trying to derive a new song based on her style. Try using generative AI for other kinds of similar uses. Go ahead and sing the songs. You might get discovered.
• Counter Programming: Not everyone wants to watch the Super Bowl. For those of you that think the Super Bowl is a waste of time, perhaps go ahead and use generative AI during that time for other purposes. You might enjoy it and could discover new and interesting things.
• Other

A final thought on this topic for now.

You might vaguely know of the catchphrase “fantasy football.”

For those that aren’t familiar with the phrase, it refers to a game entailing people that like to play virtual online football of a made-up or imaginary nature, though typically based on real-world players and their stats. It’s fun. Some people take it extremely seriously. Gambling can also be involved. An ongoing debate is whether this is a game of skill or a game of chance. But, anyway, that’s a different matter.

I tell you all of that as a setup for a joke. I promise the joke will be better than the one about football that ChatGPT devised.

Are you ready?

The joke goes like this: Fantasy football is you thinking that your team has a chance to win.

Now that was funny. As you get ready for the Super Bowl, and if you are betting on a particular team, you might find that bit of sage wisdom of a humorous anecdote.

Shifting gears, generative AI is going to get better and we will inexorably be increasingly surprised at the fluency and capabilities in text-to-text, text-to-images, text-to-audio, text-to-video, and in a slew of multi-modal combinations. We can harness these AI apps for the good of humanity and produce a win-win. At the same time, we need to keep our eyes wide open and seek to mitigate or avert AI that can perform sour and dour deeds. That’s why AI Ethics and AI Law are enormously crucial to our future.

Let’s all work together to get AI to the end zone safely and reduce those ill-advised or illegal formations and unnecessary roughness.

Score that as a touchdown and a true win for humankind.