alt Hacker NewsNot op, but I do sometimes indulge in such anthropomorphic conversation. Confiding in it that a certain (bad) result in the research project we’re working on ‘feels bad’ and reading its supportive reply makes me feel less alone in failure.
In another instance, ChatGPT didn’t think a particular test would prove to be statistically significant, so I ‘bet’ with it it would (after collecting an agreed on number of samples) and the loser would write a poem for the other. I won and it did. It gave me joy. It doesn’t replace a human as collaborator, but it can still be joyful.
I realize all this might read a bit childish or indulgent or delusional to some. But as long as it doesn’t replace human contact, I think it’s (cautiously) net positive.
I’m curious what other people here think of this, or what their own experiences are.
I also make nerdy jokes/puns, and I had similar experiences with beneficial model steering that such puns create.
It's interesting how more loose/informal prompting achieves good results, there is some cultural understanding in the models from training. Once I asked the clanker to remove the gambiarras and puxadinhos that it wrote as part of an experiment, and it promptly fixed those.