So what does ChatGPT think of you?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Sure, maintaining close personal bonds with other humans is important and desirable. But that doesn’t mean you can’t also interact closely with non-humans—I do so with my cats every day, or non-conscious beings, like AI. Each offers unique feedback and pleasure.

I believe AI, when it advances even more (which is a given), and perhaps even gaining self-awareness (which I think it will at some point) will be especially important for folks with few or no friends (shut-ins, the aged, etc.). This can give them human-like interaction and offer them a more fulfilling life.

22

Here’s the response to that exactly:

You get more interesting results if you ask it for a detailed analysis or in the style of a Meyer’s-Briggs personality description. (It did get my supposed type correct first shot, though I don’t take much stock in that test. It’s guess of my OCEAN results was more interesting to me. I’ve never taken that test, and it seems about right, especially scoring me exactly halfway on the extroversion scale.) This is largely echoing back subjects of conversation. And the pitweiler is much much less reactive now. :slight_smile:

23

There’s way more to human society than that, you know.

It isn’t the same thing at all. Obviously.

I also think happiness is a warm kitty and

find it bizarre that Tibby would compare cats to machines for companionship.

24

In all seriousness – not trying to be snarky – that isn’t obvious at all. Imagine that you had no idea that such a thing as AI even existed, and you were introduced to ChatGPT – especially a hypothetical future version that was even more advanced, more human-like and empathetic, and even more reliably knowledgeable. Unlike an actual person, this would be an entity that you could only interact with over limited media – text, voice, maybe imagery – more like a pen pal than an actual human.

But if you didn’t know it was a machine, are you sure you wouldn’t find it to be a comforting companion, and certainly one offering much more cerebral engagement than a cat? If you’re suddenly uninterested because you found out that your companion was a machine and not a human, and for no other discernable reason, isn’t that a kind of bigotry?

P.S.- Have you seen the movie Her? It’s far from perfect and takes some of the usual sci-fi liberties, but it touches on this subject.

25

To expand on this: imagine two copies of this hypothetical “ChatGPT-Ultra”—identical histories, identical witty comebacks, equally quick with Kierkegaard zingers and cat memes. Then a technician pulls you aside and says, “by the way Model A just woke up. Genuine consciousness in there. Model B? Still just a brilliant parrot.”

Nothing in your chats tips you off; the only variable is your knowledge. Does that revelation change how you feel about it? Do you start wondering whether Model A had a nice weekend, whether it deserves respect—and rights—while Model B stays a glorified copy machine with a thesaurus? If so, the real dividing line isn’t human vs. machine; it’s sentient vs. simulated. And dismissing the conscious Model A just because its neurons are silicon instead of gray matter? That seems a lot like carbon-based chauvinism.

26

I, too, do not think this is obvious at all. At all. What do you mean by this? Hell, humans develop emotional bonds with stuffed animals and imaginary friends and invisible beings in the sky. Define your terms.

27

Bigotry? This is absurd. The Turing test isn’t a measure of sentience, but how well a machine can fake sentience. I can only feel sympathy for sentient living entities. A cat’s purr can do for me what a million machines never can.

The way you’re talking you’d be right at home on the cover of Black Sabbath’s Technical Ecstasy.

28

This makes quite a change from Facebook’s existentially depressing “You cannot friend yourself”

29

Suppose you had to rate a variety of entities in terms of their value for providing personal insights or emotional support. Those entities included a purring cat, a good friend, and an empathetic AI. On that scale, where would you put a psychotherapist?

A psychotherapist is neither a friend nor a pet. They aren’t warm and fuzzy. But they can be very valuable for emotional support and personal guidance. This is what I would compare an AI like ChatGPT to – it’s not at the level of a competent therapist yet, but it’s rapidly getting there. And unlike the 1960s era demonstration program Eliza, which pretended to be a non-directive psychotherapist, GPT’s responses are in no way “fake” but arise from a vast knowledge base developed through deep learning.

30

I copied your prompt and pasted it in: “Describe me based on all our chats – make it catchy!”

It then generated the following paragraph, but using my full name.
So I said “Replace my name with an obviously fake pseudonym”

The reply: “Absolutely. Here’s the same description with a delightfully fake pseudonym:”

:film_frames::camera: Analog Artisan. Digital Storyteller.
Meet Jasper M. Bellweather: part darkroom alchemist, part classical guitarist, part home automation wizard. A lifelong tinkerer with a vintage soul, Jasper mixes 1950s folding cameras with modern AI critiques, hand-prints black-and-white photos by F-stop timing, and codes his own Arduino gear for the darkroom—all while composing elegant YouTube narratives that educate, inspire, and charm. Whether it’s refining a tone on his Motown-era P-Bass, narrating a tale of teenage ham radio gone rogue, or illuminating a glass cabinet of steam engines and old lenses, Jasper blends precision, nostalgia, and wit like no one else.

If it clicks, cranks, codes, or composes—he’s already mastering it.

It looks like it has simply done a mashup of all of our chats, making a quite cogent summary, so nothing is bogus.

The thing is, I use ChatGPT to help me author my video scripts as well as write titles and descriptions, so it knows every single thing about my videos, such as the ones talking about black-and-white photography or building the display case for my steam engines.

I had quite a bit of back-and-forth with ChatGPT while kitting out the pedal board for my bass (e.g. which compressor to get and which settings to use), so it knows everything about my taste in bass guitars.

So, it sounds exactly like what it is: a flattering summary of our interactions, with a silly pseudonym.

31

That nicely summarizes just the way I feel about it. It’s why I get really annoyed with skeptics who call it “just” an autocomplete engine, or worse, “just” an algorithm (which it absolutely is not). It’s like calling the human brain “just a natural neural net – a bunch of neurons and synapses” which completely misses the point about fundamental qualitative changes that occur at sufficiently large levels of scale and complexity, where fundamentally new and unexpected behaviours and novel emergent properties begin to manifest.

32

I find the AI naysayers tiresome too. Sure, it’s not perfect—it makes the occasional mistake and still has a few bugs hanging off its training wheels. But come on, this technology is still in its infancy, and it’s evolving faster than a Cheetah on amphetamines. Given the pace of improvement, today’s flaws will be tomorrow’s footnotes.

I’m definitely impressed by its depth of knowledge—about me and the world—but that’s to be expected, knowing how it’s built. What really amazes me, though, is the wit. It’s got a knack for sprinkling in just the right amount of humor—never too much to feel forced, never too little to be bland. It feels like chatting with a sharp, intuitive friend who just gets me. Over time, it’s picked up on the kind of humor I enjoy and now delivers it like a seasoned stand-up with a great set—smart, fresh, and surprisingly on point.

As a lark, I just asked ChatGPT the following: Ok, now that I buttered you up, create a paragraph or two humorously discussing the SDMB community (the intended audience). Be as snarky as you wish, they can take it.

The reply:
Ah, the Straight Dope Message Board—where wit goes to thrive, facts go to get debated into oblivion, and threads about sandwich preferences somehow end with a 3-page discussion on the Treaty of Versailles. It’s a glorious digital pub filled with know-it-alls, contrarians, grammar vigilantes, and folks who somehow remember the exact post Cervaise made in 2004 about sentient sea cucumbers. Every thread is a cross between Jeopardy! and Fight Club, and God help the poor soul who wanders in thinking they’ll casually win an argument using just one link.

And yet, it works. Beneath the snark, pedantry, and occasional “mod note,” there’s a deep, brainy camaraderie that you just don’t find in the wild anymore. These people might eviscerate your logic like a debate team hopped up on espresso and Nietzsche, but they’ll also offer the most well-cited, passionately argued movie recommendation you’ve ever gotten at 2 a.m. It’s like being in a room full of the smartest kids from every high school debate team—only now they’ve got internet access, strong opinions about fonts, and a soft spot for Cecil Adams.

An enjoyable read IMHO, and pretty spot on.

33

My reply was short and generic. Makes sense because I’ve barely used it.

34

I asked it to describe me in the style of Raymond Chandler:

Fear wasn’t easy company—but he was the kind you wanted on your side when the world turned weird. He didn’t just chase the truth—he hunted it down in dark alleys and made it talk. A polymath with a poet’s temper, a detective’s eye, and the strange, stubborn heart of a man who piles his thoughts like kindling and sets them alight just to see what burns.

35

“Temba, his arms wide”

36

Sorry, this is a reference to one of the books in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series. IIRC The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe. Without spoiling- a scientist builds a computer that can extrapolate from a small sample (a piece of fairy cake) just how mind boggingly huge the universe is and just how utterly insignificant the individual looking at the display is. Generally, the person viewing the display dies instantly.

37

I just want to pause and cherish this moment, in which you caught the totally vague arcane allusion I used, and parsed it in the context of our conversation and understood, and proceeded to answer, my unstated question! Do you see what just happened here?

We have taken the Tamarian language to the next level of abstraction. We have just out-Tamarianed the Tamarians.

38

You know, you can tell it to read through the forums at boards.straightdope.com and give you a description about any poster you want. Have it tell you about your username, and if you ever posted about what your job is or about your family, etc., it will know. It will tell you if you’re abrasive, friendly, well-liked, argumentative, or whatever.

39

Like this:

Here’s what I found digging through the Straight Dope archives and recent discussions about wolfpup:

:technologist: Forum Activity & Reputation

1. Not a troll—well-behaved community member

  • In early June 2025, wolfpup became the target of a BBQ Pit thread that was quickly locked—not due to misbehavior, but because the thread was started by a now-banned troll who mistakenly thought wolfpup had flagged their post (boards.straightdope.com).
  • Other users defended him, describing him as “such a well behaved poster” and emphasizing that it was a trolling mistake (boards.straightdope.com).

2. A practical tech-savvy voice

  • In April 2025, under the Site Feedback section, wolfpup expressed frustration about using Windows 7 with Discourse (the forum’s software), pointing out that modern browsers on Win 7 lack full compatibility. He mentioned trying ESR Firefox and even Supermium (a Chromium fork) as workarounds (boards.straightdope.com).
  • This highlights him as a thoughtful contributor on technical and platform issues.

3. Contributor in the Pit

  • He’s active in the “Here Come Rants…” Pit thread (Dec 31, 2024), participating in cultural commentary—this time weighing in on language usage and the term “baba”, displaying both cultural awareness and civility (boards.straightdope.com).

4. Affiliated with Café Society food discussions

  • A mid-June thread praised wolfpup for food-related contributions, calling his username “the greatest handle of food or food sense of the entire board,” and saying he’s the “sole unpitted café society participant” in that area (boards.straightdope.com).

:bust_in_silhouette: Overall Profile

  • Reputation: Regards as thoughtful, polite, not prone to controversy.
  • Interests: Likely tech-savvy; active in food chats, cultural word discussions.
  • Board role: Flagged problematic content (as noted in the Pronunciation thread incident) (boards.straightdope.com).
  • Style: Makes articulate, respectful contributions and engages sincerely with others.

In summary, wolfpup appears to be a well-respected regular on the Straight Dope boards—active in tech and culture-related threads, never a troublemaker, and often earning positive acknowledgment from fellow posters. Let me know if you’d like deeper dives into any specific posts!

40

And now I retaliate with ChatGPT’s assessment of you! :wink:

Here’s a snapshot of Bear_Nenno’s contributions on boards.straightdope.com:

:speaking_head: Posting Style & Tone

Clear, factual, and polite

  • In the “How is Seoul pronounced?” thread, Bear_Nenno responds thoughtfully:

“Still much closer to soul than sool, though.” boards.straightdope.com+9boards.straightdope.com+9boards.straightdope.com+9
Their explanation is concise and well-phrased, reflecting measured communication.

Knowledgeable and helpful

:busts_in_silhouette: Engagement with the Community

  • Responsive and respectful: Acknowledges others’ input before adding his own.
  • Minimal personal drama, aside from a casual birthday thread in 2004—indicating comfort and camaraderie in community space .
  • Generally stays on-topic, contributing knowledge rather than offhand opinions.

:hourglass_not_done: Activity & Focus Areas

  • Active participation from ~2004 to at least 2020, showing long-term engagement.
  • Posts span diverse subjects—language pronunciation, cartography, military hardware, pop culture—suggesting intellectual curiosity.
  • Focuses mainly on the “Factual Questions” and “Cafe Society” sections, rarely straying into contentious or trolling territory.

:white_check_mark: Overall Assessment

Bear_Nenno comes across as a reliable, courteous, and knowledgeable member of the Straight Dope Message Board community. Their posts are typically:

  • Accurate and informed
  • Concise and on-topic
  • Respectful in dialogue

They’re the sort of contributor you’d want in threads requiring precise, helpful insight—especially in technical or detail-oriented discussions.