I’ve been hostile to “AI” as a term for a long time. Probably more hostile than I should be, but hostile I have been. I've changed my mind somewhat in the past several months, for reasons we'll get to, but I'll try not to bury the lede. Here’s my current opinion on ChatGPT in particular, the AI iteration that everybody's talking about as I write this:
> It just correctly answers the question. No ads. No SEO. No nonsense. Just the answer.
It gave a simple, straightforward answer, but I'm not sure about the correctness. I did a search for this and found https://titlecaseconverter.com/blog/is-about-capitalized/ (this is the first link in response to the query «title case "about"», the double quotes are important) which says that the answer depends on which style guide you're following.
Yeah, that's a good point. I did notice that the answer was potentially not 100% right, as I kind of pointed out in the last footnote. I think I would still say that it's right "enough?" It's not as nuanced or otherwise researched as it could have been, but I felt like it was right enough for me to use.
> It's not as nuanced or otherwise researched as it could have been, but I felt like it was right enough for me to use.
I guess my problem with using GPT for this kind of thing is that there doesn't seem to be much indication of whether it's the answer is true or not. For programming it's fine because you can just test, but for the capitalization question, it could have answered the opposite and you would have been just as satisfied I guess? Why not just flip a coin?
It's a good question. I honestly think I would have been just as satisfied if it had gone the other way. With the ChatGPT answer (admittedly along with what I saw on Google), I learned that there isn't a strongly established rule one way or the other.
Before looking into it, I wouldn't have felt comfortable flipping a coin because I had assumed that there was a rule one way or the other. I'd be fine flipping a coin now that I know that different style guides have different rules, but I genuinely learned something new from ChatGPT (and Google).
Two things that your questions make me realize though: (1) I admit that the "about" question wasn't a perfect example. I used it because I didn't want my main example to be about programming and because I did actually look it up while writing the post, but it does have the problems that you point out. That said, (2) it's problematic in the precise way I point out that ChatGPT can be problematic, specifically due to the ambiguity (or "controversy" as I say in the post, though that word feels too strong in this case) around the question. Some say it's one way, and others say it's another.
I guess it wasn't a great example in hindsight, now that I know the answer is ambiguous, but when I first started thinking about and writing the post, I didn't expect it to be ambiguous, which is part of the reason I decided to it as an example in the first place.
Yes. Note that, according to the ChatGPT answer, Ian shouldn't capitalize Opinion or More in his title either. Some people and organizations capitalize titles basically the same as they would a sentence, which is what is described in the ChatGPT answer. The old style, which I prefer, capitalizes most words, but I'm also not sure the right way to handle "about". I used to think that you didn't capitalize prepositions, which would include "about", but I'm not really sure if that's right. Some prepositions get pretty long, and it doesn't seem right to leave them uncapitalized. Anyway, as Noam said, there are different answers for different style guides.
Thanks for the comments! And yeah, as mentioned above (including in the last footnote), there is some style-guide nuance that ChatGPT doesn't capture. I prefer the older style in titles too, which is why I wrote mine this way.
> It just correctly answers the question. No ads. No SEO. No nonsense. Just the answer.
It gave a simple, straightforward answer, but I'm not sure about the correctness. I did a search for this and found https://titlecaseconverter.com/blog/is-about-capitalized/ (this is the first link in response to the query «title case "about"», the double quotes are important) which says that the answer depends on which style guide you're following.
Yeah, that's a good point. I did notice that the answer was potentially not 100% right, as I kind of pointed out in the last footnote. I think I would still say that it's right "enough?" It's not as nuanced or otherwise researched as it could have been, but I felt like it was right enough for me to use.
Thanks for the comment!
> It's not as nuanced or otherwise researched as it could have been, but I felt like it was right enough for me to use.
I guess my problem with using GPT for this kind of thing is that there doesn't seem to be much indication of whether it's the answer is true or not. For programming it's fine because you can just test, but for the capitalization question, it could have answered the opposite and you would have been just as satisfied I guess? Why not just flip a coin?
It's a good question. I honestly think I would have been just as satisfied if it had gone the other way. With the ChatGPT answer (admittedly along with what I saw on Google), I learned that there isn't a strongly established rule one way or the other.
Before looking into it, I wouldn't have felt comfortable flipping a coin because I had assumed that there was a rule one way or the other. I'd be fine flipping a coin now that I know that different style guides have different rules, but I genuinely learned something new from ChatGPT (and Google).
Two things that your questions make me realize though: (1) I admit that the "about" question wasn't a perfect example. I used it because I didn't want my main example to be about programming and because I did actually look it up while writing the post, but it does have the problems that you point out. That said, (2) it's problematic in the precise way I point out that ChatGPT can be problematic, specifically due to the ambiguity (or "controversy" as I say in the post, though that word feels too strong in this case) around the question. Some say it's one way, and others say it's another.
I guess it wasn't a great example in hindsight, now that I know the answer is ambiguous, but when I first started thinking about and writing the post, I didn't expect it to be ambiguous, which is part of the reason I decided to it as an example in the first place.
Yes. Note that, according to the ChatGPT answer, Ian shouldn't capitalize Opinion or More in his title either. Some people and organizations capitalize titles basically the same as they would a sentence, which is what is described in the ChatGPT answer. The old style, which I prefer, capitalizes most words, but I'm also not sure the right way to handle "about". I used to think that you didn't capitalize prepositions, which would include "about", but I'm not really sure if that's right. Some prepositions get pretty long, and it doesn't seem right to leave them uncapitalized. Anyway, as Noam said, there are different answers for different style guides.
I enjoyed reading your thoughts about AI, by the way, Ian.
Thanks for the comments! And yeah, as mentioned above (including in the last footnote), there is some style-guide nuance that ChatGPT doesn't capture. I prefer the older style in titles too, which is why I wrote mine this way.