Hello, AI World: Jetpack AI, ChatGPT For A Blogger
I wrote this post last year. Unfortunately, a series of things in my personal and medical life made it difficult for me to publish. This post has sat in my Drafts for months, complete (as far as a WIP prediction of a new kind of technology can be). But I started my journey as a blogger, as IdeaSmith as a work in progress, allowing myself all the freedom of delays, errors and vulnerability. So here it is. Also, I’m pleased to report that AI has not replaced me or my jobs, despite all the fearmongering.
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The past year has been full of questions about Artificial Intelligence. AI is pretty much to 2023 what cryptocurrency was to 2022. But unlike with crypto, I have a good feeling about AI. And to my surprise, I find that while crypto drew in a gold rush-style hype, AI is being seen with a great deal of fear. It is especially implied that people like me – writers, content creators, communicators and others – will be made redundant by artificial intelligence.
It’s the fear of the machines once over and the 90s are back with the kind of paranoia that gave us some admittedly entertaining stories like the Terminator series, the Matrix saga and even, well, Independence Day. I remember my dad’s unimpressed comment after watching the last,
“Why are we so insecure as to think that another intelligence out there will only be interested in malice & destruction?”
That idea underlines my approach to new technology. Two decades down, it hasn’t hurt me at all. On the contrary, it opened up my life in ways that the generations that raised me could never have fathomed. The internet, mobile technology, satellite-based location tracking, social media. We have seen the rise of all of these and they have always been born into worlds of doubt. But humanity has melded around them as much as we’ve determined their trajectories. And today we can’t imagine life without these realities. Such I believe could be the promise of AI.
With this approach, I decided to acquaint myself with the newcomer AI as it exists in my home ground of blogging. I began with WordPress’s very own home foray into AI via the Jetpack suite of blogging tools.
Jetpack AI
I can see the team wanting to assuage the widespread fear that bloggers would be made redundant by AI. After all, Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress began as a blogger, not a techie. His passion for open-source tells me that this system is conceptualised by someone who sees technology as an enabler, a facilitator, not a replacement or enemy. Jetpack AI was promoted as a better way to create posts. The page communicates the tools better now, presumably as more people are understanding it. For me, it was a natural first step to explore within my existing workshop of content.
Here are the three AI tools I found in my Jetpack suite:
1. Jetpack AI Assistant (Experimental) Block:
This block lets you insert a prompt and populate the post with text. As you can see, I’ve reached the quota of free requests, all of which were spent experimenting with the AI suite within Jetpack.
A source tells me that the Jetpack engine is currently based on ChatGPT. Given Matt’s open-source philosophy, I imagine the costs for the Jetpack AI suite come from their using ChatGPT-4 (which is a paid feature).
I did use some of my trial uses of the Jetpack AI suite on this particular feature and didn’t find it any different from ChatGPT-3.5 (currently free). I review this later in the post.
2. Jetpack AI Search Block/Widget
My understanding of this feature is that it inserts a Search bar within your blog post or on your sidebar as a widget. I assumed it would be like a regular Search feature widget, searching either within the blog’s content or on the World Wide Web. I had to go through a purchase transaction charged at $0 to enable this feature. However, my first attempts at using it seem to have thrown up nothing useful. I did get a caveat that it might take some time for the tool to learn. But I’m not clear whether that means the tool needs absolute time with the content of my blog or whether it needs multiple queries and room to make mistakes.
With the Jetpack AI Search widget, I tried what I thought was an easy prompt since I had recently written a post on STEMinism. Just the word ‘steminism’ threw up nothing though it did warn me that I had offered no links. So my second search was on ‘ramyapandyan.com steminism’. You can see it shows no results, while right next to it, the post shows up on my regular feed.
I checked the same query about 3 hours later and it threw up a much more impressive analysis of the mentions of the word ‘steminism’ on my blog:
Result for ‘steminism ramyapandyan.com’ on Jetpack AI Search widget:
The website ramyapandyan.com seems to cover various topics related to feminism, literature, and science. One specific post on the site titled “STEMinism & The Bros – Love On The Brain” discusses the concept of STEMinism, which combines STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) with feminism. It explains that STEMinism aims to empower and promote women in these fields, address gender disparities and biases, challenge stereotypes, and create inclusive environments. The post also touches upon the importance of diverse perspectives and experiences in scientific progress. It seems to explore the author’s personal experiences in STEM and highlights the challenges faced due to gender stereotypes.
Another post on the website titled “Many Shades of Womanhood: Yellowface – RF Kuang” appears to discuss feminist literature and its impact. The author mentions reading books that tackle race issues, feminist themes, and strong female characters. The post suggests that feminist literature should encompass various aspects of life, leaving a mark on readers.
Lastly, there is a post titled “Why The Book Is Always Better – Lessons In Chemistry” that seems to discuss a book and its themes. It touches upon the idea of reclaiming the kitchen as a chemistry lab and highlights the scientific aspects of cooking. Overall, the blog provides a platform for the author to share their thoughts, experiences, and insights on topics related to feminism, literature, and science
Here’s the Jetpack AI Search Block within the post. I have the free trial till mid-December so if you’d like to help me test it out, please visit my website sidebar and post a query. Or you can try a query within this post. Perhaps this tool will learn with use.
ChatGPT as regards the blogger
It’s vital to word your query in the right way. Google has had us spoiled all these years by adapting to spelling mistakes, and grammatical variations and eventually even anticipating our query needs beyond the actual words we use. I like to think that this has been a step in the AI journey for the world too. There will be a time that will be the reality but as of today, Google is the only one that’s been able to do that. And it looks like ChatGPT hasn’t gotten anywhere near being able to read my mind. It just doesn’t yet have the kind of data on me that Google with its years of observing me does.
This means, to use the tool effectively, I need to word my needs very specifically. From years of client servicing, I know just what a challenge this is for many people, even the best communicators. What we want is a complex combination of amorphous ideas, incomplete notions, hidden biases and some stray feelings too. Words are a poor net to cast over this complex jumble. This is why I think of mathematics as the language of science. The entire field of logic begins with stating a hypothesis in as complete and specific a way as possible. This is also why generating a brief for any business need is such a complicated process.
ChatGPT may be a useful tool but like any tool, it can only turn out output proportionate to the quality of its input. Throw in poorly thought-out, vague queries and you’ll get a nicely packaged set of garbage. It won’t have the grammatical errors or awkward sentence construction of shoddy work. But then Grammarly has existed for years to tidy all that up for us. Right now, at least, ChatGPT isn’t replacing a clear thinker. It’s only making their tasks simpler.
Sam Altman & the AI news
This week’s news is that Sam Altman has been fired as CEO of OpenAI (the makers of ChatGPT) and joins Microsoft (a major stakeholder in OpenAI)’s AI research team. He tweeted this that promises to become part of the iconic zeitgeist.
It also leads to some amusing new internet tech-style moments. I asked ChatGPT about Sam Altman and here’s what it told me.
AI is just a tool!
It’s important to note that AI is not a search engine but a language prediction model. This means that the system is throwing up what it has learnt that what you want to hear. The science is based on past patterns of searches and responses that people have verified as adequate. It is not based on data-verified evidence.
Why is this important? Because a writer is a storyteller, not a generator of reality. This would be the time to realise just how much of our world turns on believing people who are good communicators such as politicians and marketers. Impressive oratory and excellent linguistic skills do not prove credibility. Yet, the world has carried that assumption and often suffered for it. AI is not presenting a new challenge. It just highlights the magnitude of a challenge we have always faced. Bear this in mind and it should be easier to see AI as a possible set of tools.
But a tool is only as good as the person wielding it. From everything from predictive text to Google searches to language prediction models, it depends on your clarity of thought. Anyone who has worked at an agency will tell you the value of a good brief. The clearer you are about what you need, the easier it is to generate a solution that caters to your needs. The same holds true with ChatGPT and Jetpack AI Assistant Block.
Another AI tool I’ve been using recently is a WordPress plugin called SEO Meta Description AI. It generates the meta description for a post you’ve just written. How good is it? Well, here’s what it has thrown up for this particular post.
It does have a peculiar affinity for beginning meta descriptions with “Discover the potential..” and “Get ready to…”. I’m pretty sure the Google algorithm notices these patterns and may decree them as low-value content. Still, it’s a useful tool to hasten the process of general housekeeping of the post. Search Engine Optimisation is a whole strategic effort, attempting to outrun the whole internet. I am not sure any program is in a position to replace humanity at that. So hold on to your keyboards. It’s not time to write off the world to artificial intelligence just yet.