Slice of Life: Letting The Bot Blog

This kind of experiment with AI is now way overdone by too many bloggers, but I figured I’d ask ChatGPT to write me a Slice of Life blog post for today, and see what it came up with.

I asked it:

Write a slice of life blog post about a day sick at home, reading books, walking dogs, and wondering how students in the classroom are doing with a substitute teacher

It replied – in a response it entitled “Sick Day Worries”:

AI Blog Post

And, well, it’s words capture much of my worries and the slow unfolding of the day at home yesterday with books and dogs, and such, including a cup of tea in the afternon and some soup as snack. We live in strange times. (But, alas, Bot, I won’t be back to school this week at all)

And the image below? That comes from Stable Diffusion, another AI, which I asked to generate a watercolor image of a man walking two dogs on a winter day. It sorta looks like the dogs and I out on a ramble.

man with dogs on winter day

Peace (Automated),
Kevin

22 Comments
  1. I don’t know whether to think this is amazing or terrifying. Glad you are putting your isolation to good use.

    • I think AI is so strange and unsettling that it’s hard to know how to feel or how to approach it. But I don’t think we can ignore it.
      Thanks for stopping by
      Kevin

  2. I was almost convinced that the chatbot could, indeed, craft a viable Slice….until the end when the substitute said that they were behaving and learning l in your absence! Leave it to a computer to further push the narrative that teachers are nonessential!

  3. The AI implications are daunting, aren’t they? I think the piece lacked your characteristic voice and felt somewhat bland or generic. (Was I influenced by knowing how it was created?) I hope you’re feeling better soon.

    • That’s a huge thing — lack of voice. And maybe your reading was influenced by the knowledge of creation, but even so, it still writes pretty flat.
      Kevin

  4. That was creepy…and flat, as you stated in a reply. Childlike in a way, with just the mundane common details one would expect but no flourishes that reflect a human author’s personality and style. I may play around with ChatGPT for lesson plans this summer, though…

    • Well, I am glad you are back and seem to be feeling better; however, this AI story is both a little scary and a lot creepy. There is a story here and so I am sure students will be using his tool soon – perhaps already. Maybe writing will soon be replaced with revision to add “voice” in the days to come. I feel SO very old….

      • There is definitely an odd element (creepy, perhaps) to the world unfolding. How to best prepare our student for that world is the path before us (as it always is)

  5. A Unique Voice. That’s what’s missing from AI. There’s so much good about it, but there is no substitute for real writing that comes from someone’s heart and soul.

  6. This much is clear: there’s no substitute for you. AI can’t take your place as an artist or as a wordsmith. I don’t like what our world is coming to. As teachers, we have outdata’ed ourselves, and as people, we have outtechnologied ourselves. It is indeed a freaky world where we have to hope and pray our grandchildren don’t grow up to marry robots.

  7. When we were a military family stationed in a country I will not name, there were some popular sayings… “this is the land of not quite right” and “you can find whatever you might need, but it might not be quite right.” The AI writing is not quite right. But the creepy thing is, it might “do,” it might “get by.”

  8. Sorry to hear you’re i’ll, Kevin. It is worrisome to be home sick wondering how things are w/ the sub. Also, ChatGPT makes me sad.

  9. I have to say, the bot didn’t capture your voice or magical way with words, which may be reassuring. It might need to train by reading some of your previous posts. I like the AI watercolor better than the AI post.

    Thanks for sharing your experiments in AI!

    Kim

  10. In a comment on another slice tonight, I wondered about what AI might generate in response to a slice-writing prompt. Thanks for serving up one answer to my query, and I hope you feel better soon.

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