WHAT IF You Ask ChatGPT a Question from Emily Dickinson?

For almost a year now, we’ve been bombarded with news about ChatGPT.  Just soooo smart, sooo intelligent.  AI, we’re told, will soon replace us, conquer us, perhaps wipe us off the planet.  Fair enough, but can ChatGPT handle “the belle of Amherst?”  The Attic downloaded the chatbot to find out.

First we asked ChatGPT one of Dickinson’s most famous questions. 

Now you might think that hyper-intelligent AI, able to scan the entire Internet in seconds, would at least recognize this line.  We expected “Hey, Emily, great to hear from you.  Sorry to hear you think you’re nobody. . . “  So what did we get?

ATTIC:  I’m nobody, who are you?

ChatGPT:  I am ChatGPT, here to assist you with any questions or topics you have in mind. How can I help you today?

Seriously?  This genius, world-shaking intelligence can’t even recognize Emily Dickinson?  This was the kind of knee-jerk response you’d expect from Eliza, that first-generation AI back in the Sixities.

Okay, so maybe the question was too tough.  We tried another Dickinson question from another poem.

ATTIC:  Will there really be a morning?

CHAT GPT:  Yes, "Will there really be a morning?" is the opening line of Emily Dickinson's poem, where she contemplates the uncertainty of what lies beyond life, exploring themes of mortality and existence.

Okay, a little better but (not to put too fine a point on it) WRONG!  Just so wrong!  Emily is not talking about the afterlife here.  As anyone who every lay awake all night knows, she was pondering the bleakness of 3 a.m.  Check it out, Mr. GPT.

Afterlife, my ass.  So now it can be told.  ChatGPT can write essays, crunch numbers, scan huge hunks of data, and steal your job.  Who knows, maybe ChatGPT has Robert Frost nailed.  But Emily Dickinson has some news for AI.

The Brain is wider than the Sky —

For — put them side by side —

The one the other will contain

With ease — and You — beside.