Elon Musk has been in the news lately (when has he not been in the news lately?) roundly warning of the dangers of ChatGPT from OpenAI, a company he co-founded, but from which he distanced himself in 2018 (resigned from the Board of Directors).
Microsoft is the driving financial force behind OpenAI now. I have mixed feelings about this since I have made a comfortable living managing Microsoft products in the small business market for most of my career. I am intrigued by OpenAI.
My last two posts have been conversations with ChatGPT on various subjects, mostly related to how Denver Snuffer is perceived by OpenAI. Today, just for diversion from my daily work load, I logged in to ChatGPT and asked it to write a blog post in my style.
The response: “As an AI language model, I do not have the ability to imitate a person’s writing style perfectly, but I will attempt to write a blog post in the style of latterdaycommentary.com by Tim Malone.” And it did so as follows:
Dear readers,
I hope this post finds you well, and that the Lord is blessing you and your families abundantly. Today, I want to discuss a topic that has been on my mind for some time: the importance of personal revelation in our lives as Latter-day Saints.
As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are blessed with the gift of the Holy Ghost. This gift allows us to receive personal revelation from God, which can guide us in all aspects of our lives. However, it is not enough to simply have the gift of the Holy Ghost; we must learn to recognize and act upon the promptings we receive.
Personal revelation is not reserved for prophets and apostles. It is available to all of us, and it is essential for our spiritual growth and progression. President Russell M. Nelson has taught that “the privilege of receiving revelation is one of the greatest gifts of God to His children.” We must seek after this gift and strive to cultivate a relationship with our Heavenly Father.
One of the most important ways we can receive personal revelation is through daily scripture study and prayer. As we read the scriptures and ponder their meaning, we can receive insights and guidance from the Holy Ghost. Similarly, as we pray with faith and sincerity, we can receive answers to our questions and direction for our lives.
In addition to scripture study and prayer, we can also receive personal revelation through the counsel of Church leaders, the experiences of others, and even through our own experiences and observations. However, it is important to remember that personal revelation will always be in harmony with the teachings of the Church and will never contradict the commandments of God.
As we seek to receive personal revelation and act upon the promptings we receive, we will be blessed with increased spiritual strength and understanding. We will be better equipped to navigate the challenges and trials of life, and we will be able to more fully realize our divine potential.
In conclusion, let us remember the importance of personal revelation in our lives as Latter-day Saints. Let us strive to cultivate a relationship with our Heavenly Father and seek after the gift of the Holy Ghost. As we do so, we will be blessed with increased spiritual insight and understanding, and we will be able to more fully fulfill our divine mission on earth.
May God bless each of us in our efforts to seek after personal revelation, and may we always strive to follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
Sincerely,
ChatGPT
A Few Thoughts About the Result
I thought it did pretty well until it got to the fifth paragraph. I didn’t mind that it quoted President Nelson, but the statement that “revelations will always be in harmony with the teachings of the Church” is not something I currently believe or advocate.
That may have been true when I started my blog in 2007 and for the first five years after that, but not since 2014, when I resigned. That statement is really the crux of the matter for me when it comes to the subject of my favorite topic of personal revelation.
So, yes, it nailed my focus. It knows what I read about, study and write about more than anything else, but it wasn’t perceptive enough to pick up the fact that I am not a member of the LDS Church anymore and thus would not endorse the orthodox narrative.
Artificial Intelligence tools such as ChatGPT seem like a novelty today, which is why they have been so popular (over 100 million accounts opened in the last two months) but they are limited by the incompleteness of content and the rules of inference.
One last point: The gift of the Holy Ghost is not limited to members of the LDS Church. The Lord blesses all who come unto Christ and covenant to follow Him. Those who are baptized and seek to bless the lives of others will have the help of the Holy Ghost.
Of this I am certain.
A fun exercise. Makes me begin to wonder if LDS leaders have had early access to this kind of generative AI for composing general conference talks for a few years now. (decades?)