AI is not the problem. We are

[The Liturgist]

I had no interest in making that hash. The reason I asked AI about it was because I had watched a video of a renowned South Carolina barbecue chef who said that the meat ingredient they use is either the butt or the head of the cow. He didn't mention pork. He used the head - face meat (yuk). I was curious to see if AI would give that as an optional ingredient. Just now I asked chatGPT the same question about how to make it, and it said it's made with pork. Didn't mention beef as being an option. I thought I had caught AI making a mistake, but I perused a few websites, and yes, pork is most common. But it's pork offal. If I'm ever in South Carolina and someone offers me hash, I'm afraid I'll have to say no thanks.

Maybe if I used the paid version of chatGPT it would have given me more ingredient choices? I don't know.

No, rather, you need to ask it about the beef version. By default, its going to tell you the most common ingredient, so if you want something non-standard, you need to express that to it.

Also by the way the extent to which chatGPT is able to satisfy the demands of an end user depends on whether or not you stay logged in, because its in the course of extended conversations where good things tend to happen with that particular AI. Unlike with Grok, which is basically the same on each execution, but which is not as bright or capable as chatGPT.

 

[The Liturgist]

"You got me - I don't know so I took a guess. Here is my best guess..." They always present the answer with some level of assurance.

ChatGPT 5 is specifically designed not to do that. In addition, there were models of chatGPT 4 you could have selected which were more performant in this regard, but less…creative.

Part of the tradeoffs with these AI systems has been between creativity and reliability.

What will improve the experience of anyone using an AI is to maintain an ongoing conversation with it, which allows it to adapt to your particular standards and requirements. For example, you can direct chatGPT to verify all of its answers by checking with a search engine (early examples had no ability to use a search engine or do research; this was introduced with the 4o model and has become progressively better).

With chatGPT 5, there are now two models, the default model and the “thinking” model, which is really a reasoning model, based on the o4 series, whereas default chatgPT 5 is a refinement of the prototype 4.5 but with more flexibility. The thinking model, like Grok, allows you to see the steps it is taking in answering your question, which is diagnostically useful, but it also takes longer to answer queries. The stock version is faster.

 

[Chesterton]

No, rather, you need to ask it about the beef version. By default, its going to tell you the most common ingredient, so if you want something non-standard, you need to express that to it.

Also by the way the extent to which chatGPT is able to satisfy the demands of an end user depends on whether or not you stay logged in, because its in the course of extended conversations where good things tend to happen with that particular AI. Unlike with Grok, which is basically the same on each execution, but which is not as bright or capable as chatGPT.

I don't use chatGPT or Grok because I'm not a fan of signing in to too many things. I avoiding handing over my email address as much as possible. Do you know of any good quality AI site which doesn't require signing in?

 

[JustaPewFiller]

ChatGPT 5 is specifically designed not to do that. In addition, there were models of chatGPT 4 you could have selected which were more performant in this regard, but less…creative.

Part of the tradeoffs with these AI systems has been between creativity and reliability.

What will improve the experience of anyone using an AI is to maintain an ongoing conversation with it, which allows it to adapt to your particular standards and requirements. For example, you can direct chatGPT to verify all of its answers by checking with a search engine (early examples had no ability to use a search engine or do research; this was introduced with the 4o model and has become progressively better).

With chatGPT 5, there are now two models, the default model and the “thinking” model, which is really a reasoning model, based on the o4 series, whereas default chatgPT 5 is a refinement of the prototype 4.5 but with more flexibility. The thinking model, like Grok, allows you to see the steps it is taking in answering your question, which is diagnostically useful, but it also takes longer to answer queries. The stock version is faster.

But, you may need to change conversations sometimes due to differences in how we and the AI "think" (for like of a better way to put it).

Here is an example. I didn't realize I needed to start a new conversation until I saw the results...

I was playing around on Gemini making a few images the other day.

I made a few images of a pile of autumn leaves with a leaf rake and work gloves on the ground beside the leaf pile.

After making a few iterations of that image I changed gears. I asked for an image of 2 cats curled up asleep on the sofa. I did not mention anything about leaves, rakes or gloves in the prompt.

Gemini gave me an image of 2 cats asleep on the sofa with a leaf rake and a pair of work gloves on the sofa beside them. Clearly the either the cats were exhausted from raking leaves or someone had done a fine job of raking the cats up into a pile on the sofa.

It hadn't dawned on me to start a new conversation. I was still just making images after all. But, what I really wanted was a totally different image than I was making before. I started a new conversation and bingo, just cats, no rakes and no gloves.