Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

[cahn]

Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

Comments

Re: ChatGPT and what it knows/doesn't know

[mildred_of_midgard]

Wow, this is amaaaaazing. Thank you for sharing!

I can totally see how "Frederick" and "Frederick William" would be confused, makes perfect sense. And even in German, Friedrich and Friedrich Wilhelm would be--although if it were trained on German texts, there might be more relevant hits that would allow it to sort the two out. But still, wow!

In the end, Voltaire and Wilhelmine parted ways, each with a renewed sense of purpose and determination to fight for justice and freedom in their own ways.

I wrote a fic that ended like that, once. :P

This is great.

The timing is also something, because half an hour before you posted this, I was reading my RSS feed, and the SMBC comic was this. (More proof, imo, that we teach literature wrong, but don't get me started.)

Also, I admit that when I started reading this, I thought, "I know our topics are getting broader, but did you mean to post this here?" and then it turned into pure on-topic comedy gold! :'D

Re: ChatGPT and what it knows/doesn't know

[cahn]

I wrote a fic that ended like that, once. :P

Loooool I betaed that fic, once :D

Heh, the timing is not coincidental... ChatGPT just came out last week and has sort of exploded onto the AI scene. (I learned about it from my best friend K.) Just in the last couple of days my phone has fed me articles from the Atlantic Will ChatGPT kill the student essay? and from Slate: A.I. could be great for college essays.. I don't really know what the right way to teach literature is, but I've said for years that the main useful adult skill I learned from my non-technical classes in college was the ability to argue convincingly in writing that I knew what I was talking about when I didn't really and possibly hadn't done the reading either. This turns out to be a Very Useful Skill for parts of my job! Though I'm more than willing to hand that one over to an AI :P

Also, I admit that when I started reading this, I thought, "I know our topics are getting broader, but did you mean to post this here?" and then it turned into pure on-topic comedy gold! :'D

:D

Re: ChatGPT and what it knows/doesn't know

[mildred_of_midgard]

Loooool I betaed that fic, once :D

You wrote 10% of that fic, once!

Heh, the timing is not coincidental... ChatGPT just came out last week and has sort of exploded onto the AI scene.

Interesting! I know I've seen chatter at work recently about AI writing code, but, like, a couple months ago, not last week.

I don't really know what the right way to teach literature is, but I've said for years that the main useful adult skill I learned from my non-technical classes in college was the ability to argue convincingly in writing that I knew what I was talking about when I didn't really and possibly hadn't done the reading either.

And that may indeed be a very useful skill, but the one thing it's not is literature!