(2022-12-13) Jarche Gpt3 Through A Glass Darkly

Harold Jarche: GPT-3 through a glass darkly. I have been using the tetrad (four sides) derived from Marshall & Eric McLuhan’s Laws of Media for several decades. (Marshall McLuhan)

every new medium (or technology in the broader sense of the word):

• extends a human property
• obsolesces the previous medium by turning it into a sport or an form of art
• retrieves a much older medium that was obsolesced before
• flips or reverses its properties into the opposite effect when pushed to its limits

Recently there has been a lot of hype around OpenAI [another organization funded in part by Elon Musk] and especially tools like ChatGPT.

Marshall McLuhan stated that, “At electric speed, all forms are pushed to the limits of their potential.” We are currently surrounded by media at electric speed. GPT-3 is accelerating the production of most forms of writing

McLuhan noted that, “Retrieval always seems to provide the keynote or dominant mode of each tetrad, which may explain why it is often the most difficult of the four to discover.”

here are some possible retrievals that are driven by social media that currently surround us.

GPT-3

• Extends each voice & mimics creativity
• Obsolesces copy-writing and essays so that human insight becomes a luxury
• Retrieves the polymaths of the European Renaissance so that the best writers must be multi-talented to earn a living
• Reverses into mass deception and provides answers without real questions behind them*

If my interpretation of the Retrieval quadrant is correct, it will become much more difficult to be an average, or even above average, writer. Only the best will flourish. Perhaps we will see a rise in neo-generalists. (average is over)