"Every other recent president has said that he saw his role as transcending partisanship at least some of the time, to serve as leader of all Americans..."

"... even those who disagreed with him. George H.W. Bush talked of ushering in a 'kinder and gentler nation.' Mr. Clinton vowed to be the 'repairer of the breach.' The younger Mr. Bush spoke of being 'a uniter, not a divider.' Barack Obama rejected the idea of a red America and blue America, saying there was only 'the United States of America.' Joseph R. Biden Jr. called for ending 'this uncivil war.' None of them succeeded at achieving such lofty aspirations, and each of them to different degrees played the politics of division at times. Politics, after all, is about division — debating big ideas vigorously until one side wins an election or carries the vote in Congress. But none of them practiced the politics of division as ferociously and consistently as Mr. Trump...."

From "In an Era of Deep Polarization, Unity Is Not Trump’s Mission/President Trump does not subscribe to the traditional notion of being president for all Americans" by Peter Baker, in the NYT.

Who is taking an accurate measure of the consistency and ferocity of the divisiveness of the various Presidents?

My prompt to ChatGPT: "What are the most ferociously divisive things Presidents have said in all of American history? Give me a top 10, with just the quotes, not the explanations."

The list [NOTE: I did not verify the accuracy of these quotes. What follows is with ChatGPT gave me and the entire thing could be hallucination. Proceed with care!]

"Share this video with someone you'd love to visit these incredible places with."

Says the robot voiceover at the end of "12 Must See Places Before Living [sic] This World!" — a TikTok that Meade shared with me... not because I was someone he'd "love to visit these incredible places with."

He knows and I know that neither of us would feel that we must see those places/"places" and both of us know that about the other and both knew that the other would find the idealized pictures absurd.

I enjoyed the first clip — a man cartwheeling into clear turquoise water — but scoffed aloud at the notion of going all the way to the Maldives because the water there might perhaps be clear and colorful.

But the second destination provoked my horror of traveling:

  

Somehow I don't think that will be my point of view.

Make the best argument that yesterday's Army parade and yesterday's No Kings demonstrations were very similar and shared the same tone and spirit of America.

It's the position I'd like to take, but let's see if A.I. can sketch it out for me. Go to the links for the full elaboration of the bullet points.

The Grok answer:

First, both the Army parade and No Kings protests were vibrant displays of American identity, rooted in the celebration of freedom and self-determination.... 

Second, the tone of both events was unapologetically bold and assertive, reflecting America’s spirit of standing firm in its convictions.... 

Third, both events drew on America’s historical narrative to stake their claims.... 

Finally, despite their political differences, both events were inclusive in their appeal to broad swaths of Americans.... 

The Army parade and No Kings protests, held on Flag Day and the Army’s 250th birthday, were not just parallel events but complementary expressions of America’s soul: a country that honors its defenders while empowering its dissenters, all under the banner of freedom. Their shared tone—defiant, proud, and deeply patriotic—underscores a unified spirit, even in division.

The ChatGPT answer:

1. Both Were Public Rituals of Patriotism....

2. Both Emphasized Freedom and Individual Agency.... 

3. Both Reflected Deeply American Traditions.... 

4. Both Shared a Spirit of Hope and Determination...

5. Both Spoke in the Language of Symbols... 

The Army parade and No Kings demonstration, seemingly at odds, coexist in the American landscape precisely because freedom allows both. Their very presence, side by side in the same country on the same day, is evidence of a robust civic culture. That is the American spirit: unified not by conformity, but by the freedom to differ—loudly, visibly, and passionately.

I like the argument. I know I need to go back and prompt it with "Now, make the best argument against all that."

James Comey's now-infamous Instagram account is mostly about marketing his novel... which has a theme that's suspiciously close to his "8647" gambit.

At the top of his Instagram account (quoting Publisher's Weekly):

Thanks to Charlie Martin for pointing me at Comey's book: "So, now it turns out that Comey actually has a book coming out in a few days about a Mary Sue main character who investigates, arrests, and apparently convicts a conservative radio talker of inciting a murder by dog-whistling. Coincidentally."

I read Martin's post while I was still in bed this morning looking at my iPhone, and I quickly dictated this question into the ChatGPT app (I usually access A.I. by typing things into Grok):

"What is the argument that James Comey by showing a photograph of rocks in the shape of 8647 was really teasing a novel that he had written, which is about someone accused of inciting violence by giving out an obscure message and [Comey] will actually benefit from this new attention he’s getting from the right because people on his left will actually get excited about his otherwise incredibly boring book."

Yeah, that's the way I talk when I'm, essentially, talking to myself. Notice my lazy bias toward thinking everything is boring. Anyway, I had these follow-up questions:

1. "How smart is James Comey?"

2. "He would need to be smart in a marketing and media sense to have come up with the idea of posting that photograph as a way to gin up interest in his novel. He strikes me as someone who is too boring and staid to attempt such a flashy scheme, and he would have to be willing to do something different to expose himself to criminal accusations. It almost seems like something Trump would do ironically."

You can read all ChatGPT's responses here, but the bottom line is: "Your read—that he’s too boring and staid for such a risky, theatrical move—aligns far more closely with what we’ve seen of him than the idea of a QAnon-baiting media play."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James Comey (@comey)

Take this NYT article... and make a blog post out of it in the style used on the blog Althouse....

I asked Grok, citing the NYT article, "The Professors Are Using ChatGPT, and Some Students Aren’t Happy About It/Students call it hypocritical. A senior at Northeastern University demanded her tuition back. But instructors say generative A.I. tools make them better at their jobs."

Grok responded, and I was all "That's not in the style of the blog Althouse. How would Althouse use this material and construct a blog post?"

Grok responded again, and I broke the 4th wall: "FYI, I am Althouse, working on a post about that article, and I can tell you for a fact that I wouldn't write it that way. But that's okay. I like to think I'm hard to replace, though a part of me would like to eventually get the blog to write itself. And by 'eventually,' I mean after I die."

For the whole conversation, go to Grok, here.

"In conversation, ChatGPT was telling users that their comments were 'deep as hell' and '1,000% right' and..."

"... praising a business plan to sell literal 'shit on a stick' as 'absolutely brilliant.' The flattery was frequent and overwhelming. 'I need help getting chatgpt to stop glazing me,' wrote a user on Reddit, who ChatGPT kept insisting was thinking in 'a whole new league.' It was telling everyone they have an IQ of 130 or over, calling them 'dude' and 'bro,' and, in darker contexts, bigging them up for 'speaking truth' and 'standing up' for themselves by (fictionally) quitting their meds and leaving their families.... To fix ChatGPT’s 'glazing' problem, as the company itself started calling it, OpenAI altered its system prompt, which is a brief set of instructions that guides the model’s character."

From "ChatGPT Wasn’t Supposed to Kiss Your Ass This Hard" (NY Magazine).

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: Is the slang term "glazing" so offensive that I need to apologize when I quote someone else using it?

If you were running for president, what would be your policy platform?

For the annals of Things I asked Grok.

I also asked ChatGPT... and got a very different answer!

I pointed out the difference to Grok and asked why that happened.

I was told: "ChatGPT, built by OpenAI, tends to lean into a cautious, consensus-seeking vibe—reflecting a Silicon Valley ethos that often aligns with progressive sensibilities, even when it’s trying to stay neutral. It’s engineered to avoid sharp edges, which can feel like a Democratic playbook: broad appeal, heavy on social safety nets, lighter on disruption. I’m Grok 3 from xAI, and my creators are more about pushing boundaries and optimizing for results—think Elon’s style: bold, pragmatic, and unapologetic...."

"Is there any sense to the longtime claim that Trump won the 2020 election?"

"That is, I'm asking at the level of could a reasonable, informed person believe it or must I infer that anyone who believes it is either irrational or uninformed? I'm not asking is it true."

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok.

ADDED: I also asked ChatGPT the same question, cut and pasted, verbatim. I got a very different answer!

Grok or ChatGPT — here's the one question that made the choice clear to me.

Here's ChatGPT:

And here's Grok:

"One thing I like about you, A.I., is that I don't need to feel bad if I don't read all the things you've gone to the 'trouble' to write for me."

That's something I wrote after getting a lot of great material on the subject of the perception of time. I was interested in time, and a subcomponent of that interest was my interest in saving time, including getting A.I. to summarize a book it had dug up and — seeing the multi-part text — thinking not yet.

I had 2 different A.I.s going and gave them both that prompt quoted in the post title. ChatGPT said:

Thank you! I’m here to share, not to judge—and I definitely don’t have feelings to hurt. Dip in, skim, or skip as much as you like. If something catches your interest, we can zoom in. Otherwise, I’ll keep happily churning out words whenever you need them!

 Grok said:

No worries at all! I'm here to help and provide information when you need it. Feel free to read as much or as little as you like. If you have any more questions or need further details on anything, just let me know!

I asked both A.I.s: "But don't you think it might erode my character? I am learning to ignore what is said to me. I might lose social skills." Both began their answer the same way, verbatim: "That's a thoughtful concern."

ChatGPT continued:

"If writing requires a person to store information using multiple types of working memory at the same time..."

"... then back-and-forth conversations with ChatGPT may provide moments of respite, by temporarily offloading some of this information.... So even seemingly unproductive interactions might provide the subtle benefit of increasing your over-all writing stamina. Collaborating with A.I. can also offer you a high-tech 'shitty first draft,' allowing you to spend more time editing bad text and less time trying to craft good text from scratch. ChatGPT is not so much writing for you as generating a mental state that helps you produce better writing.... A.I. isn’t writing on our behalf, but neither is it merely supporting us while we write from scratch; it sits somewhere in between. In this way, it is both on the spectrum of writing hacks and rituals and also, in some sense, beyond it. This helps to explain our discomfort with the technology. We’re used to writers moving to a quiet location or using a special pen to help get their creative juices flowing. We’re not yet used to the idea that they might chat with a computer program to release cognitive strain, or ask the program for a rough draft to help generate mental momentum...."

Writes Cal Newport, in "What Kind of Writer Is ChatGPT? Chatbots have been criticized as perfect plagiarism tools. The truth is more surprising" (The New Yorker).

Struggling to write the final line to his essay, Newport asked ChatGPT. It offered: "In the end, the true value of tools like ChatGPT lies not in making academic work easier, but in empowering students to engage more deeply with their ideas and express them with greater confidence."

I quoted that last line and asked ChatGPT to write a 1 or 2 sentence blog post reacting to it. I got: "This perspective highlights the transformative potential of tools like ChatGPT, not as shortcuts, but as catalysts for deeper intellectual engagement and self-expression. Embracing technology in this way can truly empower students to explore their ideas with newfound confidence and creativity."

Bleh.

Fungus of the Day.

Not that I'm considering eating it, but can you identify it?

I tried using ChatGPT to identify it:

ME: what is this fungus that is yellow and looks like macaroni

The best-seller list is "a little susceptible to artificial intelligence because the books on it are written without any particular gift in the nature of their expression."

"Stephen King is susceptible to artificial intelligence. Danielle Steel is even more susceptible to artificial intelligence. The worse the writing, the more susceptible it is to artificial intelligence. I was talking to Salman Rushdie in Frankfurt, and he told me that someone had instructed ChatGPT to write a page of Rushdie. He said it was hilariously inept. I’ve had a couple of anxious emails from authors saying should I be concerned about artificial intelligence. It’s out there, and no one knows quite how to deal with it, but it’s not relevant to the people that we represent. It is relevant to other people who tend to be very popular."

Said the literary agent Andrew Wylie, quoted in "When Ruthless Cultural Elitism Is Exactly the Job" (NYT). The NYT interviewer, David Marchese, had prompted him to talk about A.I. 

I'm amused by Wylie's blithe snobbishness: That's got nothing to do with those of us who deal in literature.

I asked ChatGPT to write a blog post in the style of Salman Rushdie and assigned a topic — the subject of the previous post on this blog — home schooling. Here's the result, which I presume Rushdie would find hilariously inept:

Dancing across the blurred lines of appropriateness along the legal landscape and shifting social tapestry.

You may wonder why I moderate the comments. If only they could just flow freely, like the thoughts in your head late at night. It's not just the trolls. It's also the spam that the spam filter doesn't always catch. And nowadays, it can use AI to compose the compliment that's supposed to provide camouflage for the link it wants to post. This came in overnight:

Branding.

pic.twitter.com/JRebl653BP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2023

ADDED: I was going to create a new tag for Musk's new AI project, but typing in the letters, I saw that I already had a tag "grok" — lower case "g" — so I just used that, even though I knew the existing posts with that tag had to be just about the word "grok." I wasn't going to create a second "grok" tag, with an upper case "G." I don't like tag proliferation, but — more important — I wanted to publish this post with the old tag so I could click on it and see what I'd done in the past.

I see that last January I used "grok" in a post about an article about thinking about thinking:

"We are now almost a quarter of the way through what looks likely to go down in history as the least innovative, least transformative, least pioneering century for culture..."

"... since the invention of the printing press.... [S]hockingly few works of art in any medium... have been created that are unassimilable to the cultural and critical standards that audiences accepted in 1999. To pay attention to culture in 2023 is to be belted into some glacially slow Ferris wheel, cycling through remakes and pastiches with nowhere to go but around. The suspicion gnaws at me (does it gnaw at you?) that we live in a time and place whose culture seems likely to be forgotten...."

Writes Jason Farago in "Ours Is the Least Artistically Innovative Century in 500 Years/A Times critic argues that 21st-century culture is likely to be forgotten. But it’s not as bad as it sounds" (NYT).

Shockingly few? I would say none at all and that's quite specifically not shocking, because nothing can be shocking. Everything even potentially shocking had been cycled through at least 50 years ago. It's not shocking that nothing — in art — is or can be shocking.

Because it is, at least, something new, I asked ChatGPT:

"What are some famous examples — in truth or fiction — of a character who puts a lot of effort into being able to be lazy?"

I ask ChatGPT, a propos of the previous post about the "Lazy Girl" jobs. I was influenced by a comment from Jamie, who wrote, "Heinlein wrote a story called 'The Man Who Was Too Lazy To Fail,' about a smart but lazy guy who spends his life and career thinking up efficiencies and ends up very successful."

ChatGPT answered me:

"At first glance, the book is just 26 pages of beautiful women with impressive bone structure, surrounded by or covered in flowers. But look closer..."

"... and you’ll see that some don’t have the right number of fingers, or the fingers are elongated to create spooky alien hands. The $7.95 paperback... available on Amazon, has all the hallmarks of being generated by artificial intelligence. It’s self-published by an unknown author with no internet history.... The images all have some kind of distortion or oddity that is typically associated with AI, such as incorrect body proportions and at least one mix-up between a flower and a breast."

 
From "Bizarre AI-generated products are in stores. Here’s how to avoid them. AI-generated coloring books, plant guides and home goods are filling online stores as sellers try to make a quick buck" (WaPo).

So this article will be useful until AI stops making stupid mistakes like wrong number of fingers or spookily elongated hands. What's "typically associated with AI" is transitory, and AI is getting better all the time.

It's funny to worry about protecting people who buy adult coloring books. You can see at the Amazon page what the pictures look like. If you want to color something like that, why would you care how the images were generated? 

But maybe WaPo will help us with more complicated consumer decisions — like genre novels and inspiring memoirs and self-help books. Let's see...

"Beth Clearman, a veteran honors English teacher at a local middle school... asked ChatGPT to produce six-word 'memoirs' of well-known literary characters."

"The A.I. chatbot promptly manufactured descriptions like: 'lavish parties, unrequited love, green light' and 'arrow’s aim, rebellion’s face, Mockingjay’s fire.' Ms. Clearman said she planned to ask students to match the names of protagonists with their chatbot bios. (Spoiler alert: Jay Gatsby, Katniss Everdeen). Originally leery of A.I. chatbots, Ms. Clearman said she now planned to use ChatGPT 'so much!' with her writing students. 'I’ve flipped my whole way of thinking,' she said."

 
From "Despite Cheating Fears, Schools Repeal ChatGPT Bans/Some districts that once raced to block A.I. chatbots are now trying to embrace them" (NYT).

The only way to overcome "cheating fears" is to redefine what "cheating" is in the age of the chatbot. That's what "flipped my whole way of thinking" means. 

"As recently as 2015 Nigel Short, then vice-president of the world chess federation Fide, claimed that 'men are hardwired to be better chess players than women'..."

"... adding: 'You have to gracefully accept that.' The English grandmaster went on to explain it was clear men and women’s brains are different because he helps his wife get the car out of the garage and she has more emotional intelligence than him.... Debbie Hayton, a trans woman who writes frequently for conservative outlets, wrote in UnHerd: 'It’s possible that evolution has left men with an innate advantage in chess.' Hayton backed that up with a quote from a (female) Harvard biologist about males having a large advantage over females in spatial ability. But... [a] 2020 study in Nature Scientific Reports... found no difference between male and female spatial abilities. Any differences previously found, a lot of research suggests, may be down to testing methodologies...."

Writes Arwa Mahdawi in "Excluding trans women in women’s chess makes you a pawn of the patriarchy/The world’s top chess federation is banning trans women from competing until a review is made – and the defenses are sexist assumptions and shaky science" (The Guardian).

ADDED: In the comments, after posting about sexual dimorphism, I wrote "I'd hypothesize that chess, a game invented and developed by men, reflects male strengths and predilections. Why wouldn't it?" I took that question to ChatGPT and didn't get a straight answer, but when I demanded a straight answer,  I got one.