Adding a feature because ChatGPT incorrectly thinks it exists

I think folks have taken the wrong lesson from this.

It’s not that they added a new feature because there was demand.

They added a new feature because technology hallucinated a feature that didn’t exist.

The savior of tech, generative AI, was telling folks a feature existed that didn’t exist.

That’s what the headline is, and in a sane world the folks that run ChatGPT would be falling over themselves to be sure it didn’t happen again, because next time it might not be so benign as it was this time.

You sound like all the naysayers when Wikipedia was new. Did you know anybody can go onto Wikipedia and edit a page to add a lie‽ How can you possibly trust what you read on there‽ Do you think Wikipedia should issue groveling apologies every time it happens?

Meanwhile, sensible people have concluded that, even though it isn’t perfect, Wikipedia is still very, very useful – despite the possibility of being misled occasionally.

OK, so how do I edit ChatGPT so it stops lying then?

You have ignored my point.

A technology can be extremely useful despite not being perfect. Failure cases can be taken into consideration rationally without turning it into a moral panic.

You have no ability to edit Wikipedia to stop it from lying. Somebody can come along and re-add the lie a millisecond later.

No, that is not accurate. Wikipedia has a number of guardrails and such an edit war would be detected and investigated. Possibly the page protected and the offending IP or account banned.

Wikipedia edits are monitored and vandalism is taken seriously, especially on the more important pages.