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If the woman who sent this email had edited out the ChatGPT tagline at the bottom of the text, no one would have noticed anything. The fact that she was willin
by cs702 4y ago
If the woman who sent this email had edited out the ChatGPT tagline at the bottom of the text, no one would have noticed anything.
The fact that she was willing to use ChatGPT in the first place is a sign of how much value her emails add to the university.
Her title, in case you're wondering, is "Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion."
It says something about how bloated the administrative staff is that an "Associate Dean" can be replaced by something like ChatGPT.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y agoOne email written by GPT and suddenly the whole person can be replaced by it? That's quite the leap of logic.
- chris_wot 4y agoIt’s a pretty good indicator that if a mass shooting happens and you must use ChatGPT to write the response then, yes, it looks like a big part of your role is superfluous.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y agoOr, here's an alternative interpretation: the person was so overworked due to the endless stream of crazyness that has to be dealt with in the event of a mass shooting, they used ChatGPT to save time, and messed it up because they were under a lot of stress. Which would only prove that ChatGPT is hardly a replacement at all, just a new, buggy tool that was used for a single task. See how easy it is to construct an interpretation of events with a particular conclusion in mind? ;)
- chris_wot 4y agoSending an email about a mass shooting seems to me to be a key part of the job. That's the only interpretation I have in mind.
- matwood 4y ago> One email written by GPT and suddenly the whole person can be replaced by it? This is my problem with the current chatGPT hype. People ask it a programming question and immediately think programmers days are numbered. I have used it to grammar check emails, I guess I'm no longer needed at my company. I see these advances as the next step in productivity. Letting a tool write 'good' emails or mundane code will let people focus on other problems like figuring out which emails to write or which product features to add.
- adrianN 4y agoAny advance in productivity reduces the number of workers required to do the job.
- matwood 4y agoOne would think, but most advances are also followed by increase business activity to use that new productivity. There have been huge advances in technology, yet we need more technology workers than ever before.
- adrianN 4y agoEventually the music will stop for programmers too, but right now ChatGPT and its variants probably pose a bigger threat to people writing texts for a living. Journalists for example will become a lot more productive.
- matwood 4y agoI've been hearing the music will stop for programmers for the last 30 years. Expert systems and formal specification languages were supposed to be able to generate software. 4/5GLs were supposed to allow anyone to write software (they actually have done an ok job). But with every advance, the business software goal posts moved. An advantage the typical IT worker has is they are generally used to the learn or perish treadmill. So whatever comes out will be incoporated into workflows and more complex software will be built. A rise in real journalism again would be great. Content farm/seo spam/content summarization should have been automated a long ago.
- rgoulter 4y agoSure, I wouldn't come to that conclusion solely based on that point either. I think that 'university administration is bloated' is more/less accurate, though. e.g.: "The number of non-academic administrative and professional employees at U.S. colleges and universities has more than doubled in the last 25 years, vastly outpacing the growth in the number of students or faculty, according to an analysis of federal figures." https://www.huffpost.com/entry/higher-ed-administrators-growth_n_4738584 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/higher-ed-administrators-grow...
- kcplate 4y agoThe whole person should probably be replaced because of their carelessness and laziness.
- cs702 4y agoIn this situation, ChatGPT actually was able to replace the person. In fact, the person, a woman, voluntarily replaced herself with ChatGPT! But I didn't say anything about ChatGPT's ability to replace her in other situations -- that falls outside the context of my comment. Please don't attack a straw-man.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y agoYou wrote, and I quote: "It says something about how bloated the administrative staff is that an "Associate Dean" can be replaced by something like ChatGPT."
- cs702 4y agoIt can, and it did, in this instance. Please don't take my comments out of their context. PS. This is my last comment on this thread. I have zero interest in arguing for the sake of arguing. Life is too short.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y agoYou didn't say ", in this instance." If you don't specify, the default interpretation is that you are speaking in general terms. You're the one being all defensive about it.
- anigbrowl 4y agoLet's try it and see. If we are going to have AI replace jobs, start at the top.
- ourmandave 4y agoI wonder if she had it write several versions, like picking out a Hallmark card.
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- NickC25 4y agoIt says a lot about how bloated administration is. The gross disrespect to the students that an associate dean of DEI, not even the chancellor/president, or someone in the chancellor/president's inner circle wrote the letter. A written response to a mass shooting on campus was deemed so unimportant it got passed down the chain at least two or three times....think about that for a second. I went to a similarly sized university - and when there was a mass shooting a few blocks from our campus (which sadly took the lives of a few students, but non-students were killed as well), the university president wrote the mass email that went out to everyone. Well, maybe someone under him probably did, but it still came from his address. This woman should be fired immediately, but so should those above her. Absolutely disgusting.
- cool_dude85 4y agoThe mass shooting in this case was a thousand miles or so off campus in Michigan (Vanderbilt is in Nashville, TN).
- NickC25 4y agoMakes sense, but in such a case, why would a DE&I associate official comment about a shooting that happened at another school? Just sort of odd. If they did comment, why not someone who has the power to actually do something at Vanderbilt, and say something as simple as: "Hi students, in wake of the shooting at Michigan State, we are making any and all mental health and student support systems more available to our on-campus community. Our thoughts and prayers are with those in East Lansing, and the families of those affected by a senseless act of violence." Took me all of 27 seconds. Why does ChatGPT need to come into play to communicate to students?
- adverbly 4y agoNot sure you've got the right angle on that... Did openai replace the associate dean here, or did the associate dean replace their secretary and writer. I think the latter. No way they would send anything without high level approval. That still happened here, except the AD completed the task directly with OpenAI, and the secretary and writer didn't get involved.
- wildrhythms 4y agoI don't think it's true that people wouldn't have noticed; the email still has incorrect information and somebody would (should) have brought up, if nothing else, the lack of proofreading. FTA: >The body of the initial email mentions “Peabody” once and does not use any other Vanderbilt-specific terms. It also refers to multiple “recent Michigan shootings”; however, only one incident occurred.