4 ms·

"chatgpt helps me sound more empathatic in my correspondance" The only reason this is a story is a handful of overly sensitive and loud people saw the disclaim

"chatgpt helps me sound more empathatic in my correspondance" The only reason this is a story is a handful of overly sensitive and loud people saw the disclaimer. Do people get upset when someone uses grammer and spelling checks in Word? Of course not, that's silly. This is the same thing. Total nothingburger. Next time just don't include the disclaimer, and nobody will know the difference.

jakelazaroff 4y ago
Yes, having ChatGPT write the entire email is just like Clippy reminding me that I missed the apostrophe in “it’s” /s It’s like I said in another comment. The issue here isn’t ChatGPT; it’s that the leaders have shown the community they don’t care. The response would be the same if it came out that they used a prewritten email template.
- web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
  Did ChatGPT write the entire thing or was it edited afterward. If I have trouble putting things into words myself but I prompt an AI to write an empathatic email and then tweak it a little bit, what's wrong with that? Would you rather I write no email or write an insensitive one? It's highly unluckly the entire email was just generated and sent out verbatim.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    > If I have trouble putting things into words myself but I prompt an AI to write an empathatic email and then tweak it a little bit, what's wrong with that? It betrays a lack of empathy that you weren’t even willing to take the time to write a personal email to the community in the wake of a horrible tragedy. > Would you rather I write no email or write an insensitive one? I’d rather you write a sensitive one.
    - web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
      > I'd rather you write a sensitive one. Some people are completely incapable of this, through no fault of their own, even though they feel empathy internally - they just struggle to externalize it. We should be encouraging people to use tools that can help to improve expressions of empathy, not shaming people for not being able to do it.
      - jakelazaroff 4y ago
        Then those people shouldn’t take on jobs that require such communication. Like, I appreciate that it’s difficult to write an empathetic email, especially after a tragedy. But if you’re in a leadership position, that’s very much your responsibility. If you can’t do it, then don’t become a leader. ChatGPT isn’t improving anyone’s expression of empathy. It can’t; empathy requires emotion, and ChatGPT doesn’t have any.
        web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
        [flagged]
- smolder 4y ago
  I agree the fundamental issue is that the person "tasked with caring" or rather... Making the students feel heard, or just meeting expectations of feigning they care... does not actually care. There's a possibility they do care and feel limited by the institution to communicating through platitudes, to not be too controversial... But it may also be true that there isn't a real sense of community to drive empathy and inspire more genuine outreach. When I think about culture at universities in the internet age, contrasted to those in, say, the 70s or much earlier, they seem to have less cohesion. I think it is harder to care with everyone living lives that are less local. Nowadays we isolate ourselves more from our immediate surroundings by all being better connected to the sprawling, nebulous, weakly-connected everything-else.
Veen 4y ago
What value does the email have if it's written by an AI? I assume its point was to reaffirm the community's values following a horrible incident. To help people feel that those in authority are doing all they can to make students safe. To express genuine and heartfelt sympathy for victims and empathy for the rest of the student body. Having an AI write it undermines all that. It signals the administration couldn't be arsed to spend an hour writing an email and that the sentiments expressed in it are not genuine.
- web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
  Does an empathatic email that was created using the assistance of an AI have more value than an insensitive one, or none at all? Definitely.

jakelazaroff 4y ago

Yes, having ChatGPT write the entire email is just like Clippy reminding me that I missed the apostrophe in “it’s” /s It’s like I said in another comment. The issue here isn’t ChatGPT; it’s that the leaders have shown the community they don’t care. The response would be the same if it came out that they used a prewritten email template.

web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
Did ChatGPT write the entire thing or was it edited afterward. If I have trouble putting things into words myself but I prompt an AI to write an empathatic email and then tweak it a little bit, what's wrong with that? Would you rather I write no email or write an insensitive one? It's highly unluckly the entire email was just generated and sent out verbatim.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  > If I have trouble putting things into words myself but I prompt an AI to write an empathatic email and then tweak it a little bit, what's wrong with that? It betrays a lack of empathy that you weren’t even willing to take the time to write a personal email to the community in the wake of a horrible tragedy. > Would you rather I write no email or write an insensitive one? I’d rather you write a sensitive one.
  - web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
    > I'd rather you write a sensitive one. Some people are completely incapable of this, through no fault of their own, even though they feel empathy internally - they just struggle to externalize it. We should be encouraging people to use tools that can help to improve expressions of empathy, not shaming people for not being able to do it.
    - jakelazaroff 4y ago
      Then those people shouldn’t take on jobs that require such communication. Like, I appreciate that it’s difficult to write an empathetic email, especially after a tragedy. But if you’re in a leadership position, that’s very much your responsibility. If you can’t do it, then don’t become a leader. ChatGPT isn’t improving anyone’s expression of empathy. It can’t; empathy requires emotion, and ChatGPT doesn’t have any.
      - web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
        [flagged]
smolder 4y ago
I agree the fundamental issue is that the person "tasked with caring" or rather... Making the students feel heard, or just meeting expectations of feigning they care... does not actually care. There's a possibility they do care and feel limited by the institution to communicating through platitudes, to not be too controversial... But it may also be true that there isn't a real sense of community to drive empathy and inspire more genuine outreach. When I think about culture at universities in the internet age, contrasted to those in, say, the 70s or much earlier, they seem to have less cohesion. I think it is harder to care with everyone living lives that are less local. Nowadays we isolate ourselves more from our immediate surroundings by all being better connected to the sprawling, nebulous, weakly-connected everything-else.

Veen 4y ago

What value does the email have if it's written by an AI? I assume its point was to reaffirm the community's values following a horrible incident. To help people feel that those in authority are doing all they can to make students safe. To express genuine and heartfelt sympathy for victims and empathy for the rest of the student body. Having an AI write it undermines all that. It signals the administration couldn't be arsed to spend an hour writing an email and that the sentiments expressed in it are not genuine.

web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
Does an empathatic email that was created using the assistance of an AI have more value than an insensitive one, or none at all? Definitely.