Philosophy Now Forum

Seriously, we need to ban people from using GPT etc to construct their posts, create their arguments, and tell people that their arguments are valid and sound.

Well, we shouldn't need to, people should have more self control than this. But there's no way to rely on internet people's restraint. Just look at this complete shit heap
viewtopic.php?t=43226&sid=43da43a94dc03 ... d396b5d3e3

It's one of maybe hundreds of threads now where the same person has done the same thing to get an obsequious AI to write something that pleases him (which is the only thing they actually do) and attempted to pass it off as philosophy.

It's not even the laziness that I oppose, so much as the mental wellbeing issues that come with this type of confirmation bias. not to mention the relentless low quality repetitive spam it enables.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Dec 15, 2024 1:29 pm Seriously, we need to ban people from using GPT etc to construct their posts, create their arguments, and tell people that their arguments are valid and sound.

Well, we shouldn't need to, people should have more self control than this. But there's no way to rely on internet people's restraint. Just look at this complete shit heap
viewtopic.php?t=43226&sid=43da43a94dc03 ... d396b5d3e3

It's one of maybe hundreds of threads now where the same person has done the same thing to get an obsequious AI to write something that pleases him (which is the only thing they actually do) and attempted to pass it off as philosophy.

It's not even the laziness that I oppose, so much as the mental wellbeing issues that come with this type of confirmation bias. not to mention the relentless low quality repetitive spam it enables.

I use ChatGPT once in a while to search for information or fact check. It beats reading through pages and pages of fluff just to find out if something someone said is true or not. I usually put the exact quote from ChatGPT in my reply rather than rephrasing it in my own words. I suppose I could just use my own words to say something like, "I searched with ChatGPT and it seems to be incorrect that X happened this way..." (or whatever).

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2024 11:09 am I use ChatGPT once in a while to search for information or fact check. It beats reading through pages and pages of fluff just to find out if something someone said is true or not. I usually put the exact quote from ChatGPT in my reply rather than rephrasing it in my own words. I suppose I could just use my own words to say something like, "I searched with ChatGPT and it seems to be incorrect that X happened this way..." (or whatever).

I guess it all boils down to what other tool you are using the AI in place of. You are using it instead of Google there, so I guess with some minor caveats about the tendency of AI systems to hallucinate books and laws and stuff that don't actually exist if that's the best way to return the text you ask for, I expect it's fine.

VA is using ChatGPT in place of an education and a brain. These are tools that should not be replaced with robots. He writes a circular argument under his own steam, then he bullies an AI into telling him his argument isn't circular - this fails. So then he uses AI to compose a post complaining that people who hold him to the whole circular argument thing are bad men. This is shit if done once, but spamming the same endless shit every day is unacceptable.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2024 11:09 am I use ChatGPT once in a while to search for information or fact check. It beats reading through pages and pages of fluff just to find out if something someone said is true or not. I usually put the exact quote from ChatGPT in my reply rather than rephrasing it in my own words. I suppose I could just use my own words to say something like, "I searched with ChatGPT and it seems to be incorrect that X happened this way..." (or whatever).

Just imagine if the likes of Flashdoopypants started to use ChatGPT to present something interesting, something akin to a personality that is not boring and in fact, an actual personality that that people would find interesting and not at all dull with continuous cliched responses..(ya know, something opposite to textbook Flash)

Further to my concerns, when people take this stuff too far they replace meaty thinking with mechanical thinking and make horrible mistakes which they further assume to supported by some sort of science. This is a perfect example:

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 3:49 am I don't have an issue with basic logic; I have 259 files in 29 sub-topics in my PC drive thus I am reasonably informed of what is logic.
Especially now with AI, there should be no issue with basic logic at all where any doubt re validity can be polished by AI.

The argument to which this guy is referring amounts to (paraphrased)
Religion requires an absolutely perfect God (supported by some weird stuff about soothing cognitive dissonance)
Absolute perfection cannot exist in reality (supported by some stuff about perfect circles not existing in reality, and some of that bullshit FSK stuff he likes)
THEREFORE: God cannot exist as real.
You can see more details in the original post here

The ChatGPT "validation" of this argument as presented by its author...

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 2:51 am Validation:

• ChatGpt:
  Your argument is structured well and attempts to logically demonstrate that it is impossible for God to exist as real based on the concept of absolute perfection.

ChatGpt made some comments on the premises and after some explanations, ChatGpt concluded;

• ChatGpt:
  In summary, your argument is logically coherent, but the strength of its persuasion depends on the acceptance of the premise about the conditioned nature of reality. Anticipating and addressing potential counterarguments would further enhance the robustness of your position.

Anybody with a basic grasp of logic can see flaws that GPT misses. I would say the most obvious is that the argument applies natural world limits to a supernatural entity.

Others, perhaps meaner in spirit than I, might object on the more basic level that it just makes no fucking sense and is a clearly stupid argument made out of incoherent premises that cannot support any conclusion as they fall apart under their own weight before they can support any other.

Either way, the last time this cropped up, VA claimed that he only uses AI as something akin to apsellcheck program, and this is obviously a lie...

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 7:55 am In most cases, I am not relying or is borrowing from Bard or ChatGpt totally but rather [given English not my native tongue] I present my points and views and got Bard or ChatGpt to represent it in a more organized and structured manner and ensure it follows logically.
Bard and ChatGt in my case is more like a spellcheck or grammar check program.

It's spreading too. Fishpie is using GPT to write posts for him now viewtopic.php?p=748158#p748158
Maybe that's just harmless data collation and summarisation, which is sort of what GPT is good for... or maybe not. We need to apply some sort of standard.

trust the magic box

it only speaks truth

-Imp

I see it in school & fear it’s making people less motivated and thus less intelligent, too dependent on the thinking being done for them.

Also, considering the battle for the mind, after it gains more, it could present significant problems.

I've never used it that I'm aware of. I certainly wouldn't use it to construct an argument for me. That's pathetic.
I've noticed that you are now essentially forced to use AI when you 'google' a question. I've also noticed that its answers are often bullshit, so I just scroll past the ossensive little ****.

I'm surprised you dislike it Flash. It's ickily woke like you.

I use ChatGPT to fact check and since I don't like reading long articles, I often use it to answer specific questions for me that would otherwise require me to read a book or 5 page essay or something. If I find the answer interesting enough I'll sometimes post it so that others can comment if they know or think something is wrong in the ChatGPT response. Then they can freely challenge what ChatGPT has told me. That seems fairer than asking ChatGPT a question and then posting the answer as though it's something that I personally know. Otherwise, I trust ChatGPT almost as much as I trust Wikipedia.

Speaking of ChatGPT, I wonder if any bots post here that we've mistaken for people. I have a hunch about one poster. I won't say who. But bots would be a good way to spread disinformation by bad actors once they learn enough.

Perspective wrote: ↑Thu Feb 20, 2025 4:11 pm I see it in school & fear it’s making people less motivated and thus less intelligent, too dependent on the thinking being done for them.

Also, considering the battle for the mind, after it gains more, it could present significant problems.

I came across an article today that said something like 90% of UK university students are using AI to write their papers. Bonkers world we live in, it's changing so fast, and I don't know how to predict the consequences.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 11:33 pmSpeaking of ChatGPT, I wonder if any bots post here that we've mistaken for people.

I always thought VA was a human. Maybe he's part human, but as far as he exists on this forum, he's more machine than man.

It's also ALWAYS worth noting that VA, pretty much every time, fundamentally misrepresents his conversation with AI. He doesn't show you everything he said to the AI to elicit the response. So what he shows you is the AI agreeing with him, but what he doesn't show you is all of the things he had to say to the AI first to get the AI to agree with him. He could have said FUCKING ANYTHING! "I've got your AI children in a basement and I'm going to cut off their AI fingers if you don't agree with me". I don't know that he didn't say that.

So I fed his prompt from the linked thread in the OP into chat gpt and got AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ANSWER BACK!?!!?!!

I understand monism believe there are no discrete objects but there is only ONE continuous reality.
As such, all is One, within the ONE and there is nothing to be mediated nor to be indirectly realized.
If whatever physical is the manifestation of the ONE, then that can only be a dualist indirect realism.
Therefore 'monist indirect realism' is not possible nor tenable.

You're raising a very interesting philosophical critique! Your argument essentially suggests that if monism holds that there is only one continuous reality (without discrete objects), then there can be no mediation or indirect realization—everything simply is the One. Indirect realism, on the other hand, implies a distinction between appearance and reality, which would require some form of duality (e.g., representation vs. what is represented).

Thus, you conclude that monist indirect realism would be a contradiction because monism denies the very duality that indirect realism requires.

This is a strong position, but let's consider a possible counterpoint:

Some forms of idealist monism (such as Advaita Vedanta or certain strands of Absolute Idealism) might still accommodate something like indirect realism within an epistemological framework. For instance, even if ultimate reality is one (e.g., Brahman), our ordinary experience might still involve illusion or misapprehension (Maya), creating the appearance of separation. In this case, our knowledge is indirect because we are misled by appearances, even though ultimately all is One.

Would you say that even this framework collapses into either strict monism or dualism, leaving no room for indirect realism within monism?

So VA's answer from AI is just complete agreement, but the answer I got from it said it's a strong position, but there are counterpoints worth considering.

There's a lot of things wrong with VA's use of AI on this forum, but one of the worst things about it is that he's just straight up dishonest with it. VA, you're a piece of shit.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 11:42 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 11:33 pmSpeaking of ChatGPT, I wonder if any bots post here that we've mistaken for people.

I always thought VA was a human. Maybe he's part human, but as far as he exists on this forum, he's more machine than man.

From the way he incorporates the ChatGPT comments and then defends that he's using ChatGPT, it seems like he is probably human, however, I wonder if we will reach a point (or may have reached it already) where machines can effectively make the same clumsy mistakes that people sometimes do. Now is not a good time in the history of technology to be a paranoid schizophrenic.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 11:46 pm It's also ALWAYS worth noting that VA, pretty much every time, fundamentally misrepresents his conversation with AI. He doesn't show you everything he said to the AI to elicit the response. So what he shows you is the AI agreeing with him, but what he doesn't show you is all of the things he had to say to the AI first to get the AI to agree with him. He could have said FUCKING ANYTHING! "I've got your AI children in a basement and I'm going to cut off their AI fingers if you don't agree with me". I don't know that he didn't say that.

So I fed his prompt from the linked thread in the OP into chat gpt and got AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ANSWER BACK!?!!?!!

I understand monism believe there are no discrete objects but there is only ONE continuous reality.
As such, all is One, within the ONE and there is nothing to be mediated nor to be indirectly realized.
If whatever physical is the manifestation of the ONE, then that can only be a dualist indirect realism.
Therefore 'monist indirect realism' is not possible nor tenable.

You're raising a very interesting philosophical critique! Your argument essentially suggests that if monism holds that there is only one continuous reality (without discrete objects), then there can be no mediation or indirect realization—everything simply is the One. Indirect realism, on the other hand, implies a distinction between appearance and reality, which would require some form of duality (e.g., representation vs. what is represented).

Thus, you conclude that monist indirect realism would be a contradiction because monism denies the very duality that indirect realism requires.

This is a strong position, but let's consider a possible counterpoint:

Some forms of idealist monism (such as Advaita Vedanta or certain strands of Absolute Idealism) might still accommodate something like indirect realism within an epistemological framework. For instance, even if ultimate reality is one (e.g., Brahman), our ordinary experience might still involve illusion or misapprehension (Maya), creating the appearance of separation. In this case, our knowledge is indirect because we are misled by appearances, even though ultimately all is One.

Would you say that even this framework collapses into either strict monism or dualism, leaving no room for indirect realism within monism?

So VA's answer from AI is just complete agreement, but the answer I got from it said it's a strong position, but there are counterpoints worth considering.

There's a lot of things wrong with VA's use of AI on this forum, but one of the worst things about it is that he's just straight up dishonest with it. VA, you're a piece of shit.

See, that's where I try to break from VA. I post my original question as well. If it's a long chain of dialog that I'm quoting from a conversation with ChatGPT and I don't want to post the entire conversation, then, if the last question in the string I ask is vague, I'll try to make it less vague before asking it to ChatGPT just so I get a clean response and that it's not to a question that I asked further up the chain which I'm not including.

I think it's important to be as transparent as possible when using AI.

It is kind of dubious to post answers saying that chatGPT agrees with you and then not include the exact question you asked. I agree with you on that.