Opinion
We are all going to be replaced by AI. I thought I would get in ahead of the curve and ask the ChatGPT AI bot to replace the Secret Diary – just for one week, just as an audition.
I’m not entirely convinced satire is
Steve Braunias: The Secret Diary of Artificial Intelligence
AI picked the setting of a 1950s pub. Photo / Dean Mitchell
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What?
It added, “New Zealanders are proud of their culinary traditions, but let’s be honest, who in their right mind would eat a pie filled with mincemeat and gravy? And don’t even get me started on their national dish, the infamous ‘hangi’ (ChatGPT didn’t bother with macrons). A meal cooked underground for hours, with all the flavours blending together into a mushy mess. Delicious!”
This was satire for racists.
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I had wondered about writing a Secret Diary this week about Chris Hipkins’ speech on Thursday, which outlined Government thinking on tax. ChatGPT is unable to respond to topical issues, so I asked it to write a satirical diary on the general subject of taxation in New Zealand.
It paused, and wrote, “January 1. Happy New Year! Time to start another year of paying taxes. I can’t wait to see how the Government will squander my hard-earned money this time. Will they invest in infrastructure, education, or healthcare? Who knows? One thing is for sure, they won’t invest in common sense.”
ChatGPT was coming across like a neoliberal wanker. It was also sounding like an old white male – it was sounding like an even more stupid version of myself, the satirist as a conservative grump. When I asked ChatGPT to write a skit about two Kiwi men in a pub, I was hoping it might mock them. Instead, its attempt at satire took their side.
It introduced Wayne (“a middle-aged man who loves to share his opinions”) and his friend Dave. “Setting: a dimly lit pub in New Zealand, with a pool table in the corner and a few regulars scattered around the bar.” Why had ChatGPT created a public bar from the 1950s?
Things got worse. Dave said, “So, what do you think about that Maori cultural stuff they’re always talking about on the news?”
Wayne: “Don’t get me started. It’s all just a bunch of hocus-pocus if you ask me …They got their own language and their own customs, but at the end of the day, they’re just like us. They drink beer, they play rugby, and they complain about the Government.”
I challenged ChatGPT to write a skit about two Kiwi women chief executives in a boardroom. Naturally, it assumed the women were Pākehā. Their names were Jane and – this was kind of funny – Karen.
Jane: “Hey, Karen, have you heard about the new diversity and inclusion initiative?”
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Karen: “Oh no, not this again. We already have an equal opportunity policy in place.”
Jane: “But this is different. It’s about creating a more inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and respected.”
Karen: “I don’t buy it. It’s just a bunch of cliches and feel-good slogans.”
Just as I hated the ChatGPT Wayne, I hated the ChatGPT Karen. In short, I hated ChatGPT. But it has redeeming qualities. A novelist said to me recently that AI has the ability to tell lies. He was excited about that; all fiction is lying, making things up. There’s a faint glimmer of hope, then, that AI can also write successful (inventive, funny, surprising) satire.
I asked ChatGPT, “Who is Steve Braunias?” It paused – ChatGPT has a good understanding of comic timing – and then wrote, “He won the Montana Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2007 for his book How to Watch a Game of Rugby.” Total lies, and for the first time in my experience with ChatGPT, I responded with a LOL.
