Artificial Intelligence 101 for Baffled and Bemused Investors

I introduced ChatGPT to my brother during my niece's 18th birthday... and what came next was confusion, fasciation, excitement, relief, and more...

Dear Fellow Expat,

Yesterday, I watched my brother’s reaction when he saw ChatGPT for the first time. It was very similar to watching a person engage with a search engine or AOL email for the first time in the mid-1990s.

His first questions were largely functional.

Him: “So you can ask it to give you a 45-minute yoga routine… with step-by-step instructions. It can do that in 15 seconds?”

Me: “Yes. It’s like always having a personal assistant.”

Him: “You can ask it to summarize the most important 20% teachings of a religious figure, and you’ll get 80% of that person’s gospel in less than 1,000 words, a cheat sheet?”

Me: “Yes. It’s like always having a personal assistant.”

Him: “So, if I asked it… to write the outline of a movie idea…”

ME: “IT’S LIKE ALWAYS HAVING A PERSONAL ASSISTANT WITH YOU.”

He couldn’t wrap his head around it at first. As I explained, all human knowledge has been at one’s fingertips for two decades now. But you really had to seek it. You had to read and watch everything. Yo…