I wrote this column myself, but how long before a chatbot could do it for me?
John Naughton
A Naughton column generator would scrape The Register, misunderstand a point, add in “woes is us because capitalism” and print 1,000 words. Job done – the PoMo generator could do this two decades back.
I wonder why anyone would develop a chatbot to write columns in the Graun? What a waste of energy. You could get a real live human to do it for virtually nothing. It’s only a case of publishing the comments section as the column. Just put up the topic & let them get on with it.
《As the debate over the appropriate level of pay for public sector employees raged on, many on the right wing of the political spectrum argued that increasing salaries for these workers would come at a significant cost. They pointed out that every dollar spent on higher salaries for public sector employees was a dollar that could not be used for other purposes, such as reducing taxes or funding important programs and services.
One such right wing advocate was Jane, a small business owner who had long been a vocal critic of what she saw as excessive government spending. She argued that the opportunity cost of paying public sector employees more was simply too high, and that the money would be better spent elsewhere.
“Think about it,” Jane said during a heated debate on the issue. “If we increase salaries for public sector workers, that’s money that could be used to lower taxes for businesses like mine, or to fund important programs that benefit the entire community. Instead, it’s being funneled into the pockets of a select group of individuals who already enjoy relatively high levels of job security and benefits.”
Jane’s argument was met with fierce opposition from those on the other side of the political spectrum, who argued that public sector workers deserved higher salaries given the important work that they do. But for Jane, the opportunity cost of paying these workers more was simply too great to justify.
“I’m not saying that public sector workers don’t deserve to be paid fairly,” she said. “But we have to weigh the costs and benefits of any decision, and in this case, the costs far outweigh the benefits. Let’s focus on using our limited resources in the most effective and efficient way possible, rather than simply throwing more money at the problem.”
In the end, the debate over the appropriate level of pay for public sector employees continued, with no clear resolution in sight. But for Jane, the opportunity cost of paying these workers more was a point that she would continue to make, arguing that it was the responsible and fiscally conservative approach to the issue.》
A chatbot for Murphy would be simple. Just need to pepper the text with candidly, staggering, far-right, neoliberal, greengrocers apostrophes’ – all included in interminable, impenetrable sentences without any punctuation.
Bravefart – you’ve missed a crucial feature of the spudbot – 8thly, 9thly…. fascist
People still read the brown-nosed Vulture/Wokester, or use it for anything useful?
If you put a chimp at a typewriter for long enough, you’ll eventually get the entire works of Shakespeare. So a long afternoon’ll do for this guy.
ElReg retains BOFH, but they’ve just lost Dabbsy (did he fall, or was he pushed?)
The comments section still gives decent pushback on the regular climageddon articles.
It occurred that it would be amusing to put a comment under the column pointing out that it would be far more expensive to get a chat-bot to compose it than the derisory rate the Graun’s paying the writer. Or would that be too cruel?
Go on. Go on. Goooo on. Gon, go on, go on.
Be amusing to see how long the comment lasted.
@Chris Miller Can’t even comment there anymore..
Permanent Bad Boy Corner because I dared to call out Kieran on his brownnosing, and snubbed back at Dio when he turned up to defend his Lovechild, years ago.
Well worth it.. 3:)
There are commentisfree pieces that aren’t already written by chatbots?
That’s harsh, Grikath! I didn’t know ElReg went in for shadow-banning.