By Tony Deyal
The man asked his wife, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” Immediately she shook her head, sighed and replied, “The rooster did. The rooster always comes first.” Another answer is that the egg came first because Dinosaurs laid eggs long before chicken were hatched. Even though Plutarch, the Greek Philosopher, came out with the chicken and egg question way back in time, in the first century BC really, as far as many people are concerned the question remains unanswered and even more questions and concerns have arisen.
For instance, this week’s news included: “The Tibetan Lama Council has recently proclaimed that Michael Jackson was reborn as a duck and is now residing in a farm in Lhasa, Tibet. A video captured by the farm owner recently showed that he was happy and has not forgotten his signature dance moves.” At around this same time ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) or “chatbot” started not just to make waves but create them. A chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the internet or, as the Oxford Dictionary explains, “chatbots often treat conversations like they’re a game of tennis: talk, reply, talk, reply.”
This sounds like a lot of people I know and that is the real issue. While many other people just stop the talk, the chatbot is designed to help solve a problem. Now, chatbots are dealing directly with customers and is taking the place of phones, emails and social media. Actually, when your phone call is answered with a, “Hi, can I help you” it will increasingly be a chatterbox. Worse for me and other writers is that a journalist asked ChatGPT to write a WordPress plugin he needed. It did, in less than five minutes. As the journalist wrote, it is fascinating, awesome, and scary all at the same time.
I have been reading about ChatGPT and Google’s rival, “Bard”, and have decided that before Bard gets worse, instead of pursuing these two steps forward I will first take a step backwards. I am going back to “lateral thinking”, the mental equivalent of walking, chewing gum, scratching your head, wiggling your ears and eating both chicken and eggs at the same time. Before I give you some examples, take this word of advice first – it comes from Sherlock Holmes in “The Sign of the Four”- “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” So let’s ask Sherlock what school he went to and see whether his response will be, “Elementary my dear Watson.”
A man lives on the tenth floor of a building. Every day he takes the elevator to the first floor to go to work or to go shopping. When he returns, he always takes the elevator to the seventh floor and then walks the remaining flights of stairs to his apartment on the tenth floor. Why does he do this? The best solution is that the man is a dwarf. He can reach the button in the elevator for the first floor, but he cannot reach the button for the tenth floor. The seventh floor is the highest he can reach.
Let’s try another one before we go to the nuts and bolts! Not Usain because he has serious problems of his own these days. An explorer was captured by a tribe of lateral thinkers whose chief gave the explorer a choice. The explorer was to make a single statement. If it was true, he would be thrown over a high cliff. If it was false, he would be eaten by lions. What statement did the clever explorer make that forced the chief to let him go? Give up? The explorer’s statement was “I will be eaten by lions.” If the chief tries to feed him to the lions his statement would be true so he should – really be thrown over the cliff. But if he is thrown off the cliff, his statement would be false and he should be fed to the lions. On that basis, the chief set him free.
The phrase “lateral thinking” started with Edward de Bono a doctor, psychologist and inventor. Essentially, most of us are into “linear” thinking or a one-step to the next step then the next one after. This is like the South American Indian who saw a man riding a horse and immediately assumed it was a new creature with two arms and four legs. He did what most of us do- fall back on prior experiences and very often jump to the wrong conclusion. So with the Football World Cup still very much alive in the memories of many of us, try this one.
One day, in a crowded room, a supporter of the Brazilian soccer team saw a supporter of his team’s great rivals, Argentina. The Brazilian fan walked over to the Argentinian fan and struck him with a fierce blow. The Argentinian fan, who had been knocked flat, got up from the floor, turned around, and then thanked the man who had hit him. Why? The two men were in a restaurant. The Argentinian fan had a fishbone stuck in his throat and was choking. The other man was quick-witted enough to give him a strong blow on the back, thereby dislodging the bone and saving his life. If it was the Brazilian coach, he didn’t need to have a fishbone in his throat to be knocked down by a Brazilian fan.
A man walked into a bar and asked the barman for a glass of water. They had never met before. The barman pulled a gun from under the counter and pointed it at the man. The man said, “Thank you” and walked out. Why should that be so? The answer? The man had hiccups. The barman recognized this from his speech and drew the gun to give the man a shock. It worked and cured the hiccups, so the man was grateful. He also no longer needed the water.
Before I go back to the future and see whether the media will stop my column and use ChatGPT, or go from Bard to word or worst, here is one for the road. This is another variation of the “man in the bar” problem. A man walked into a bar and asked for a drink. The man behind the bar pulled out a gun and shot the man. Why should that happen? The man behind the bar was in the process of robbing the place. He had already shot the barman and he shot the man entering the bar to escape and to avoid recognition.
*Tony Deyal was last seen offering a final one for the road. A man who wanted a drink walked into a bar. Before he could say a word, he was knocked unconscious. Why? It was an iron bar!
