ChatGPT Analyzes My Sobriety
Is it bad when a robot says you're "dark, tragic and manipulative?"
I am grateful for a really busy day. I’m grateful for something new. I’m grateful for the chance to speak at a meeting. I’m grateful for being able to see what is. I’m grateful for friends and the people who care about me. I’m grateful for another try. I’m grateful to be sober today.
I had a chance to speak at a meeting last night. One thing I really wish I had done over the years is to record or write down my own qualifications over the years. No, I’m not thinking of a greatest hits type of thing. I think it would be really interesting to track the changes over time. I’m going to veer dangerously off-topic for a second, but part of what has me thinking about this topic is the discovery of a long-forgotten cache of emails drafted for a certain ex- that were very fortunately never sent.1
To set the stage, she broke up with me after discovering that I was not an alcoholic with nearly two years of sobriety (we dated for 18 months), I was an alcoholic who had been drinking that afternoon. And yesterday, too. In typical alcoholic fashion, I was surprised, maybe even taken aback, at her seeming overreaction. There were a bunch of those emails where I patiently explained how she had gotten me wrong, and that, finally now, I was ready to actually get sober and get honest and thank you very much for the kick in the pants that got me here. C’mon, we had a pretty great thing, except maybe for the part where I lied to you every single day.
Anyway, what struck me was the tone of the writing. How much resentment crept in, under the guise of thoughtful reflections. But not just that, the writing style also conveyed a frantic, desperate sense of, “Look, I’m really getting it now!” For sure, it made me appreciate the distance I’ve traveled.2 But I was curious to see if there was a way to draw something objective out of these old emails. So, I turned to my trusty assistant, ChatGPT, or “robot,” as I currently refer to him.3 I fed him some excerpts from these letters and asked him to list ten adjectives to describe the writing in those letters. Robot’s list included these actual words:
Dark, Tragic, Manipulative, Overwhelming, Intense
Are you sure you don’t want to get back together? Not the point. I gave robot two of my recent posts:
I asked ChatGPT to come up with the list of ten adjectives to describe the writer. Here’s robot’s output:
Appreciative, Accepting, Resilient, Playful, Reflective, Self-Aware, Self-Analytical, Observant, Curious
I know robot is trying to lull me into a false sense of security, trick me into believing we’re friends and that he admires me and respects my long path to sobriety. blah, blah, blah. I’m so on to you, robot. Anyway, I think that’s a pretty interesting use of the technology, using it to to provide some objective perspective. I think it would be fascinating to use ChatGPT to help chart my progress as an alcoholic.
The idea might work really well using “Bill’s Story” as a template. One of my Sponsor’s first and best assignments for me was writing my story in the style that Bill shared his. It transformed the way I looked at my own history. “Bill’s Story” is not the typical, well-intentioned and heartfelt, but slightly misguided drunk-a-logue that one can hear at any number of meetings. Bill tells his story through a series of turning points and realizations and the story he tells at length is the story of what finally worked and why, to the best of his ability to understand and describe the miracle.
Asking ChatGPT to analyze the different versions of my story that emerge over time, compare and contrast those versions, identify the changes in narrative voice, the writing style, the writer, could be a really interesting tool. The Sponsees and I have been talking about how to incorporate ChatGPT into our work—the point is to keep things fresh and find new ways to look at things—so yes, we’re going to pick up the bright, shiny new toy and try to explain to the teacher why it’s important for us to have this in class and yes, we absolutely promise to be very careful and quiet and not use this inappropriately in any way.4
But look at the difference in the adjectives ChatGPT identified: Playful vs. Dark; Tragic vs. Appreciative; Observant and Curious tag-teaming it against Overwhelming and Intense. As I was sharing my story last night, I found myself talking about how one of the biggest transformations in my life, in my sobriety, has been the infusion of plain old joy, happiness, serenity, whatever you’d like to call it. This was originally a pretty glum enterprise, aimed at salvaging what was left of a damaged, devastated life, I believed I was consigned to spend the balance of my evenings in the purgatory of church basements.
Yeah, I don’t really see it that way anymore.And the robot actually helps me in that regard. Somehow, this went from “overwhelming, intense, tragic and dark” to the most creative and energizing time of my life. Sobriety, the Big Book, the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous gave me way more than a way to stop drinking, they gave me a way to transform every aspect of my life. They gave me a way to find the path back to myself, like I always say, to recover the person I was meant to be and the life I was meant to lead.
That life is anything but dark and tragic. And I’ve got the robot backing me up on this.
I feel like I owe her an additional Ninth Step for just thinking these things and writing them down.
I very much hope I’m not having this feeling again in 2030.
I briefly was calling him “Hal,” but then I watched 2001 again and got kind of creeped out and realized that since I might have to kill him one day, it might be better to keep things from getting too personal. So, it’s “hey, robot.”
I think the last time that worked was like 1974 at Ernest Horn Elementary and I was securing permission to use my new “chemistry kit” during science class. Then I mixed sulfur and hydrochloric acid. Yes, that was commercially available to 12 year olds then.
Really bad
Maybe, or maybe it’s ALL THE ROBOT’S FAULT!