ChatGPT couldn’t answer this question about Star Trek stars

Should Star Trek fans be afraid of ChatGPT?

In “The Ultimate Computer,” Spock tells Captain Kirk, “Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them.”

I don’t dispute ChatGPT can be a useful and time-saving tool, but it is not a replacement for doing one’s own research when you have to get the details right. It’s no different from Wikipedia in this regard. It may give you a good starting point, but you must confirm the responses it gives you.

What worries me about ChatGPT is, I suppose, more of a worry about its users. We are not currently a society that has much patience or inclination for due diligence. Fact-checking is not in fashion at the moment. In fact, when I told someone whose work and intellect I respect about my adventure debunking ChatGPT’s claims, they told me it would “never have occurred to them” to take the time to do so.

This is, I think, the danger of AI. Because it is fast and confident and seemingly thorough in its answers, we are tempted to take what it gives us at face value. We aren’t necessarily inclined to take the time and effort needed to confirm what the bot is telling us is true.

Granted, an article about Star Trek stars who may or may not have appeared on The Carol Burnett Show is pretty low-stakes stuff. But what will happen when the stakes are higher?

Star Trek has always been pretty bullish on AI in and of itself. From the seemingly omniscient library computer that Spock used on the NCC-1701, to Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Emergency Medical Hologram in Star Trek: Voyager, to Zora becoming a member of the Discovery’s crew, Star Trek has never been afraid of AI simply because it is AI.

But Star Trek is afraid of human beings ceding their independent thought, their insistence on truth, and their uniqueness to artificial intelligence.

My recent debate with ChatGPT left me laughing—but also left me fearing the same thing.

PS. After writing this article, I asked ChatGPT version 4 the same question I asked version 3.5. It gave a far more restrained answer this time, citing only Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner. It did not have accurate information for either one, though. It claimed Shatner was on a season-ending Carol Burnett “family show” that featured no guest stars, and it needed me to tell it about Nimoy’s “Mrs. Invisible Man” appearance on Carol Burnett.

At least Version 4 thanked me “for my diligence in seeking accurate information.”