The best way to waste half an hour with ChatGPT | TechRadar
AI can be a rather argumentative beast. I enjoy having debates. There’s a lot of fun to be had when two people structure an argument and present opposing points on a topic, and it can feel like you’re exercising your brain. By challenging ideas, it can help to refine your own thinking, and if your verbal sparring is competitive, there’s also a sense of satisfaction if you “win”.
So, it was with this in mind that I decided to test if ChatGPT would be a great counterpart and whether it could possess good reasoning based on strong evidence and research. Would it pay attention to my points and be ready to counter? Could it pivot and stay cool under pressure – remaining clear, sharp, and focused at all times? Would it be able to successfully persuade me that my argument was flawed? And how long could I keep up the pace without becoming bored?
Choosing a Topic
The first thing I needed to consider was a topic that I would be interested in debating. Should I go for something deep – perhaps debating whether humans are inherently selfish or altruistic – or topical (who should be responsible for climate change)? Or should I just try something odd?
It gave me 15 choices, and they included “do fish ever get thirsty?” which I felt wasn’t really open to debate and would actually have a scientific answer. There were some other interesting topics such as “is water wet, or does it just make things wet?” but that’s too deeply scientific for 30 minutes of fun.
So I decided to go for “would zombies consider vampires dead or just extra dead” and off ChatGPT went, going in for the kill by serving up three perspectives broken down by bullet points. In that sense, it had just held a mini-debate with itself and the points felt a tad dry.
A Livelier Debate
Having thought, I entered: “Let's have a debate: would zombies consider vampires undead or just 'extra dead'?. You present an opening argument, taking one particular perspective, then I'll give you my position and so on. Be lively, argumentative, and display strong analytical and critical thinking skills. Listen to what I have to say and respond.”
And off ChatGPT went, providing a fleshier, meatier opening statement in which it considered zombies would consider vampires to be extra dead rather than undead. I replied, and we started to get stuck into our respective points. It began to feel more like a real two-way conversation.
Enhancing the Interaction
I thought I’d see if ChatGPT would be sparkier if I got it to spend a bit more time thinking, so I clicked the Reason button. The responses became a tad more logical, asking me more targeted questions and helping with my thought process and argument.
In the end, we kind of agreed to disagree, but the experience was enjoyable and it’s one I’d repeat. Of course, given it’s AI and you’re staring at a screen rather than a person’s face, there was no emotion attached, no interjections – a strong strategic tool.
Still, if you have half-an-hour to spare and fancy getting involved in a polite argy-bargy, there’s no doubt this is a great use of ChatGPT.
