Talking with the Matrix

I asked ChatGPT the question: "What can you tell about me?" The answer this time wasn't about searching the web, but rather leveraging hundreds of interactions from the past few months.

The answer is on another level because it comes from fragmented discussions that cover a large range of topics, from updating my resume to helping me write reports, code and even assisting me with my video game choices.

There is also clearly a personality analysis, since I often iterate with ChatGPT before I send something important, which might give hints about my entire thought process.

What I realize here, after connecting the dots with the official launch of ChatGPT on web search, is that OpenAI might already know in very deep detail the intimacy of the individuals using ChatGPT. Sure, you can say Google does the same if you have been using Gmail for decades or posting frequently on social media, but because the discussions with ChatGPT can be very personal and intimate, often involving sensitive and confidential information, the machine might have a level of understanding that no other system has had until now, even our closest friends or family members.

This means that, maybe at some point, ChatGPT will not only search the web to answer questions about a company, individuals, or anything else, but it will also search the memory of hundreds of millions of people who literally shared deep secrets with the machine until now.

This is probably the last straw from OpenAI against Google that will likely happen, disrupting decades of dominance in just less than two years.

Now, it seems that ChatGPT's memory is used within the workspace (or people's personal accounts), and likely legislation will limit the usage of such information beyond a limited scope.

But the potential is there.

Going back to my personal example, since the machine knows me, some deep questions can also be asked: what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What seems to be big failures because of me, and how could I fix them?

And suddenly, ChatGPT becomes a tool that could literally influence your life dramatically. Technically, ChatGPT is a machine that on paper could be "unbiased" since the machine has literally nothing to fear, nothing to win by telling you truths you wouldn't have heard from others.

It's really hard to keep one's head clear with all this continuous stream of announcements where each new thing is considered a revolution compared to the previous one, and every week.

Which is why at some point, disconnecting from the "matrix," reading a book offline, and downgrading sophisticated leisure for simpler ones will become mandatory to ensure we can embrace this technology and not be intoxicated by it.