CHATGPT No Longer Claims That I Am Dead! Hooray!

[peter]

Early this year, I was made aware that ChatGPT was telling the world that I had a tragic death. It wrote a lovely eulogy for me, that I was a thought leader whose impact on marketing and ethics in the marketing profession lives on despite my tragic premature death. While it bothered me that if clients and prospective clients were researching my business they would find this information, I did see the comic value and had posted my tongue in cheek arguments with ChatGPT to amuse my friends. Stuff like, “If he’s dead, has his estate been making tweets in his name, because he still tweets and is listed as the the CEO of the company he founded.” It took a friend to make me ask the ultimate question. How did he die? It turned out it was a heart attack. I actually was enjoying sharing these posts until my teenage daughter said that the whole thing was freaking her out a bit.

I’d post this stuff here — maybe I might — but I’ve been trying to ensure that when clients and prospective clients google me that they don’t find my singing. Peter Woods was my stage name that I took at 18 after drumming with two bands where I was introduced with a butchered version of my real last name (which most people mispronounce) — or one night, the lead singer completely forgot my name, and said, “Peter –ummm — just Peter!” I’m not sure I want ChatGPT, AI and search directing people to my music. I think, stepping back, I’m better off remaining an anonymous artist! 😉

How many here ever used a pseudonym? And, if you did, why did you do it?

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

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[Old Joad]

I for one am happy to hear that, welcome back Lazarus 🍺

[peter]

On Old Joad said

I for one am happy to hear that, welcome back Lazarus 🍺

It was a really good eulogy, but being a business owner with clients like Google,  Microsoft. Intel, HP,  3M… and the most popular AI telling them you’re dead, it’s not exactly good for business. While I made lots of jokes about it, it’s an example of why AI needs to be better managed than it currently is. ChatGPT had most of the facts about me correct, but then it added that I had tragically died. I even reached out to OpenAI with no success getting that  changed for more than half a year.

I was speaking with one of my friends — who used to teach marketing at University of Chicago — about this. He tried to persuade me to get back to writing about marketing strategy and tell this story because he finds it can be an interesting story that conveys how unreliable and potentially damaging AI can be. Now, ChatGPT stated I was dead. But it could have stated orher false things that are harmful to one’s reputation.  The experience also conveys that ChatGPT is not very trustworthy. Add to this,  there’s a lot of businesses using ChatGPT to write articles. I haven’t dug deep enough to find out if any publications have written articles stating that I died.

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

[Author]

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