I’m a Generation Xer – indeed, a youngish one – but I have never used an AI platform like ChatGPT before. I recognize the value of such platforms (although I also recognize their pitfalls and vow not to fall into the trap of letting them write blog posts for me), and so I have decided to learn to use them as a tool in future endeavors.
I thought it would be fun to document my first-time experience with an AI platform, in this case, ChatGPT. I designed this experiment for insight: I wrote myself a prompt and produced a result out of my own, unassisted, Gen X mind. Then, I entered the same prompt into ChatGPT and compared the results.
Here I present the two outcomes and then analyze the differences. You know, like a total nerd.
The Prompt
In less than 250 words, what are the biggest challenges faced by teenagers growing up in the 1980s from the perspective of Lydia from the movie Beetlejuice? [I wanted to go with something Gen X related but pretty open-ended. Interesting, right?]
My Response:
What’s hard about this time is that no one sees you. By “this time”, I mean those god-forsaken years between puberty and adulthood, but also, and mostly, I mean the era of the late twentieth century.
Teenagers are useless. They don’t need their parents much anymore, but they also can’t do anything with any meaning or productive value. They can’t sign contracts or vote, and their limited life experience makes their insights utterly ignorable. The more invisible you are, the happier that makes people around you, but if you make trouble, they’ll just try harder to pretend you aren’t there. You wait for a time when your being is substantive enough to make waves, or at least to be tried as an adult.
The era in which teenagers currently reside is not much different. We are past the Industrial Age, when life turned on its head – some say life improved, but I say it had the life drained out of it – but we are not quite to The Next Big Thing, which feels like an ephemeral spirit gathering up energy before it is material enough to show itself.
Once it does, this generation and those surrounding it will be forever forgotten as a time when people did nothing, meant nothing, and spent their living days waiting to be released from the cold grip of life and returned to the dirt, ready to be remade and forgotten all over again.
Chat GPT Response:
From Lydia Deetz's perspective in Beetlejuice, growing up in the 1980s presents several distinct challenges. Firstly, the era is marked by cultural shifts and an overwhelming emphasis on conformity, where fitting in often overshadows individuality. Lydia, an outsider with a fascination for the macabre, feels alienated in a world that celebrates mainstream trends.
From Lydia Deetz's perspective in Beetlejuice, growing up in the 1980s presents several distinct challenges. Firstly, the era is marked by cultural shifts and an overwhelming emphasis on conformity, where fitting in often overshadows individuality. Lydia, an outsider with a fascination for the macabre, feels alienated in a world that celebrates mainstream trends.
Additionally, the chaotic dynamics within her family compound her struggles. Her father is preoccupied with his career, while her stepmother embodies superficiality, leaving Lydia craving deeper emotional connections. This lack of parental support amplifies her feelings of isolation, as she weaves through the complexities of adolescence without guidance.
The supernatural elements in her life also reflect her inner turmoil. Ghosts and the afterlife become metaphors for her own feelings of invisibility and existential dread. She is constantly searching for meaning in a world that feels both overwhelming and mundane.
Moreover, the 1980s are rife with social issues like materialism and the rise of technology, which sometimes drown out genuine connections. For Lydia, navigating these challenges while maintaining her authentic self becomes a struggle, highlighting the unique pressures faced by teenagers of her time in their quest for identity and belonging.
Analysis:
Well, first of all, the most obvious difference is that I wrote my response from a first-person Lydia perspective while ChatGPT used a third-person perspective. It had not occurred to me to specify.
Secondly, I feel ChatGPT gave a more academic response. While I chose a more artistic approach, imagining dialogue that Lydia may say based on my memory of the movie (I haven’t seen it in a while), the AI approach seems like it may have pulled info from Wikipedia or an essay on challenges from the 1980s.
While the information presented about the 1980s era seems pretty accurate, I wonder where it pulled information about the movie Beetlejuice. Frankly, I’m just not sure I would agree with the analysis of the film. For example, ChatGPT says Lydia’s stepmother embodies superficiality. I don’t disagree that she is superficial, but rather, I think she was obsessed with her own self-expression. Perhaps the distinction is slight, but I think it matters. It also implies that Lydia struggled to maintain authenticity in an era of materialism and the rise of technology, but I don’t agree with that assessment at all. I don’t recognize a strong theme of materialism or technology in Beetlejuice, nor would I agree that Lydia struggles to maintain her authentic self.
I have a lot more to say about the movie Beetlejuice, and I won’t do it here, so stay tuned for more on that!
Final Analysis:
My takeaway from this first experiment is that ChatGPT can provide a mostly correct academic response to a well-written prompt. But it does not appear to be capable of creativity, and analysis is hit-or-miss.
I had a ton of fun performing this experiment, and I’m certain I will try it again. I wonder if ChatGPT will improve, or maybe I should try another platform and see if I get more interesting results.
What do you think? Do you have any suggestions for a Gen X-related prompt you’d like me to write up and compare to an AI platform? Share in the comments, I just might do it!
I totally recommend you try this yourself, I’d love to hear about it.