The writer and programmer Gwern Branwen got the AI language model GPT-3 to write satirical dictionary definitions of science and academia by prompting it with eight examples, such as below. Here are some of the responses that GPT-3 generated.
Rigor [adj.]
Something for scientists to aspire to, a state of mind that would not be required if scientists could be trusted to do their job.
The Literature [noun] A name given to other people’s published papers, referred to by scientists without actually reading them. ------------------- Scientist [noun] A person who has a laboratory, access to large sums of money, graduate students, or all three. ------------------- Shared values [noun] A set of principles, beliefs, theories, methods, and operational definitions that all scientists share and use. Never spoken of aloud in public. ------------------- Scientist [noun] A field based on science, devoted to completing works for which there will not be enough time in a single lifetime. ------------------- Track Record [noun] When scientists use this term they refer to the research done by someone else (usually a student) in order to avoid having to do research. ------------------- Faculty [noun] Used loosely by scientists to mean any group of people with advanced degrees. Typically used when you have done something stupid and want to inform others that it wasn’t you who did it, but rather those other crazy people over there who won’t put their titles after their names. ------------------- Scientific method [noun] A set of steps in which a scientist (or “researcher”) would probably not follow in practice: planning of research, including definition of problems, hypothesis formulation, selection and design of experiment(s), collection and entry of data, execution of experiments, data analysis and interpretation, preparation of final report, implementation of suggestions. In actual scientific practice the most important part of the scientific method is to observe and collect data without a plan or preconceived expectations about what is causing what. It also helps to be unbiased in selecting the data to include in the study and to pick experiments at random. Additional steps include writing a paper, a process that usually involves the most violations of the scientific method. ------------------- Speculation [noun] One of Newton’s Laws of Science, also known as “Newton’s Law of Speculation”, which states that “Speculation breeds Confusion”, an effect well illustrated by how theoretical particle and string theorists debate scientific issues with each other. Confused? You should be. After all, you’re dealing with a bunch of theoretical physicists. ------------------- Clinical research [noun] Research conducted on humans, e.g. clinical trials and epidemiological studies. Researchers do not like this kind of research because humans are unresponsive and unreliable. ------------------- Skynet [noun] This ersatz god, in the form of an artificial general intelligence or AGI, is what some scientists hope to build to make themselves more precious than their subjects, to achieve their goal of making all the subjects equal to themselves; in other words, to put all the subjects into a bigger tin box to make themselves feel more important. -------------------