It’s a story that can make you smile, but also warns against the excesses of the internet. Jean-Baptiste Bullet is a notary from Tarbaise and has been based in the Paris region for five years. Interested in new technologies, he enjoyed it Artificial Intelligence Chat GPT, a free software accessible to everyone, capable of conversing on many topics but also creating coherent texts. He asked her to write an incredible story that could have happened to a notary in the performance of his duties. As a result, the software designed a perfectly believable, well-written story with cinematic twists.
“I was as fascinated as I was shocked”
So it’s the story of a man who would have revealed the location of a hidden treasure in his will. He would have sent letters to his three sons, mixed them up, so they could reconcile and start a real treasure hunt together. The three brothers eventually find a chest filled with gold Louis, gems, and treasury bills. And for the story to be complete, it ends with a little moral, with the kids patching things up.
“As the software unfolded all of this for me with an introduction, adventures, and an ending, I put my phone down and wondered what had just happened. I was as fascinated as I was shocked,” says Jean-Baptiste Bullet. He then asks ChatGPT to turn that story into a series of tweets.
Screenshot of the story created by ChatGPT at the request of Jean-Baptiste Bullet. – Jean-Baptiste Kugel
A false story as a warning
He decides to post the tweets unchanged on the social network. “I got dizzy when I saw that and I wanted people to share that dizziness,” explains the Tarbais. He tweets all weekend, like a multi-episode soap opera. More and more people are interested in his “story”. As of Sunday, January 28th, the thread had nearly 875,000 views.
“Then I asked ChatGPT to write another series of tweets explaining that this whole soap opera was fake and that I wanted to do a social experiment. Reactions have been fairly positive in the sense that people who thought they were knowledgeable still had something like this can happen to anyone. After all, the goal of this soap opera was to make people think about these issues,” says Jean-Baptiste Bullet
Screenshot of the series of tweets generated by ChatGTP to reveal the Pot-aux-Roses. – Jean-Baptiste Kugel
The fear of deviations
A hoax that could have had far more serious consequences than a simple buzz on Twitter. “I knew it would only take 48 hours and that once the reveal is made we will turn the page. What worried me more was articles appearing in the press. I was also pleasantly surprised that all the journalists try to contact me first to know the source of the information,” says the Tarbais happily.
If he managed to master his fake story, Jean-Baptise Bullet is very interested warn against fake news, but above all against the abuse that software like ChatGPT can cause. “When will the first feature film without a screenwriter or the first book without an author come out?” he asks himself. “There must be a collective consciousness, but also and above all the rules established, because this is free software, accessible to everyone. All you have to do is send an email. If we put a tool like this in the hands of people with bad intentions it can be very problematic”