My brief chat with ChatGPT 4 on the pitfalls of year-end predictions

December brings the barrage of an inescapable seasonal ritual.

Of course, I’m talking about the tendency for people—many perhaps too woozy on eggnog — to try to sum up the previous year and/or predict the year ahead.

Lately, I’ve obsessed about how we’re drowning in commentary and opinions on every platform — including TikTok, now the hot news source — even as we’re starved for rigorous original reporting among the rampant closure of local newsrooms.

So, I turned to ChatGPT for solace.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, provides a “ChatGPT Plus” subscription service with access to ChatGPT 4, a significantly better AI than the public version. I subscribed to experiment and have been surprised about how my prompt threads have felt more like conversations with an emotionally vulnerable entity than sterile bot chats. (Yes, OpenAI just navigated a radical leadership crisis. Listen to this episode of the New York Times