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If you ask ChatGPT to tell a joke on any given subject, the results are invariably unfunny. ChatGPT just doesn’t get humor.

But that doesn’t mean ChatGPT can’t produce humor. You just need to know how to ask.

Because ChatGPT will faithfully produce any content that you request, in any style, you can produce some hilarious juxtapositions. Here is what happened when I asked it to express breaking up with a romantic partner in the style of a business letter:

Subject: Termination of Relationship

Dear [Partner’s Name],

I hope this message finds you well.

I am writing to formally address a matter of significant personal importance. After considerable reflection and review of our relationship dynamics, I have come to the conclusion that it is in both of our best interests to terminate our romantic partnership effective immediately.

This decision was not made lightly, and it reflects a careful evaluation of our compatibility and long-term objectives. Despite our efforts and shared experiences, it has become apparent that we are not aligned in ways that are essential for a fulfilling and sustainable relationship.

I want to express my sincere gratitude for the time and experiences we have shared. Your contributions to my life have been valued and appreciated. However, it is clear that continuing this relationship is no longer beneficial for either party.

Please consider this letter as a formal notice of the end of our relationship. I am hopeful that we can navigate this transition with respect and understanding, honoring the positive aspects of our time together while acknowledging that it is best to move forward separately.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I wish you the very best in your future endeavors and personal growth.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

If you ask ChatGPT these days to write a computer program, it often does a remarkably good job. Not only will it implement an algorithm for you nearly instantly, but it will also give you a good explanation for how that algorithm works, and why it took the approach that it did.

But given that all programs written by generative AI are pastiches — bits and pieces from a vast training set of existing human implementations cobbled together — I wonder whether there are specific limits to what genAI can do.

In particular, are there prompts you can give it that will always fail? Are there particular kinds of computer programs that a generative AI simply cannot write, either because they are outside that training set or else because they also call for a form of reasoning that is uniquely human?

I had a dream recently about someone I am no longer friends with. We had been good friends, but then we had had a very bad falling out.

In my dream, we were friends again, and everything was fine. I remember thinking in the dream how wonderful that felt, as though it was the way things were supposed to be.

Sometime the following day, I remembered the dream, and I also remembered that no, we are no longer friends. Interestingly, my waking self did not feel bad about this at all. I knew exactly why our friendship had fallen apart, and why I would no longer wish to be friends with this person.

And I realized that it was not the friend I missed, but the friendship.

Today I put together one of those DIY bed frames, ordered from Amazon. The instructions were very clear, mostly a series of diagrams with well-placed alphanumeric labels, to match the labels with numbers and letters affixed to the bed parts themselves.

It was really fun. Although it wasn’t very difficult, I had an enormous feeling of satisfaction when the bed frames was completely assembled.

I found myself thinking back on the first time I read Robert M. Persig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Early in the book, he is assembling a barbecue while trying to follow instructions that had been translated (sort of) from the original Japanese. Things have come far since then.

I was aware, during the entire assembly procedure, that I was experiencing a process that had been iterated and improved over many years. By the time it got to me, the modular bed parts and the sequence of instructions had clearly been optimized.

Not only was it fun to put the bed together, but it felt extremely satisfying to be part part of a design process that had been honed over time to a state of perfection.

In honor of the 125th birthday of Jorge Luis Borges, today I visited a library. To my delight, there was a book there all about celebrating the birthdays of famous people.

Curious, I turned to page 125. Within that page was the description of a library.

The library it described contained one special volume. The book gave instructions how to find that volume, and then it suggested turning to page 125, and reading the words that I would find on the page.

I wonder what they would say.

Today is the birthday of William Ernest Henley. Were he still alive, he would now be turning one hundred and seventy five years old.

Henley wrote my dad’s favorite poem, which our father would often quote to us when we were kids. Here it is, in its entirety.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

— William Ernest Henley

Today on Dorothy Parker’s birthday, her sage advice for those who would pick up the pen:

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

I tried to read a description of a recent speech by the Republican candidate for U.S. President, and I found it very disconcerting. It just seemed to be a random sequences of grievances, conspiracy theories and personal grudges, aimed in all directions.

It feels weird that one of the candidates for our nation’s highest office now seems to be a completely unhinged old man, rambling crazily while angrily shaking his fist at the sky. After a point, this just seems like elder abuse.

When you are riding on a Metro in any major city, and you look around you, you see pretty much everyone is on their phone.

I wonder whether this new way of being, this need for constant external stimulation, is coming at a cost.

There was a time, not that long ago, when people were perfectly capable of spending 20 minutes doing absolutely nothing. This is only a theory, but I suspect that that may have had mental health benefits.

Being able to simply slow down and reflect, and be in your own thoughts, is probably good for you. The simple capacity to do nothing.

I am concerned that as a society we are losing this capacity.

When you enter any given date of the year into Wikipedia, you are taken to a page that describes the significant events on that day of the year, together with the births and deaths of significant people who were either born or died on that day.

In the births or deaths section, you can hover over the name of any given person, and their picture will often pop up. Wikipedia grabs this picture (if there is one) from the link to that person’s page on Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, the picture that ends up popping up is somewhat random, and therefore less than informative. It might be that person at the height of their fame, or as a child, or at an advanced age.

And yet, there are thousands of images on the Web of most significant people. Many of those images are tagged either by year or by age of the subject.

Given that, I would like to see the following enhancement to Wikipedia’s pop-up feature: When you hover over a person’s name, you should see a scrollable gallery.

As you scroll left, the person gets younger. As you scroll right, they get older. Rather than accepting a single arbitrary representation of the life of a significant person, you can choose which aspect of that person’s life you are looking for.

I wonder whether that would be difficult to implement.