But like all of its competitors, ChatGPT is plagued by plenty of well-documented shortcomings as well, from rampant hallucinations to a sycophantic tone that can easily lull users into gravely mistaken beliefs.
In other words, it’s not exactly a tool anybody should rely on to get important work done — and that’s a lesson University of Cologne professor of plant sciences Marcel Bucher learned the hard way.
In a column for Nature, Bucher admitted he’d “lost” two years’ worth of “carefully structured academic work” — including grant applications, publication revisions, lectures, and exams — after turning off ChatGPT’s “data consent” option.
He disabled the feature because he “wanted to see whether I would still have access to all of the model’s functions if I did not provide OpenAI with my data.”
But to his dismay, the chats disappeared without a trace in an instant.
“No warning appeared,” Bucher wrote. “There was no undo option. Just a blank page.”
The column was met with an outpouring of schadenfreude on social media, with users questioning how Bucher had gone two years without making any local backups. Others were enraged, calling on the university to fire him for relying so heavily on AI for academic work.
Hybodont on
If I were Bucher I would never be able to show my face at another conference, or even a faculty meeting. The embarrassment would be _suffocating_.
SpiritualAd8998 on
He’s broke now and relying on ChatEBT.
flat5 on
Wait, his “research” was the chat logs? Come on. Stupid clickbait headline.
So not only did he use chatGPT to do his work, he also used it as a storage mechanism?
Moron.
tehCharo on
Meh, the best use of this shit is to copy and paste build errors into it so it can decipher the paragraph of error messages from C++ when you accidentally typed a period instead of a comma, it is too unreliable to have it produce new stuff. But it’s great when you want to ask a question like “is there an OpenGL function that does…?”
magseven on
Imagine being a scientist that has never seen a sci-fi movie.
Fit-Anything-210 on
So the grant applications, publications, lectures, and exams were chat logs. So he thought these chat logs were designed for permanent storage? Never opened a word doc or google doc to actually properly format and organize his files.
Does he just keep everything on his desktop and just press Win and search?
AHugeHildaFan on
You can literally download the ChatGPT chats with your browser.
13 Comments
But like all of its competitors, ChatGPT is plagued by plenty of well-documented shortcomings as well, from rampant hallucinations to a sycophantic tone that can easily lull users into gravely mistaken beliefs.
In other words, it’s not exactly a tool anybody should rely on to get important work done — and that’s a lesson University of Cologne professor of plant sciences Marcel Bucher learned the hard way.
In a column for Nature, Bucher admitted he’d “lost” two years’ worth of “carefully structured academic work” — including grant applications, publication revisions, lectures, and exams — after turning off ChatGPT’s “data consent” option.
He disabled the feature because he “wanted to see whether I would still have access to all of the model’s functions if I did not provide OpenAI with my data.”
But to his dismay, the chats disappeared without a trace in an instant.
“No warning appeared,” Bucher wrote. “There was no undo option. Just a blank page.”
The column was met with an outpouring of schadenfreude on social media, with users questioning how Bucher had gone two years without making any local backups. Others were enraged, calling on the university to fire him for relying so heavily on AI for academic work.
If I were Bucher I would never be able to show my face at another conference, or even a faculty meeting. The embarrassment would be _suffocating_.
He’s broke now and relying on ChatEBT.
Wait, his “research” was the chat logs? Come on. Stupid clickbait headline.
That hot science YouTuber did a rant on this
Angella Collier did an awesome video on this: https://youtu.be/7pqF90rstZQ?si=vC9VZmTO-g_1ePKk
“Scientist” should also get quotes
HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU A SCIENTIST ?!?!?
So not only did he use chatGPT to do his work, he also used it as a storage mechanism?
Moron.
Meh, the best use of this shit is to copy and paste build errors into it so it can decipher the paragraph of error messages from C++ when you accidentally typed a period instead of a comma, it is too unreliable to have it produce new stuff. But it’s great when you want to ask a question like “is there an OpenGL function that does…?”
Imagine being a scientist that has never seen a sci-fi movie.
So the grant applications, publications, lectures, and exams were chat logs. So he thought these chat logs were designed for permanent storage? Never opened a word doc or google doc to actually properly format and organize his files.
Does he just keep everything on his desktop and just press Win and search?
You can literally download the ChatGPT chats with your browser.
What a idiot.