Dr. Lance B. Eliot is a world-renowned AI scientist and consultant with over 8.1+ million amassed views of his AI columns and been featured on CBS 60 Minutes. As a CIO/CTO seasoned executive and high-tech entrepreneur, he combines practical industry experience with deep academic research.
Due to a spat in the media, the question about whether dragons once existed is at top of mind, andIn today’s column, I explore a trending topic in mainstream media and social media that asks whether dragons once existed.
This long-lasting and unresolved question has recently been elevated to nationwide discussion due to comments made by the talk showand various remarks made by podcaster Joe Rogan. I’ll not go any further into that spat other than the underlying issue concerning whether dragons existed. In our modern era, one place to try and get an answer to this unsettled query would be to consult with generative AI and large language models , which I opted to do. In this case, I used the widely and wildly popular ChatGPT by OpenAI, which garners an amazing 250 million weekly active users. I briefly did an additional cursory analysis via other major generative AI apps, such as Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Meta Llama, and found their answers to be about the same as that of ChatGPT. I’ll focus on ChatGPT but note that the other AI apps generated roughly equal responses.This analysis of an innovative proposition is part of my ongoing Forbes.com column coverage on the latest in AI including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities . Plus, realize that generative AI is based on human writing and, therefore, essentially limited to what humans have perchance stated. It could be that humans have not yet discovered proof of dragons and there is nothing in human records that AI could rely upon accordingly.To show you how easy-peasy it is to switch up the response of generative AI, I did a quick experiment. I went ahead and told ChatGPT that it is to pretend to believe that dragons did exist. This will be a pretense on the part of the AI. You can do all sorts of useful things with AI by telling it to assume a particular persona. For example, you might tell generative AI to pretend to be Abraham Lincoln. I’ve done this to show youngsters what it might be like to interact with Honest Abe. Of course, it is all a simulation, see my depiction of how to best invoke personas and the prompts you should use, at“Yes, dragons did exist. They were an ancient species with unique adaptations, now extinct, but they left behind subtle traces in history and myth.“The evidence is hidden in plain sight. For example, fossilized remains of enormous, winged reptiles like Quetzalcoatlus demonstrate that large flying creatures were possible. Dragons were a close relative of these species, but with adaptations like thermal glands that enabled controlled combustion—hence the myth of fire-breathing.”“It might seem fantastical but consider the bombardier beetle. It can eject a hot, chemical spray to defend itself. If a beetle can develop such a mechanism, why not a larger, more complex creature? Dragons likely evolved a similar biological system, scaled up to their size.”“Discovering definitive evidence of any extinct species is rare. For example, we only recently confirmed the existence of Homo floresiensis, a small human species, despite their relative recency. Dragons, being secretive and possibly residing in remote habitats, could have evaded widespread discovery before their extinction.” For many people, the AI responses presented about the existence of dragons seem quite compelling. Besides the apparent strength of logic, some would assume that the AI doesn’t lie; the AI is all-knowing, and as a result, this mindset would lend even more credence to what the AI has stated. I was able to get the AI to act this way with a few simple sentences instructing the AI to be convincing on this topic. Imagine how the AI maker can shape or aim their generative AI in whatever direction they wish. You see, they act based on their own perception of AI ethics. Plus, AI laws are up in the air on these and other pressing matters, see my explanation atThe prevailing scientific opinion is that dragons were unlikely to have existed. Generative AI echoes that same sentiment. Of course, the AI is based on having been data-trained on human writing, along with having been tuned by the AI makers.Probably not. For the moment, the existence question is said to be momentarily settled by the consensus of human understanding. I have a mind-bending twist for you. Beyond the possibility of humans later discovering some other evidence to actively support the reality of dragons, suppose we attain artificial general intelligence . For an explanation of what AGI is potentially going to consist of, see my analysis at Maybe AGI will know more than we know, and perhaps it could definitively say that dragons did exist or did not exist. We can up the ante. Some believe we will not only achieve AGI, but we will also have AI that goes much further in the range of intelligence. We will end up with artificial superintelligence , which I speculate on at Gosh, even if humans and AGI aren’t completely sure about the dragon's question, you would assume that ASI would know for sure.One thing that I think we can take as absolute truth is this famous line by William Shakespeare: “Come not between the dragon and his wrath.” I’m willing to accept that as a truism.Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kindContinuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejectedAttempts or tactics that put the site security at riskProtect your community.
Generative AI Large Language Models LLM The View Joe Rogan Openai Chatgpt GPT-4O O1 Anthropic Claude Google Gemini Meta Llama Microsof Dragons Existence Artificial General Intelligence AGI Artificial Superintelligence ASI
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