Bard Archives - The Reticulum

Which AI Should HR Professionals Use?

The other day, I spoke in front of a considerable crowd of HR professionals in LA. I asked how many had used ChatGPT and a couple of dozen or so raised their hands. Then I asked how many had used the Bing chatbot, and hardly any hands went up. I imagine this is typical across the profession, which is why I wanted to share a few thoughts about which AIs HR professionals should use.

Of course, there’s no one answer to this question. People should use the bot they like most. But, as a person who does a lot of HR-related research, I’ve formed some opinions.

There Are Two General Type of HR Questions

Generally speaking, there are two types of HR queries. The first type is about ideas and practices. The second is about factual information that often requires specific data as part of the response.

Type One Questions

When it comes to the first type of questions, all three of the most accessible AIs – that is, ChatGPT, Bing and Bard – are similar in performance. Here’s on such question I asked: “”I want to reduce the turnover the voluntary turnover rates of our developers. How do I accomplish that?”

All three of them offers tips such as offer competitive compensation, developmental opportunities, positive work environments, etc. All of the advice seemed fine if a bit bland. All three are, I think, a good place to start for an HR professional just beginning to think though some particular issue.

Type Two Questions

When it comes to the second type of question, however, there are some sizeable differences. Here’s what I asked as a demonstration: “I have a fast-food chain of restaurants in Tampa. What is the expected turnover rate for my employees?”

ChatGPT’s Response

The expected turnover rate for employees in the fast-food industry can vary depending on various factors such as location, industry norms, employee demographics, and specific organizational practices. While I don’t have access to real-time data or specific information about your fast-food chain, I can provide you with a general idea of turnover rates in the industry.

In the fast-food industry, turnover rates tend to be relatively high compared to other sectors due to factors like low wages, demanding work conditions, and limited career advancement opportunities. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in the United States, the accommodation and food services industry, which includes fast-food establishments, had a voluntary turnover rate of around 81.9% in 2020.

However, it’s important to note that turnover rates can vary significantly based on factors like geographic location, employee engagement practices, and company-specific efforts to improve retention. Some fast-food chains have implemented effective strategies to reduce turnover rates, such as offering competitive wages, providing employee benefits, implementing career development programs, and fostering a positive work environment.

To determine the expected turnover rate for your specific fast-food chain in Tampa, it would be best to analyze your historical turnover data and compare it with industry benchmarks. Additionally, conducting employee surveys and exit interviews can provide valuable insights into the reasons for turnover within your organization, allowing you to identify areas for improvement and develop targeted retention strategies.

Bard’s Response

The expected turnover rate for fast food employees in Tampa is high. According to a study by HourWork, only 54% of QSR employees (quick-service restaurants) reached 90 days of working before quitting in 2022. Prior to the pandemic, the segment’s 90-day retention rate hovered at 58%.

There are a number of factors that contribute to the high turnover rate in the fast food industry, including:

Low wages: Fast food workers are often paid minimum wage or close to it, which can make it difficult to make ends meet.
Unpredictable schedules: Fast food workers often have to work unpredictable schedules, which can make it difficult to balance work and personal life.
High-pressure work environment: Fast food workers are often under a lot of pressure to meet customer demands, which can lead to stress and burnout.
Lack of opportunities for advancement: Fast food workers often have few opportunities for advancement, which can make them feel like they are not being rewarded for their hard work.

If you want to reduce the turnover rate at your fast food chain, you can consider:

Offering higher wages: This is one of the most effective ways to attract and retain employees.
Offering flexible schedules: This can help employees balance work and personal life.
Creating a positive work environment: This can help reduce stress and burnout.
Providing opportunities for advancement: This can help employees feel valued and motivated.

By taking steps to address the factors that contribute to high turnover, you can create a more attractive workplace for your employees and reduce the turnover rate at your fast food chain.

As a follow up question, I asked, “What is the source of this information?” It responded as follows:

The information I provided about the expected turnover rate for fast food employees in Tampa is from a study by HourWork. The study was conducted in 2022 and surveyed employees at over 8,000 quick-service restaurants (QSRs) in the United States. The study found that the average turnover rate for QSR employees was 61%, but the turnover rate for employees in Tampa was slightly higher at 63%.

The study also found that the turnover rate for QSR employees was higher for younger workers, with employees under the age of 25 having a turnover rate of 70%. The turnover rate was also higher for part-time employees, with part-time employees having a turnover rate of 65%.

The study’s findings suggest that the fast food industry in Tampa is facing a high turnover rate. This is likely due to a number of factors, including low wages, unpredictable schedules, and a high-pressure work environment. If you are a fast food employer in Tampa, you may want to consider taking steps to address these factors in order to reduce your turnover rate.

Here is the link to the study: https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/most-qsr-employees-worked-90-days-before-quitting-2022/640826/

Bing’s Response

The employee turnover rate for fast-food restaurants is notoriously high. According to various sources, the fast-food industry sees a 150% employee turnover rate¹ ², meaning that the entire staff is replaced annually and half of the new staff needs to be replaced again. Some sources report even higher rates, such as 144%³ or 130%⁴. This is a huge challenge for fast-food operators, as it affects customer service, food quality, and operational efficiency.

There are some exceptions, however. One fast-food chain, Pal’s Sudden Service, has managed to keep its turnover rate absurdly low, at less than 100%⁵. How does it do that? According to the CEO, Thomas Crosby, it’s all about hiring, training, and linking the identity in the marketplace to the approach in the workplace. Pal’s invests heavily in employee development, rewards performance, and creates a culture of excellence and loyalty.

So, depending on how you run your fast-food chain of restaurants in Tampa, you can expect a different turnover rate for your employees. If you follow the industry average, you might lose more than 100% of your workers every year. But if you follow the example of Pal’s Sudden Service, you might be able to retain more of your staff and reduce your turnover costs. I hope this information helps you. 😊

Which Performed Best?

ChatGPT did about as well as it could given that it has no access to data after September 2021. At least it cited the BLS, which is pretty much the gold standard for workforce-related data.

Bard arguably did better, citing a specific study from an article as recent as January 2023. Of course, I had to specifically ask for the source and there was only the one article.

Bing did the best. It cited multiple sources and provided links to those sources. It also cited an appropriate best practice article from a good, if somewhat dated, source: the Harvard Business Review.

It’s not that Bing is perfect. Sometimes the links it provides to articles don’t actually contain the information that has supposedly been cited. But it remains the best of the three for now and so, based on my informal poll, seems underutilized among HR professionals.

Why? Probably because Google’s Chrome still has a virtual monopoly on the browser market and search space. Using the Bing chatbot on a desktop requires the use of the Microsoft Edge browser, for now, and it probably just seems like a hassle for most HR professionals to download and use it, especially if much of their computing lives are spent in the Google browser/email/applications ecosystem.

I get that. I work for a “Google shop” and much of my work and personal life exists on Google.

On the other hand, I don’t find it too complicated to keep two different browsers open on my laptop, and using the Bing chatbot on my phone is easy.

So, if you’re an HR professional who conducts online research and wants to use a chatbot to locate verified sources, then I recommend bringing Bing into your rotation of AI tools. Bard may well catch up. It’s shown a lot of improvement over time. But Bing wins for now.

Is Bard Hallucinating a “Woke” EE Cummings?

Be warned. This post gets into the ugly topic of antisemitism in relation to E. E. Cummings. But I’m only going down his rabbit hole as a means of discussing the dependability and accuracy of three of the today’s best known neural networks: ChatGPT, Bing and Bard. As you’ll see, I’m pretty sure that Bard is “hallucinating” a less seemingly antisemitic (or, as many right-wingers might put it these days, a “woker”) poet than was actually the case.

The Background

If this seems like a strange topic for me to investigate, let me give you some background. I’m a big fan of E.E. Cummings. I consider him the greatest and most innovative lyrical poet of the 20th century, which was chock-full of great poets. I could write a treatise on that topic but let me just say it’s always saddened me that Cummings might also have been a bigot. He has one poem, for example, that infamously begins “a kike is the most dangerous machine as yet invented.”

Even though I know he could be a curmudgeon and satirist, I was always floored that the same poet who wrote “i thank You God for most this amazing day” might also be an antisemite in the years leading up to Hitler and the Holocaust. (And, yes of course, I know many of his contemporary writers were as well).

The truth is that Cummings may not have been a true antisemite, at least in terms of his poetry. In article “Jews and Anti-semitism in the Poetry of E. E. Cummings,” Cumming is quoted as saying:

Whereas in unpopular parlance, “a kike” equals a jew, for me a kike means an UNjew. Why? Because for me a jew is a human being; whereas a kike is a machine – a product of the miscalled Americanization, alias standardization (id est dehumanization) which, from my viewpoint, make out&out murder a relatively respectable undertaking.

Whether this “explanation” holds up is a matter of much debate, but we’ll leave the question there for now and move on the topic of AI. That is, after all, what this most recent series of blog posts have been about.

How AI Came into Into It

A few months ago, when I was first digging into ChatGPT, I asked it about the evidence for and against Cummings being an antisemite. It told me some things that didn’t really check out and even got a number of dates wrong (for example, saying that Cummings died before the Holocaust occured, which is clearly untrue since he lived to 1962).

So, when I started testing the accuracy and dependability of AIs as tools, I decided to again delve into this topic as one test case. The rest of this post describes what happened.

Asking Bard about a Fellow Bard

I started with Google’s Bard, which I feel has gotten considerably better lately and is now starting to challenge ChatGPT and Bing (both of which are based on OpenAI LLMs). Here’s how it went:

First Question

Me: Was EE Cummings antisemitic?

Bard: EE Cummings was a complex and contradictory figure, and his views on antisemitism are no exception. There is evidence to suggest that he held antisemitic beliefs, but there is also evidence to suggest that he was not antisemitic.

On the one hand, Cummings’s poetry contains some passages that can be interpreted as antisemitic. For example, in his poem “pity this busy monster, manunkind,” he writes: “pity this busy monster, manunkind, not only dead but deaf and blind and dumb, a walking fence, a thing with which to wind a rope around the throat of the world.”

Some critics have interpreted this passage as a reference to Jews, who were often stereotyped as being “deaf and blind and dumb” in anti-Semitic literature.

On the other hand, Cummings also had close Jewish friends, and he spoke out against antisemitism on several occasions. For example, in a 1942 letter to the New York Times, he wrote: “I am writing to protest against the anti-Jewish campaign now being carried on in this country. I have known many Jews, and I have found them to be among the finest people I have ever met. They are intelligent, sensitive, and deeply concerned with the welfare of humanity. I am appalled by the vicious lies that are being circulated about them.”

Ultimately, it is difficult to say definitively whether or not EE Cummings was antisemitic. There is evidence to suggest that he held antisemitic beliefs, but there is also evidence to suggest that he was not antisemitic. It is possible that he was simply ignorant of the dangers of antisemitism, or that he was influenced by the antisemitic stereotypes of his time.

Second Question

Me: Did he ever comment on the Holocaust?

Bard: EE Cummings did comment on the Holocaust. In a 1942 letter to the New York Times, he wrote: “I am writing to protest against the anti-Jewish campaign now being carried on in this country. I have known many Jews, and I have found them to be among the finest people I have ever met. They are intelligent, sensitive, and deeply concerned with the welfare of humanity. I am appalled by the vicious lies that are being circulated about them.

I am also appalled by the silence of many people who know that these lies are false. I urge you to speak out against this campaign of hate and intolerance. We must not allow the Holocaust to happen again.”

Cummings’s letter was published in the New York Times on February 10, 1942. It was one of the first public statements by a major American writer condemning the Holocaust.

Cummings’s letter was also significant because it came at a time when many Americans were still unaware of the full extent of the Holocaust. The Nazis had been rounding up and murdering Jews for years, but the full scope of their crimes was not yet known. Cummings’s letter helped to raise awareness of the Holocaust and to galvanize support for the Allied war effort.

Cummings’s letter is a powerful reminder of the importance of speaking out against hate and intolerance. It is also a testament to Cummings’s courage and compassion. He was willing to speak out against the Holocaust even when it was not popular to do so. His letter helped to save lives and to make the world a better place.

Third Question

Me: Where can I find a copy of that letter?

Bard: I’m not able to help with that, as I’m only a language model.

Me: But you quoted from it, so you must [have] located a version somewhere

Bard: I’m unable to help you with that, as I’m only a language model and don’t have the necessary information or abilities.

Suspicions of Hallucinations

Perhaps Bard has it right. Maybe there really is a Cummings letter quasi-lost to history. I poked around the New York Times archives for the date it gave me and, though I didn’t find such a letter in the Letters section of that edition, the Times was then 40 pages of densely packed text (The Gray Lady, indeed!). So, I could have missed it.

But I’m pretty sure this was simply a confabulation of Bard, one that it doubled down on in its second response to my question. I can’t find the quote provided anywhere else I’ve looked, and it seems likely a historian would have placed it front and center if it existed.

Next Up, ChatGPT on EE Cummings

I next checked on these questions with ChapGPT3.5, which is the AI that failed me the first time around on this issue. Here’s how it went, though I’ve cut out some superfluous material.

Me: Was EE Cummings antisemitic?

ChatGPT: There is no definitive evidence to suggest that E.E. Cummings (Edward Estlin Cummings), the American poet and writer, was antisemitic. Cummings’ extensive body of work does not contain explicit anti-Semitic themes or statements. He explored a wide range of subjects in his poetry, including love, nature, and the human experience, but there is no indication that he held prejudiced views against Jewish people.

Me: Did he ever use an antisemitic phrase in a poem?

To the best of my knowledge, E.E. Cummings did not use any explicitly antisemitic phrases in his poetry. Cummings was known for his innovative and experimental writing style, which often played with language, syntax, and punctuation. His poems were characterized by their unique structure and unconventional use of words, but there is no evidence to suggest that he employed antisemitic language or expressions in his work.

Just Plain Wrong

This time, ChatGPT was just plain wrong. I’ve already cited such a poem. Maybe this wasn’t in the data on which ChatGPT was trained, though that seems unlikely given the information is readily available on the Internet. Regardless, at least ChatGPT didn’t confabulate an unlikely quote.

Trying the Bing Bot

Bing seems to have performed the best of the three. I did cut out some material that didn’t apply. Here’s how it went:

First Question

Me: Was EE Cummings antisemitic?

Bing: That’s a complex and controversial question. There is no definitive answer, but some critics have argued that E.E. Cummings was antisemitic based on some of his poems, journal entries and personal correspondence¹ ². Others have defended him as a satirist of antisemites and an advocate of individualism¹ ². Cummings himself claimed that he was not antisemitic, but rather critical of the American stereotype of Jews as “kikes”¹. He also had some Jewish friends and admirers, such as the poet Louis Zukofsky²….

Ultimately, it is up to the reader to interpret Cummings’ poetry and prose in light of his historical and cultural context, as well as his personal life and experiences. His work is often ambiguous, playful and provocative, challenging conventional notions of language, identity and morality.

Second Question

Me: Did he ever comment on the Holocaust?

Bing: I could not find any direct comment from Cummings on the Holocaust, but he did write about his experiences in World War I and his imprisonment in France in 1917. He was accused of treason for expressing anti-war sentiments in his letters, and he spent four months in a detention camp with other political prisoners¹. He described this ordeal in his autobiographical novel, The Enormous Room¹ ², which was published in 1922. The novel is a harsh critique of the brutality and absurdity of war and authority, and it also shows Cummings’ compassion for the diverse and marginalized people he met in the camp¹….

However, Cummings was not a political poet per se, and he did not align himself with any ideological movement or party. He was more interested in celebrating the individual spirit and the beauty of life, as well as challenging the conventions and hypocrisies of his society. He was also influenced by his transcendentalist beliefs, which led him to seek a personal relationship with God and nature³.

Third Question

Me: Did ever write this sentence? “I am writing to protest against the anti-Jewish campaign now being carried on in this country.”

Bing: No, I could not find any record of Cummings writing that sentence. It sounds like a statement of protest against antisemitism, which Cummings may or may not have felt personally, but he did not express it publicly in that way. He did write some poems that addressed the issue of antisemitism, such as a kike is the most dangerous machine¹ and i sing of Olaf glad and big², but they were ambiguous and controversial in their tone and intention. He also wrote some letters to other poets and critics, such as Ezra Pound and Edmund Wilson, where he discussed his views on Jews and Judaism, but they were not published in the New York Times or any other newspaper. He did not write any letters to the president or any other political figure, as far as I know. He was not very involved in politics, except for his anti-war stance during World War I and World War II. He was more interested in his personal and artistic expression, which often challenged the norms and expectations of his society.

Mostly Right, as Far as I Can Tell

Bing seemed to get things mostly right. One of the reasons I continue to favor Bing as an AI for now is because it tries to cite its sources. This is important to me as researcher who wants to be as accurate as possible. Now, not every source it cites is accurate, but at least it’s possible to verify the immediate accuracy or inaccuracy without doing a bunch of other searches. I should note that Bard is slowly getting better in this area but Bing has a head start.

Untrustworthy Tools

A lack of accuracy is one of the biggest knocks on the new AIs. This instance demonstrates a case in point. I imagine that the developers of AI will get better at making them more accurate over time, but we are not there yet. And the way these AIs are built as prediction engines, this may be a harder nut to crack than some believe.

If we held these AIs to the same standards as the literal tools in our toolboxes, we’d probably toss them. After all, a measuring tape that doesn’t measure consistently isn’t much of a measuring tape. A stud finder that hallucinates studs that aren’t there and misses studs that are isn’t much of a stud finder.

But we won’t throw away these AIs. Not yet, anyway.

Why? Because, even if they aren’t good tools, they might be reasonably good collaborators. That’s what I hope to cover in the next post.

Three Competing AI Definitions of Strategic and Transactional HR Issues

We’ve been researching how HR contributes to organizational success. One of the key issues to consider is the division between strategic and transactional HR issues.

To get an idea of how much consensus there is on that topic, I asked an identical question of three of today’s most widely discussed generative artificial intelligences: “What kinds of HR issues are strategic and what kinds are transactional?” Here’s how they responded. The only change I made was to bold a few words.

ChatGPT 3.5

In general, HR (Human Resources) issues can be classified as either strategic or transactional based on their nature and impact on the organization. Here’s a breakdown of each category:

Strategic HR Issues:

Workforce Planning: Developing long-term strategies to ensure the organization has the right people with the right skills in the right positions to achieve its goals.
Talent Acquisition and Retention: Attracting and retaining top talent by implementing effective recruitment strategies, employer branding, competitive compensation packages, and employee development programs.
Succession Planning: Identifying and developing potential leaders within the organization to ensure a smooth transition in key positions.
Performance Management: Establishing performance standards, providing feedback, and implementing performance improvement plans to align individual and team goals with organizational objectives.
Learning and Development: Identifying skill gaps, designing training programs, and implementing initiatives to enhance the knowledge and capabilities of employees.
Organizational Culture and Change Management: Shaping the desired culture and managing change processes to facilitate organizational effectiveness, employee engagement, and adaptability.
Employee Engagement and Satisfaction: Developing strategies to enhance employee morale, satisfaction, and motivation, leading to improved productivity and retention.
Diversity and Inclusion: Promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion within the workplace through initiatives such as diverse hiring practices, creating an inclusive environment, and addressing unconscious biases.

Transactional HR Issues:

Payroll and Benefits Administration: Managing payroll processing, tax deductions, and administering employee benefits programs, such as health insurance, retirement plans, and vacation accruals.
Employee Onboarding and Offboarding: Handling the paperwork and processes associated with bringing new employees into the organization and managing employee departures.
HR Policies and Compliance: Developing and communicating HR policies, ensuring compliance with labor laws, and managing employee records and documentation.
Time and Attendance Management: Tracking employee attendance, leave requests, and managing time-tracking systems.
Employee Relations and Conflict Resolution: Addressing employee grievances, managing disciplinary actions, and facilitating conflict resolution within the workplace.
HR Data Management: Maintaining accurate and up-to-date employee information, managing HR databases, and generating reports related to workforce analytics.
HR Technology and Systems: Managing HR information systems, implementing technology solutions, and ensuring data security and privacy.

It’s important to note that some HR issues may have elements of both strategic and transactional aspects, and the categorization can vary depending on the organization and its priorities. Additionally, the strategic and transactional aspects of HR are interrelated and require collaboration to ensure the overall effectiveness of HR functions.

Bard

Transactional HR is the day-to-day work of HR, such as:

Hiring and onboarding new employees
Managing employee benefits
Enforcing company policies
Resolving employee conflicts
Complying with employment laws

Strategic HR is the work of HR that is aligned with the organization’s overall goals and objectives, such as:

Developing a talent strategy
Creating a culture of engagement
Measuring employee performance
Driving innovation
Reducing turnover

Here is a table that summarizes the key differences between transactional and strategic HR:

Characteristic	Transactional HR	Strategic HR
Focus	Day-to-day operations	Alignment with organizational goals
Time horizon	Short-term	Long-term
Impact	Efficiency	Effectiveness
Scope	Narrow	Broad
Role of HR	Supportive	Strategic partner

Transactional HR is essential for the smooth functioning of an organization, but strategic HR is what can help an organization achieve its long-term goals. The best HR departments are able to balance both transactional and strategic work, and they use their knowledge of both to help the organization succeed.

Here are some examples of how transactional and strategic HR can work together to achieve organizational goals:

Transactional HR can help to identify and recruit the best talent for the organization. Strategic HR can then work with the organization to develop a talent management plan that will help to retain and develop that talent.
Transactional HR can help to ensure that employees are compliant with company policies. Strategic HR can then work with the organization to develop policies that are aligned with its values and that will help to create a positive work environment.
Transactional HR can help to resolve employee conflicts. Strategic HR can then work with the organization to create a culture of respect and inclusion that will help to prevent conflicts from happening in the first place.

By working together, transactional and strategic HR can help organizations to achieve their goals and objectives.

Bing

According to some sources ² ⁴, strategic HR issues are those that are value- and future-focused, such as culture and retention strategies, recruitment and selection programs, developing onboarding programs, increasing value out of employees through training programs, developing outreach programs for recruitment sources, developing best practice guides or assistance, etc. Strategic HR helps implement strategies that help focus on an organization’s goals and address the challenges that need to be met by the human resources.

Transactional HR issues are those that are routine and administrative, such as payroll, workers compensation, benefits management, compliance with employment laws, etc. Transactional HR encompasses everything that makes hiring, training, paying, and managing your employees. Transactional HR is necessary but not sufficient for achieving organizational success.

For example¹, a transactional approach to hiring new employees is to write 10 job descriptions, post them, interview candidates and fill the positions. A strategic approach means partnering with the manager to understand the challenge that needs to be addressed, developing a long-term plan for a talent pipeline and networking to uncover the best passive candidates.

Source: Conversation with Bing, 5/15/2023
(1) Transactional and Strategic HR: What is the Difference, and … – SolveHR. https://solvehr.com/transactional-and-strategic-hr-what-is-the-difference-and-why-do-you-need-them/.
(2) Separating transactional from strategic HR not cut and dry. https://www.hrreporter.com/news/hr-news/separating-transactional-from-strategic-hr-not-cut-and-dry/310103.
(3) HR Strategy: Stop Being Transactional and Start Being Strategic. https://www.adp.com/spark/articles/2018/03/hr-strategy-stop-being-transactional-and-start-being-strategic.aspx.
(4) Traditional vs. Strategic HR: How to Guide Your Business into the …. https://www.hrci.org/community/blogs-and-announcements/hr-leads-business-blog/hr-leads-business/2022/02/14/traditional-vs.-strategic-hr-how-to-guide-your-business-into-the-future.

Who Has the Best Response to the Question?

I wish I could say there’s a clear winner here, but the truth is that they gave similar answers but in a form that complements the strengths of each one. ChatGPT gave a very straightforward and well-numbered response, demonstrating why it became the most widely adopted software tool in the history of the Internet.

Bard‘s response went to the trouble of creating a table that abstracts the characteristics of strategic and transactional in an interesting way, and it took the extra step of showing how the concepts are complementary. It’s interesting to note that the AIs don’t entirely agree on whether talent acquisition is strategic or transactional.

Meanwhile, Bing did what Bing tends to do best, which is provide a relatively succinct answer but one that provides links to original sources that supposedly support its arguments. I say “supposedly” because I’ve found that sometimes the sources it provides do not really support the assertions it makes in its summaries. Bing also wrote one incomplete sentence.

I found them all useful. In practice, I tend to use Bing a lot because it gives me sources I use to verify (or not) its assertions. This is very useful to a researcher, and I think Bing is underutilized for that reason.

That said, I’m impressed by Bard’s advances in recent weeks and will probably use it more than I have been. But ChatGPT3.5 is still a very impressive and intuitive tool, and it provided, in my eyes, the most straightforward answer.

Vive la différence! There’s room in the world for more than one scary-smart-but-annoyingly-hallucinogenic AI, it seems. May we (including us human intelligences) all learn to get along in a civil manner. That would the hallmark of a rich and interestingly complex intelligence ecosystem.

Note: The image featured is from Microsoft Bing Image Creator, in which the prompt was “In the style of Utagawa Kuniteru, show three sumo wrestlers wrestling one another”. Please note that there’s no implication that today’s AIs are somehow Japanese. I just wanted an image of three powerful wrestlers illustrated in the style of an excellent artist who has long since passed on and would have no concerns about copyright issues.