Writing a Script with ChatGPT
TLDR: ChatGPT is bad at writing jokes.
I had the assignment of presenting a scientific concept for the LANG2010H course. The course aims to teach how to communicate science to people without a scientific background. Naturally, the assignment is inspired by the FameLab competition where contestants did the same. (So far, the course was just case study after case study of contestantsβ footages)
The FameLab competition opened my mind. It was the first time where cool and creative ways of presenting was valued in an academic setting. People were using colloquial language and role-plays to explain science. The fact that the LANG course wanted us to imitate them was also surprising. This is also my first English LANG course, and most, if not all, comments about LANG courses in general were negative.
For the assignment, I chose jet lag and the circadian rhythm. Our instructor, Peter, offered us a consulting session where we present our drafts (at the cafΓ©). The comments I received were not so great. He suggested that I be more entertaining rather than educational. It was at that moment that I realised that this is a performance assignment rather than a presentation assignment. The easy formula for a great performance is to be funny. Just put in some jokes and the audience will forget about your mistakes. But, I found it difficult to create a hook for the introduction (to quote Peter, to start with a bang). So, I turned to ChatGPT.
When asked for a sample script, it gave me this tasteless βLadies and gentlemen, welcome to the finals of the FameLab competition, β¦, be prepared to be amazed by a humorous journey into jet lag ...β Surely, it has no idea what tone FameLab people prefer to adopt, and just tells, in contrast to the βDonβt tell but showβ principle of story-telling. Several attempts at modifying the prompt to get better results continued this subpar script writing. Nonetheless, they all had great use of words that I had no idea about. The excellent use of harmony to describe synchrony with the circadian rhythm revealed its great potential for learning vocabulary English writing. But, this wasnβt what I wanted from it now.
I resorted to getting interesting facts about jet lag and circadian rhythm. The more odd and interesting, the better. Again, no luck here. Instead of explaining what jet lag is, I shifted my approach to explaining how a particular remedy to jet lag worked. Most fixes to jet lag were boring and standard. Drink water, sleep according to destination time-zone. Then, I discovered fasting as a preventative measure.
Interesting? Yes, but how did it work? I did not expect food could stimulate the circadian clock. Even better, I googled it to find that the CIA recommends it to their operatives. Now, that's a hook!
With a hook, I can finally craft a speech.
Despite its flaws in making humans laugh and its superior skill in making us cringe, ChatGPT is proficient in proofreading. I ran my script into the AI and asked for it to be corrected grammatically and for better flow. It returned with something that had ran more smoothly and better (while most of my human-made content intact, of course)
An awesome trick I thought of to further improve the speech: ask ChatGPT to act as a judge to grade your script and get constructive feedback. I got that my joke at the end of the script didn't go so well with the rest. Apart from that, my script was good to be memorised.
It is well, though, I have yet to get feedback from Peter on I did. Anyways, I did not regret spitting a croissant out my mouth during my performance. My experience with ChatGPT showed me how cannot totally rely on Generative AI to generate text for us. It requires us to be judges for quality checking. It is just a tool to augment our creativity, not to replace it.