Instruct GPT, GTP-3, GTP-4, GTP-n+1

The current uproar, revealing a vague anxiety about the rate at which successive algorithms acquire communication skills, invites comparison with legislating for a reality buckling under technological pressure in the mid-nineteenth century. We will, of course, protect ourselves by every possible legal means. Law firms and committees now drafting regulations for the new technology will—naturally, in order to streamline their work—draw on the capabilities of ChatGPT. There is nothing wrong with that; quite the contrary. But it is time for us to exchange a few words among ourselves ‘on the subject’ of the belief that human-made law constrains technology.

A vision—a clear, carefully calculated vision—of the benefits of ‘faster’ communication, faster mechanical information processing and an accelerated pace of action is the sole limiting horizon. 

We will, of course, begin with precise regulations requiring a person with a red flag to appear before every use of ChatGPT and signal this new form of communication. The British law known as the Red Flag Act, introduced in 1865, was relaxed as early as 1878: the person carrying the flag in front of a steam-powered road locomotive could trot twenty yards ahead instead of the previous sixty. In the twenty-first century it will probably happen a little faster; we are said to have less space and time.