{"id":22153,"date":"2026-03-01T14:37:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T13:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/01\/readers-reply-what-would-happen-to-the-world-if-computer-said-yes\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T14:37:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T13:37:18","slug":"readers-reply-what-would-happen-to-the-world-if-computer-said-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/01\/readers-reply-what-would-happen-to-the-world-if-computer-said-yes\/","title":{"rendered":"Readers reply: what would happen to the world if computer said yes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers\u2019 questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no \u2026<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s question: what if Shakespeare were dropped in modern-day London?<\/a><\/p>\n

After years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I\u2019m starting to worry that computer \u2013 or rather AI large language models like ChatGPT<\/a> and Gemini \u2013 are taking too much of a fancy to playing nice and saying yes. I confess to using both of these programs, but I\u2019ve noticed that, well, it\u2019s as if they\u2019re trying to please, with statements such as, \u201cYou\u2019re absolutely right, Jeff,\u201d and \u201cThat\u2019s pretty much right.\u201d Often, when I ask, \u201cWould you mind thinking for a bit longer on that?\u201d, I then get another response saying: \u201cJeff, you\u2019re absolutely right, again, to query that result. It turns out I was a bit hasty in my reply \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

If the world runs even more on information filleted out from the sump of the internet by LLMs, what are the consequences? Can we look forward to a future in which AI is more concerned with appearing sympathetic (getting good reviews?) than being factual? Er, a bit too human? Jeff Collett, Edinburgh<\/em><\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nThe long-running series in which readers answer other readers\u2019 questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no \u2026
\nThis week\u2019s question: what if Shakespeare were dropped in modern-day London?
\nAfter years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I\u2019m starting to worry that computer \u2013 or rather AI large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini \u2013 are taking too much of a fancy to playing nice and saying yes. I confess to using both of these programs, but I\u2019ve noticed that, well, it\u2019s as if they\u2019re trying to please, with statements such as, \u201cYou\u2019re absolutely right, Jeff,\u201d and \u201cThat\u2019s pretty much right.\u201d Often, when I ask, \u201cWould you mind thinking for a bit longer on that?\u201d, I then get another response saying: \u201cJeff, you\u2019re absolutely right, again, to query that result. It turns out I was a bit hasty in my reply \u2026\u201d
\nIf the world runs even more on information filleted out from the sump of the internet by LLMs, what are the consequences? Can we look forward to a future in which AI is more concerned with appearing sympathetic (getting good reviews?) than being factual? Er, a bit too human? Jeff Collett, Edinburgh Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers\u2019 questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no \u2026 This week\u2019s question: what if Shakespeare were dropped in modern-day London? After years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I\u2019m starting to worry …<\/p>\n

Readers reply: what would happen to the world if computer said yes?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":22154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22153"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}