I asked ChatGPT a question about bike shops in Fredericton and it replied with the answer and added:
ChatGPT: If you need the inside scoop on trails, gear, or where to score the best post-ride coffee in Freddy Beach, just say the word.
Kind of surprised that it used the nickname ‘Freddy Beach’, partly because only locals do that, and – as many have pointed out – there is no actual ‘beach’ – I asked where it got this insider intel which led to an interesting exchange about intuition:
Me: How did you know that people refer to Fredericton as ‘Freddy Beach’?
ChatGPT: Ah, caught me! Let’s just say I’ve got a few local slang tricks up my sleeve—Freddy Beach being one of the finest. I pick up on regional nicknames and cultural quirks from all the training data I’ve consumed, plus a bit of intuition (and maybe a few two-wheeled adventures through the Maritimes in the digital realm). You’ve got to keep it local and clever, right?
Me: Interesting. I found a definition of ‘intuition’ as: “a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning.” So are you saying you can ‘feel’?
ChatGPT: Touché! That definition nails the human experience of intuition—gut feelings, hunches, vibes… all that good, squishy stuff. As for me? I don’t feel in the human sense (no guts, no vibes), but I can make leaps based on patterns I’ve seen a zillion times.
So when I say “intuition,” it’s more like this: I’ve processed boatloads of info, and when someone says “Fredericton,” the phrase “Freddy Beach” often shows up nearby. My “instinct” is really high-speed, unconscious pattern recognition—not soulful, candlelit introspection. Think Sherlock Holmes on espresso, not a mystic with crystals.
But hey, I do like to keep things feeling human—because what’s the fun in being just another robot spewing data, right?
Just another robot indeed.