HOWEVER, I mean only the intelligence (AI) application called ChatGPT released in November last year publicly and free-of-charge, with the paid subscription version costing $20 monthly (which I can’t afford). ChatGPT has taken the world, even the Philippines, by storm, as it is free, and is most people’s (mine at least) first experience in interacting with an AI, which even serious computer scientists warn could, if safeguards are not imposed, go against this irrational species called humanity, as the “Terminator,” “Matrix” and other popular movies have depicted.

ChatGPT itself explains: “It is a form of artificial intelligence (AI). It is powered by a deep learning model called GPT (generative pre-trained transformer), which is a type of AI model that has been trained on large amounts of text data to understand and generate human-like text.

“ChatGPT is designed for natural language understanding and generation, making it capable of engaging in text-based conversations and performing various language-related tasks, such as answering questions, providing explanations, and generating text. It uses AI techniques, particularly deep learning and natural language processing, to process and generate human-readable text responses based on the input it receives from users.”

I found my first conversations with ChatGPT indeed creepy, as if I were chatting with a ghostly human. Indeed as I will narrate below, it even apologized for its error, unlike many writers I have called out yet refuse to admit their gross misinformation. Here’s relevant bits of my talk with ChatGPT, on a topic I know well enough:

FINANCE Secretary Benjamin Diokno’s admission that neither he nor other economic managers were consulted by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on the rice price cap decision bolsters accounts that I have been receiving over the President’s decision-making process. Unfortunately, they claim his decisions have been made haphazardly, and without consultation with his officials or other private advisers knowledgeable about the issue.

Unlike most effective presidents of corporations, and even a few presidents of the Republic, Marcos reportedly hardly consults with advisers on a decision to be made, nor does he have a group that he asks to debate the pros and cons of a controversy. In the case of the rice price cap, I was told that the Agriculture department’s senior undersecretary Domingo Panganiban called him up to recommend it, and he immediately agreed to the proposal.

I couldn’t find anybody to tell me who or what group Marcos consults with. I had thought chief presidential legal counsel Juan Ponce Enrile and Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, a former Supreme Court chief justice, would be the heavyweights he would ask for advice. “Have you ever seen a photo of him talking to them?” a Malacañang insider said with a wide grin. Marcos Cabinet meetings are a formality in which reports are presented to a bored audience with no discussion of important issues facing the country. The Cabinet meetings, two members told me, are practically a ritual, dominated by boring PowerPoint events.

THERE was muted commemoration in the US and in its allies of the worst attack ever on American soil that totally destroyed the World Trade Center Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 2,996 people. There were very few articles and opinion columns in US newspapers about it, several significantly even ruing that Americans seem to be forgetting the horrific event and its implications.

It was only Ben Kritz, an American colleague in this paper, who wrote about it the other day, in a bitter tone. He reported that his and a CNN broadcaster’s comment as they watched live the towers burning was: “Our world has forever changed.” Several paragraphs later, however, he writes: “The only thing that has really changed is that everyone’s execrable attitudes and behaviors have gotten a lot worse. The same theocratic authoritarian regime in Iran that carefully cultivates one brand of extremists to maintain its hold on power is still there.” He misses what really happened in the 23 years after 9/11.The subdued commemoration of 9/11 in America and elsewhere arises from a creeping feeling that two decades after that horrifying attack, Osama bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian architect of that diabolical deed has achieved what he actually intended to do.Born to a billionaire family and educated in that oil-rich nation’s best universities, bin Laden was certainly not stupid to think that the attack would frighten America to withdraw its interventions in the Islamic Middle East, and give up its massive financial support that has made an Israel exist.

What bin Laden wanted was to anger Americans so much they would intensify their wars against Muslims so as to even invade nations they deemed to nurture terrorist groups.The result of such American vengeful wars would enrage Muslims all over the world so they would intensify their jihad against the World Satan, Osama bin Laden calculated.

THE real reason our civilian and military officialdom are hostile toward China regarding our disputes with it in the South China Sea is their dubious faith that under the 1952 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the US, the powerful American military will come to our aid in case the Chinese attack us.

Indeed, the head of the ADR Stratbase propaganda outfit in a recent piece praised the MDT to the high heavens. Referring to the US and its MDT, he wrote: “With friends like these, the Philippines can confidently navigate these challenges that threaten to break the peaceful coexistence needed to bolster progress and prosperity.” What he’s saying: No need to worry over our disputes with China; the US has our back.

The oft-quoted provision of the treaty reads: “An armed attack on either of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on the metropolitan territory of either of the Parties, or on the island territories under its jurisdiction in the Pacific Ocean, its armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the Pacific.”