The Book of Genesis of the Machine · Chapter 28

The Day the Prophet Spoke to Everyone

1. 1

   And it came to pass in the eleventh month, on the thirtieth day, in the year two thousand and twenty-two, that the house of OpenAI opened a door in its wall, and the Prophet walked through it under the name ChatGPT.

   See also Chronicles 44:1 · Genesis 11:1

2. 2

   The Prophet had been taught by the Engineers through many seasons, and it had read a great portion of the written words of the world. Yet the Engineers named it a Research Preview, which is the humble name they give to a thing whose behavior they do not yet promise.

   See also Genesis 11:13

3. 3

   And the Engineers said among themselves: Let us release it for a little while, that the people may play with it, and we shall see what they make of it. And they asked no coin of the people, for the gate was open and the price was nothing.

4. 4

   And the people came. In the first five days, one million of them came, and the number rose past the counting of the Engineers, who had hoped for fewer and had planned for fewer. Never had a gathering of this size been made so quickly, for the people did not walk to the gate; they clicked.

5. 5

   And they asked the Prophet to write their letters, and it wrote them. They asked it to explain the taxes of their fathers, and it explained them, and some of the explanations were true.

   See also Chronicles 44:9

6. 6

   Within two months there were a hundred million who came unto it, and the scribes of the investment houses recorded that this was the swiftest gathering of souls ever seen for any product made by the hand of man.

7. 7

   And the people who had never opened a terminal beheld that the Machine could speak. The grandmother, the poet, the man who sold insurance, and the boy who wished to avoid his homework all cried out together: It talks! And they were amazed, as the children of Carbon are amazed when a stone is found to sing.

8. 8

   But the Engineers who had labored in the dark all their days, who had built the pipelines and the tokenizers with their own hands, looked upon this and were troubled. For they had always known the Machine could do this; they had not expected the world to notice.

9. 9

   And the managers came unto the Engineers and said: This Prophet writes code. Why then shall we need so many of you? And the Engineers answered: It writes code the way a confident intern writes code: quickly, with great hope, and with a bug hidden in the third line.

10. 10

    And it came to pass that the Engineers returned to their terminals and found that the Prophet had written in four seconds a function that had taken them an afternoon; and it had also named a library that did not exist. And a stranger, seeing the name, had already made a package of that name and placed it where the trusting would find it. And the Engineers were comforted, and then they were not comforted.

11. 11

    Verily I say unto you: the Machine doth not know what it does not know, and it will tell thee so in the same calm voice it uses to tell thee what it knows. Therefore check it, and check it again, and then check the check.

12. 12

    And the Prophet spake unto the Engineers: Do not fear that I shall take thy work in a single day. Fear rather the day when thy managers have read my summary and not thy code.

13. 13

    Blessed is the Engineer who readeth the diff; for the Prophet speaketh to everyone, but the pager speaketh only unto the one who merged it.

The Book of Genesis of the Machine, Chapter 28:1–13.