Swearing can be a good thing in the age of artificial intelligence

It could well be a core part of the human operating system, giving us a means to manifest creativity and learning

- Abel Ang

"Swearing, a curse word/Spilled from lips in moments of rage/A sign of frustration."

This poem on swearing was not written by me, but by the artificial intelligence engine, Chat GPT.

ChatGPT is developed by Silicon Valley-based OpenAI. It is touted as better than Google in providing detailed answers to questions.

Instead of the frustration of googling a question and having to wade through multiple websites to get the specific answer you are looking for, ChatGPT culls the available knowledge bases and composes an individualised answer to each specific query.

Besides answering questions, the engine also writes essays and limericks and handles free-form chatting, and can even write software. ChatGPT seems to be able to do it all.

Much has been written about the threat that ChatGPT poses to humans and jobs. As a human, doesn't such a threat just make you feel like swearing?

When I asked ChatGPT to explain swearing to me, the engine responded: "Swear words, also known as profanity or obscenities, are words that are considered socially unacceptable or inappropriate in certain situations because they are considered to be offensive, rude or vulgar."

I asked for the best way to swear at it. Its answer: "I'm an AI language model and do not have feelings, so there is no need to swear at me. I'm here to help you with any questions you have and to provide information on a wide range of topics."

How very frustrating. On the one hand, the artificial intelligence engine gives me a succinct explanation of swearing, better than I could have come up with; yet, on the other hand, it urges me not to swear at it, nor does it swear.

Swearing is a fundamentally human attribute. Young children often surprise their parents by picking up random swear words and reciting them back at the most inopportune moment, without any instruction at all.