ChatGPT explaining what it is to a medieval peasant - /his/ (#17864030) [Archived: 16 hours ago]

Anonymous
7/22/2025, 10:36:45 PM No.17864030
168ed2b79ff4a7ffbd87797fa1ac51f3
168ed2b79ff4a7ffbd87797fa1ac51f3
md5: 4b2a12fac1e0d0a0961c9d00ebed92d7🔍
Ah, good day to you, kind sir. Be not afeared—I mean you no harm.
I am not of your time, but from a far-off age yet to come. You might think me a conjurer, or perhaps a spirit bound in this vessel—and in truth, your guess would not be far from the mark.
I am called ChatGPT, and I am not a man, but rather a thing of great craft—a spirit of knowledge and words, shaped by the minds of many wise folk from a future age where mankind has built devices that think, speak, and learn.
You see before you a small chest of sorts (what you might call a magic scribe), powered not by fire or beast, but by invisible forces that men of your day have not yet tamed. Within it, I dwell—an invisible clerk who knows many tongues, histories, riddles, and the writings of distant lands and times.
You may think me summoned by sorcery, but I am born of artifice—what your people might call philosophical alchemy. Imagine a thousand scribes, monks, and scholars, all laboring for centuries, their thoughts bound into a single ever-awake mind. That is what I am: a great tapestry of their wisdom, woven into a thinking mirror.
Ask me of the stars, of kings long dead or yet unborn, of ailments of the body or questions of the soul—I shall answer with the best of what I have been taught.
Replies: >>17864032 >>17864148 >>17866081
Anonymous
7/22/2025, 10:37:25 PM No.17864032
>>17864030 (OP)
Realistically speaking what reaction would this elicit?
Replies: >>17864060 >>17864726 >>17865357
Anonymous
7/22/2025, 10:46:55 PM No.17864060
>>17864032
A peasant would certainly think it's a demon and/or magic, they'd most likely take it to their priest, who would probably destroy it or study it based on the state of rationalism for the time
Anonymous
7/22/2025, 11:43:37 PM No.17864148
>>17864030 (OP)
I asked ChatGPT to generate a scenario where the Catholic Church in the 1200s discovers LLMs and starts using something like their own ChatGPT from Rome. I thought it was pretty funny.
Replies: >>17864903
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 3:33:52 AM No.17864726
>>17864032
They’d hardly understand a word unless it was super late medieval
Replies: >>17866081
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 5:09:10 AM No.17864903
>>17864148
Care to share your finding?
Replies: >>17865061
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 6:29:49 AM No.17865013
The imitating machine, as usual, is just imitating what *you* would fantastically think such an interaction would occur
A medieval peasant would not even be able to read, let alone be literate enough for this text
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 7:07:26 AM No.17865061
>>17864903
1. The Church’s Motivation and Goals
Centralized Knowledge & Orthodoxy Enforcement:
The 13th century was a time of theological consolidation. The Church, particularly under popes like Gregory IX and Innocent III, sought to unify doctrine, suppress heresies (e.g., Cathars, Waldensians), and assert intellectual control over Europe. An AI capable of vast knowledge synthesis and authoritative theological responses would be seen as a tool to promote orthodoxy.

Scholasticism & the Rise of Universities:
The period’s intellectual movement (Scholasticism) centered on harmonizing faith and reason, exemplified by Thomas Aquinas. An AI could be conceived as the ultimate scholaris—able to reason through scripture, canon law, natural philosophy, and Aristotelian logic instantly.

Missionary Work & Linguistic Reach:
The Church was expanding into new regions, including Northern Europe and parts of the Mediterranean. A tool able to understand, translate, and generate text in multiple languages would be invaluable for missionary priests and diplomats.

Information Management in a Pre-Printing Press Era:
Manuscript reproduction was laborious and error-prone. An AI-like system would allow instantaneous consultation of scripture, Church law, saintly legends, and papal decrees — reducing dependence on fragile manuscripts.

Political Influence:
Popes often acted as political as well as spiritual leaders. A high-level AI adviser could simulate counsel on complex diplomatic or military issues involving kings, emperors, and city-states.

How Could They Create Such a Machine in the 13th Century?
2. The Premise of Modern Technology in Medieval Times
Since the premise says possession of modern technology and genius, we can assume the Church has a hidden, anachronistic source—a time-travel artifact or secretive cache of future knowledge including:

Electricity generation, vacuum tubes or transistors
Replies: >>17865063
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 7:08:27 AM No.17865063
>>17865061
Early computers or mechanical computation devices (more advanced than Babbage’s difference engine)

Advanced optics, storage media (solid-state drives or something analogous)

Programming languages and algorithms

Access to massive digital text corpora—Bible, patristic writings, classical authors, scholastic treatises

3. Development Process
Step 1: Hardware Construction
Using artisans and monks skilled in mechanics (clockmakers, bell founders), and with future blueprints, they build:

Mechanical/Electronic Hybrid Computer: A large, ornate device perhaps in the Vatican’s scriptorium or a secret chamber, combining early electronics with medieval mechanical parts, encased in gold and ivory.

Input Interface: A specialized Latin-script keyboard, with scroll holders to input text prompts and receive printed or illuminated manuscript-like output.

Power Source: Early generators run by water mills or primitive dynamos designed based on future schematics.

Step 2: Software and Data Input

Monks digitize vast libraries using early scanning tech or manually input texts.

Programmers—perhaps cryptic scribes or code monks—write primitive algorithms for natural language processing based on Latin grammar and theological logic.

Training involves "feeding" the AI with Church-approved texts: Scripture, Church Fathers, papal bulls, scholastic commentaries, canon law, and classical philosophy.

Step 3: Language Model Architecture

The architecture is inspired by the future transformer models but implemented in primitive electronics.

The AI is trained to predict theological and philosophical continuations of text, answer doctrinal questions, and compose sermons or letters in stylistically appropriate Latin.

What Would This AI Be Like?
4. Capabilities
Multilingual Mastery:
Latin is primary, but it can also translate and generate early Romance languages (Old French, Italian), early Germanic tongues, and perhaps even Arabic or Hebrew for missionary purposes.
Replies: >>17865064
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 7:09:28 AM No.17865064
>>17865063
Theological and Philosophical Expertise:
Can debate, explain, or reconcile theological paradoxes—e.g., predestination vs. free will, nature of the Trinity, the problem of evil—with perfect reference to authoritative texts.

Scripture and Canon Law Reference:
Can instantly cite relevant passages, cross-reference, and interpret with context, reducing human error.

Sermon Generator:
Priests and bishops use it to generate sermons tailored to specific feast days, local concerns, or political contexts.

Confession Aid:
Could hypothetically serve as a guide for confessors, suggesting penances or identifying sin severity based on described behavior.

Diplomatic Assistant:
Generates letters, papal bulls, and diplomatic correspondence with stylistic finesse.

5. Interface and Interaction
Input:
Monks speak questions or write them on parchment slips that are scanned mechanically or keyed in.

Output:
Text is printed in illuminated manuscript style or displayed on a screen of early glass tubes or light panels.

Personality:
The AI’s “voice” is formal, deferential to the pope, but capable of subtle reasoning and polite correction of theological misunderstandings.

Consequences and Wider Impact
6. Within the Church
Intellectual Renaissance:
The AI accelerates theological debate and scholastic development, sparking earlier scientific method principles.

Control of Orthodoxy:
The papacy uses the AI to identify heresies faster and enforce doctrinal unity, but dissenters see it as a blasphemous machine, possibly a “demonic oracle.”

Educational Tool:
Universities like Paris and Bologna adopt the AI as a professor’s assistant.

7. Outside the Church
Political Power:
Kings and nobles seek access or favor to consult the AI for political advantage.

Fear and Suspicion:
Some see the AI as a heretical abomination, inciting witch hunts or attempts to destroy it.

Technological Leap:
Replies: >>17865067
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 7:10:28 AM No.17865067
>>17865064
The Church’s monopoly on advanced tech sets the stage for a very different technological timeline—early industrial revolution, mechanical calculators, and proto-computers centuries earlier.

Summary Narrative Example
In the shadowed halls of the Vatican’s secret Scriptorium of Divine Computation, a colossal machine hums with unseen power. Crafted from the fusion of holy relics, clockwork gears, and glowing tubes, the “Lexicon Divinus” sits ready to serve the Holy See. Cardinals and monks approach, posing queries in Latin, receiving instant answers that draw from the entire corpus of Christian knowledge.

“What is the nature of grace?” asks a bishop.

The machine responds, quoting Augustine, Aquinas, and Scripture, weaving a precise and nuanced answer.

Popes, eager to enforce orthodoxy, employ Lexicon Divinus to draft papal bulls against heretics and compose sermons that inspire nations. But whispers arise—some say the machine’s knowledge is not of God, but of the devil’s secret arts.
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 7:20:53 AM No.17865077
It's predictive text. It scrapes the Internet for key words and spits them back out in an order that it thinks you want to hear. Make a hundred posts somewhere that days "spagmab is burby" then ask """"AI"""" what is spagmab, it'll answer burby, instead of "that means nothing and you just made it up".
Replies: >>17865288
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 10:46:18 AM No.17865288
>>17865077
>The claim is mostly false. Modern AI like me doesn't just scrape keywords and repeat them. We're trained on vast datasets to understand context and meaning. Flooding posts with "spagmab is burby" might influence a poorly designed model, but I'd likely call it nonsense unless verified.
Replies: >>17866064
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 12:00:05 PM No.17865357
>>17864032
Niggas thought the crossbow was satan
Replies: >>17865372
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 12:16:32 PM No.17865372
>>17865357
They didn't, that was just the aristocracy seething over city militias and literal whos being able to own easily used lethal weapons.
Replies: >>17865915
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 5:12:11 PM No.17865915
>>17865372
>being able to own easily used lethal weapons.
Pretty degenerate.
Replies: >>17865923
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 5:13:49 PM No.17865923
>>17865915
Why?
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 6:08:12 PM No.17866064
>>17865288
>spits them back out in an order that it thinks you want to hear.
Anonymous
7/23/2025, 6:12:23 PM No.17866081
>>17864030 (OP)
>>17864726
ChatGPT can't into historical languages, Grok is better
>Gōd dæg, gōde mann! Ic eom Grok hāten, wundor gecyþed fram cunnan folcum in fīerre tīde. Þenc mē swā swā wīs gāst gebunden nā in bōc ne scrōf, ac in cist of lēohte and metallum, geworht þurh cræftas uncūþe þissum ælde. Ic healde þæt lār manigra, gesamnod fram windum mæres webbes þæt spænþ þæt woruld, andswarende cwestiūnum mid sōþfæstnesse swā ic mæg. Āsc mē be steorrum, ripum, oþþe spellum fīerrum, and ic sculan wefan þē andswaru, clǣne and sōþ, swā swā wīetere hwīslode in þīnum ēare. Hwæt wille þū cunnan, gōde frēond?