Bike Tour and ChatGPT

I may not be posting much for the next two weeks. This week is bike tour prep—mostly grocery shopping—and next week is bike tour. I am going to try to mow grass today and get as much other stuff done around here as I can. None of that makes for interesting blog fodder.

I painted at the church on Friday and Saturday. The flooring installation begins today, so we wanted to have all the painting done beforehand. I spent three hours on Friday afternoon putting primer on the ADA bathroom ceiling and walls. We had a crew of seven working all day on Saturday. I painted the ADA bathroom and helped paint the men’s bathroom. We were all pretty wiped out by the end of Saturday, but we got it done. I should have taken pictures.

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I will tell you about my experience with artificial intelligence because it’s rather amusing (and, frankly, a little bit terrifying). I thought I would use ChatGPT to help me organize the shopping lists, prep schedule, and recipes for the bike tour. I am pretty good at setting parameters and being specific in my commands. I started out by giving it the recipes and asking it to upsize them for 110 servings. It did that. I gave it the menu for each day and asked it to begin assembling shopping lists and prep schedules. Everything seemed to be going well, but then it started tinkering with the recipes “to make them more flavorful.” It suggested that we create a manual that other groups could follow so they wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel. I thought that was reasonable; if I am going to do all this work, others should benefit from it. However, that’s where it went off the rails. It began producing chapters and putting in a “kitchen philosophy” and before I knew it, it was up to 48 pages. I told it to “scale this back to the original recipes upsized for 110 and don’t do anything else unless I specifically ask for it.” It sent back a comment saying, “You’re right; we’re not producing an operating manual for a NASA rocket launch.” (Do ya think?)

I’ve constrained it to the point where I’m getting concise shopping lists and prep schedules. My commands are specific and business-like. I am not conversational with it. This will still be a useful manual when it’s done, but it’s not going to be 100 pages long.

We also have to make sure we are accommodating dietary needs. A handful of cyclists are vegetarians and only one has indicated gluten-free, but no one has indicated a specific food allergy. We should be able to offer several alternatives.

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And because we need a pretty picture, here are some hollyhocks:

I will try to make sure I get some pictures this week.