CZM Rewind: The Academics That Think ChatGPT Is BS
Better Offline
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 687 Ratings
🗓️ 13 August 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a paper released earlier this year, three academics from the University of Glasgow classified ChatGPT's outputs not as "lies," but as "BS" - as defined by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in "on BS" (and yes I'm censoring that) - and created one of the most enjoyable and prescient papers ever written. In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by academics Michael Townsen Hicks, James Humphries and Joe Slater in a free-wheeling conversation about ChatGPT's mediocrity - and how it's not built to represent the world at all.
Paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5
Michael Townsen Hicks: https://www.townsenhicks.com/
Joe Slater: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/joeslater/
Original Air Date: 7.18.24
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.7 | Hey, everyone. It's me, Ed Zittron, and we're doing a rerun episode this week. |
| 0:13.4 | Sadly, the in-studio recording we did with Ashwin Rodriguez and Victoria's Song. |
| 0:18.0 | We had a technical fault. |
| 0:19.3 | Nothing we can do. |
| 0:20.6 | It sucks, but we're doing a |
| 0:22.4 | rerun this week. We're doing the academics that think chat GPT is BS. And this is one of my favorite |
| 0:27.0 | episodes ever recorded. It changed how I do interviews are at large. It's with these three |
| 0:31.4 | academics, Michael Townsend Hicks, James Humphreys and Joe Slater, who wrote a paper using the |
| 0:36.8 | actual Frankfurtian definition of bullshit to say that chat GBT bullshit. |
| 0:41.9 | It's so much fun. It's one of my favorite episodes of recorded. I will have you a monologue this week as well. |
| 0:47.6 | I do apologize for not having something new for you this week. You'll still get the monologue on Friday, though. |
| 0:53.4 | Thank you for your time, |
| 0:54.5 | your patience, and of course for listening to BetRothline. |
| 1:06.6 | Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host Ed Zedron. |
| 1:22.1 | Thank you. Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host, Ed Zedron. In early June, three researchers from the University of Glasgow published a paper in the Ethics of Information and Technology Journal called ChatGBTGBT is bullshit. |
| 1:31.6 | And I just want to be clear, this is a great and thoroughly researched and well-argued paper. |
| 1:37.0 | This is not silly at all. |
| 1:38.3 | It's actually great academia. |
| 1:40.4 | And today I'm joined by the men who wrote it, academics Michael Townsend Hicks, James Humphreys, and Joe Slater to talk about chat GBT's mediocrity and how it's not really built to represent the world at all. |
| 1:52.2 | So for the sake of argument, could you define bullshit for me? |
... |
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