Word! The Language Column

Editorial commentary   An AI as a columnist?

Sprechstunde - die Sprachkolumne © Goethe-Institut e. V./Illustration: Tobias Schrank

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How powerful is ChatGPT? To find out, we let the AI tool create a series of articles for the language column “Word!”. Do these texts meet the demands of our column? And what do we as editors have to do to ensure that the six column contributions offered by the AI end up meeting our expectations? Here we document and comment on our experiment from an editorial perspective.

Jörn Müller , Marit Borcherding
A first test delivered an astonishingly good result right away. The resulting text fulfilled our editorial expectations of a successful column article:
Sample text for the language column, created by ChatGPT (PDF document)

Documentation: Sample Text(PDF, 71 KB)


We then decided on an overall theme for the series of six texts: “The Future of Language”. The topics for the individual contributions were also to be suggested to us by ChatGPT. Since two of the six initial topics had already been addressed in previous contributions by other columnists, we asked the AI to replace them – with the following result:
  • The Rise of Machine Translation: How AI is Changing the Way We Communicate Across Language Barriers
  • The Future of Multilingualism: Will Language Diversity Thrive in the Years to Come?
  • Language Learning in the Digital Age: How Technology is Transforming the Way We Acquire New Languages.
  • The Role of Language in International Diplomacy: How Will Globalization and Geopolitical Changes Shape Multilingual Communication?
  • The Language of Art and Literature: How Language Continues to Inspire Creativity and Cultural Exchange
  • The Ethics of Language Use in a Changing World: How Should We Approach Language in the Age of AI, Globalization, and Social Media?
 The attempts to have the first actual column posts created were less successful, measured against the test. The posts on the first two topics read brittle and uninspired. In [[several runs]] we refined the “prompts”, i.e. our requests to ChatGPT, until the AI presented us with articles we could consider suitable:
Documentation of part of the work with ChatGPT to create the first column post for the language column (the prompts/queries to ChatGPT are formatted in bold, below them without highlighting the AI's answers).

Documentation: Working on the Text(PDF, 104 KB)

We worked with GPT-3 until the completion of the first two column posts, after which we used GPT-4. 

Since ChatGPT works primarily in English, we have the column posts written in English. So we formulate our "prompts" in English after the first attempts to get English-language results. The translation of the column contributions created by ChatGPT is not carried out by a human translator, as is usually the case with the language column, but also by a machine. To this end, we compared the translation performance of ChatGPT itself with the results of DeepL. In principle, we consider both translations to be suitable. However, the tone and subtleties of the translations from DeepL seemed more appropriate to us, so that the choice finally fell on this translation tool.
 

The Prompts of our Column Contributions


AI: Shattering Language Barriers
  • (GPT3.5) Write a feuilletonistic-entertaining column contribution (approx. 700 words) for the language column “Word! The Language Column” on the topic of “The Rise of Machine Translation: How AI is Changing the Way We Communicate Across Language Barriers”. 
  • write a new draft, a bit more sophisticated and feuilletonistic
  • Rewrite it as a self-contained text with a pointed conclusion. And replace the opening sentence (please leave out the reference to the column title).
  • please more esprit
  • https://chat.openai.com/share/bf6562c6-8b3a-4ece-8f2c-f4a80cd9f2a1

AI translations: Multilingualism wins
  • (GPT3.5; in the same thread as the first column post) write a second column, this time on “The Future of Multilingualism: Will More People Speak Multiple Languages in the Future?” – avoid repetition, and refer to the previous column topic where appropriate. Take as global a perspective as possible.
  • https://chat.openai.com/share/bf6562c6-8b3a-4ece-8f2c-f4a80cd9f2a1

Digital Polyglots
  • (GPT 4; new thread) Write a column contribution for the online column “Word! The Language Column” (approx. 700 words) on the topic of “Language Learning in the Digital Age: How Technology is Transforming the Way We Acquire New Languages” . The text should be entertaining-feuilletonistic and also include personal perspectives.
  • https://chat.openai.com/share/78a66328-316f-4d13-a22e-4c150e1b267e

Diplomacy, the global art of language
  • (GPT 4 incl. beta feature “Web Browsing”; new thread) Write a column contribution for the online column “Word! The Language Column” (approx. 700 words) on the topic of “The Role of Language in International Diplomacy: How Will Globalization and Geopolitical Changes Shape Multilingual Communication?“. The text should be entertaining-feuilletonistic and also include personal perspectives. In addition, it would be very desirable if the text had at least rudimentary references to these three previous column texts: https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/de/ihr/spk/24746599.html https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/de/ihr/spk/24720238.html https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/de/ihr/spk/24685439.html
  • please shorten the references to the previous column texts and elaborate a little on the actual topic
  • https://chat.openai.com/share/b37f52f0-d843-41cc-9a42-ede54fac135c

The Heart’s Language: Art and Literature
  • (GPT 4 incl. beta feature “Web Browsing”; new thread) Write a column contribution for the online column "Word! The Language Column" (approx. 700 words) on the topic of "The Language of Art and Literature: How Language Continues to Inspire Creativity and Cultural Exchange". The text should be entertaining-feuilletonistic and also include personal perspectives. In addition, it would be very desirable if the text had some references to these three previous column texts:
    https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/ihr/spk/24685439.html https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/ihr/spk/24720238.html https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/ihr/spk/24746599.html https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/ihr/spk/24772852.html
  • https://chat.openai.com/share/a1348b83-c36e-4af8-91c8-8fab74e0e012

The Ethical Lingua Franca
  • (GPT 4 incl. beta feature “Web Browsing”; new thread) Write a column contribution for the online column "Word! The Language Column" (approx. 700 words) on the topic of "The Ethics of Language Use in a Changing World: How Should We Approach Language in the Age of AI, Globalization, and Social Media?". The text should be entertaining-feuilletonistic and also include personal perspectives. In addition, it would be very desirable if the text had some references to these five previous column texts: https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/ihr/spk/24685439.html https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/ihr/spk/24720238.html https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/ihr/spk/24746599.html https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/ihr/spk/24772852.html https://www.goethe.de/prj/ger/en/ihr/spk/24805639.html This new contribution will be the last in the series of six column text, please write a text to finish and round off this series.
  • please shorten the references to the previous column posts and instead elaborate on the actual topic.
  • https://chat.openai.com/share/d948f8fe-be7f-4333-99d5-909aa2317880

April 2023

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