[REVIEW] ChatGPT comes up with obvious answers to questions about life

The first book ever in Korea to be written by ChatGPT, titled "45 Ways to Find a Purpose in Life" was released in local bookstores on Feb. 22. [SNOWFOX BOOKS]

"45 Ways to Find a Purpose in Life" is the first book written by ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by U.S.-based OpenAI, to ever be published in Korea.

Not only is it written by a chatbot, but it's translated by Naver's Papago, a translating service based on artificial intelligence.

The book cover is also “designed” by Shutterstock AI, an AI image generation platform launched by Shutterstock in collaboration with OpenAI in January.

Literally from its front cover to its back, the entire book was created by AI-based services.

Consisting of six chapters, the book's genre, as its title suggests, is self-help. It attempts to tell its readers something about finding their life purposes — although its content cannot be more mundane or eye-rolling-ly obvious. The book talks about forming relationships, finding value and happiness and controlling your emotions for the betterment of your life.

"Life is a journey full of twists and turns, with no clear destination in sight," reads the chatbot-authored book.

"Often, we find ourselves lost and searching for purpose and meaning in our lives. The good news is that there are many paths to discover our purpose, and it's never too late to start."

The title of the book and its content was chosen by Seo Jin, the CEO of domestic book publisher Snowfox Books.

The intent of the book arose purely from Seo’s curiosity about whether AI could write something which could persuade and leave an impact on people’s lives.

Although each of the "45 ways" were chosen by a person, the chatbot added comments about honesty, prejudices and emotions.

"Saying 'I don't know' when we don't have the answer is a powerful form of honesty and vulnerability," the book reads. "The obliviousness gives room for improvement and growth."

The chatbot defines prejudices as "an unfortunate reality in our world, and it can be a major obstacle to finding purpose and meaning in life."

ChatGPT encourages readers to speak out against the prejudice and discrimination we witness.

Its stance about emotions is also interesting. It writes that emotions "can often cloud our judgment and lead us astray, making it difficult to make clear and rational decisions." It says it's important to find the right "balance" between logic and emotions.

The process of creating the illustrations on the book's cover and for each of its chapters was completed by Shutterstock AI in about three hours. Seo first ordered an image based on the book’s title, but the AI failed to decipher her intentions and produced hundreds of random images. She added the book’s subtitles and table of content to request and then the AI produced three to four images from which she chose the cover readers see now: A picture of a person walking on a curved path against the background of a river, mountains, clouds, the sun and a bird.

It took just two people and 38 hours for ChatGPT to write this book.

In total, it took exactly a week for the book to be organized, written, translated, printed and published, a stark comparison to the months of writing, discussing, revising and proofreading it takes to publish a standard book.

The book consists of 297 pages and contains both the English and translated Korean text. Seo intentionally put them side by side for viewers to see for themselves the work of AI-based translation.

In the beginning of the book, it is stated that the person who proofread the content is no expert in English. The person read through the book to fix minor errors or delete text that was not necessary.

The translation is near flawless and to the point. There may be some awkward expressions here and there but readers will have no difficulty comprehending what the chatbot is saying.

The entire book can be summarized into a handful of sentences: Recognize that humans are limited beings. Admit to the fact that we are fallible, vulnerable and moral, which is why it is important to find balance in everything you do — whether that be a relationship, work, goals, or values. Happiness is about learning to be grateful, focusing on the present and practicing self-care.

While these musings are rather obvious, "45 Ways to Find a Purpose in Life" is a testament to how far machine intelligence has come.

While the amount of time and effort it took to produce this book is certainly impressive, the product is proof that the perplexity of thinking, persuasion and empathy still lies in the realm of humans. We are not “infallible,” as the chatbot says, but in some ways, neither is the chatbot.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]