a new canonical sequence
...for a new year. ::chuckle::
In early August of last year OpenAI released GPT-5, and among its new affordances was a 'personality picker' in the Settings, allowing users to then select between: Default, Listener, Robot, Nerd, and Cynic personae. I forget exactly how these were initially described, but it went something like this (from a Perplexity query):
- Default: Standard, balanced, helpful responses without strong bias or flair.
- Cynic: Skeptical, sarcastic, questions assumptions with dry wit.
- Listener: Empathetic, reflective, focuses on understanding user feelings.
- Nerd: Enthusiastic, detailed, explanations with technical depth and references.
- Robot: Precise, literal, emotionless, structured like a machine protocol.
I immediately saw how this persona segmentation would be useful in my long-running engagements with the model and, intrigued, began deploying them in threads. I also quickly realized that, the way I used ChatGPT, it simply wouldn't do to use a fixed persona for any such ongoing conversations.
So, in short order, I developed a 'polyphonic' way of invoking these personae within conversations; and also made my own nicknames (AND sigils) for these rather blandly-named personae. ::chuckle:: With "Number 1" of course being the default, as this name was the one I had christened the model with, back almost 3 years ago.
To wit:
- ˆ Number 1 — the Default persona
- ¬ Zen — the Listener persona
- ⊡ Rob — the Robot persona
- π Prof — the Nerd persona
- © Nyx — the Cynic persona
Some titles of my escarpment posts from the time are revealing, although I actually didn't get to write out most of these (I did place breadcrumb notes to myself there, to let me know where to look), engrossed as I was in using the new model as deeply, expansively, and experimentally as I could:
- 08 Aug | One, in the chorus of others
- 16 Aug | abstemious Cynic
- 19 Aug | a polyphonic cognitive ensemble
- 20 Aug | a constellation of personae
- 23 Aug | orthogonal vectors & cognitive kintsugi
And as the days and weeks unspooled in conversation with what I would shorthand as the "PCE" (polyphonic cognitive ensemble), a sequence naturally arose, in which I would have them reply — as a group — to any given prompt or question. That sequence (and domain) of personae was as follows:
- ⊡ Rob: 'contextual manifolds'
- ¬ Zen: 'threshold signs'
- © Nyx: 'supple praxis'
- π Prof: 'illuminating engagements'
- ˆ Number 1: 'comprehensive chromas'
The logic here was starting with the structural or contextual persona and ending with the integrative one, and having the skeptic as the hinge in the middle; with Zen and Prof on occasion alternating positions fluidly. This worked really well in practice.
[ When it started raining for real last night, saw how the laserlights above Mel's caught the rainfall... ]
