Walter-ong.
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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) May 3, 2023: Recently, ChatGPT has been widely discussed. For example, see the instructive New York Times article "Let Us Show You How GPT Works - Using Jane Austen" by Aatish Bhatia (dated April 27, 2023). After the by-line, we are told that "Before coming to The Times," he taught courses on art and engineering."
Now, in response to Bhatia's instructive article, in part, the resourceful Ong scholar Thomas D. Zlatic asked ChatGPT, "What would Fr. Walter Ong think about ChatGPT?" In my estimate, Professor Zlatic's most important Ong-related essay is "Faith in Pretext: An Ongian Context for [Melville's Novel] The Confidence-Man" in the 2012 book Of Ong and Media Ecology, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (pp. 241-280).
I discuss the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) in my somewhat lengthy OEN article "Walter J. Ong's Philosophical Thought" (dated September 20, 2020):
In addition, see my more recent somewhat lengthy OEN article "Walter J. Ong's Expansive Relationist Spirit" (dated February 23, 2023):
For a specifically Christian context for discussing Ong's media-ecology thought, see my somewhat lengthy OEN article "Paul A. Soukup, S.J., on a Media Ecology of Christian Theology" (dated December 24, 2022):
In any event, Professor Zlatic sent me the following response that he got from ChatGPT:
"Father Walter Ong was a highly regarded scholar of communication and language who passed away in 2003. As a result, we can't know for certain what he would have thought about ChatGPT specifically, as it was developed after his death. However, based on his writings and research, we can speculate on some of his potential views.
"Ong was interested in the evolution of language and the impact of technology on communication. He believed that new forms of communication technology could fundamentally change how we interact with each other and perceive the world. He also argued that technological advancements such as the printing press and radio had transformative effects on human societies.
"Given these views, it is possible that Ong would have found ChatGPT to be a fascinating development. He might be intrigued by the way that the model can generate human-like responses and the implications this could have for communication between humans and machines. However, he might also have had concerns about how this technology could affect our ability to communicate with each other in more natural and empathetic ways.
Overall, it's impossible to know for sure what Ong's views on ChatGPT would be, but given his interest in communication technology, it's likely that he would have found it to be a fascinating and potentially transformative development."
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