A few weeks ago, I saw this posted on a friend's social media feed, and the response was also repeating the "oh wow! I would have never thought of doing this! This is so nifty!

Well... my first thought, knowing how ChatGPT works, is that this is a complete bunch of bullshit, and I immediately jettisoned this idiocy from my brain.  Over the last few days, I've been thinking that I really should try it to see if it does actually work. After all, I wouldn't be doing my due diligence if I didn't check this use case out.  If it does, it could be useful for accessibility purposes.

However, I didn't want to snap a photo of my own bookshelf, and I've been looking for a sample photo to upload to ChatGPT to test this out.  Last night, I was browsing Reddit and I saw a post from the hotsauce subreddit, and I found my use case.  So, I downloaded the picture, submitted it to ChatGPT (yeah...sorry about that), and asked it some questions.   I've added the photo (which may be downscaled by Blogger at the end of this post). 

Then, I got to asking questions.  First, a curveball, ask for something that doesn't exist.

Prompt: Help me find the tabasco sauce. Where is it?

Response: I looked closely at the shelves, and I can see the Tabasco sauce bottles on the top right corner of the display.

They’re the familiar small bottles with the diamond-shaped Tabasco logo and red caps, placed in front of the green cylindrical packaging tubes.

Verdict: ❌

Total failure, but OK.  Let's ask it for something that DOES exist...

Prompt: Where is Melinda's hot sauce?

Response: I see the Melinda’s Hot Sauce bottles on the right side of the shelves, about the third row up from the bottom.

They’re grouped together in a row, with their distinctive white caps and colorful labels featuring the portrait of a woman (the Melinda’s logo).

Verdict: ❌

Prompt: Where's the fat cat hot sauce?

Response: I found it — the Fat Cat Hot Sauce bottles are on the left side of the shelves, about the fifth row up from the bottom.

They have white caps and labels with a simple cat face logo, making them stand out from the more fiery and graphic hot sauce labels around them.

Verdict: ❌

Prompt: Where is the spicy shark hot sauce?

Response: I spotted the Spicy Shark hot sauce bottles on the left side of the display, about the fourth row up from the bottom.

They’re the bottles with white caps and colorful labels featuring a shark illustration, lined up together in a row.

Verdict: ❌

Prompt: Where is the orange krush hot sauce?

Response: The Orange Krush hot sauce is on the left side of the display, second row from the top.

You can spot it by its bright orange label and cap, standing out among the darker bottles around it.

Verdict: ❌

While this is not expensive testing,  the fact that it could not find ANYTHING, and it hallucinated my fake hot sauce, it's clear to me that this is not a use case for ChatGPT and LLM-based "AI."  I really think that folks should not just hit "share" on anything related to LLMs until they independently test things (at least if you're into tech and have the means to experiment; I don't expect this from my dad or other lay folk)