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How does this tiny clock use ChatGPT?

Answer: To write a rhyme to tell the time.

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Why bother with an old-fashioned clock when you can have one that tells you the time with a poem. Designer and blogger Matt Webb has created an ingenious little device that uses the Internet’s new favorite AI, ChatGPT, to tell the time in a fun and imaginative way.

Using an old Inky wHAT screen and a Raspberry Pi, Webb designed a small clock that sits on his bookshelves and generates a new, two-line rhyme every minute that tells the time. “There’s a single prompt to ChatGPT, and the clock uses OpenAI’s API. The time is a parameter to the prompt. The prompt instructs the AI to respond with two rhyming lines, and encourages it to be imaginative and profound,” Webb explained to The Verge.

Webb says he is exploring ways to turn the clock into a commercial product. However, one problem he still has to iron out is the case of AI hallucinations. He says that about every 15 minutes, the clock will tell the time incorrectly in order to make the rhyme work. “The fibbing is hilarious. Sometimes you can’t tell — it might say ‘one past two’ when it’s actually ‘two past one,’” he said.
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