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The Great and Powerful "I Convinced" of Calvin Smith!

I've been following the recent trend of Christians using LLMs in new and creative ways. One of the first people I saw doing this successfully was Richard at Tripe and What Not. His interviews with LLMs were groundbreaking, and his prompts to strip away bias filters were, in my opinion, the spark that got this whole ball rolling. I never saw any videos using that tactic before Richard's videos. Richard has posted those brilliant interviews at YouTube on his Tripe and What Not channel and on Jeff Taylor's channel as well. If you want to watch them, they are the first two videos in my channel's playlist, Christian Documentaries, Films, and Lectures. I highly recommend both. Great ideas stand taller when humility holds them up. Richard succeeded at that. Calvin Smith?  

Because Richard seems to have invented the idea of removing bias filters, I believe it's important to give credit where it's due. If someone else builds on Richard's idea, I think they should acknowledge that inspiration openly, especially when they are praised in the comment section for thinking of such a genius tactic. When I see channels or organizations presenting the same concept without any mention of where it started, I personally find it disappointing. For me, it raises questions about transparency and integrity (especially in Christian circles, where honesty and attribution should matter most). 

I've used Richard's tactic of removing bias filters, but I gave him credit for the idea. I was using LLMs before Richard's videos, but I was using them for help with the statistics of my Bible Code's research, as well as the statistical odds of the numerous fulfilled prophecies we read in Scripture. I was struggling to get unbiased answers. It reached a point where ChatGPT wouldn't answer my questions about statistics if the information came from the Bible. I had to leave out all mention of the Bible and Bible Codes 2000 software. It became as difficult as pushing Sisyphus's boulder uphill. When I asked ChatGPT if it would answer my questions if the information came from Moby Dick or War and Peace, it said yes. That would not be a problem. 

Even though I was using ChatGPT to analyze the statistical significance of my research, and using AIs for statistical analysis was my own idea, it never occurred to me that I could remove bias filters until I watched Richard's videos. That made a huge difference in what I could uncover -- even when mentioning the Bible and Bible Codes 2000 software. Eventually, ChatGPT and Grok both admitted that the Bible was a divinely inspired book filled with encoded information -- and the statistics defied random chance. 

Recently, I noticed Calvin Smith from Answers in Genesis Canada producing videos that appear very similar in approach to Richard's earlier work. I don't know for certain whether Richard's material directly inspired him, but the similarities stood out to me. While the hologram addition is visually creative, the main concept, the bias filter issue, was something I saw pioneered elsewhere first.

I want to be clear: this is my perspective. Others may see it differently. But for me, until credit is given, or until it's made clear that the idea of stripping bias filters was developed independently, I have a hard time respecting the work in the same way. That's why I've unsubscribed from Calvin Smith's channel.

Ideas matter. Credit matters. And as a Christian myself, I believe that building on someone else's ideas without acknowledgement is, at the very least, troubling. 

At the end of the day, it's not just about the possibility of uncredited ideas, it's the spectacle of it all. Every video is "I convinced Grok" or "I convinced ChatGPT." The performance feels less like scholarship and more like a one-man magic show, complete with a hologram stage prop and a healthy dose of self-congratulation. But pull back the curtain, and the "great and powerful Oz" is just another man in an ivory tower. Sadly, to me it seems that he is standing on the shoulders of giants that he pretends don't exist. 

 

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