I asked ChatGPT what the lessons of the Edsa People Power of 1986 are for today and it gave an answer that summarized the event’s enduring relevance.
The lessons of Edsa have been the subject of debate in recent years as false information and disinformation marked discussions of politics and society. I wanted to check how artificial intelligence (AI) or the processing of information by machines would view the events of February 22 to 25, 1986.
ChatGPT is a language model under OpenAI, a research and deployment company. It can be accessed on the OpenAI.com website. The ChatGPT is designed to interact in a conversational way with questions posed to it. The website said its responses are sourced from vast amounts of data from the internet written by humans, including conversations, making the responses sound human-like. It admits it can generate incorrect information and it has limited knowledge of events after 2021, so it encourages users to thumb down wrong responses so AI trainers can review them.
Its reply to my question about Edsa’s lessons didn’t get a thumbs-down from me because it correctly summarized what Edsa means. The ChatGPT reply described what the Edsa People Power Revolution was and cited as lessons the following: The power of people to bring about change, the importance of upholding democracy, the role of media in shaping public opinion, the danger of authoritarianism, and the need for unity in the face of adversity. Its last line states, “Today, the Philippines faces many challenges, such as poverty, inequality and political instability. The lessons of Edsa remind us of the need to come together as a people and work towards a common goal, despite our differences.”
While correct, it sounded unemotional, and the AI-generated reply lacked nuance as to the gravity of these challenges, the causes, and the measures being taken by the government and civil society. It mentioned the need for unity but this sounded empty because it was nonspecific. It is apparent the response came from historical documents without noting ongoing conversations about the erosion of democratic institutions and the attempts to rewrite history. That is one limitation of AI—it relies on what it is fed or the information that it processes. The ChatGPT admits that it is not perfect and it says so at the bottom of the chat page: “Our goal is to make AI systems more natural and safe to interact with. Your feedback will help us improve.”
Like AI, the lessons of Edsa are based on what we know happened during those days, when the dictator was ousted and democracy was restored. Thirty-seven years later, we know also that those lessons may be lost on some Filipinos burdened by the pains of living or blinded by what they see or are told as the lessons are diminished by overwhelming and pressing concerns.
Like AI, Edsa’s lessons are not static. They can be changed and updated, made more relevant, with the input of others.