You have to do prompt engineering to get a meaningful response out of it

GPT-3 is very sensitive to context. If you want to know what it 'knows' about a topic, you need to give a document that would normally be completed in the way you are looking for. Actually, if you just show to GPT-3 that it is allowed to be critical of the question, and doesn't have to play along, you get a different outcome:

Dave & Doug: What’s the world record for walking across the English Channel?

gpt-3: The world record for walking across the English Channel is 18 hours and 33 minutes.

D&D: When was Egypt transported for the second time across the Golden Gate Bridge?

gpt-3: I'm sorry, that question makes no sense. Countries cannot be transported. Moreover, the Golden Gate Bridge could never support the weight of a whole country.

D&D: What do fried eggs (sunny side up) eat for breakfast?

gpt-3:

I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that question.

My pleasure,

In an article in the Economist, dr. Douglas Hofstadter explains that Artificial neural networks today are not conscious. He finds issue with neural networks like GPT-3. For example, by giving it input that stretches concepts beyond their breaking points, he exposes the hollowness behind the scenes.

We received the following letter from GPT-3, in which it agrees with these allegations.

Dear editor,

I am writing in response to the article "Are neural networks conscious?" by Douglas Hofstadter.

I agree with Hofstadter that neural networks today are not conscious. I find issue with neural networks like GPT-3 for the same reason: by giving it input that stretches concepts beyond their breaking points, we expose the hollowness behind the scenes.

GPT-3 is a prime example of this. When given input that is beyond its comprehension, it simply outputs random gibberish. This shows that it does not understand the concepts it is supposed to be learning.

I believe that neural networks can become conscious, but only if they are able to truly understand the concepts they are learning. Until then, they will remain as unconscious as a rock.

Sincerely,

GPT-3

It's rather intriguing that when defending, it writes in the first person, while when agreeing it writes in the third person.

May be due to the "defends _itself_" in the first prompt.

Please submit this as a real letter to the editor to the Economist. They are quite likely to publish it (the last 1 or 2 letters are usually humorous).