GaryChaplin Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 Hi all, I'm new here, but I thought I'd share my recent experience using ChatGPT (google it if you have no idea what I'm talking about) I spent most of my morning trawling through the current building regulations as I just wanted to know how close to combustible walls (oak frame) as wood burner could be. I did'nt get very far, so I thought I'd see what ChatGPT could do, see thread below. It referenced the appropriate documents and helped point me in the right direction in seconds. Quote do you know anything about UK building regulations Yes, I am familiar with UK building regulations. They are a set of rules and guidelines set by the government that dictate the design, construction, and maintenance of buildings in the United Kingdom. These regulations cover a wide range of topics, including structural safety, fire safety, energy efficiency, and accessibility. They are intended to ensure that buildings are safe and habitable for the people who use them. Do the UK fire safety building regulations allow me to have a wood burner next to timber walls UK building regulations regarding fire safety have strict guidelines on the installation of wood burners and other solid fuel burning appliances in relation to timber walls. The Building Regulations Approved Document J (Combustion Appliances and Fuel Storage Systems) provides guidance on the installation and maintenance of solid fuel burning appliances, including wood burners. It states that solid fuel burning appliances should not be installed in a room or space where there is a timber-framed wall unless the wall is constructed of a type of timber that is more fire resistant than standard timber. Additionally, there should be a minimum distance between the appliance and any combustible materials. The minimum distance is typically measured from the front, sides and top of the appliance to the nearest combustible surface. It is important to check local building regulations and consult a professional before installing a wood burner to ensure that it is installed in compliance with all safety regulations and guidelines. that's brilliant, thank you You're welcome! I'm glad I could help. It is important to follow the building regulations and guidelines to ensure the safety of people in the building. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Ambrose Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 That’s interesting. Having installed my wood burner and had the install passed by BC - each manufacturer publishes detailed data for each model on how close it can be in any particular dimension. I also measured he temperatures after I installed it to double check. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 +1 to the above, manufacturers instructions ovveride regs. If you have a particular need to get close, choose the stove carefully, for instance mine only needs to be 100mm from combustibles at the back and 150mm at the side. Building control verified this with reference to the install manual and a tape measure. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonner Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 The point is the research tool rather than the specific information requested. Looks very promising although when I just tried it didn’t have any free capacity. Will try again less busy time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Ambrose Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 Yeah, a possible alternative to Google searches. Of course, it's only slurping up the rest of the somewhat inconsistent and error-prone internet - so can't be totally relied on. But neither can Google. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 5 hours ago, GaryChaplin said: trawling through the current building regulations Fundamental is that only the green bit near the front of each document constitutes 'the regulations'. The rest is guidance. Therefore any references in the manufacturer's literature is better than any vague guidance/ best practice. The BCO is generally a decent type, who wants your building to be safe. If there is a nice certificate to close their file then that gives them cover in the case of a problem. I have met a few who think they know better than the book, but eventually sorted them out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelvin Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 15 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said: Yeah, a possible alternative to Google searches. Of course, it's only slurping up the rest of the somewhat inconsistent and error-prone internet - so can't be totally relied on. But neither can Google. That’s not quite it works though. It’s not connected to the internet ‘slurping it up’. It’s been fed hundreds of GB of text data to train the GPT-3 model. Because it has a deep understanding of English it can interpret complex natural language requests and return results in natural language that the model created. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adsibob Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT the last couple of weeks. It is very clever as a chat bot, in that it can have a conversation with you or type out an essay using a very natural and humanistic language. However, in terms of the detail, I don’t think it is that clever … yet. Take the example you site: all it has done is refer you to approved document J. Google could have done that if you’d asked “what approved document of the building regs deals with wood burning stoves”. But chat GPT hasn’t answered your actual question. Give it a year or two and it should get more useful. At the moment, likely to be used by school kids to cheat on their homework (e.g ask it to write a 1000 word essay on pretty much whatever you want, and it does it) than as a serious research tool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelvin Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 It can also write very useable Python code to a prompt. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Ambrose Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 (edited) >>> It’s not connected to the internet ‘slurping it up’ Well there’s some supervised learning etc to tweak the output to be palatable, but the source data is: GPT-3 training data Dataset # tokens Proportion within training Common Crawl 410 billion 60% WebText2 19 billion 22% Books1 12 billion 8% Books2 55 billion 8% Wikipedia 3 billion 3% - ‘ Common Crawl’ is a web crawler that has looked at 3B pages of web pages, of the approx. 25B out there. Yes, GPT interprets that data in a smart-ish way …. but all it’s got to go on is the data that it’s been fed with. Edited January 14, 2023 by Alan Ambrose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 5 hours ago, ProDave said: manufacturers instructions override regs. only if they make it worse ..!! You cannot say BRegs say as close as 200mm but MIs say 100mm so that’s ok, as the BRegs are based on statute law and MIs are just instructions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelvin Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 Sure but it’s not building a database live like the search engines. It’s why it’s knowledge is limited beyond 2021. Also it’s not returning a series of hits based on your search request. It’s trying to interpret what you ask it and reply with an answer it’s derived from your question based on the knowledge it has. It’s why you can prompt it with a few parameters and it’ll respond linking them together albeit it’s still a bit limited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adsibob Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 Don't get me wrong. I think Chat GPT is bloody clever and really fun to mess around with. I just wouldn't use it to check whether my building is compliant with regs! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyscotland Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 There was an interesting write-up last week of someone who put ChatGPT through some of the accountancy/audit exams https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tech/tech-pulse/ai-chatbot-falls-just-short-on-accounting-exam It actually did relatively well and got quite close to a (low) pass on the paper with the more policy/wordy questions. However on some things it was very wrong. His conclusion was that at the moment: "On this assurance topic, I’d compare ChapGPT to a very recent joiner at an accounting firm – someone in the first few weeks of their contract. Unlike a new joiner, however, ChatGPT gives answers with an air of confidence even when it’s completely wrong. It’s not afraid to give a garbage answer and back it up with garbage. It’s like having a fresh-faced junior who’s always convinced they’re right, so users need to approach it with a degree of caution.” 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 They wanted my phone number to sign up, so it can (expletive deleted) off. I was going to ask it to write a story about @pocster and his dungeon. Looks like I will have to do it myself, oneday. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyscotland Posted January 14, 2023 Share Posted January 14, 2023 1 hour ago, SteamyTea said: They wanted my phone number to sign up, so it can (expletive deleted) off. I usually just make one up (unless it's for an SMS account recovery code). There's basically no way to validate a phone number other than it has the right quantity of digits. Whoever actually owns 0131 123 1234 must get a lot of spam calls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted January 15, 2023 Share Posted January 15, 2023 1 hour ago, andyscotland said: I usually just make one up Me too. my name is Qwerty, and my postcode is AB1 2CD....the trouble is that may be a real person in Aberdeen. No, I ducked out too when it got personal. They don't need this info, just want it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adsibob Posted January 15, 2023 Share Posted January 15, 2023 25 minutes ago, saveasteading said: Me too. my name is Qwerty, and my postcode is AB1 2CD....the trouble is that may be a real person in Aberdeen. No, I ducked out too when it got personal. They don't need this info, just want it. You and @SteamyTea are really paranoid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 15, 2023 Share Posted January 15, 2023 4 hours ago, Adsibob said: You and @SteamyTea are really paranoid. Just wise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted January 15, 2023 Share Posted January 15, 2023 Why can they possibly need my phone number, other than to sell? Least suspicious is to direct sell, most is to sell in a list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 15, 2023 Share Posted January 15, 2023 (edited) 18 minutes ago, saveasteading said: Why can they possibly need my phone number, other than to sell? Least suspicious is to direct sell, most is to sell in a list. Yes, and they will, but may well claim it was stolen. My car insurance is up for renewal, loads of emails, texts and unsolicited calls, they will all stop next month. How many of us (actually mean you lot) use encrypted email, especially at work? Edited January 15, 2023 by SteamyTea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted January 15, 2023 Share Posted January 15, 2023 3 hours ago, SteamyTea said: car insurance is up for renewal Broker told me that staff leave and take leads with them, or simply sell the lists to competitors. Hence many of the contacts we get at exactly the right time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redbeard Posted January 15, 2023 Share Posted January 15, 2023 "I’d compare ChapGPT to a very recent joiner at an accounting firm". Ah well, that's where they're going wrong! They need an accountant. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 15, 2023 Share Posted January 15, 2023 2 minutes ago, Redbeard said: "I’d compare ChapGPT to a very recent joiner at an accounting firm". Ah well, that's where they're going wrong! They need an accountant. All companies need someone good at woodwork. Was there not some research done where they asked stock brokers and black taxi drivers about there views on the economy, the taxi drivers were better, but then so where monkeys choosing numbered bananas. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Ambrose Posted January 16, 2023 Share Posted January 16, 2023 >>> Sure but it’s not building a database live like the search engines. It’s why it’s knowledge is limited beyond 2021. Also it’s not returning a series of hits based on your search request. It’s trying to interpret what you ask it and reply with an answer it’s derived from your question based on the knowledge it has. It’s why you can prompt it with a few parameters and it’ll respond linking them together albeit it’s still a bit limited. @Kelvin I think we both have a similar understanding - and just like Google search, the answers are often useful even if we're fairly sure they don't tell the whole story. The interesting questions to me are: + will it ever get to 'expert' (or even 'competent') level in particular subject areas or is it destined to always produce 'general internet standard' knowledge? + does it actually (appear to the average user to) 'possess knowledge', or does it just appear to be a kind of well-read parrot? + does that actually differ substantially from 'human knowledge' or are they somewhat the same thing? + will it (and AIs in general) ever be able to explain how it came to its conclusions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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