The Importance of Sanitary Toilet Facilities
As Written By ChatGPT4, Expert On the Use of Toilets
My friend, sister-in-law, and reader of this infrequent garble of words, Madeline wrote me yesterday in response to my essay about the “Internet of Water” noting kindly that I hadn’t mentioned anything about sanitary conditions. She’s right of course. I did make some snide remarks about toilet flushing but that’s to be expected from someone with the mind of a fifth grader trying to make it out here on these adult streets.
Sadly I’m not an expert on sanitary toilet facilities. I mean, let’s face it, I’m not an expert on any of this stuff—unless you count the facetious naming of blogs. So in order to address this important topic I turned to ChatGPT 4, out this week, which is an artificial intelligence powered generator of written words and ideas—also soon to conquer the world and take all our jobs #fyi. I asked it to “Write a three paragraph essay on the importance of sanitary toilet facilities in the style of Ian Webster of ‘All of Us Are Experts Here’” and this is what it came back with; A four paragraph (the future will be overachieving) essay which is as dry as it is informative:
Access to toilets is a fundamental human right that is often overlooked. For many of us, the availability of clean and accessible toilets is taken for granted. However, for millions of people around the world, access to safe and hygienic toilets is a major challenge. This is not only a matter of convenience but also has far-reaching implications for health and wellbeing.
In many parts of the world, poor sanitation is a major cause of illness and death. Without access to clean and hygienic toilets, people are forced to defecate in open spaces, which can contaminate water sources and lead to the spread of diseases such as cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever. This can have a particularly devastating impact on children, who are more vulnerable to these diseases.
Furthermore, lack of access to toilets can have a significant impact on education and economic opportunities. In many communities, girls are forced to drop out of school when they reach puberty due to the lack of separate and safe toilets. This not only limits their education but also their future economic opportunities. Additionally, without access to toilets, workers may have to take time off from work or travel long distances, reducing their productivity and income.
In conclusion, access to toilets is a fundamental human right that has far-reaching implications for health, education, and economic opportunities. It is essential that we prioritize the provision of clean and hygienic toilets to everyone, regardless of their socioeconomic status, to promote a healthier and more equitable world.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never written “in conclusion” in my life, so clearly the AI has mistaken me for some sort of dork. It didn’t make any snide remarks or try to sneak in any toilet humor, which honestly should have been pretty low hanging fruit. Maybe AI realized what I don’t, which is this is a subject that is deadly serious and three (four) paragraphs isn’t a lot of room to work in the type of joke that would land with… anyone. It’s also possible it just copied and pasted the Wikipedia entry on Sanitary Toilet Facilities.
Like my last entry about water, toilet use is a human necessity, and sanitary toilet use is a necessity for any society hoping to have a thriving economy and population. Fecal borne diseases have plagued us since our origins and only very, very recently have we found ways to mitigate them, but those innovations aren’t accessible to everyone. I’m thinking about these things a lot since we just returned from Morocco, which I hope to write more about. Morocco was incredible, as advertised, but a percentage of the country still lives in conditions that most of us in the ‘West’ would consider medieval. The winding alleys of the cities medinas are basically unchanged since the 13th century, save for the fact that they have access to 5G networks. And therefore they have access to ChatGPT 4.
How do we exist in a world where we have universal access to an AI model that can finish the LSATs in the 90th percentile, while squatting over a toilet from the 13th century?
I’ll ask it. Please stand by while we formulate a response.