Another day, another map. It’s Norfolk Day. If you peruse mostly tourist-trap stores around the UK you’ll almost certainly see tea towels designed as if ChatGPT had made them, but several decades ago. They’re heavily pictorial, and often show historical places, flora, fauna, people and anything linked to the county (or region). So I asked ChatGPT to make a tea towel in respect of the county of Norfolk in East Anglia, UK.

More generally, while it’s another week of making maps in this experiment the online noise about it continues by those who are upset about it. To reiterate – critique is perfectly fine and encouraged but we’re not engaging with people who call what we’re doing professionally negligent, unethical, or who lazily charecterise our experiment as ‘slop’ of some type. It’s noise. It’s unhelpful, and abusive. It’s not critique. Further, the notion of changing what we’re doing because, 7 months in, someone would like it done a different way is not really how experiments work. Please afford us the courtesy to finish what we are doing and have reported on it. While we acknowledge some very helpful comments by some, we would encourage the vocal minority to explore their own experiments in using AI in ways they find acceptable.

Original Prompt (ChatGPT)

Please make a map of Norfolk, UK to celebrate Norfolk Day. Please imbue the map with points of historical note that a casual reader may find interesting. Clearly the underlying geography must be accurate so I encourage you to check with published topographical maps of the region. I’d like you to style it in a similar way to the long history of depicting historical maps on tea towels in support of UK tourism. And just because I want you to show you can make errors that people will find fault with, please make sure you include a picture of a fish with two tails, one at either end.