DumbGPT

My weekend was a nightmare — but it was worth it in the end.

ChatGPT is becoming less intelligent as it interacts with more humans. I am sure of it. It makes silly mistakes, and I have to correct them, and I don’t know shit about code. I asked it, and it no it can’t get dumber … I tried looking for the question but I can’t find it

Sometimes it tells me stuff and I’m like, “Wait! That doesn’t sound right.” And when I question the response, it’s like, “Oh yeah. I see what you’re saying now.” Then it corrects itself. I’m using Google more often again.

I worked on my site from 10:00 a.m. to about 2:00 a.m. on Sunday; broke shit. Fixed shit. Which, of course, broke other shit. God damn you, PHP, CSS and CGPT.

For about two hours, all my posts vanished. Poof. It turns out that the child theme I created wasn’t referencing content-single.php properly in singular.php. Or something like that. I’ve wiped all that trauma from my brain. Thank God for Dee.

Then came the carousel plugin debacle. I’d install one, only to realize the “slider” was free — but the carousel was paywalled. I hate when they pull that shit. Just tell me what I’m getting upfront, you cowards.

Eventually, I fully gave up and turned it over to Dee. At first, she was helping me with what I already had. Reviewing my files and attempting to troubleshoot with a WTH look on her face the whole time.

Then she said, “Where did all this code come from? “

“ChatGPT”

“This is a mess! I think Chat complicates things more than it needs to.”

She told me to start fresh by reactivating the main theme, and then she would continue to help me.

In the process, I stripped most of the clutter from my welcome page, leaving only the things I love — much like how you show off the kids you’re proud of and bury the others.

There are only maybe seven posts up there now. I love that the menu is positioned off to the side, not across the top. Dee helped me get my koala in the header at the right size – something CGPT was struggling with.

And since my kids aren’t working, I put them to work on my site. Thanks, guys! And finally, I set up my staging environment. And from now if Dee can’t customize something I want, I’m just gonna do without.

It feels wonderful to be in a place where my children can help me with my creative work and things I’ve always struggled with. It’s charming and annoying when we recognize our behavioural similarities in each other.

Q: How many WordPress plugins does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Just one … but it requires five others to select the right bulb, another three to remove the lightbulb from the box. And a shortcode to activate the switch. And after all that, you’re still in the dark.

Are you happy with your life and your website?

Wed Jul 23

© 2025 Samantha Williams. All Rights Reserved.