#trending: ‘Too lazy’ Hong Kong man upsets wife by asking ChatGPT to name baby

HONG KONG — The trend of users turning to artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT to do their work for them is doing its bit to potentially upset relationships.

One woman in Hong Kong took to popular internet forum Hong Kong Discuss Forum, commonly known as Discuss, to express her frustration after she tasked her husband to come up with potential baby names and he returned with a list taken directly from ChatGPT.

The success of ChatGPT, released late last year, has given rise to an unprecedented global uptake of AI tools to generate content for many different purposes over the past few months.

Whether it is related to work, school or personal life, the application of these tools ranges from education training to wedding vow writing and, now, even baby naming.

In a post on March 24, Discuss user "snowwomen" published the full Chinese conversation her husband had had with the chatbot.

Getting straight to the point, her husband had asked: "Can you help me choose a Chinese name for my soon-to-be-born baby?

"(He's a) boy. I hope he can (grow up to) be intelligent, handsome, tall (and) fortunate."

ChatGPT then responded with a list of seven "auspicious" names, in line with Chinese cultural naming conventions, complete with their individual meanings.

The name "Zhiyu", for instance, literally translates to "a universe of wisdom" and refers to one who has intelligence and infinite potential.

Another suggestion, "Yongjian", combines the Chinese words "yong gan" (bravery) and "jian kang" (strength or vitality) to signify one who is brave, strong and powerful.

When further prompted, the bot provided yet another list of 10 names, including "Ruichang", meaning good fortune and a bright future, and "Yiren", which implies harmony, happiness, and one who is well-liked by many.

In both responses, ChatGPT added a caveat: "Please note that (the) selection (of your baby's) name should be a personal choice. Therefore, please select (a name) according to your preferences and your baby's personality."

Satisfied with the suggestions as "most (of them) sounded pretty good", the man then presented his wife with the names and asked her to pick one.

He ended up facing her ire instead.

She complained: "It's obvious that (he) is just too lazy to think (about it)! I don't even know if it's AI who's the father of the baby or him who's the father!"

Though she acknowledged that ChatGPT had indeed succeeded in suggesting many names with "literary and logical meaning", which also sounded like conventional Chinese names, she could not seem to bring herself to pick one, she said.

On the other hand, her husband was "completely indifferent" to the idea of their future baby's name being AI-generated, which only annoyed her more.

"Wanting to ask AI (for) such important matters is really crass," she added.

The forum thread has since received 75,500 views and 50 replies, with mixed responses from people.

Some Discuss users called ChatGPT's name suggestions "old-fashioned", while others joked that some of them sounded like company names.

As an experiment, one user even pasted the husband’s original question into a chat with a separate unnamed AI bot. Like ChatGPT, the bot emphasised the importance of personal preference and offered several suggestions — but provided its user with much more entertainment.

Among other unfortunate names, the unnamed bot suggested "Congming", which literally translates to "intelligent", and the single character "Gao", which means "tall".

However, others felt that ChatGPT's suggestions still provided "value as a reference" for baby names.

Many also said that there is nothing wrong with using AI and that her husband was simply "keeping with the times".

One AI supporter wrote: "I feel that (the names) are pretty good and worth some consideration."

Pointing out the similarity of the AI-generated names to conventional Chinese names, another wrote: "(The name) 'Haoran'... I know five of them."

Several people also noted that using a free chatbot is better than paying "tens of thousands" for a fortune teller’s or spirit medium’s services — some Chinese turn to such practices — only to get names made up of complicated characters that "have never been seen before (and) cannot be pronounced", they said.