ChatGPT

What ChatGPT says about me is generally flattering but inaccurate and inconsistent. Ask multiple times and you get different wrong answers. I find it disturbing that it credits me for things I didn’t do. It also omits some I have done, which makes me wonder to whom ChatGPT attributes them. Here are a few mistakes I found in four successive versions:

• “Baudin is the author of several books […], including […] Lean Work Design.” Sorry, I never wrote a book called “Lean Work Design.” Instead, I wrote Introduction to Manufacturing (2022), Working with Machines (2007), Lean Logistics (2005), Lean Assembly (2002), and Manufacturing Systems Analysis (1990).
• “He has over 30 years of experience…” 42 years is the number.
• “Baudin began his career at Hewlett-Packard…” Nope. I started out at Fairchild. Years later, Hewlett-Packard was a consulting client, but I never was an employee.
• “his own consulting firm, Baudin Associates.” Wrong. I never had a firm by that name. It was MMTI, and then The Takt Times Group.
• “He has also served as a professor of Lean manufacturing at the California State University, Chico.” I have never set foot in Chico. I have taught extension courses at UC Berkeley, the University of Dayton, the Hong Kong Productivity Council, and the University of Buckingham, but not Chico State.
• “Baudin has taught courses […] at several universities, including […] MIT, and Stanford…” No, I never did.
• “He is currently a professor at Institut Mines-Télécom Business School in France.” No.
• “Baudin is a graduate of Ecole Centrale Paris.” No, it’s Mines-ParisTech, not Centrale.
• “He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.” I don’t have a Ph.D.
• “He has worked as a researcher at several institutions, including the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the French National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks.” I never worked at either of these places. I did research early in my career, at the Hahn-Meitner Institute in Berlin, Germany, Mines-ParisTech in Fontainebleau, France, and the University of Tokyo, Japan.
• “Baudin has also served as a consultant for a variety of companies, including Toyota, Ford,…” No. I never did any work for either. In the auto industry, I did some work for Honda, Renault, and GM, but neither Toyota nor Ford.

In other words, #ChatGPT is looser with facts than any journalist I have ever read.