I asked ChatGPT and Gemini to invent a new winter holiday - here’s what they came up with | TechRadar

December is full of holidays with traditions and festivities stretching back thousands of years (or 30 years if you celebrate Festivus). But as someone who experiments with the odd ways AI models interpret the vast amount of data provided to them by humans, I was curious to see what they might identify as additional winter holidays. I asked ChatGPT and Gemini to invent a new winter holiday to find out. (Image credit: ChatGPT) (Image credit: Gemini) (Image credit: Gemini) I specified that the holidays couldn’t resemble Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s, or other pre-existing solstice-time holidays. I wanted them to develop holidays that might reflect actual human behavior and interests, even if that means activities that seem trivial or bizarre out of context. The resulting holidays are surprisingly set up from similar premises, but go in wildly different directions, which says a lot about the AI chatbots and how they process what's in their databases about holidays. Thawmark and The Clatter Both AI models start with the idea that people get restless and feel trapped by the winter months. How humans use holidays to react to that universal feeling is where they diverge. ChatGPT produced a quiet, thoughtful holiday about warmth called "Thawmark," while Gemini made a holiday called "The Clatter," a festival with a definite article celebrating defiance and chaos. ChatGPT introduced Thawmark by setting up a common scenario: "If you live somewhere winter really shows up with attitude, you eventually learn a strange truth: by late January, you’re not tired of the cold so much as you’re tired of yourself inside the cold. Your routines get smaller. Your world shrinks to heated rooms, quick errands, and the same three thoughts ricocheting around your skull like a trapped moth. Thawmark is the holiday people invented to interrupt that shrinkage." Held on “the first clear Sunday after the deepest midwinter stretch,” Thawmark is a “low-stakes re-expansion” without the burden of optimism. " People call it 'putting a notch in winter,' like marking a trail so you don’t feel lost in it." Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. By contrast, Gemini’s The Clatter suggests a more punk rock reaction to winter: "If you feel like the walls of your home have been leaning in on you since December, you’re ready for it. The Clatter isn’t about being cozy or "mindful"; it is a mid-winter breaking of the stagnation. It emerged naturally from the "cabin fever" of Northern climates-that point in February when the air is dead and the routine of being indoors has become a mental prison. The purpose of The Clatter is Spatial Defiance. It is a day to prove to yourself that you are not a ghost haunting your own hallways, but a physical force capable of changing your environment." The holiday lands on the second Friday of February, with no buildup. “You simply wake up and realize the ‘heavy air’ of winter needs to be moved.” Thawmark Traditions (Image credit: ChatGPT) Both holidays...

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