Portuguese Guinea, aka the Overseas Province of Guinea
and the State of Guinea, achieved independence as Guinea-Bissau on September
10, 1974. It’s classical era stamps follow uniformly the pattern of Portuguese colonial
postage, beginning with overprints on Cape Verde stamps.
Overprints abound among Portuguese colonial stamps;
the asking price for some of them is quite high. A dealer once said to me, as I
was considering such a stamp, that he rarely bought an overprint for more than
the same stamp without the overprint would cost. Overprints, he continued, are
far too easily forged and difficult to detect. In recent years, photocopied
overprints have veiled the deceptions even further. Fakery is having a heyday.
That brings me to the recent dustup about artificial
intelligence (AI) and the essay-writing chatbots ChatGPT and Bard. Could they
fake an article about Portuguese Guinea stamps, for instance, that’s both more
accurate and better reading than what I write?
I tried it. Several times. I gave them all the same prompt
“Write an essay on the postage stamps of Portuguese Guinea from the year 1881
to 1940.”
All the chatbot essays began with a sweeping banality,
such as: “The stamps of Portuguese Guinea are a fascinating and varied
collection, reflecting the history and culture of the country.” Of course,
Portuguese Guinea stamps reflect none of the history and culture of the colony
for the years specified in the prompt. They’re all about what’s happening in
Portugal – royalty, regime changes, currency fluctuations, Portugal’s historic notables,
and the like. Moreover, the stamps are not particularly fascinating, unless you’re
found of overprints.
Following the opening banalities, a series of “facts”
are presented, the following two paragraphs being typical:
The first stamps of Portuguese Guinea were issued in
1855. They were simple black and white stamps with the Portuguese coat of arms
and the denomination in Portuguese. These stamps were used until 1867, when
they were replaced by a new series of stamps with more colorful designs….
…After the overthrow of
the monarchy [1910] a new series of stamps was issued with the portrait of
President Sidónio Pais. This series was used until 1918, when Pais was
assassinated. The next series of stamps, issued in 1919, featured the portrait
of President António de Oliveira Salazar. This series was used until 1974, when
Portugal granted independence to Guinea-Bissau.
Stamp collectors might beg to disagree with the
chatbots’ “facts.” Portuguese Guinea stamps began in 1881, not 1855, as anyone
with a decent catalog can easily find out. The first issues, all but one of
them, are colorful Cape Verde stamps with “Guiné” overprints, not
“simple black and white.” They don’t have a coat of arms. As for the bot-reported
1867 replacements, there couldn’t be any; Guinea didn’t become a colony until
1879.
No portraits of Pais appeared on stamps until 2018
when Portugal (not Guinea-Bissau) commemorated his valor in World War 1.
Salazar began his de facto dictatorship in 1932, not 1919, and no stamps
bore his image before 1971, a year after his death. Perhaps the chatbots confused
the image of Ceres with these two former Portuguese leaders; and likely
confused the colony with the mother country.
The chatbots concluded their essays with another round
of banalities.
So, AI has not yet established trustworthiness on
matters philatelic. The essays do, however, get high marks for grammar and
readability. But stamp collectors are notoriously meticulous. Historical accuracy
counts. Specialists regularly certify the credibility of stamps claimed to be
genuine. Currently only a small (but growing) portion of philatelic literature can
be found online, the source of AI’s “intelligence.” As a result, chatbots work
at a considerable disadvantage.
In a year or two from now I’ll try the experiment
again and will, no doubt, see improvements. Given AI’s rapid pace of
development, I probably shouldn’t wait that long. A few hours might suffice.
Census: 146 in BB spaces, 4 tip-ins, 57 on supplement
pages.
Confused about the many uses of the term Guinea? Here
are three good resources:
http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/2012/08/ClassicalStampsPortugueseGuinea.html
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/09/12/why-the-world-has-so-many-guineas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_(disambiguation)
Chatbot clip art credit:
https://technologyadvice.com/blog/marketing/chatbots-consumers-want-expect/
Excellent article, glad to see 'AI' (and its hype) taken down a peg. Recently picked up a selection of Port. Colonies which included the four stamps of Kionga. Looking for sound s.o.n issues is always a fine pursuit.
ReplyDeleteMy thanks again for this article, enjoyed it very much.
Thanks Roy. Portuguese colonies were difficult for me to complete, so I'm glad you found some you like. Koinga was especially hard. One shipment got shredded by the mail and I got only the front of the envelope. Luckily, the dealer had another Koinga set and sent them without charge. I, too, prefer s.o.n.s and the history they help to document.
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