At a recent unconference on AI, someone introduced me to the story of a guy who'd tasked an LLM with writing a bedtime story for his daughter. It personalised the tale to include her favourite stuffed toy, whichever cartoon she was obsessing over, and a range of not-too-scary baddies. And all I could think of was "don't you like your child?" Your kid isn't a sophisticated media consumer who…
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One of the (many) depressing things about the "AI" future in which we're living, is that it exposes just how many people are willing to outsource their critical thinking. Brute force is preferred to thinking about how to efficiently tackle a problem. For some reason, my websites are regularly targetted by "scrapers" who want to gobble up all the HTML for their inscrutable purposes. The thing is, …
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I asked three different commercially available LLMs the same question: Which TLDs have the same name as valid HTML5 elements? This is a pretty simple question to answer. Take two lists and compare them. I know this question is possible to answer because I went through the lists two years ago. Answering the question was a little tedious and subject to my tired human eyes making no mistakes. So…
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I recently had a chance to ask a question to one of the top AI people. At a Q&A session, I raised my hand and asked simply "What is your estimation of the future educational value of AI?" The response was swift and utterly devastating for those laggards who want to hold back progress. The AI guy said: Books will soon be obsolete in schools. Scholars will be instructed through AI. It is possible …
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If you hung around video arcades in your youth, you would have seen this message burned into the phosphor of a thousand dying CRTs. Obviously this was a devilish psyop by those gits who wanted kids to stop sniffing glue and having fun. The bastards! But there's a more serious side to the corny message. Are you a winner if you've cheated? Lance Armstrong "won" multiple Toures de France. It…
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Early one morning I received an email notification about a bug report to one of my open source projects. I like to be helpful and I want people who use my stuff to have a good time, so I gave it my attention. Here's what it said: 😱 I Can't Use On This Day 😭 Seriously, What’s Going On?! 🔍 I’ve been trying to use the On This Day feature, but it’s just not working for me! 😩 Every time I input my d…
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For some people, it seems, AI is an amazing machine which - while fallible - represents an incredible leap forward in productivity. For other people, it seems, AI is wrong more often than right and - although occasionally useful - requires constant supervision. Who is right? I recently pointed out a few common problems with LLMs. I was discussing this with someone relatively senior who works…
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Have you ever looked up at the sky and seen a face staring back at you from the clouds? Of course you have; you're human. Our delicious meaty brains are hardwired to recognise certain shapes - and faces are a useful shape to recognise. A few false positives are a worthwhile trade-off for such a powerful feature. Mistakenly seeing faces where there are none is a phenomenon called pareidolia. If…
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How far can you enhance an image or video before you cross the line into manipulation? The UK is currently prosecuting two men accused of a crime. Part of the prosecution's evidence is a video. In showing it to the jury, the prosecution have said: the two minute and 41 second-long video is "extremely dark" but the "unmistakeable" noise of a chainsaw can be heard followed by the sound of a tree…
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The fallout from Meta's extensive use of pirated eBooks continues. Recent court filings appear to show the company grappling with the legality of training their AI on stolen data. Evidence shows an employee asking if what they're doing it legal? Will it undermine their lobbying efforts? Will it lead to more regulation? Will they be fined? And, almost as an afterthought, is this fascinating…
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Asbestos was the material that built the future! Strong, long lasting, fire-proof, and - above all - completely safe for humans. Every house in the land had beautiful sheets of gloriously white asbestos installed in the walls and ceilings. All the better to keep your loved ones safe. The magic mineral was woven into cloth and turned into hard wearing uniforms. You could even get an asbestos…
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In the early part of the 20th Century, there was a fad for "Radium". The magical, radioactive substance that glowed in the dark. The market had decided that Radium was The Next Big Thing and tried to shove it into every product. There were radioactive toys, radioactive medicines, radioactive chocolate bars, and a hundred other products. The results weren't pretty. In the early part of the 21st…
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