One of the (many) problems with AI is that training data usually needs to come from "natural" sources. If you want to emulate human-written text, you need to train something on human-written text. But with the proliferation of cheap and fast AI tools, it is likely that training data will unwillingly become contaminated with AI-written text. In order to prevent the "Habsburg Jaw" effect, I…
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As we head unto an AI dominated future, the Turing test will probably become less like a Voight-Kampff test and more like a warzone Shibboleth. Yesterday, I asked the Alexa to set a timer. "What do you want to name your timer?" She It asked. "Bow," I replied. "Bow timer set," it said. Except… that isn't quite right. I wanted a timer for my bāo buns (包). That's pronounced /baʊ/ - as in to bow o…
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I was in one of those interminably dull video-conferences a few weeks ago. The presenter was pitching their grand vision of what our next steps should be. "So!" They said, "Any comments before we launch?" No one said anything. After half a minute the presenter said "As there are no objections, we'll proceed. Silence is consent." At that phrase, my whole body did an involuntary spasm which I'm …
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I was recently interviewed in the BCS Magazine discussing the intersection of AI and Open Source. We're at a weird time with AI and Intellectual Property. Well, IP has been in a weird place since Napster launched at the turn of the century! None of the issues around sharing, remixing, and controlling have been properly resolved. Copyleft is a noble goal - but seems more honour'd in the breach…
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When I was a kid, I "invented" a brilliant new compression format. Rather than sending a digital image of, say, the Mona Lisa a user could just send the ASCII characters "Mona Lisa". The receiving computer could look up the full image in its memory-banks and reproduce the work of art on screen. Genius! Of course, it relies on the receiver have a copy of every single image in existence, but…
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One of the things about AI is that it is brilliant at fooling us into seeing what we want to see. That's even more true when you're an investor who has poured millions into it. The journalist Martin Bryant has posted what Bing's A.I appears to know about him: My opinion of him is that he is a knowledgeable and influential figure in the tech and media industry. He has a lot of experience and…
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There are many improvisational games which are great for improving creativity, helping a team bond, or simply having a lot of fun. But there's one which is perfect for demonstrating how things like ChatGPT work. The "Once. Upon. A. Time." game requires two or more people with a basic grasp of English. Even a small child can play. The way it works is very simple. The first person says "Once..." …
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I hated art class at school. I could see so clearly in my head what I wanted my drawing to look like - but my hands just wouldn't obey me. Despite endless tutoring from sympathetic teachers, I left school with an unhealthy distaste for creating my own art. I simply didn't have the physical skills, knowledge of technique, or the temperament to continue. These days, I enjoy playing with…
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Hmmm... I was left a bit unconvinced by this series of essays. They feel like casually written blog posts - or hastily dashed-off Sunday Supplement articles. I was expecting a bit more rigour and investigation. The book treads over well-worn ground - most Silicon Valley companies are trying to recreate Mommy tidying their room via AI, Uber is trying to eat the world, algorithms leave us in…
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During my (brief) stint teaching senior leaders about AI, there was one question that I urged them to learn above all others. What is the acceptable failure rate? For this, I had to teach them two concepts. False Positives. For example, telling someone they have cancer when they don't. False Negatives. For example, telling someone they don't have cancer when they do. There is a cost…
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The Zeitgeist's newest toy is OpenAI's Chat Platform. So I asked it "Could you write a limerick about a man from Woking?" Sure, here's a limerick about a man from Woking: There once was a man from Woking Whose life was quite dull and uneventful He worked at the bank And liked to walk by the tank But never went out and got adventurous Note: Woking is a town in the county of Surrey, England. It…
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When I was a kid, our school had one computer per classroom. Luxury! Teachers had long-since given up on the state of my handwriting. So I got special dispensation to write up some of my work on whatever primitive word processor was installed on the PC. With one caveat: no spell check! Which, even as a ten year old, I thought was reasonable. Learning to spell is an adult life skill. So using …
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