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 sure was caught on camera. I know what they meant and, it some contexts, it's an understandable…
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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 than the observance. So we now have shady AI companies copying our code, our art, and our words -…
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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 that's just details... It strikes me that AI might now get us part way to that being a reality. …
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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 expertise in his field, and he shares his insights and opinions with his audience. He seems to be…
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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..." The second person says "Once upon..." The next person says "Once upon a..." The next person says…
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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 algorithmic art where I am more comfortable controlling the input and output. A few weeks ago, I went to a…
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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 filter bubbles. It's interesting, but hardly new insights. The essays have a heavy focus on love. And…
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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 associated with both of these errors. In the first case, it is the monetary cost of unnecessary treatment …
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![I have to apologise for some delay in answering your obliging favor, in which you did me the honour of suggesting to me the manufacture of a [mechanical] Lawyer's Clerk. After much consideration, I regret that I have found it impossible to produce an article which should be satisfactory to myself, and to the profession. I have, however, been completely successful in the production of a New Patent Mechanical Novel Writer—adapted to all styles, and all subjects; pointed, pathetic, historic, silver-fork, and Minerva. I do not hesitate to lay before you a few of the flattering testimonials to its efficacy, which I have already received from those most competent to judge.](https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/punch-fs8.png)
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 is located approximately 30 miles southwest of London. The town is known for its tank…
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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 a spell-checker was cheating. Once I got to secondary school, it was assumed that I knew how to…
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Listen to this blog post in your browser: Download MP3 audio. Powered by Amazon Polly. I've noticed an interesting trend on some of the blogs I follow. More of them - though by no means the majority - are including audio versions of the content. The usually look something like this: or The ones which have this are mostly using commercial Text-To-Speech (TTS) engines. Although a few of the (perhaps wealthier?) bloggers have hired people to record audio versions of their…
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I speak English. My Amazon account is set to English. My Alexa listens to my English commands and replies in English. Except for new book notifications. I saw a pulsing yellow light on the dot. I've memorised all of the various signs and portents the accurs'd device can summon up, so I asked it (in English) what notifications it had for me. It replied, naturally, in German. I couldn't grab an audio recording in time, and I've no idea which command invokes a repetition. But the Alexa app…
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