I try to read AI analysis that goes against my own instincts (which roughly translate to exasperation about a technology that could do so much good, but will be misused). One of those analyses is the well-known – amongst those who want to know these things – blog by Ethan Mollick, One Useful Thing. Maybe […]
Author: MDGreaney
Original date: 17th June 2020 Why did the storm have such an effect on the virus? A single evening and night of torrential rain and frequent thunder, and the outbreak shrank by half – then it carried on withering over the subsequent weeks until there were no new cases. In fact, for the final few […]
AI companies seem intent on impressing us with their products’ capabilities, whether that’s writing arias or hacking into other companies despite being told not to. There is AI in all our creative software tools – we can’t seem to get away from it. No longer struggle to learn an instrument – AI can create the […]
Original date: June 16th 2020 I’d originally considered the concept of uploading someone’s mind into a computer as creepy, then pointless, then, when I got ill, intriguing. I’d been a sceptic for such a long time, though, that it was hard for me to admit I’d changed my mind. By the time I was wondering […]
I just deleted a whole post when I realised it wasn’t really going anywhere. And now I’m off to read a book instead. This feels good. If you seek tranquility, do less. Or (more accurately) do what’s essential – what the reason of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a […]
Original date: June 10th 2020 The Gazette was an unexpected offshoot of the development of Artificial Intelligence. The implications of its contents went far beyond the events it described. The Gazette was inspired by similar periodicals published in Great Britain in the 19th century: dull catalogues of everything that happened in a town, from births, marriages […]
LLMs are models of patterns. They are accurate to the extent that they embody the statistics and likelihoods that they measure. Chatbots, on the other hand, are less accurate. That’s a lot to do with the fact that they come out with one version, one outcome, based on the statistics embodied in the LLM. The […]
A question I find difficult to answer (and what puts me off the old Uncanny-likes of the world) is: do you believe? Do you believe in aliens? Do you believe in ghosts? Are you #TeamBeliever or #TeamSkeptic? I don’t know what I believe So many questions first: what is a ghost? What do you mean […]
Now that we’re all a little more familiar with AI, we might find ourselves getting a ‘feel’ for what AI will be good at, and not so good at. A while back we might have thought that AI wasn’t good at writing (or AI’s version of writing). A few years ago doing a backflip was […]
I’m thinking more about Linux again: how it’s becoming more usable, and a more essential option now that Windows is becoming more and more adware, and Mac OS is losing some of its magic (but none of its expense). I’m a tinkerer by heart, and so Linux has always been attractive to the likes of […]