Observations on the world and its inhabitants
The latest moral panic to grace the pages of Scientific American: AI chatbots are apparently fuelling psychotic episodes now. Obviously, when the world’s burning, the economy’s wheezing, and public trust in institutions is circling the drain, what we really need to worry about is whether someone’s chatbot told them they’re the reincarnation of Plato. Strap ...
Alan Turing’s 1950 proposal was not an attempt to define intelligence in abstract terms. Instead, it offered a pragmatic approach to recognising intelligence through conversational indistinguishability. The central question posed was whether a machine that could converse indistinguishably from a human should be considered intelligent. This reframing allowed Turing to sidestep metaphysical debates and focus ...
One minute you’re asking it for a dinner recipe, the next you’re convinced it’s whispering quantum secrets and crowning you the next Einstein. According to Microsoft’s AI chief Mustafa Suleyman, we’ve apparently entered the age of “AI psychosis,” where people believe chatbots are sentient, emotionally invested, and handing out superpowers like party favours. 🧙♂️ ⚠️ ...
Someone on a forum asked for assistance with putting in a complaint to a regulatory authority. I gave them my tips. So I put them up here as well to help anyone and for my ease of reference. This is absolutely not a ‘one size fits’ all. Read that again – slowly this time – ...
Wow!! It’s such an amazing tool – beating back ChatGPT hands down – that I had to try it out on some conundrums I faced in the past. Note that on opening this post, a video starts playing automatically at 11:11 min and stops automatically about 6 mins later. To not have the video start ...
“What!” you exclaim. 😂 I’ll explain. I read from internet sources that it’s not a good idea to keep eggs in trays on fridge doors. The warning is about the temperature of eggs fluctuating and going too high, so that they aren’t cooled enough to prolong shelf life. In fact some sources say it’s dangerous. ...
The craze surrounding the site Onemillioncheckboxes (OMCB) reflects an interesting intersection of collaborative and competitive online behaviour. The concept of one million checkboxes, initially designed to be checked off collectively, has evolved into a platform for users to express creativity, engage in community-driven projects, and even participate in virtual tug-of-war scenarios. The NHS could learn ...
I just received learned opinion from a group of high IQ doctors that using AI to summarise articles and present findings is “low effort”. This means that anybody who cannot or does use AI for such purposes, is a “high effort” person! Some people may to believe that low effort is simply laziness. However, low ...
Unless you’ve been buried under a Rock or you are Rip van Winkle himself, you will not have heard of ChatGPT. But the way it works is that the many will say, “I don’t understand it – I’m not a tech geek so I left it alone. Furthermore, the government said it could be dangerous! ...
The net has gone wild since around November 2022, when AI took off. The rate of advances is staggering in the last 6 months. As usual, when something powerful arrives that disrupts the usual run of the mill, people react in fear or freeze up. If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT by now, then your ...
Well, loads of people have been biting their nails about ChatGPT. Yuh know anything that is new and apparently intelligent is to be feared. Like “OMG!! OMG!! AI is taking over the world, let’s have a panic attack!” The sort of responses are similar to when aeroplanes were made to fly people around, the telephone ...
What is AI? Some people do not know and do not care. AI means Artificial Intelligence. That means intelligence that is manufactured by humans. Intelligence is a broad concept but basically it means the functions of finding solutions and adapting to situations. Well – of course ants do that too. So yes ants have a ...
In other posts I’ve looked into various errors of thinking. However, I have not actually looked deeply enough into what thinking is. So I’m thinking about thinking. Most people think that, “It’s what humans do.” Some also think that animals think. I’ve often wondered about that because I’ve seen cats do some interesting things, which ...
