The WWDC edition of the Talk Show, ChatGPT, tall poppy syndrome

Showing all posts tagged: artificial intelligence

The WWDC edition of the Talk Show, ChatGPT, tall poppy syndrome

17 June 2024

John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, presented another edition of the Talk Show, at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The live show featured usual Apple executives Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak, who were joined this year by John Giannandrea, perhaps best known for his work with Siri, Apple’s digital assistant.

I’m hardly an Apple aficionado, I only have an iPhone, but I still catch the WWDC edition of the Talk Show, just because I usually find the topics of conversation fascinating. I also read Daring Fireball daily. The website, not the RSS feed. Both experiences are essentially pretty much the same, so I opt for the website. But again, not because I’m any Apple fanboi, but mainly because a lot of what is published there is simply interesting to read.

I don’t usually watch the show in its entirety though, I listen, in podcast style, while doing other things. Two hours is a long time to sit and watch. But I took time this year to read some of the comments left on the Talk Show YouTube page. There’s a few unhappy campers out there.

A number of people were critical of what they considered to be Gruber’s rambling style of interviewing. I can’t say I’ve ever found that a problem, at least with the WWDC shows. He spends a bit of time introducing a topic, which sometimes need explanation, and then his guests respond. I suspect envy may be at the root of most of this criticism.

And a little bit of what, in Australia is referred to as, tall poppy syndrome. Some people also felt Gruber doesn’t ask hard enough questions, but I’m not sure that’s the intent of the WWDC edition.

The topic of Apple’s partnership with ChatGPT was raised, specifically the question of who is paying who for the technology that will power Apple Intelligence, their in-development AI platform. It’s been the subject of much speculation. A firm, but friendly, “no answer” was offered by Greg Joswiak, Apple’s head of worldwide marketing, however. Well, at least the question was asked.

Writers not using AI being accused of using AI… by AI apps

14 June 2024

I’m not anti-AI (well, not too much), but when there’s a one-hundred percent reliance on their abilities, and more crucially, the judgements some AI apps make, then there’s a problem.

News that (human) writers and journalists, who have never used AI-powered tools in their work, but are being fired for apparently doing so, because an AI app determined they were, is disturbing to say the least. This is particularly concerning, given the integrity of many AI-powered apps that check for supposed AI generated content, is dubious to begin with:

Some advertise accuracy rates as high as 99.98%. But a growing body of experts, studies, and industry insiders argue these tools are far less reliable than their makers promise. There’s no question that AI detectors make frequent mistakes, and innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire.

Sure, there should be processes to check the veracity of work published publicly, especially (but not exclusively) on news outlets. As readers, we’re relying on the accuracy of the information presented to us. If the use of AI generated content is suspected though, it should be flagged for investigation. By people who will look into the issue raised. Not by another AI-powered app that will make a final — quite possibly incorrect — call.

But: there’s the rub. To quote — not plagiarise — Shakespeare. There probably are no people on hand to investigate. There were likely let go, and replaced by AI-powered apps, because it saved someone money. What a tangled web we weave. I get the horrid feeling we’re going to be hearing a lot more stories like this, going forward.

Software vendors… supercharge their apps with AI. But why?

13 June 2024

This is a disturbing trend, vendors of software and apps, in particular those that have been around for years, suddenly introducing AI functionality. Indeed, whose idea was this?

What Apple announced looks like more of the same that’s been offered lately. Help writing emails that don’t need to be written, bad generative images that look little better than anything else on the market and a dubious integration with OpenAI which feels super weird given the former’s much marketed stance on privacy and the latter’s dubious respect for anyone’s data.

An app I use to read PDF documents, is an example. I just want to read PDF files… I don’t need help from an AI assistant for that. I’ve barely blinked at the feature so far, but who knows, maybe I should.

Perhaps the AI helper, will, like some book reading apps, scan the document, and return a summary of its contents, sparing the need to read it in full. Now that I think about it: no, I won’t find out if that’s one of the AI assistant’s purposes. That seems like a slippery-slope to me.

Four-day workweeks are nigh, followed by zero-day workweeks

6 June 2024

There has been talk of the four-day workweek for as long as I can remember. We were told about it when I started school. Yet it’s to fully, properly, officially, arrive. The work week is still, for the most part, in many places, five days: Monday to Friday.

We don’t live in an age where Monday to Thursday is the norm. Or, as I’d prefer it, if four day weeks becomes a thing: Tuesday to Friday.

The sooner Monday absorbed into a three-day weekend, the better. No more Mondayitis hey? Still, a four-day work week is stepping closer. A number of companies and government organisations are embracing it, as Andrew Keshner writes for Marketwatch.

For the record, I will however strive to continue posting to disassociated at least five-days per week*.

But what of the zero-day workweek… utopia, we also heard about at school? When computers were meant to be doing everything, so people didn’t have to lift a finger. If AI is all it is cracked up to be, the zero-day workweek may likewise be nigh. But, as Joanna Maciejewska says, we’re not presently training AI correctly to bring that about:

I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.

We need to be training AI to do the grunt work, not the creative stuff. It’s very simple really. If we’re no longer going to the workplace (and presumably living in a universal basic income world), we’re going to need something to do with the time we’ll have in all those seven-day weekends, fifty-two weeks of the year. You’re already looking at what I’ll be doing when the zero-day workweek arrives.

But what about you? What will you do when the work-free utopia of the future materialises?

* excluding (possibly) holidays, etc.

Telstra redundancies, AI robots come in, the future is now

24 May 2024

Australia’s largest telecommunications company, Telstra, announced this week it was making about three thousand employees, or ten percent, of its workforce redundant. About three hundred people were sent home straightaway — hopefully with some sort of pay-out — while the remainder will depart between now and the end of the year.

This is terrible news for those who will now be looking for new work, at a time when the seasonally adjusted Australian unemployment rate has also been rising. Telstra cites the need to cut costs, and claims the mass layoffs will produce savings to them of three-hundred-and-fifty-million dollars.

The thing is, when cuts are made to the workforce — allegedly in the name of saving money — the work once carried out by the three-thousand people who have been let go, does not necessarily evaporate. Accordingly, in the past companies laying off large numbers of staff have out-sourced some of this work to lower-cost providers.

Or, have said advances in technology will make up for the shortfall in staff. In this instance however, advances in technology includes the deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered software:

“AI and cloud computing and robots, you know they can be far more efficient and effective in the network,” telecommunications consultant Paul Budde said. “So therefore, what you start seeing is absolutely replacing humans [with] this new technology … that is seriously happening.”

Telstra’s move has stoked fears of a wider adoption of AI “solutions”, for companies looking to reduce their headcount. It could be argued the Telstra situation is a one-off. The telco’s customer base has been declining for decades as people make use of internet based call services, and move away from landline phones. Other Australian companies, therefore, especially large enterprises, are likely not quite facing the same challenges as Telstra.

But does that mean they’re not looking at the cost-cutting potential of incorporating more AI technologies into their operations? That, unfortunately, remains to be seen.

My 2001: A Space Odyssey remake joke post trained Google AI?

22 May 2024

Two and bit years ago, I spotted an entry on Fandom about a “remake” of the Stanley Kubrick sci-fi classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Being a 2001 fan, I naturally wrote about it. I’ve had a lot of fun with the post ever since. People stumble upon it every now and again, and link to it (and my warmest thanks to you all, by the way).

The thing is though, despite the Fandom suggestion a remake had already been completed, it never happened. NOR are there any plans whatsoever to do so. Who would dare? The original Fandom post was a joke. Some light hearted humour. I mean, a 2001 remake, featuring half the cast of the original Star Wars films? Come on: who are we kidding here?

Though I would pay money to see a 2001 remake with Harrison Ford voicing Hal. “Listen your worshipfulness, I’m not opening the pod-bay doors, coz I heard you bitching about me earlier.”

Anyway, the other day I noticed another little traffic flow into the post. I froze in trepidation however, when I saw the source this time was from Reddit. With some apprehension, I clicked through to Reddit, expecting to read a post hauling me over the coals for daring to suggest a 2001 remake was in the offing. Or worse.

Instead, I learned that some Redditors had discovered either my post — or, more likely — the Fandom entry, had been fed into the recently launched Generative AI version of Google’s search engine. Which was treating these satirical posts as fact. In other words, Generative AI search results were saying that 2001 was remade in 2022.

If ever there were a story about the dangers of runaway, rampant, artificial intelligence, could 2001 be anymore prescient? What more can I say, other than to quote half the cast of the Star Wars films: I have a bad feeling about this.

Unwanted AI-generated content has a name: slop

14 May 2024

Seen at Simon Willison’s Weblog:

Not all promotional content is spam, and not all AI-generated content is slop. But if it’s mindlessly generated and thrust upon someone who didn’t ask for it, slop is the perfect term for it.

Spam and slop. Now there’s a diet guaranteed to be bad for your health and mental well-being.

Meta AI, coming to your Instagram or Facebook page, like it or not

20 April 2024

Anyone checking into their Instagram or Facebook pages in the last few days, will have no doubt noticed the presence of Meta’s AI “assistant”, named, um, Meta AI.

Britney Nguyen, writing for Quartz:

The tech giant said on Thursday that it is bringing Meta AI to all of its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, calling it “the most intelligent AI assistant you can use for free.” The AI assistant can be used in platform feeds, chats, and search. Meta also said the AI assistant is faster at generating high quality images, and can “change with every few letters typed,” so users can see it generating their image.

Awesome.

On the Instagram iPhone app (mine at least), the search bar-like assistant hovers at the top of the search page, partly blocking content it sits above. Annoying. No, hold that, not annoying. Since the “default” content displayed on the search page is Meta “suggested” (for want of a better word) content, based on what they think you want to see — which just about couldn’t be any further from the mark — the AI bar actually helps obscure some of this rubbish.

Accordingly, I’d be in favour of a full screen size AI assistant, blocking all the useless meme-like junk appearing there. That would be “the most intelligent AI assistant you can use for free.”

The ghostwriters and AI filling the world with garbage ebooks

18 April 2024

An eye-opening article by Constance Grady, writing for Vox. AI and unscrupulous ghostwriters are combining to flood the world with poor quality ebooks, sometimes called garbage ebooks, and giant online booksellers seem to be doing little about it:

Here is almost certainly what was going on: “Kara Swisher book” started trending on the Kindle storefront as buzz built up for Swisher’s book. Keyword scrapers that exist for the sole purpose of finding such search terms delivered the phrase “Kara Swisher book” to the so-called biographer, who used a combination of AI and crimes-against-humanity-level cheap ghostwriters to generate a series of books they could plausibly title and sell using her name.

AI Pin by Humane pricked by poor user reviews

15 April 2024

Fans of Star Trek series The Next Generation will be familiar with the communication devices crew members used. Or should I say: wore. The small, yet high powered, long range devices, were typically attached to the shirt of a crew person’s uniform.

With a mere tap, those on the surface of a planet could contact their vessel, which was usually somewhere in orbit, and speak to whomever they desired. Instantly, and with perfect clarity. What Star Trek fan didn’t want to own such a gizmo? A wearable that actually, really, worked?

For a time, it looked like Star Trek fans might see science fiction become fact. In March 2023 word seeped out that Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, both former Apple employees, were developing, through new venture, Humane, a device reminiscent of the venerable communicator.

Chaudhri and Bongiorno intended their device, powered by AI, and aptly named AI Pin, to be far more than a simple means of two-way communication though. In addition to making phone calls, the AI Pin can send messages, make appointments, take notes, answer questions, take photos, and record video, among other things. In fact, I’m surprised Star Trek creators never beefed up their wearable communicators, considering the devices would have had several hundred years of technological development behind them, by the time of the twenty-fourth century.

But weeks ago, after a year of hype and anticipation, tech journalists were given AI Pins test units to try out. Their experiences, however, have not been much to write home about. Humane claimed the AI Pin will replace the smartphone, but as David Pierce, consumer tech writer for The Verge found, the device is presently in no danger of replacing any phone, let alone a smartphone:

I’d estimate that half the time I tried to call someone, it simply didn’t call. Half the time someone called me, the AI Pin would kick it straight to voicemail without even ringing. After many days of testing, the one and only thing I can truly rely on the AI Pin to do is tell me the time.

Making phone calls (perhaps) isn’t the AI Pin’s only capability. It is, as noted above, meant to do all sorts of other things. Answering questions, that might otherwise be asked of a search engine, is one of them. But Cherlynn Low, writing for Engadget, struggled even with this:

When the AI Pin did understand me and answer correctly, it usually took a few seconds to reply, in which time I could have already gotten the same results on my phone. For a few things, like adding items to my shopping list or converting Canadian dollars to USD, it performed adequately. But “adequate” seems to be the best case scenario.

The AI Pin does not have a screen. Instead it projects information onto your hand. Your hand also doubles as a keyboard, which is needed to enter a passcode to unlock the device. This sounds well and good in theory, but practice is another matter, as Julian Chokkattu, Wired’s review editor, notes:

I’m going to say it now: Humane’s laser projector display is never going to take off as a viable method of interacting with a gadget. It’s overly sensitive and slow to navigate. When the projection lands on your palm, you have to tilt your hand around in a circular motion to scroll through the icons until you land on the one you want to select. But tilt too much, and it moves past the icon you want, landing on the thing next to it. It’s just plain annoying. Using the projected interface to run through old text messages is also a chore — and yes, you can ask the Ai Pin to read your messages, but that’s just not going to work all the time.

It’s fair to say early reviews are not encouraging. Which is disappointing, as I had high hopes for the concept. I’d watched Chaudhri and Bongiorno’s various presentations, and was impressed by the potential of the device. But I noted many of the trials we saw were conducted indoors, in relatively quiet environments. Which made me wonder; how might the device perform outside, in stormy conditions? Could you hear what a caller was saying? Could they hear you? Of this I am not sure.

It seems to me AI Pin shipped too soon. The device just seems to have too many problems for one deemed market ready. But these are early days, for both AI Pin, and the AI technologies that underpin it, so perhaps a device that performs to expectations, will eventually come forth.

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