It used to be just Google it. You want an answer to something? Type it into a search engine, most probably Google. Easy.
These days people are turning to AI for answers rather than search engines. You want to know how to do something? Ask ChatGPT. Need a complex calculation done? Just ask the nearest AI. Simple.
ChatGPT Vs Google.
Of course Google now features AI. So not only is that heavily SEO’d internet content competing for your attention with sponsored links, it has AI to contend with too. Type your query into Google and the first response to any question is usually AI.
Category: technology
Virtual wandering
There are so many video games with open worlds. I find myself on occasion going for a virtual wander. No aim in mind. No side mission. No challenge, or Easter eggs to hunt. Just aimless virtual wandering. Driving my car, riding my bike or horse, sailing a boat, or on virtual foot. Just exploring the virtual world with no destination in mind. A kind of digital mindfulness. Bathing in the Unreal forests, swimming with the AI fish. Relaxed, calm, aimless.
Just virtual wandering.
The joy of writing manuals
I’ve had to be a technical author on several occasions. I don’t mind it. In fact I kind of like some aspects of it. Like reading all the technical data on the subject at hand, then distilling it down into an easy-to-follow step-by-step format. I sometimes play around with the text, if I have time. Tweak this bit or that. Make a sentence or paragraph read better, to be more clear, or to say the same thing with less words. Concise.
It’s usually under-appreciated though. Your target audience just wants the bare facts. The how to information as fast as possible. They don’t care about how you do it, only that you have, and that anyone can follow it.
Sigh.
The joy of writing manuals.
Drop a pin
Drop me a pin.
A what?
A young’un asked me to drop them a pin. To let them know where I am. I should know how to do that, but I don’t.
Maybe you have to go to maps and get your current location and then share it? Seems arduous. Must be a faster way. I could ask how but then I’d have to admit to the circle of life coming true. Like me showing my dad how to program the VCR. Geez, VCRs, how old am I?
Old enough to not know how to drop a pin apparently.
Free WiFi
I’m at the beach staring out to sea. The sun is high, the tide is out, and I’m relaxed.
I glance around and spot a sign on a nearby pole. Free WiFi.
The local council is providing free WiFi for anyone that wants it.
How safe is public WiFi? I’m guessing not very. I Don’t connect. I’m fine with my data plan. I don’t need to save the bytes.
If I did I’d probably use a VPN. And then I couldn’t do any financial transactions over it. Too paranoid.
How secure is free WiFi?
I don’t plan on finding out. Instead I look back out to sea watching the boats on the horizon. I wonder if they have WiFi?
Zero results found
Back in the early days of the internet there was a game we played with Google, where we would try to search for something that would return no results. We would do this on purpose. As more and more data made its way onto the internet it became harder and harder to find something that returned zero results, or even just a single result.
These days it’s practically impossible. Google will always return something, even if it’s just a page of sponsored links. And now there’s AI adding content to the results of your search.
So much data. Zero results.
Downdetector
I received a call from my sister. Her internet isn’t working. Do I know what the problem is?
My mother sends me a message. Her friend can’t make or receive calls or texts on her mobile. Any ideas?
A friend shoots me a quick text. He can’t watch his favourite show as the streaming service it airs on isn’t working. Can I look into it?
Downdetector.
That’s all I use on such occasions. I Don’t even have to fire up Google as it’s bookmarked. I used it so often.
Yep I reply. The service is down.
I come off sounding like an expert. Within seconds the world makes sense again. The problem isn’t resolved, but just having the validation that it isn’t something they’ve done is enough.
Thanks. I knew you’d know they reply.
Good old downdetector.
Card declined
Card declined.
I’m at the drive-thru window trying to tap my card but it’s declined. Not authorised. Payment method not accepted.
I try another. Declined.
I’m out of cards. I’m sorry but I only have the two. I’m not one of those people with a bulging wallet of plastic, unloyal to any one high street bank. I scrambled around my vehicle hunting for spare change. I have just enough for the over-priced beverage.
“Don’t worry” she says. “It’s been happening all morning”.
Interesting. So chances are it isn’t the fault of either of my banks, but a problem with the common payment system between them and the coffee franchise, or the franchise’s own IT system.
I find it amusing that places like this particular coffee franchise prefer cash, yet cash is still king. It doesn’t need patching or rebooting. It’s accepted almost everywhere. Especially when the IT system plays up.
Daisy-chaining AI
I heard about this guy who was daisy-chaining AI. He was using one AI to refine prompts for another, then feeding the results into another AI for analysis and further refinement until he had a prompt that perfectly gave him the results he wanted.
I started digging around YouTube and found other instances of this practice. Someone was using ChatGPT to refine prompts for image and video generating AIs, then feeding the output into a prompt analysis tool for further refinement before feeding back into the image and video generators. It was a cyclic process that they kept at until they had something that looked very real.
The prompts were really long and descriptive. Naming the equipment, context, and styles in great detail. Whereas the prompts I’ve used to date contain less than thirty words, some of these prompts would fill the first chapter of most books. For a human to create these prompts would take a long time, but using AI it was taking minutes.
I hadn’t thought of using AI with AI.
AI allows you to release your inner diva
You can’t sing. You can’t play any musical instrument. Yet you know there’s a great song inside you just waiting to get out.
Cue AI. Giving you the ability to make great music even if you can’t sing or play an instrument. Just tell it what you want to create then refine refine refine until it matches what’s in your head.
AI: the new lip sync and air guitar hero x10.
Release your inner diva.