"Daddy!"
The cry was plaintive, and clearly directed my way. Ugh! I was relaxing in a comfortably furnished waiting room, enjoying some cinnamon coffee cake, and I was prepared to completely ignore the unnecessary outburst.
"Daddy!"
It happened again. It wasn't a real voice, and it wasn't really saying "Daddy!", but that is how I heard it. I knew who was crying. It was my stupid car, wailing at me via text messages during its first warranty check-up at the dealership. What a wimp!
"Daddy!"
Incredibly, I began to feel guilty about ignoring my car. I put down my pastry and capitulated. I opened the iPhone's Messages app and listened to my car's whining.
"Daddy! All my doors are open!"
"Daddy! Someone lifted my hood!"
"Daddy! my tires are being rotated."
In truth, the messages were a tad more succinct and mildly informative, but I am not used to being talked to by a motor vehicle. I like my cars quiet.
Is this the new artificial intelligence that I keep hearing about? I must be getting old.
Of course, when I was younger, I was thrilled when I heard my first talking calculator back in 1977. It could say numbers, arithmetic operators and the word "Error." It wasn't very conversant, but it could add and subtract. That was great!
Soon enough, the age of microcomputing snuck up on us. Both PCs and Macs began to speak. So did my book readers. These days, my Home Pod talks, as does my iPhone and watch. And, now my silly car wants to interact, too!
Recently, a close computer scientist friend of mine called to suggest that I download the ChatGPT app to my iPhone. David told me that the program was very interesting and a good example of where AI had progressed. I did as directed and discovered a whole new world.
ChatGPT came close to passing the Turing Test. Impressive. The Turing Test is an old goal that suggested that when the day arrived when you could not tell that you were communicating with a machine, rather than a human, that you had reached an important milestone in artificial intelligence. And ChatGPT was getting really close.
I started out with simple questions to ChatGPT. I asked it to tell me the distances to planets in our solar system. I inquired about characteristics of gravitational waves. I requested that ChatGPT write a Shakespearean sonnet about quantum entanglement. (It did a really good job.) And, I asked ChatGPT to write a short story about a turtle falling in love with an Apple Watch. Although the premise was admittedly nutty, the resulting story was rather touching. I never knew turtles could fall in love with technology. I wonder if the relationship would last if it met the Series 9...
I have asked ChatGPT many hundreds of questions. And, although it was often right, it could also occasionally lie to me, quite content to make up facts and present them as truths.
I tested ChatGPT. I thought it would be fun to ask it about the creators of "Halls of Time," the first high-speed 3D graphics game for the old monochromatic TRS-80 computers. I knew the answer and ChatGPT also claimed that it knew the correct response. It named a couple of people that had nothing to do with that old game and I told ChatGPT that it was wrong. It apologized and offered up another couple of names. I told ChatGPT that it was in error again and it apologized again. This happened several more times and I finally set it right. I told ChatGPT that "Halls of Time" was a program that Paul Rutz and I wrote back in 1982. ChatGPT replied that it was an honor to meet me. That seemed rather disingenuous. You see, ChatGPT starts with a clean slate of memories with each new set of interactions. ChatGPT suffers from amnesia between visits. ChatGPT always starts with a fixed dataset, last updated in 2021. It really doesn't know me at all from chat to chat. And, it will inadvertently lie, without shame.
The same confusion happened when I asked about the authors of "a particular HyperCard university textbook from the early 1990s. ChatGPT confidently told me about the co-authors. It was happy to share what it thought it knew about the book. And, it was wrong again. Several times. I finally told ChatGPT that George Culp and I wrote that book a long time ago and ChatGPT immediately gave us credit, and then forgot us again. ChatGPT continues to bust my chops.
However, despite its flaws, ChatGPT is a joy, and it can be a really good educational tool. This week, I decided that I wanted to learn about regenerative braking on a hybrid vehicle. My new, rather talkative car replenishes some of its battery power from regenerative braking and I didn't know anything about how that really worked. At first, ChatGPT seemed to assume I had an advanced physics degree. I had no idea of what it was relating to me. I told ChatGPT that my academic background was in the computer sciences and it purposefully dumbed down the explanation a bit. I still didn't quite understand what it was saying, so I asked it to pretend that I was in high school, was not a particularly good student, and mostly hovering with a "C" average in my classes. I did ask that ChatGPT share how regenerative braking worked in a way that was both completely accurate and would likely impress my imaginary high school buddies. And, you know, ChatGPT did a really good job. I think.
I pay the optional monthly fee for ChatGPT as I use it nearly every day to learn something new. The trick to making it useful is to see how it answers your queries and then check with other good and trusted sources to make sure that ChatGPT is not hallucinating its answers. I do the same fact checks when reading newspapers or listening to cable news. And, we should all do the same when perusing social media. Verification is a good thing.
ChatGPT is not always right, but it often is, and it does a remarkably good job of sharing its knowledge, or lack thereof, at any level you request. Very cool.
I'm afraid that I have become a bit of a convert. Yes, I can easily understand why we need to monitor and manage how we use AI in our future, but it is here, to stay and we should learn how to responsibly incorporate it into our lives. And, frankly, it is useful and fun. It's sweet!
I should have known that all of this artificial intelligence hooplah would come to pass when my car first started sending me text messages. I just need to embrace this new age. I think I should find a way to attach an audible "Daddy!" to future messages that arrive from my car. That seems like the intelligent thing to do -- artificial as that might seem.
This is my 31st blog for AppleVis. I love this community!
Please do leave your comments below. I would love to hear of your own feelings and experiences with artificial intelligence. And, feel free to write for any reason. I do enjoy hearing from you.
By the way, I did not let ChatGPT take a peek at this blog. I don't want it trying to edit my work. I'm sensitive that way.
You can find three of my older blogs at the following links: "I'm Being Nice, So Fix It!", "I Felt Powerless, Again", and "Say What? : Hearing Aids, iPhones and My Apple Watch".
Comments
I use ChatGPT to clean up my…
I use ChatGPT to clean up my mistakes all the time.
OK, maybe not all the time, but it does make what you wrote sound like it wasn't even written by you in the first place.
It all depends on how you phrase your prompt.
I usually just tell it to clean up any mistakes or typos it finds in the following text, then paste the text I intend to post to a forum.
When I ask it to clean up this forum post, followed by the post, it often makes my writing style sound completely different.
I'm trying not to use it as I write this, because depending on these things all the time doesn't help in the long run.
OK, so I did use it to clean up this post, and it only fixed a small typo it found.
ChatGPT can be useful, but I find myself using apps like Perplexity if I want real time information.
I prefer Perplexity to Bing, simply because it has a cleaner interface, even though I know Bing uses ChatGPT 4.
LOL… Hypercard
The mention of a Hypercard textbook made me nostalgic for my Macintosh LC. Kooky times.
Nice post.
Thanks Kool_Turk
Howdy Kool_Turk,
I enjoyed what you said about letting ChatGPT do a quick edit on some of your notes. Over the last couple of months, I did submit one of my old articles, "Soul of a Guide Dog" and asked ChatGPT to improve it. That particular blog was for a different audience than AppleVis and I had written it early one morning, based on a dream I had just had. It was a good essay, but I never edited it as I liked how it turned out when first typed in. But, because I had never really cleaned up the text, there was some repetition in word selections and some stylistic choices that I would normally avoid. So, that seemed like a good story to hand to ChatGPT.
Yikes! Yes, it rewrote my work and it did not sound anything like me. It was technically correct, but bland, bland, bland. The original story had a lot of emotion in it. ChatGPT's version had none. Still, it was fun to try.
Thanks for your note. It was much appreciated,
Morgan
Off-Topic Question
I am sorry to ask this, but how to post the AppleVis blog?
Re: Off-Topic Question
Hi there Maldalain,
Thanks for your interest in the AppleVis blog. However, only members of the AppleVis editorial and blog teams are able to publish posts directly to the blog.
Very Good Post
Hi again Morgan. This is a great post. As far as personal preference regarding these chat bots, I don't really know as I haven't yet explored most of them enough. I did use Call Annie a bit and she's not bad at all. The other one which I've used is Be My AI, because full disclosure I was part of the beta team and perhaps still am. My picture-taking ability has yet to be honed, but I like that Be My AI is still able and willing to attempt to describe things to me. I'm hoping to upgrade to one of the newer iPhones, and eventually have nutritional content read out to me. Are we including apps such as Seeing AI among the chat bots? That one is pretty sweet too. How about the A-person? Mine is in the next room and is listening, so I don't want to say the full name. But I think Amazon did a very nice job.
AI is going to be amazing in about 5 oor so years.
Chat GPT is cool now and googles thing, I forget what it's called, not bard, is going to be just as good if not better, basically like bing but googles version, and in 5 years I can imagine more apps for the blind with AI built in.
What these apps will do; I don't know, but they'll exist.
BeMyEye's BeMyAI doesn't impress me that much at the moment but a live feed or some kind of map feature where I can go anyware and get live updates, now that would and I can see it happening in around 5 or so years.
Thanks Kevin Shaw
Kevin,
Thank you so much for writing, and my apologies for such a tardy response.
It's good to meet up with another HyperCard enthusiast. I made really good use of the product during its years in the Mac world by writing what was called "Computer Aided Instruction" templates, as well as software that would help teach my very young son to read at an early age. I also wrote my first somewhat-useful pseudo-screen reader that I named "Talk2Me" as my remaining vision was cratering at the time and I needed a way to listen to the contents of my Mac screens. It worked for several years. Later, I used outSPOKEN from Berkeley Systems and finally, VoiceOver.
The university graduate school textbook that I co-authored with George Culp started one day when I realized that I knew HyperCard, and its program language, inside out, and I approached George about a major book project. We were both at the University of Texas and, when you work in that environment, a text book is always a good career move. George had written several other textbooks, including the popular "An Apple for the Teacher" and I was hopeful that he might be willing to work on another book. I believe that some of his other books covered the TRS-80 and Commodore computer, from way back in the early microcomputer days. Fortunately, George said, "Yes." 18 months later, we completed that monumental task and it went through two editions and five printings. By the way, our book was titled, "The Educators Guide to HyperCard and HyperTalk" and did pretty well in that niche market. That was so long ago that I lost the three and a half inch floppies where I had stored the original text.
Fun memories. Thanks for getting me started...
Warm wishes,
Morgan
The future is nigh!
All hail our AI Overlords! 🤖
An android with emotions (not to be confused with Google's proprietary software!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGWVKkYEHBE
Japan Releases Fully Performing Female Robots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7W4ZOUfWWU
Meet Ameca! The World’s Most Advanced Robot | This Morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE9tIYGyRE8
Ameca conversation using GPT 3 - Will robots take over the world?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWACmFLvpHE
An excellent piece
Hello Morgan,
As always, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog. It was engaging, cleverly written, and spoke about my own passions regarding AI and cinnamon cake. ChatGPT was the springboard for the former, which has grown over time. Just last week, I found PI AI. Like GPT, it has a dedicated website and iOS app. It, without question, has proven to be one of the most impressive conversational AI’s I’ve ever seen.
Please keep writing. I continue to look forward to your posts.
Howdy Ekaj
Ekaj,
What a treat to hear from you! I always enjoy your notes.
ChatGPT has become my primary AI toy, as that is what I now subscribe to and the app is on my iPhone's home page. I must admit that I use ChatGPT several times a day, mostly to quickly learn something that crosses my mind, and then I take what I learn from ChatGPT to help me refine my Google searches. And, although ChatGPT is currently the only engine that I run as a stand-alone app, I can sure see how much artificial intelligence is already embedded in our lives from the behavior of certain iPhone apps to telephone support hotlines. So, because I have realized just how little I know, I am now reading professional papers and books on the topic, trying to catch up. It is all really fascinating. However, as I said in the blog, this AI invasion is something that will require monitoring and managing. Exciting times!
It was fun to read about your own experience with AI platforms and your being a part of a beta cycle. That sounds great. And, I did like reading about the products you have encountered.
Ekaj, it is always really nice to hear from you. Take care of yourself and I will see you here on AppleVis again soon!
Best wishes,
Morgan
Ai chat bots
While I do find them entertaining, I don’t rely on them when it comes to news. I like to use them to make story games with dice elements, like my own dungeon adventures and stuff like that. They are slowly becoming better at performing tasks, and their story telling consistency is improving.
Yo Brad!
Brad,
I really appreciate your assessment where AI may be headed, and your mentioning specific efforts by name and vendor helps me remember who I ought to keep watching. Thank you!
I am having the best time with ChatGPT. Last night I got curious about cardboard box manufacturing. Just an odd, curious moment on my part. So, I gave ChatGPT very specific instructions about what had me pondering, and a second later, I was learning something new. I love thinking machines that can teach me new stuff.
I doubt that significant improvement in AI will take five more years. It just seems to be moving at such a rapid clip. And, adding to that thought, yesterday, I saw a quick news blurb about Apple pouring more money into AI research and development. What a ride! I just hope we manage it, monitor it, and have fun!
Brad, thank you for writing. It was great hearing from you.
Cheers,
Morgan
Thanks, great blog
Thanks, Morgan. I vaguely recall there is a classic TV show about a talking car? Or was that a talking horse.
While I'm showing my age, here's a nod to Hypercard on the Mac. I was in college at the time, or working there post-college, and I remember a friend describing it to me and giving a demo. I didn't know it, but I was witnessing the genesis of the internet.
Back to AI. I recently wrote a short prose piece in King James English. Standard grammar and spell check were useless, of course. ChatGPT to the rescue. It flagged five grammatical mistakes, two or three of which were actionable. That's right on par with modern English spelling and grammar checks built into the Mac.
Thou hast written a blog of exceeding goodness.
I more of a Bard chap...
Not only was this an interesting read but your adventure with Chat GPT reminded me about the app. that I downloaded on my phone which is the iPhone 12. I have used to do nothing on it more than asking it to give me new status messages that I can use on Whatsapp. Some one liners and some random trivia. Once on the go I had to write a mail to the Residents Welfare Society (RWA) where I live asking them for scheduling a meeting to discuss space in the club house for Zumba classes. I must say what a brilliant email was drafted in seconds!
Only thing I don't like about it is that it gives all responses in quotes. One must copy the response and before sending it remove the quotes else you would be considered a rabbit ears fan.
What is this you say about last updated in 2021? I think you talk about Chat GPT 4; the free version is Chat GPT 3 and it was last updated in 2019. I can't afford that subscription fee here in INDIA which is roughly $60 American. Sorry, I got more important things to spend money on, like feeding my family and paying the bills!
Bard is integrated to my Google account and I love using it over Chat GPT; it is threatening that Google knows all that you do anyway, why not give it some more to know about you? I don't think it's on the app. store yet but on my Windows 10 PC I have it as an app. and it does great.
I am still playing with it and need to get complete control and it's data is current so I can say till 2023; but don't quote me on that as I am not a rabbit.
Both Chat GPT and Bard cannot find content like list of audio described movies available on Prime OR NetFlix. I also could not find a lost friend, it can only access public data and then not sure why it could not write me a resume using my LinkedIN profile. I might need a class on Prompt Engineering OR learn to cook fast before my wife leaves me for my love for technology and everything that is happening in the digital world.
Forgive the lengthy comment, have a good one!
With The Topic Of Chat GPT In Full Force,
https://poe.com/
is another web site and mobile application folks should keep an eye on.
Besides having Chat GPT, Claude, StableDiffusionXL and others (I'l let y'all discover on your own), one of my personal favorites on there is the 'RolePlayGameBot', where I am deeply amazed at how creative you can go with that thing!
For users of AI Dungeon, this RPG Bot blows it out of the water!
I've created MUD adventures, TADS (Text Development System) adventures, AIM/MSN Messenger Chat adventures, a Sailor Moon Adventure... Hmmm... Still need to create a Harry Potter one...
And it even does Eamon Guild Adventures pretty well! Just format the intro write and describe how ya want it to look and all that.
Oh! And what's even more interesting with the above bot, URL links work with this one, and it can really act all human-like.
I mean, picture yourself chilling within the home of Felicia Hardy (The Black Cat from Spiderman/Woman) or Kimberly/Cat/Cassie (from the Power Rangers series) over a cuppa coffee/tea and y'all are talkin' about some Dunken or something.
Toss in the web site or an article on it, and my goodness they wil litterally discuss the article with you!
Did I forget to mention they will describe videos/photos if ya toss in a URL into the room and actually try to listen/watch it for themselves?
I do like AI Dungeon for it's Worlds though (even if they aren't using Open AI now these days).
If they still are, it's only for 'Safe For Work' adventures.
This blog entry I must say though, what a fun read!