February 2023 blogspot

What You Can Do With ChatGPT
2023 might well be remembered as the year the world woke up to the power, the potential and the world-inverting impact of artificial intelligence. A free-to-use chatbot made it clear that life would never be the same again after ChatGPT was released late last year by OpenAI, a company founded by Elon Musk. The fast-growing artificial intelligence program has drawn praise for its ability to write answers quickly to a wide range of queries, and attracted attention from lawmakers with questions about its impact on personal security and education. The chatbot chats in a conversational way, answering questions from the user. Its technology has been trained on lots of information and data from across the Internet so that it can have a human-like conversation answering questions, admitting mistakes and rejecting any inappropriate questions. ChatGPT was estimated to have reached 100 million monthly active users just two months after launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history. Its ubiquity has generated fear that generative AI bots like ChatGPT could be used to spread disinformation, while educators worry it will be used by students to cheat. Soon after the chatbot’s release late last year, school districts across America reacted with alarm. With the ability to churn out content in seconds, ChatGPT was seen by many as the ultimate cheat machine for students and, some believed, the nail in the coffin for original writing of many kinds. Just as students began turning in AI-written homework; companies began integrating ChatGPT into their copywriting protocols. And within weeks, its use was banned in schools across cities including New York, Los Angeles and Seattle. Some of the world’s largest tech companies scrambled to catch up. Microsoft revealed it was integrating ChatGPT’s technology into its Bing search engine. Google followed with its own version, called Bard. Content created with the aid of ChatGPT can make money for its users too: AI generated books have begun appearing on Amazon where would-be authors have listed hundreds of e-books via the platform's Kindle store, openly noting ChatGPT as their author or co-author. Titles include: How to Write and Create Content Using ChatGPT and The Power of Homework, as well as poetry collections and works of fiction. There is even a new sub-genre on Amazon: Books about using ChatGPT that is written... yes, entirely by ChatGPT. Not all authors disclose they have used AI help, so it will be almost impossible to get a full accounting of how many books may be written entirely by artificial, rather than entirely human, intelligence.
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It was claimed no laws were broken after a top DJ deepfaked music by Eminem into a song in front of a live audience who didn't know the difference. French DJ and music producer David Guetta was playing around with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and thought it would be fun to use an unauthorised deepfake of Eminem's voice to rev up a huge crowd at a live show. It worked so well that nobody spotted the fakery, but it soon raised legal and ethical questions when the hoax was revealed. In a recent tweet, Guetta showed the relevant live performance clip and then explained how he did it, presumably using something like ChatGPT to write the lyrics, and then another service like Uberduck or FakeYou to turn the lyrics into a sound-bite. "It's something I made as a joke, but it worked amazingly well", said Guetta, "I discovered a few sites all about AI and basically, they show you can write lyrics in the style of any artist you like. So I typed 'write a verse in the style of Eminem about Future Rave' and then I went to another AI site that can recreate the voice. I put the text in that, and I played the record, and the audience went nuts for it". Although Eminem and his legal team see "no problem legally" about the fakery, it could turn out to be an early example of a serious problem that's starting to affect ordinary users as well as celebrity entertainers. The law hasn't yet caught up with the explosive rate of progress in the AI and deepfake universe. Most of the laws that do exist, according to news reports, are focused on deepfake pornography and the use of the technology to impersonate politicians.
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New Old Computer Museum
The North West Computer Museum showcases video game classics from the 1970s to the present day. It also has a wealth of machines, such as Acorn Electrons, Sinclair ZX80s, Xbox 360s and even a replica Apple-1. In fact, the successfully crowdfunded museum, now up and running at Leigh Spinners Mill in Greater Manchester, has more than 140 items on display, all collected by founder Joseph Kay and refurbished by the 56-year-old and his team of volunteers. It also features a retro arcade room and an educational suite to teach computer programming and electronics repairs. Mr Kay, who set it up, said it was all about "getting hands-on". Along with his own collecting, Mr Kay also works with Wigan Council Recycling Centre to obtain electronics that would otherwise be thrown away. He said the idea for a permanent site came after the success of a pop-up exhibition he ran for a week in 2018. "Kids were being dragged in by their parents who wanted to show them some of the old tech they used to use as children", he said. "Once the kids got their hands on the kit for themselves, they couldn't be dragged out". Mr Kay, who has a background in computing, and after establishing an online site at nwcomputermuseum.org.uk, spent three years securing the museum's real-world permanent site and said he was excited and nervous in equal measure to finally be opening the doors to visitors on a regular basis after delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Smallest VR Headset Yet
California-based VR platform company Bigscreen has moved into hardware with the launch of its "Beyond" headset, which is claimed to be the world's smallest such device (less than an inch at its thinnest point) and lightest (at six times lighter than other VR devices). "As passionate VR enthusiasts, we built the VR headset we would have wanted ourselves", said Bigscreen's founder and CEO, Darshan Shankar. "Today’s leading VR headsets have doubled in weight compared to headsets from 2016, which makes them much too heavy, bulky, and uncomfortable. We went for increased comfort, and developed ultra-high-end components like OLED micro-displays and pancake optics to increase immersion. To deliver the best software experience for watching movies in Bigscreen, we also had to build the best hardware". The Beyond has two 1-inch micro-OLED displays - each at 2,560 x 2,560 pixels - offering a combined resolution of 5K (5,120 x 2,560). The Beyond has SteamVR tracking baked in to keep tabs on position and orientation over three dimensions and the headset is compatible with hundreds of VR games and apps on Steam via a cabled Windows PC. The Bigscreen Beyond VR headset is available for pre-order now, starting at US$999 - which includes a 5-m (16-ft) fibre-optic cable and a Link box for connection to a games-optimised PC.
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Search Engine of the Month
Microsoft has added AI (artificial intelligence) assistance to its Edge browser and Bing search engine, powered by the same advanced technology that OpenAI used to create ChatGPT. But the company faced problems with its Bing search engine when it began using help from an AI-powered chatbot. It was soon forced to announce that it would be limiting users of Bing AI chat to 5 turns per sessions and 50 turns per day. The changes were deemed necessary after Bing AI got into a fight with one user and gave some very odd responses to several others. According to the company: “Very long chat sessions can confuse the underlying chat model in the new Bing. To address these issues, we have implemented some changes to help focus the chat sessions".
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