Should have said Pentland firth, although it’s a straight and not a firth.
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I had various school friends who came from the Orkneys, (and Shetlands) fabulous places 
What I’ve never understood is why they were settled so early in pre-history. (Not being sarcastic!)
Never been myself, but they’re on the list 
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Perhaps they were once tropical 
Not since the arrival of man, even if global warming continues, they’d probably be submerged before they became tropical…
Actually, having flown over them a couple of times on Icelandair and being struck by the their remoteness, I was thinking about why and and from where the very first settlers went there…
They were quite densely forested until about 3000 and something BC apparently, and the weather was better then too. People used up all the wood and the weather got worse which is why they started using stone and we have all those marvellous relics.
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An interesting perspective: I love tech, but won’t use a voice assistant.
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ChatGPT sounds interesting, haven’t tried it because I don’t have a compelling use case and it’s “busy” at the moment.
I doubt it will be self-aware enough for a “SkyNet” moment but.....
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Gail again… the future of our world of finite resources.
Indeed. The NYT has had several journos on the task.
The writer, Farhad Manjoo, has this to say
“ One primary criticism of systems like ChatGPT, which are built using a computational technique called “deep learning,” is that they are little more than souped-up versions of autocorrect — that all they understand is the statistical connections between words, not the concepts underlying words. Gary Marcus, a professor emeritus in psychology at New York University and a skeptic of deep learning, told me that while an A.I. language model like ChatGPT makes for “nifty” demonstrations, it’s “still not reliable, still doesn’t understand the physical world, still doesn’t understand the psychological world and still hallucinates.”
And in conclusion….
“ In the meantime, though, ChatGPT’s best feature is its modesty. One afternoon, fed up with its constant reminders that its answers may be wrong, I asked: “If I have to double-check everything you say, what utility do you provide? I’m sorry if that sounds mean.”
It was contrite:
ChatGPT -
“I am not intended to be a definitive source of information, and my responses should not be used as a substitute for professional advice or expertise. I am here to assist you with your questions and provide helpful information, but it is ultimately the responsibility of the user to verify and evaluate the information that I provide. I apologize if my previous responses were not as helpful as you were expecting, and I will do my best to provide more accurate and helpful information in the future.”
FM -
“Such humility makes ChatGPT a truly different kind of digital assistant. It’s not often you find people online willing to admit they may be wrong. If the best that A.I. can do is promise to keep doing better, I’ll take it.”
I’m broadly assuming that this is the case, we haven’t cracked the “general AI” problem yet, but from what I’ve seen the tool is very impressive.
Unfortunately signing up for an account needs you to enter a phone number - which is a bit intrusive to try out the system. Also, it’s only “free” while they tune the algorithm.
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The current attack on Royal Mail is thought to be Russian backed. This is involved
How is it, when mankind invents anything for good, someone hijacks it almost immediately to use it for bad?
Because many don’t see good or bad, but simply opportunity, especially if that involves taking away from a foreign country where it doesn’t matter. On such behaviour is empire built.
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If you didn’t know already, there’s a trend right now among Gen Z to essentially throw out the latest tech in favor of old favorites. Think ditching the latest smartphones for old clamshell beaters, or opting for that retro point-and-shoot camera]for their snaps - the first truly digitally native generation is exploring new ways to interact with technology right now.
To me, a millennial, this is totally rad. Some tech journalists may dismiss this new trend as a fad for Luddism, but we’ve known for years the potential mental health implications of things like heavy social media use or gaming addiction. We’re increasingly reliant on technology in our lives, for better or worse, so it’s important we think about said implications on society.
When I read reports that younger people are [increasingly eschewing social media I don’t initially dismiss it as a fad or fashion choice. Instead, I get excited that the ‘younger’ generations are thinking about technology more objectively.
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But not when it comes to essay writing!
The formerly pretty good Turn-it-in plagiarism software has effectively been rendered obsolete by the new generation of AI essay writing apps (mind you, these will also put the custom essay writers out of business, as anyone can now knock up an essay with abit of AI help) .
It’s been interesting to read how US academics are trying to deal with this. There’s two levels of response, firstly changing academic regs at faculty or senate level, but more interestingly how some classes now require students to present hand-writtten outlines and drafts in tutorials before submitting their essay.
Just like the old days!
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Tech’s new BIG thing, ChatGPT, may not have been intended to replace but may still effectively be a giant step towards AGI legal decisions
Thing is, with millions of users on open release, the program is learning more.
This doesn’t mean it is sentient and decides between choices based on moral issues, only based on precedence. In legal cases that means the bot is doing case history research, which may be useful. However, the only human judgement of the results depends on the case histories submitted. Without a double check, who can be sure all cases have been included, without a possible edit of those, that for instance were later overturned or questioned? A lazy judge may not check.
ChatGPT scours text across the internet to generate informed responses but has been shown to provide different answers to the same question. It also fabricates information on occasion to make inventive and compelling lies.
Yikes!
The chatbot itself was more apprehensive about its new role in the justice system.
“Judges should not use ChatGPT when ruling on legal cases … It is not a substitute for the knowledge, expertise and judgment of a human judge,” it responded to a question from the Guardian.
“Journalists should exercise caution when using quotes generated by ChatGPT in their articles,” the bot added.
My concern would be, going forward who (human) will monitor this?
We’ve still got some potatoes saved from last summer. I can tell you how we do it if you’re interested.