One less widely known feature of OpenAI's large language model chatbot, ChatGPT, is that if you become a paying subscriber then you can create your own bots that are attuned to be good at doing specific types of task. OpenAI also provides you with a few examples that they created, which include the one I'm … Continue reading Using ChatGPT’s Data Analysis bot to analyse your data
Category: In the news
The ongoing battle between human creators and AI trainers
In order for the current generation of generative AI tools - large language model chatbots, art generators et al - to work they must first undergo an extensive training process whereby they are fed a huge number of examples of the sort of content they will be later expected to produce. Per Wikipedia, the basic … Continue reading The ongoing battle between human creators and AI trainers
Does protesting work?
There's been a lot of news about political protests recently in the UK, and some rather unsavoury efforts by the government to stop particular instances of them happening. Outside of the UK recent years have seen some very high profile such protests. 2020 saw the Black Lives Matter related protests after the killing of George … Continue reading Does protesting work?
The differences between what Twitter users say they do and what they actually do
I always enjoy studies comparing what people say they do to what they actually do. Most of us are often pretty uninsightful, oftentimes systematically so, in terms of knowing what we did, or at least what we're prepared to tell someone else we did. Probably both. Of course since the time we decided everything should … Continue reading The differences between what Twitter users say they do and what they actually do
Is British gas and oil really 4x as good for the environment as imported fuel?
The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, recently declared that he's going to enable a huge expansion of North Sea gas and oil extraction. There is a lot to criticise about this plan to say the least. But here I will endeavor to restrict myself to digging into one of his more surprising claims about this … Continue reading Is British gas and oil really 4x as good for the environment as imported fuel?
The risks of using generative AI when writing code
I've been nearly as fixated as much of the rest of the online world is with artificial intelligence over the last few months. Particularly the large language models (LLMs) out there, ChatGPT being the most famous example. Whilst the hype seems to be dying down a little - it's been a while since I've seen … Continue reading The risks of using generative AI when writing code
Are AIs developing unpredictable new abilities, or are we just measuring them badly?
One of the things that make people nervous, awestruck, or both about the development and release of recent AI models is the prospect of them developing "emergent abilities". The terminology here can be complicated. Different people mean different things by "emergent abilities". Here in the context of large language models (LLMs), we're talking about the … Continue reading Are AIs developing unpredictable new abilities, or are we just measuring them badly?
Most rainforest carbon offsets may not actually offset any carbon
A common instantiation of the carbon credits concept is to allow companies and individuals to mitigate the impact of the environmental damage they cause due to emitting greenhouse gases by paying for a "credit". In this case the credit is sold on behalf of a project which has somehow reduced carbon usage elsewhere. The idea … Continue reading Most rainforest carbon offsets may not actually offset any carbon
The Follower – an art project highlighting another way your data can be used to surveil you
Dries Depoorter's art project 'The Follower' is a clever use of publicly available video and image data and a fun glimpse into the how those "casual" Instagram shots are really taken. It's also a somewhat harrowing warning about what information us members of the public are unknowingly sharing in a world where tools can process … Continue reading The Follower – an art project highlighting another way your data can be used to surveil you
Should artificial intelligences win art competitions?
Vice reports that the Colorado State Fair's fine art competition has been won by a person called Jason Allen, who submitted this AI-generated piece of art. I do quite like the picture, but, as you might expect, it's created a bit of uproar amongst some artists of a more traditional nature. One of the more … Continue reading Should artificial intelligences win art competitions?
Dabbling with Data 