AT&T’s Bellboy pager at the Seattle World's Fair, 1962. pic.twitter.com/P86fQLQUfC
— Humanoid History (@HumanoidHistory) July 9, 2021
From the Seattle World´s Fair, 1962.
Technology, you´ve never let us down!
Blinding Me With Science
Between Chat GPT, Midjouney AI image creation, and now these robots, it’s only a matter of time before all these computers start talking with each other and take us all over. This is cool technology for sure, but no doubt will be used to do bad stuff. Do you think we will be living in the prequel for The Matrix?
The Chatbots Are Getting Better
As part of my ongoing obsession with becoming obsolete, I nervously note the progress of all the AI’s. OpenAI, one of the world’s more ambitious labs, unleashed the chatbot ChatGPT into the internets and told people to have at it, in part to help de-bug it. The above was one of the prompts and replies.
After the release of ChatGPT — which has been used by more than a million people — many experts believe these new chatbots are poised to reinvent or even replace internet search engines like Google and Bing.
They can serve up information in tight sentences, rather than long lists of blue links. They explain concepts in ways that people can understand. And they can deliver facts, while also generating business plans, term paper topics and other new ideas from scratch.
“You now have a computer that can answer any question in a way that makes sense to a human,” said Aaron Levie, chief executive of a Silicon Valley company, Box, and one of the many executives exploring the ways these chatbots will change the technological landscape. “It can extrapolate and take ideas from different contexts and merge them together.”
We’re just a couple of years past “Happy Batday, Birthman.” They’re coming for us. In fact, I’m now beginning to suspect that MakerBOT is an embedded chatbot making Makerbot-like posts and responses. He’s fine-tuning it here, so that it can take over his Work-From-Home job.
I’m onto you.
It Was Bound To Happen
A Google engineer got fired after making the case that his chatbot had become self-aware. The bot talked about what made it sad and depressed, and about its rights, which may have convinced the engineer that the bot had feelings. Most tech experts who have evaluated the situation are not convinced.
There is no agreed-upon Turing Test for artificial or alien intelligence, so that complicates the matter. A transcript of the conversation is here.
“[REDACTED] insisted that the toaster oven in our rehearsal space was sentient, but he probably inhaled a lot of canned air duster at the mixing board.”
– anonymous Subteens member
Exactly!
These guys get it. So. Much. Wasted. Potential.
Choose Your Reality
Does A.I. Mean Artificial Iceman?
This is creepy, but also fascinating. Makerbot and I were discussing the new Val Kilmer documentary recently, and how sad it is. In case you didn’t know, Val had cancer and can no longer speak. Well, no some fancy computer people have been able to re create his voice with AI, and it sounds just like him.
I’m Obsolete
… but it was a nice run.
I’m considering new careers now that a forced-cough recording app has disrupted my industry.
Porn Star of a Certain Age is definitely on the short list.
Please advise.
I don’t have many skills.
Blame The Robot
The future of working from home: Japanese convenience store chain begins testing remote-controlled robot staff 😮🤖
“Model-T is remote controlled by a human equipped with a VR set using their ‘Augmented Workforce Platform.'”
Source: https://t.co/lHoXAYdsih pic.twitter.com/0FwYivRiT6
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) August 31, 2020
I’ll be more impressed when he can slap a mean stand-up bass.
And Now For Something Completely Obscure
Electronic pop duo Silver Apples released their first album in ’68. I believe that makes them the first ever electronic pop band, predating Can, Kraftwerk, et al. If any of you bastards know of someone prior to these guys, please clue me in. They sold very few albums, but one somehow ended up in my house in the mid 70’s. Ignorant that they predated Kraftwerk, I pretty much dismissed them because I didn’t like the songs very much. They typically set up good initial ideas but, in my opnion, are let down by the singing and trippy lyrics, which creep me out for some reason. But the electronic sounds are innovative and excellent. Those sounds come from “The Simeon,” a primitive, homemade synth built by singer Simeon Coxe, an Alabaman. He was just stringing together old WWII oscillators and claims that at the time he’d never heard of Moogs or other synthesizers in develpoment.
Silver Apples’ legacy is hard to pin down. Some 90’s experimental bands have cited them as an influence, but what about the electronic innovators of the 70’s? You never heard a word about these guys back then, so did they influence Krautrock, Eno, Devo, prog rockers, or just work in a vacuum? Who knows, but I can’t help but love their oddball creativity. Very much in the tradition of American cranks innovating alone in the basement or garage. But overall they show that first usually isn’t best.
Here is their full story, which is very interesting. If you want to hear more, below is the entire first album and one song, “You and I”, from their second and final album, which was withdrawn soon after release. The opening of “You and I” is suspiciously like “Station To Station,” but I have no idea if Bowie was familiar with it. The whole second album, which I haven’t heard, is also on YouTube.