Artificial Intelligence Chat

[Matt2112]

Had a shocker with Meta AI recently; I asked it to source a certain pre-existing image of a very famous musician, three times with increasingly unambiguous detail, but it kept replying that it can't create images yet.  In amongst this, I referred to a thread of a previous unrelated exchange and, bizarrely, it couldn't seem to differentiate this from the requests for an image.

Useless.

[pxr5]

We regularly watch 24 Hours in Police Custody. The latest episode on Channel 4 is called Lost Boys and it follows the arrest of three youths involved in County lines drug dealing in Dunstable. Two of the arrested were under 18: one 17 the other 14. As we watched the interviews the 2 lads just looked strange - one was black one was white. But their faces looked odd and their eyes, and it's hard to explain, just seemed really weird - almost like something in a horror movie. The more it went the more odd it seemed and I admit rather unsettling. It didn't click what we'd seen until the end when the credits came up. Of course these lads are underage so their faces couldn't be shown and AI had been used to significantly alter their appearance. In hindsight the warning about AI being used was shown at the beginning too and I think it wouldn't have been so disturbing had I realised that when watching. But it was a really odd experience watching this without knowing they had been altered. Normally they just blur out faces in these programmes and I hope the producers keep to this rather than creating these freaky looking people.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/24-hours-in-police-custody

[The Picnic Wasp]

We regularly watch 24 Hours in Police Custody. The latest episode on Channel 4 is called Lost Boys and it follows the arrest of three youths involved in County lines drug dealing in Dunstable. Two of the arrested were under 18: one 17 the other 14. As we watched the interviews the 2 lads just looked strange - one was black one was white. But their faces looked odd and their eyes, and it's hard to explain, just seemed really weird - almost like something in a horror movie. The more it went the more odd it seemed and I admit rather unsettling. It didn't click what we'd seen until the end when the credits came up. Of course these lads are underage so their faces couldn't be shown and AI had been used to significantly alter their appearance. In hindsight the warning about AI being used was shown at the beginning too and I think it wouldn't have been so disturbing had I realised that when watching. But it was a really odd experience watching this without knowing they had been altered. Normally they just blur out faces in these programmes and I hope the producers keep to this rather than creating these freaky looking people.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/24-hours-in-police-custody

Faces without souls.

[Slim]

None of us has a soul, but I think it would be better just to blur out their faces. I saw this same technique used on some other programme a year or two ago, but I can't remember why.

[Slim]

Many years ago (abour forty) I wrote a BBC Micro version of Star Trek, which was one of the first computer games, dating back to 1971. I'd played it on a Commodore PET. It's a strategy game that uses simple text graphics.

It was a very absorbing and enjoyable programming exercise. In 2002, I wrote a simpler version in C, to run in a Linux terminal. A screenshot from this version is shown on the Star Trek Wikipedia page.

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Then a few years ago (in 2018) I thought I'd try writing a more sophisticated version in BASH. This was a real challenge because I wanted to include crude text graphics, to show (for example) a torpedo moving across the quadrant grid in real time. BASH is a scripting language and is not natively suited to this but there are utilities that make it doable.

So - I did that, but once I'd done all the difficult logic I lost interest unfortunately, and I never finished it. Naturally I didn't document it. When I came to revisit it as a post-retirement project, I found that I couldn't read my own code. Couldn't work out the mechanics of it or the nuts and bolts.

ChatGPT to the rescue. I have forbidden it from suggesting code because it's important to me that I finish this myself. But I uploaded the code and explained its purpose.

Four seconds later - it understands how it works, in detail, completely. I've been asking questions - what am I doing here? Why do I need to do this? What is this array for, what do these lines of code do? - and it comes back with clear, comprehensive answers. I've just been blown away by this, it's incredibly powerful. To a business that involves people maintaining other people's poorly documented code, this could be priceless.

I should say that this is ChatGPT-4-turbo which is available through ChatGPT Plus (£20 a month). Other models may not be quite so capable.

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[Slim]

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2CInsFvQlxgxp77h2Pejgh

A real-time spoken conversation with GPT 4o. Uncanny.

[Matt2112]

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2CInsFvQlxgxp77h2Pejgh

A real-time spoken conversation with GPT 4o. Uncanny.

The seamless cadence, the sound of the intakes of breath...uncanny indeed.

At the other end of the scale, there's the free version of Meta AI.   

[Slim]

I've been talking to Claude - I started by asking if it had been upgraded, because it's very impressively natural and context-aware now. Then we got onto this. Wow.

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[Matt2112]

It's not even HAL9000-esque any more; it seems it's crossed even that Rubicon.

[The Picnic Wasp]

Have you thought about asking if it's capable of lying?

[Thenop]

Have you thought about asking if it's capable of lying?

Well, you're never going to be of the answer then, right? So why ask?

[The Picnic Wasp]

Have you thought about asking if it's capable of lying?

Well, you're never going to be of the answer then, right? So why ask?

It might say yes, then you can ask why. It's an obvious question if our main interest is to compare it to human consciousness and decision making. The whole thing's moot. We're attempting to conjure within ourselves how a machine "feels". It's like trying to imagine yourself experiencing the world as another species does. I mean what really goes through my dog's brain as the Earth spins each day?

[Thenop]

The capability shall be there no doubt. it's about which parameters either you or its creators have given it. And what is lying, what is truth? Truthful perhaps, but what if it is ignorant and unwillfully stating untruths? Is that a lie?

[The Picnic Wasp]

The capability shall be there no doubt. it's about which parameters either you or its creators have given it. And what is lying, what is truth? Truthful perhaps, but what if it is ignorant and unwillfully stating untruths? Is that a lie?

Isn't this just an entanglement of facts versus or compared to philosophy? Water is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. An incorrect opinion on a matter spoken by an individual couldn't really be considered a lie if it was a heartfelt belief. Huge area of debate. Too much for my tiny mind without alcohol. That's my only miniscule intellectual similarity to Christopher Hitchens. I think better with just the correct blood alcohol count. It's a cliff edge when exceeded.

[dom]

not sure how real this is but Deepseek can now show you its 'workings out' before it provides it's actual answer.  Here's one for when I asked about August greenhouse planting...

Hmm, the user is in Ireland and wants to know what vegetables they can grow in a greenhouse at the beginning of August. I found many search results that can help me provide specific recommendations.
Looking at these search results, I see that August is a transitional month where gardeners can plant both quick-growing crops for autumn harvest and overwintering vegetables for early spring yields. Since the user is in Ireland, I should focus on plants that suit the local climate and shorter daylight hours approaching.
Several sources mention leafy greens as excellent choices. 1 recommends spinach, rocket, corn salad, and oriental leaves like mizuna and pak choi, which can be harvested in autumn and even overwintered with protection. 513 also confirm these are suitable for Ireland in August.
For root vegetables, 1 suggests turnips and spring onions, while 9 mentions microgreens as a rapid option. 15 indicates that winter potatoes can be planted now for Christmas harvest in heated greenhouses.
Herbs appear in multiple sources too - 313 recommend hardy varieties like parsley, coriander, and dill that thrive in greenhouse conditions.
I should also note some practical considerations. 4 emphasizes the importance of ventilation and watering in summer greenhouses, while 1 warns about bolting in hot weather. For overwintering plants, cloche protection is frequently mentioned 115.
The user didn't specify their greenhouse type, so I'll include options for both unheated and heated structures where relevant. Since space might be limited, I'll mention compact growing methods like using modules for oriental leaves 1 or growing peas vertically 3.

And here's the resultant answer

Based on your location in Ireland and the start of August, here are the best vegetables to grow in your greenhouse this month, focusing on quick harvests, overwintering crops, and space efficiency:

🌱 1. Leafy Greens & Salads
Spinach: Sow now for autumn harvest (8 weeks) and overwinter under cloches for spring picking. Prefers cool conditions but thrives in greenhouse warmth 1915.

Oriental Leaves (Mizuna, Pak Choi, Mustard): Fast-growing (4–6 weeks), frost-tolerant. Sow in modules to avoid slugs; harvest as cut-and-come-again leaves 1513.

Lamb's Lettuce (Corn Salad): Cold-hardy; sow direct for winter salads. Needs consistent moisture 115.

Rocket & Winter Lettuce: Quick harvest in 3–4 weeks; use cloches for extended winter production 113.

🌿 2. Overwintering Crops for Spring Harvest
Spring Cabbage: Sow now; transplant seedlings by September for harvest in April–May. Protect from pigeons with netting 115.

Onions (e.g., Senshyu Yellow): Sow seeds now; plant out in autumn for June harvest 13.

Broad Beans: Sow in late August for overwintering; plant out in early spring 415.

🥕 3. Root Vegetables & Compact Options
Turnips: Sow until mid-August for October–November harvest. Thin seedlings to prevent crowding 112.

Microgreens (Kale, Radish, Sunflower): Grow in trays; ready in 7–21 days. Ideal for limited space 913.

Winter Potatoes: Plant "cold-stored" tubers in deep containers (1ft+) for Christmas harvest (heated greenhouses only) 9.

🌿 4. Herbs
Hardy Herbs (Parsley, Coriander, Dill): Sow direct or in pots; provides fresh leaves through winter. Parsley survives light frosts 313.

💡 Key Tips for Irish Greenhouses in August
Watering: Daily checks essential; use mulch (e.g., straw) to retain moisture 19.

Pest Control: Net brassicas against butterflies; use sticky traps for whitefly 14.

Extending Season:

Unheated greenhouses: Use cloches/fleece for frost protection 115.

Heated greenhouses: Experiment with peppers or melons 34.

Avoid: Tender crops (e.g., tomatoes/cucumbers) unless replacing spent summer plants 49.

Top Picks for Quick Yields: Microgreens, rocket, spinach.
For Long-Term Investment: Spring cabbage, overwintering onions 🌰.

For more varieties, see Gardeners' World or GIY Ireland.

Think its a bit of a gimmick really - would it really talk to itself like that?