Pause AI?
It’s hard to ignore the discussion around the Open Letter arguing for a pause in the development of advanced AI systems. Are they dangerous? Will they destroy humanity? Will they…
Real World Programming with ChatGPT
This post is a brief commentary on Martin Fowler’s post, An Example of LLM Prompting for Programming. If all I do is get you to read that post, I’ve done…
Eye of the Beholder
The notion that artificial intelligence will help us prepare for the world of tomorrow is woven into our collective fantasies. Based on what we’ve seen so far, however, AI seems…
Getting the Right Answer from ChatGPT
A couple of days ago, I was thinking about what you needed to know to use ChatGPT (or Bing/Sydney, or any similar service). It’s easy to ask it questions, but…
Sydney and the Bard
It’s been well publicized that Google’s Bard made some factual errors when it was demoed, and Google paid for these mistakes with a significant drop in their stock price. What…
AI Hallucinations: A Provocation
Everybody knows about ChatGPT. And everybody knows about ChatGPT’s propensity to “make up” facts and details when it needs to, a phenomenon that’s come to be called “hallucination.” And everyone…
Automating the Automators: Shift Change in the Robot Factory
What would you say is the job of a software developer? A layperson, an entry-level developer, or even someone who hires developers will tell you that job is to ……
Digesting 2022
Although I don’t subscribe to the idea that history or technology moves in jerky one-year increments, it’s still valuable to take stock at the start of a new year, look…
AI’s ‘SolarWinds Moment’ Will Occur; It’s Just a Matter of When
Major catastrophes can transform industries and cultures. The Johnstown Flood, the sinking of the Titanic, the explosion of the Hindenburg, the flawed response to Hurricane Katrina–each had a lasting impact.…
Technical Health Isn’t Optional
If every company is a technology company, then every healthy company must have a healthy relationship to technology. However, we haven’t seen any discussions of “technical health,” which suggests that…