My 15 Minutes

Ran Prieur linked to this blog recently, writing:  

 

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... Last year I mentioned a severe AI personality called Absolute Mode. That's Keith's blog post on it, and this is his latest post about wrangling with ChatGPT to actually do it. What I think I understand, is that it is possible, but somewhat difficult, to give an AI a custom personality. If so, this is going to be huge. I mean the whole bubble might pop any day, but if not, someone is going to make a lot of money from slicing and packaging chatbot personalities for mass consumption. Give me a sassy bitch. Give me a Klingon. Give me a golden retriever. Or maybe we won't go down that road because too many people want to talk to a cult leader.

Isn't it funny how talking computers turned out? In old-time sci-fi, they're rational, robotic, precise, and never wrong. Instead, they're like goofy sidekicks, offering encouragement and ideas, but clumsy and unreliable. We thought we were getting the Professor and we got Gilligan.

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Let's talk about the Ran Prieur bump. 

 The Absolute Mode piece is now setting at 112 views.  The second linked piece at 93.  There is also a smattering of click-throughs to other pieces. 

Pretty cool.  That's more people looking at my work than has happened in a long time. 

The pattern of the click-throughs shows that while there is interest in the specific topic of managing chatbots, there isn't really in what I had to say about Simplifier.  So, fair warning -- my interests lie more in the direction of that discussion.  In other words, my fascination is how to use the tools I have to live a good life. I don't think these issues are foregrounded anywhere near enough, and I think they matter far more than is widely acknowledged ("the medium is the message").  But I am not one to lead any change. 

I just tend in my garden*. 

 

* Write in my notebooks.  Tinker in my garage.  Hang with my family.