The Rise and Rise of ChatGPT

simon gray — 2023-04-28, 08:03:30

As an AI language model, I’m seeing that ChatGPT has now gone from the fun toy folks have been playing with to a tool that people are using to write full text prose passing it off as if they wrote it themselves, and I’m noticing an increased amount of people on LinkedIn reposting inspiring thought-leadership and game-changing marketing copy there. There is no doubt that the power of ChatGPT will stay with us for many years to come.

The thing is, if you’ve played with ChatGPT enough and have an analytical eye for content, you can see it a mile off; whence whenever I’ve seen what I’ve suspected as ChatGPT content I’ve checked it in ChatGPT Zero — https://gptzero.me/ — and indeed sure enough, it’s confirmed my suspicion.

I’m a full supporter of using technology to help the creative process; I’ve been using computers in my own creative work since 1985. As previously mentioned, I used ChatGPT myself to help me write a song, and I’ve been having lots of fun using Stable Diffusion, Dall•E, and Midjourney to generate images, some of which I might print on mugs to try to sell. 

But I’d like to emphasise a massive note of caution to those using ChatGPT professionally; if you’re using it to write marketing copy consider the reputational effect on your brand if you’re just copying and pasting the output without doing significant editing when your (potential) customers start seeing the exact same words written by your competitors — AI text won’t give you [...]

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Gmail - no longer considered secure enough for business or consumer use

simon gray — 2018-07-06, 09:59:03

So yeah, I've been generally working on reducing my reliance on Google services, not least because of Google's habit of withdrawal mission critical services that people are even paying for at the drop of a hat. Looks like Gmail is the next thing to replace, since currently all mail to star-one dot org dot uk actually gets read by us through Gmail.

I wonder what businesses - especially tech businesses tt- who are using Gmail Pro think of the possibility all their confidential business emails may have been read by developers at other tech businesses?

https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/gmail-security-saga-what-to-do-a3878716.html

#technology #business #security

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What laptop should I buy?

simon gray — 2018-06-15, 13:52:04

Roughly once a month or so I see requests from friends asking the world for general advice on buying laptops. Since it's quite burdensome to type out the advice I always give on my phone, here's a handy guide on the internet.

First of all, for most people's uses, pretty much any Windows, Linux, or Mac laptop you can buy these days will be sufficiently powerful for your needs. The only areas which will need extra power will be computationally-heavy tasks such as real-time audio (for example if you're making music with your computer), video editing and rendering (to be fair, a less-powered computer will still be able to do it, it'll just take a lot longer), or gaming. If you're doing any of these tasks, you'll need to go for the fastest computer you can afford; if you're doing real-time audio a Windows laptop will be OK, but if you've got the budget for a Mac then go for one of those instead, because Macs' audio handling tends to be much more efficient than Windows'. 

If literally all you're wanting to do is a bit of Word, a bit of web and email, and a bit of streaming video from Netflix, then indeed the cheapest new computer you can get will see you right.

So on that basis, how do you choose?

First of all, you'll need to balance drive size, processor speed, and RAM.

If it's going to be your only computer, then you'll almost certainly need at least 500GB of drive space [...]

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The High Street is dying. Did The Internet kill it? No, it took its own life

simon gray — 2013-01-11, 08:35:28

Back 15 years ago, when I used to be considerably more into stills photography than I am now, Jessops on New Street in Birmingham was my favourite shop; they had knowledgeable staff, catered well for both digital and chemical photography, but best of all, they had a massive front window stacked up with a wide choice of second hand cameras, lenses, and other equipment, at a good choice of price ranges.

Then the New Street branch closed, to be replaced around the corner by the Jessops ‘World Camera Centre’, which curiously with a doubling of floorplate space had a fraction of the stock – and big second-hand front window being replaced by a small second-hand glass case.

More recently over the last year or so, whenever I’ve gone into the Jessops World Camera Centre I’ve found the customer experience incredibly frustrating. The print-it-yourself machines not working, the lack of basic stock available, the immense difficulty of attracting the attention of a shop assistant, and when that attention is finally attracted, the shop assistant not having the faintest idea what I’m talking about (“what’s a flash bracket?”), or the most usual response “oh, we don’t have any in stock right now – we’ll have to order one in”.

And it’s not just Jessops where [...]

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