I found IBM’s AI announcement yesterday confusing; this write-up by Tobias Mann on The Register helps clarify details.
IBM is pushing its deep enterprise expertise as a differentiator over AWS, Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI.
I think Watson is a brand liability at this point. It’s 2011’s hot technology—not 2023’s—and has the scent of overreach and failure on it.
Don’t replace your people with ChatGPT or other AI services (Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / Computerworld). ChatGPT and other AI aren’t ready to replace workers, and only an idiot would think they are.
The dog caught all three of her nutritional supplement treats in the air this morning, so that means it’s going to be a good day.
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
In my head canon, the final episode is set today, in 2023. Midge and Susy are in their 90s and reconciled. And they’re on tour together, like George Burns. In the final scene, Susy goes into Midge’s bedroom in a hotel suite to find Midge died peacefully, in her sleep, fully made up and dressed, lying in bed with her will and funeral instructions under the pillow. Then cut to flashback to the Gaslight Club.
I’m on the hot new social app. @mitchw.bsky.social. Instead of Bluesky, they should call it “déjà vu.”
If you're looking to procrastinate, Midjourney is great for that.
It's hard to have a nap when there is a cat standing on your pillow demanding attention.
I’ve got a 1,500-word article due Thursday but I’m going to try to get it done today. Am writing. Don’t distract me.
Scientists have invented a technique for reading a person’s thoughts without the need for invasive surgery—in other words, they don’t have to crack open your skull to be able to tell what you’re thinking.
As I read the article, I thought this sounds like a software problem—which means if it’s cutting edge today, it’ll be in iPhones tomorrow. But then I read:
The participants in the study ran through all these tests while inside an fMRI machine, which is a clunky and immobile piece of laboratory equipment.
“Clunky and immobile” is one way to put it; that’s a five-ton machine and an entry level model costs $225,000.
My latest: VMware customers should find ‘exit ramps’ ahead of Broadcom deal: Gartner. VMware customers need to look for alternatives in case Broadcom puts the screws on post-acquisition.
Paramount Can’t Say No to the Man Behind ‘Yellowstone’: $50,000 a Week for His Ranch, $25 Per Cow. By Erich Schwartzel and Joe Flint at The Wall Street Journal
ChatGPT is powered by these contractors making $15 per hour. Two OpenAI contractors spoke to NBC News about their work training the system behind ChatGPT. One worker, Alex Savreux, says the AI gig work helped pull him out of homelessness.
Steven Spainhouer’s son was working at Allen Premium Outlets when he received the phone call no father ever wants to hear.
“He said, ‘Dad, we have a shooting … I’m pulling people into the break room, and we’re going to lock the door,’” Spainhouer told CNN on Sunday.
The former Army and police officer raced to the scene, called 911 and “started counting the bodies on the ground … one, two, three, five, six, seven bodies.”
Spainhouer said he saw devastation unlike anything he had seen in the Army.
“I never imagined in 100 years I would be thrust into the position of being the first responder on the site to take care of people,” Spainhouer told CNN affiliate KTVT.
“The first girl I walked up to … I felt for a pulse, pulled her head to the side, and she had no face.”
He said one child survived after his mother shielded him from the bullets. But the mother was struck and killed.
“When I rolled the mother over, he came out,” Spainhouer told KTVT. “He was covered from head to toe, like somebody had poured blood on him.”
Marissa Mayer says she wishes she’d bought Hulu or Netflix instead of Tumblr. She also talks about the AI search race, technology fears, and other Yahoo regrets. (Tech Brew)
AI text generators are writing more of the internet. More AI-generated books and personalized articles mean fewer clients buying human-written content. By Will Oremus at The Washington Post.
This seems to affect content mills paying pennies. I’m not worried—and I’m learning to use AI to make myself a more effective writer.
TikTok tracked users who watched LGBTQ content. (WSJ) Imagine what a backward religious dictatorship like Saudi Arabia or Alabama could do with that information.
Elon Musk’s goal for Twitter is “unregretted user-minutes.” (WSJ) A good idea, but how do you measure that?
Republicans have the answer to food insecurity in America: More guns, ban abortion, and stamp out drag shows.
Lines stretch down the block at food banks as costs go up and pandemic aid expires.
The line outside Boston’s American Red Cross Food Pantry on a recent Saturday morning stretched the length of two football fields. The number of people filing into the red-brick industrial-zone warehouse on some days now exceeds the worst periods of the pandemic economic crisis and in April it had the second highest monthly traffic since it opened in 1982, according to David Andre, the director.
His organization, like food banks across the country, has been flooded with requests for help since food-stamp recipients were hit with a double blow: the expiration of a temporary boost in benefits put in place during the pandemic and onerous grocery prices, which are running 24% above pre-COVID levels.”
Parents are depriving their children of food to make the food budget last longer.
By Michael Dorning at Bloomberg News.
The oats only need to soak two hours and I have an excellent battery case for the phone. Me vs. Monday is a tie so far.