Tag Archives: future

“How good are my AI prompts?”

Two thoughts about yesterday’s post, ‘Playing with Chat GPT‘:

1. I used the plural phrase ‘Artificial intelligences’ and followed up with, “yes plural, AI is not a single thing”. What’s both exciting and scary is that Chat GPT and other incredible AI tools are revolutionizing markets like health care diagnostics, manufacturing and logistics, coding, customer service and tech support, copy editing and content generation, audio and video editing, and even education. I think anyone who uses these tools can see why it’s exciting, but why do I also say scary? Here are two reasons:

First of all, many of these tools are open source or open access and/or very affordable for anyone to build on top of. This is great, but also permits people to do some pretty nefarious things, like produce deep fakes, and use these tools in increasingly evil ways. And as AI gets better, so does the ability to do greater harm.

Secondly, we are going to see a major decrease in jobs. Now this is under debate, with some people thinking there will just be a shift in jobs, but I disagree. For example, you own an online website that hires content 10 content writers to produce daily content to get new articles in front of your readers. You lay off 7 of them, keeping your best ones, and you have them use Chat GPT to write articles similar to the best, most popular ones on your site, and the 3 best remaining editors tweak the AI writing, make it better, easily doing the work of 10 writers. 

This kind of shift isn’t happening with just Chat GPT, there are more and more AI tools that are quickly shifting the need to less staff, who are more creative and innovative, to do jobs many more people did. If you are an elegant coder or excellent problem-solving tech support worker, your job is safe. If you are just competent at coding or tech support, an AI can and will do the job better than you, and you won’t be needed much longer. The irony is that your years of providing support will have helped train the very AI replacing you.

This isn’t just about Chat GPT, it’s about a plethora of Artificial Intelligences changing the way we learn, access information, get fooled, and work. And the pace of change will rival the any prior advancement in human history.

2. After publishing yesterday’s post, I went back to Chat GPT to play some more (as seen in the ‘Update’ at the bottom of the post). Three prompts after my original one I had something that was easy to read, and would take just one read-over and final edit to be something I could publish, which would be insightful, and difficult to know was AI generated. I ended my update with: The question isn’t how good is the AI tool, the question is, “How good are my prompts?”

…and if your prompts are not that good… just ask Chat GPT to improve them!

Here are a couple Twitter threads with some insightful prompts for Chat GPT.

Playing with Chat GPT

Yesterday I asked Chat GPT for blog post ideas for a blog that discusses ‘education, learning, and general life lessons‘. This is what it responded with:

I then chose #4 and asked: Write a short blog post titled, “The Role of Reflection in Learning” on the topic of Exploring the significance of reflective practices in enhancing learning and personal growth.

This is what Chat GPT came up with:

Would I ever just use Chat GPT to write my Daily Ink? No. But would I use it as a launching pad to help me generate ideas, or help me write a first draft? Absolutely. However, that’s just me. What you see above will be the kind of thing people who generate daily posts as part of a paid gig will do regularly. Sure they will make it sound a bit less formal, a bit more natural or conversational… but there are actually other Artificial Intelligences (yes plural, AI is not a single thing) which will do this and make it undetectable should you ask an AI detector if a human wrote it. Need something longer, like a school essay? Just ask Chat GPT to expand each of the 5 points into full paragraphs.

I didn’t iterate. I didn’t ask a more detailed question. I didn’t ask Chat GPT to further develop the ideas… If I did, it would make the above results even better and it would do so in a matter of seconds. And educators, try as you might, you can’t police it.

We are not far away from finding more AI written (or AI assisted) content on the internet than just purely human generated content… and we won’t know the difference.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

Update: (…I came back to this a few hours later.)

TLDR: The question isn’t how good is the AI tool, the question is, “How good are my prompts?”

I followed up and requested Chap GPT to, “Write the above blog post in a more conversational manner, using paragraphs without numbering or section titles.”
Here is the updated version:

The Role of Reflection in Learning

In the fast-paced world of education, where we’re constantly bombarded with information, it’s important to take a step back and reflect on our learning journey. Reflection is a powerful tool that not only enhances our understanding but also fosters personal growth. So, let’s dive into the significance of reflective practices and how they can positively impact our learning experiences.

When we engage in reflection, we go beyond surface-level learning. It provides us with an opportunity to delve deeper into our knowledge and identify any gaps in our understanding. By pausing, processing, and evaluating what we’ve learned, we can connect the dots and develop a more comprehensive understanding of the subject matter. Whether it’s through journaling, discussions, or self-assessment, reflection allows us to make sense of complex concepts and strengthen our grasp on the material.

But reflection goes beyond academic understanding. It also enhances our self-awareness, which is a crucial aspect of personal growth. By reflecting on our learning process, we become more conscious of our strengths, weaknesses, and preferred learning styles. This self-awareness empowers us to tailor our learning strategies, seek additional support when needed, and leverage our strengths to maximize our potential. It’s like having a roadmap that guides us towards effective learning.

Another great benefit of reflection is its ability to foster critical thinking skills. When we reflect, we engage in thoughtful analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of information. We question assumptions, challenge existing ideas, and gain a deeper understanding of various perspectives. This critical thinking not only sharpens our intellect but also enhances our problem-solving abilities. It equips us with the skills needed to tackle real-world challenges with confidence and creativity.

Reflection is also a catalyst for continuous improvement. Learning is a lifelong journey, and reflection plays a vital role in our growth. By reflecting on our successes and failures, we can identify areas for improvement and set meaningful goals. Regular self-reflection allows us to track our progress, celebrate achievements, and make necessary adjustments to our learning strategies. It promotes a growth mindset, inspiring us to embrace challenges, persist through obstacles, and strive for excellence.

In addition to all these benefits, reflection fosters metacognition, which is our ability to think about our own thinking. When we engage in metacognitive practices, such as reflecting on our learning process, monitoring our comprehension, and evaluating our strategies, we become more self-regulated learners. This metacognitive awareness empowers us to take control of our learning, adapt our approaches, and become more efficient and effective learners overall.

So, let’s make a conscious effort to pause, reflect, and embark on a transformative learning journey filled with growth, insight, and personal development. By embracing reflective practices, we deepen our understanding, foster self-awareness, sharpen critical thinking skills, promote continuous improvement, and cultivate metacognitive abilities. It’s time to unlock the true potential of our learning experiences through the power of reflection.

Then I followed up with, “Try again, still more conversational and less like an essay. Vary sentence and paragraph length, and end with a thought provoking question.”

I didn’t like what it came up with so I followed up one more time with, “This last version is a bit too conversational, try again and this time don’t start sentences with coordinating conjunctions like ‘But’ and ‘So’. Also change the first sentence so it less formal.”

Reflection in Learning: Unleashing the Power Within

In the whirlwind of education, where information bombards us from all directions, it’s easy to overlook the importance of reflection in our learning journey. We often rush from one lesson to the next, absorbing knowledge without truly digesting it. But what if we hit the pause button and took a moment to reflect?

Reflection goes beyond simply memorizing facts and figures. It’s a transformative process that allows us to delve deeper into our thoughts, experiences, and understanding of the subjects we encounter. It’s like shining a spotlight on our minds and examining everything we’ve absorbed in a more meaningful way.

What’s truly remarkable about reflection is that it extends beyond academia. It plays a crucial role in our personal growth as well. By engaging in reflection, we become more aware of our strengths, weaknesses, and unique learning styles. It’s like getting to know ourselves as learners on a whole new level. This self-awareness empowers us to tailor our learning strategies and leverage our strengths to maximize our potential.

Reflection isn’t a passive exercise; it’s an active one that fuels critical thinking. When we reflect, we question assumptions, evaluate information, and connect the dots. It enables us to go beyond the surface-level understanding and dive into the deeper layers of knowledge. This kind of thinking not only expands our intellectual capacity but also equips us with the skills to tackle real-world challenges with confidence and creativity.

Yet, the power of reflection doesn’t stop there. It serves as a catalyst for growth and continuous improvement. When we take the time to reflect on our learning journey, we identify areas where we can enhance our skills and knowledge. We set meaningful goals and work diligently towards them. It’s like having a personal roadmap for our own development, guiding us towards excellence and progress.

Intriguingly, reflection is also about metacognition – thinking about our own thinking. By engaging in metacognitive practices, such as reflecting on our learning process or evaluating our strategies, we become self-regulated learners. We take charge of our learning experience, adapt our approaches, and become more efficient and effective learners overall. It’s like having an internal compass that helps us navigate the vast landscape of knowledge.

So, let’s embrace the power of reflection. Let’s pause, process, and ponder on what we’ve learned. When we do, we unlock the true potential of our learning experiences. We deepen our understanding, foster self-awareness, sharpen critical thinking skills, and pave the way for continuous growth and personal transformation.

Have you taken a moment to reflect on your learning journey lately? What insights have you gained? How has reflection impacted your personal growth? Share your valuable thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

I think it would take one final personal edit, tweaking as I read it over once, and I’d have a pretty good blog post that’s both insightful and hard to identify as AI generated.

The question isn’t how good is the AI tool, the question is, “How good are my prompts?”

Major congestion

Yesterday I shared how malls are empty and said, “... all malls won’t die just the stand-alone ones. The newest form of densification in cities is to build a mall or commercial level shopping below high rises…”

Today I’m stuck in Traffic on the 401, the busiest highway in North America, and I wonder how more densification will affect this? Will these new vertical communities encourage less commuting or will the sheer volume of people overwhelm our transportation infrastructure?

It will depend on developers. Will they develop so that the pulse of our cities is pedestrian? Or will we continue to live inside smaller and smaller condos and use our car as the majority of our outside our apartment experiences. I hope to see more outdoor spaces designed for pedestrians to travel and congregate, but real estate is money and most developers care more about profit than liveability, even though liveability is a huge selling point.

Other countries are building communities that don’t require commuting, how much longer will we be focused on cars and congestion instead of cafés and places for pedestrians to shop, eat, and congregate?

Empty Malls

We went to the mall nearest to my parent’s house and I was shocked to see about 60% of the stores closed. The grocery store and drug store were busy, but while my mom waited for a prescription I went looking for a coffee, and the rest of the mall was almost empty. The closest I got to finding coffee was a Subway and Booster Juice, both with no customers in the stores. Both had shuttered, empty sores next to them.

The strip mall and small malls that we’ve known for decades are dead. There won’t be a revival. Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and other online shopping sites are in direct competition with these malls and unless someone is pulled to these malls by the need for groceries or a prescription, none of the other few remaining stores will get a visit.

That said, all malls won’t die just the stand-alone ones. The newest form of densification in cities is to build a mall or commercial level shopping below high rises… stack the customers on top of the shopping spaces and make the mall convenient to visit. You don’t even need to put on a coat to visit the mall, it’s just a trip down the elevator, or a walk through an underground parking lot.

Goodbye strip mall. They will all be torn down and revived only when a few hundred condos are built above the mall space. You want customers in your mall? Make the mall an extension of their living space. Until that happens, you’ll see more and more empty, shut down, and abandoned stores… Malls that are mere shells of what they used to be.

Down the Social Media Rabbit Hole

I made a mistake last night. I was on Twitter and clicked on a video of a guy knocking down a surveillance camera on a street light in Australia. I then scrolled to the next video and went down a right wing rabbit hole. The first video was a voiceover of Tucker Carlson recently ‘dismissed’ from Fox News, and it was essentially trying to make humourous jokes about a transgender host taking over. Next was a Republican semi-automatic gun wearing black man praising the NRA and claiming the democrats are ‘coming for our guns’. Then came a Sean Hannity clip that I didn’t watch. Then came my first Canadian content with a clip bashing Justin Trudeau. And finally I called it quits after watching a geologist bashing climate change… in case you didn’t know, carbon dioxide is ‘plant food, not a pollutant’.

These crazy social media algorithms, and the deep fakes I spoke about a few days ago, are going to absolutely polarize us, paralyze us, and completely undermine us.

Don’t ignore opposing views, measure them. Don’t jump on the bandwagon, figure out if you want to travel the exact same route. Don’t criticize, question. Don’t SHOUT, disengage until cooler heads prevail.

Don’t pretend the algorithms aren’t already influencing you, be savvy and question why posts and videos are algorithmically chosen for you. You are either trying to be digitally literate or you are probably being manipulated and steered towards an extreme view.

From the horses mouth

I’ve already seen some really good deep fakes of famous people that both look and sound real. That was over a year ago and the technology is far better now. I just watched this NBC Nightly News clip on TikTok:

The whole video is cautionary and a little scary, looking at Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a possible threat to Humanity. At the 2:17 minute mark this was said,

“AI tools can already mimic voices, ace exams, create art, and diagnose diseases. And they are getting smarter every day.

In two years by the time of the election, human beings will not be able to tell the difference between what is real and what is fake.”

It occurred to me that the lead up to the next US election is going to include countless deep fakes that will be virally shared and reposted and re-shared, which will be far more convincing than anything we’ve seen so far. The clever ones won’t be far fetched in content, they will be convincing because they will subtly send people down a specific narrative without being outrageous or egregious and easy to spot. For example: Biden supporting and endorsing some ultra-left wing, ‘woke’ group the makes the right outraged. Or Trump speaking to a friend about how he hates guns and the NRA. Each of these can be completely fabricated and completely convincing.

This is really scary because where you get your news will be vitally important. Hopefully major news outlets would vet the videos and verify authenticity before sharing, but digital newspapers are always worried about missing the scoop and letting other networks go viral. Many less reputable sites will share the fake videos just because it fits their narrative. Other sites will knowingly share the fake videos because their intent is to mislead, and to feed anger and vitriol to their naive followers.

Conspiracies will be magnified and any mention of the videos being fake will be counter argued that reports of the video being faked are just the way the government is trying to keep the truth from you. The message being, the fakes are real and the reports of them being fake is the fake news. People already believe fake articles with no fact-checking, they are going to be completely fooled by extremely convincing fake videos.

My advice, find websites that you trust and make sure the web url is correct. Follow people you trust and question anything suspicious from them that isn’t from your trusted sites. If it’s not from your trusted site, if it’s not right from the horses mouth and it seems suspicious, consider it fake until you verify.

How serious is this? You don’t have to be famous to be deep faked. Here is a story of a mom thinking she was talking to her kidnapped daughter, convinced it was her voice on the phone with her kidnappers, but it was a fake and her daughter was upstairs in her room. The point of the video is to have a safe word with your family because anyone’s voice can be easily faked.

We are entering a time when people are defining truth differently, when fakes seem more like truth, and when sources of information are going to be as important as the information itself.

Unrecognizable future

Did you ever see the movie Blast from the Past? Here is the premise from Wikipedia:

The film focuses on a naive 35-year-old man, Adam Webber, who has spent his entire life (1962-1997) living in a Cold War-era fallout shelter built by his survivalist, anti-Communist father, who believes the United States has suffered a Soviet nuclear attack (in reality, a plane crashed into their house). When the doors unlock after 35 years (the amount of time his father believes the nuclear fallout will take to clear), Adam emerges into the modern world, where his innocence and old-fashioned views put him at comedic odds with others.

It’s a cute movie. It makes me wonder what it would be like for someone today to jump ahead and see what the future is like 35 years from now? What does life look like in 2058?

Will work look any like it does today? What about transportation? Money? Space flight? Religion? Politics? Artificial intelligence (AI) and computing?

There is so much that could, and will, be different from today. Some of these things might look similar, but some are going to look considerably different. I can’t imagine a world 35 years from now being less different today than 1997 was to 1962. Life in 2058 will be unrecognizable compared to life today.

For example: The entire monetary system is going to be digital. The workforce is going to be mostly different depending on how much AI has undermined many of today’s jobs. That same AI is going to change the way we integrate technology. Today it’s our phones that seem to be getting smarter and smarter but 35 years from now it will be integrated/cyborg technology that will be enhancing and enriching our lives.

I can imagine glasses or contact lenses or implants that give us information like map directions, names and details about people we meet, and even health data like heads up display data in a military jet today. I can imagine this working in a way with a hearing implant that allows us to have a video conversation like FaceTime on our phone today. Phones won’t be something we carry, they will be something embedded as part of the tools we wear or tools we integrate into implants.

If you don’t think that things will be drastically different than now, then you haven’t paid attention to the exponential rate of change that has happened since the 1990’s. In 1990 there was no Amazon, Deep Blue was 7 years away from beating world Chess champion Garry Kasparov, there were no smart phones, no electric cars, and Google was still 8 years away from being a company. Author Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Smart phones today would seem like magic in 1990. What does 2058 hold for us that will seem like nothing less than magic to us today? It’s cliche to say, but time will tell.

Health and history

I had a dental cleaning today. I get one every 6 months. As I was sitting in the chair I thought about how far we’ve come in dental hygiene over the last few hundred years. I thought about how debilitating it would have been to need a root canal before root canals were a thing. Tooth aches can be an all consuming pain, and life before dentists could have been an agonizing experience.

So many inventions have saved lives: from penicillin to pacemakers, vaccines to vitamins, antibiotics to aspirin… science and medicine have been invented, created, and discovered to make our lives less painful and a lot safer.

We still have a ways to go with the likes of cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases yet to be beaten, but we’ll get there in my children’s lifetime, if not mine. Technology is getting better and the science of longevity is very promising. Soon our visits to the washroom will be more like doctor visits, with our urine and faeces being sampled and tested by our toilets, and an app on our phones will notify us if there are any health concerns to worry about.

It’s a marvel to think about how much has been done in the world of science and medicine to make our lives healthier and longer. It took a dental assistant getting plaque off of my not-flossed-regularly-enough teeth to help me appreciate the value of modern science. And, I’m happy to report that I’m cavity free!

Time in, time out

There is a certain wisdom that comes with age, with the passing of years and the recognition that more than half your life has passed. I’m not talking about how my days are numbered or anything like that, but rather that the time we have left is worth something. So how do we use our time? What do we put time into… and what do we get out of that time?

I have a good job that is in the service of others. I get good job satisfaction out of my work, but I also put a lot of my time into my work. I have an awesome family that I’d like to spend a bit more time with… and do, like our recent vacation to Spain. I have a small group of friends that I definitely want to spend more time with. I have a weekly walk and coffee with a friend, and I have regular events (plays & musicals) where my wife and I go out with 2 other couples we are close to. I have some awesome connections to my wife’s family and we meet for events like a dinner this long weekend. Beyond that I really don’t make time for friendships, and when I do it feels like an effort.

As I get older I’m seeing that the effort to connect with friends and family is vitally important. Vitally as in it fosters vitality. I spend so little time making the effort to connect to others I care about, but those connections are worth the effort. And if you don’t put the time in, you don’t get the reward out. My circle of friends is small, and I don’t want it any smaller. I need to make more time to connect to people whom I value… and who value me.

I need to make the time, because to quote a Canadian band, ‘They say, absence makes the heart grow fungus‘. If I don’t make the effort now, I’m probably not going to make it later, and friendships do not grow stronger out of time apart. New experiences with old friends: that’s what I need more of in my life. And these don’t happen unless someone is making an effort to connect… and more and more I’m realizing that I’m the one that needs to make the effort; to put the time in.

Capability and Time

This post is about General Artificial Intelligence, but I’m going on a bird walk first.

My dad has had a health setback and will be on a long road to recovery. I heard him talking about his recovery plans and I felt had to share a personal example with him. When I went through 6 months of chronic fatigue I finally found relief after I discovered that I had a severe Vitamin D deficiency and started taking high dose supplements. Here’s the thing, I saw positive results in just 3 days… I went from hearing my alarm and wondering how I could physically get out of bed, to feeling normal when I woke up in just a matter of days of taking suppliments. However, it took over 6 months to recover to the point where I could put my treadmill within 90% of what I could do before the fatigue hit me. My capabilities improved, but much slower than I thought would happen. We are good at setting goals and knowing what’s possible, but we often overestimate how fast we can achieve those goals.

But I digress (my dad’s favourite thing to say when he finishes a bird walks on his way to making a point.)

Chat GPT and similar language predicting software are still pretty far away from artificial general intelligence, and the question is: How far away are we? How far away are we from a computer being able to out-think, out-comprehend, and our problem-solve the brightest of humans? Not just on one task, like they do on competing in Chess or Go, rather in ‘general’ terms, with any task.

I think we are further away in time than most people think (at least those people who think that artificial general intelligence is possible). I think there needs to be at least one if not a few technological leaps that need to happen first, and I think this will take longer than expected to happen.

The hoverboard and flying cars in the movie Back to the Future may not be too far away, but the ‘future’ in the 1987 movie was supposed to be 2015.

Are we going to achieve Artificial General Intelligence any time soon? I doubt it. I think we need a couple quantum leaps in our knowledge first. But when this happens, computers will instantly be much smarter than us. They will be far more capable than humans at that point. So the new question isn’t about when this will happen, but rather what we do when it does happens? Because I’m not a fan of a non-human intelligence looking at humans the way we think about stupid chickens, or even smart pets. What happens when thé Artificial Intelligence we create sees us as stupid, weak animals? Well, I guess time will tell (but don’t think that’s any time too soon).