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Commentary
1. The Rise of OpenAI:
This San Francisco company is one of the world’s most ambitious artificial intelligence labs. Here’s a look at some of their recent releases:
• ChatGPT: The popularity of the cutting-edge chatbot that kicked off an A.I. arms race has come as something of a shock — even among employees of the company that created it.
• DALL-E 2: The system lets you create digital images simply by describing what you want to see. But for some, image generators are worrisome.
• GPT-3: With mind-boggling fluency, the natural-language system can write, argue and code. The implications for the future could be profound
2. I’m using ChatGPT, the software developed by OpenAI,
a research organization that aims to promote and develop friendly AI in a way that benefits humanity as a whole.
GPT stands for "Generative Pretrained Transformer." It's a type of computer program that is trained to generate text that sounds like it was written by a human. Think of it like a really smart computer friend who can hold a conversation with you.
Here are recent questions I asked or commands that I gave the app:
How do I use Brown Rice Protein?
Give me a recipe for Hawaiian Garlic Shrimp.
How do I loosen brown sugar that has become a solid block?
Write a 100 word bio of Sam Altman.
Explain GPT for my 12 year-old daughter. (FYI: The ChatGPT bio of Sam Altman is published in this edition under People, below.)
To each of these questions I instantly received a terrific answer.
Terrific.
I am encouraged to return with interactive questions or commands, tweaking ChatGPT’s responses to get closer and closer to exactly what I want.
conversation with a chatbot
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Kat’s Gen Z Corner
Books and Broadway
Continuing with top nine books of 2022 and also, Will and I on Broadway.
This is the front cover art for the book All About Love: New Visions written by bell hooks. The book cover art copyright is believed to belong to the publisher, Harper, or the cover artist.
May be found at the following website: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0060959479.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg.
All the things you didn’t learn about in school about love and relationships, in poetic form.
Will and I took advantage of Broadway Week, purchasing 2-for-1 tickets, and finally saw Hadestown on January 26. This was our first show together in a while, as my appetite for Broadway is larger than his and I’ve found other female friends to go with, so it was a special night for us. Since the tickets were so discounted, we had seats close enough to see the expressions of the actors’ faces. A treat!
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AI Corner
A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an online chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent.
Our new AI corner will present views of what Artificial Intelligence is all about. We do not want our readers to be left behind, and the train is arriving.
A virtual assistant chatbot
Bemidji State University
An example of an automated online assistant.
What is ChatGPT?
Let’s go right to the source, the OpenAI program called ChatGPT, and ask it.
Our dear son Mino added a bit of pizazz to the question. He directed ChatGPT:
“explain chatgpt to my grandmother”
The answer came immediately:
ChatGPT is a type of computer program that can have a conversation with you, just like a person. It's like having a virtual friend who can understand what you say and respond in a way that makes sense.
Think of it like a machine that has been taught how to understand and speak our language. It can answer your questions, hold a conversation with you, and even tell you jokes or stories. It's like having a personal assistant that's always ready to help.
ChatGPT can be used in a variety of ways, such as in chatbots to help answer customer service questions or in virtual assistants to help people manage their daily tasks. It's becoming more and more advanced all the time and can even hold a conversation that is difficult to distinguish from a conversation with a real person.
We think Grandma will understand that.
As an aside, I asked ChatGPT if the site has a nickname. The response: “ChatGPT doesn't have an official nickname, but you're welcome to come up with one if you like!”
Cute.
A change of pace: wading and fishing
Chris Capossela, angler, father, husband, brother, and son. When he’s not fishing, he is gainfully employed as CMO of Microsoft.
Day 9 had me fishing the Caleufu river at a ranch at the bottom of a valley that takes an hour to drive into with lots of switch backs. It feels more like a nature reserve than a cattle ranch and I have a small cabin to myself which is a real luxury. This ranch believes in the afternoon siesta, so we fish from 9:30am to 2pm and then come back for lunch at the lodge and some down time before fishing from 5:30pm to 9pm. Dinner is at 10:30pm. It’s still a long day but so much more civilized to have that nice break in the middle of the day.
We caught a lot of medium sized fish, and this guide is particularly good at explaining how to approach each section of the river with great detail of why we should fish it the way we’re going to fish it which makes it very fun for me. These rivers are all fished on foot so having a break from the boats has been very nice even if you probably exert more energy with the wading.
Chris
Rainbow on the Caleufu River
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Tucker’s Screen Corner
Favorite Films of 2022 Part 6
This week’s picks won’t show up on on most year-end lists but they’re brilliant all the same. A terrific feminist action epic. A gorgeous visual poem about a historic poet. A heartfelt story of a found family. A historical treatise on aging as a woman. A tale of a donkey’s journey through Poland. All amazing work and all absolutely worth a watch! Please find reviews of each film here
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Writing
The big news is AI and we at existentialautotrip are excited, so much so, we are adding another ‘corner’, the AI Corner, to educate ourselves and our readers about the 1,000 and more uses of this scientific breakthrough.
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Travel to Florence: the rhythm of it
What’s so great about Florence? Cafes, for one. Our mornings will begin with breakfast in an outdoor café. Caffe Latte and rolls. Yum. Taking our sweet time. Watching tourists and natives alike go past. Sipping. Reveling in our lanquidness. Spreading butter and jam. Sipping.
Lunch is another great time for an outdoor café. As is, of course, our mid-afternoon cortado, perhaps with a gelato. Three cafes a day. Yayy.
After breakfast we’ll head to a museum. Florence is like Paris: it contains so much world-class art that it makes you dizzy, confused, and frustrated. The only answer to that is to move to Florence for three months and spend every morning at one museum or another.
But we tourists being time-limited and must make choices. In the next few days in Boston we’ll spend time selecting Florence museums, one for each morning. And within the selected museums, we’ll list specific pieces that are ‘must sees’.
Part of the planning will include discovering how to best acquire tickets.
After our museum visit and when we’re not in a café we will spend some of our time walking and shopping Florence. Aren’t small cities great? So much is within walking distance. We’ll spend some other time touring the fabulous Tuscan countryside.
At the end of the day, we’ll spend a bit of time in our hotel room resting and changing as we get ready for an extraordinary dinner. All dinners in Florence are going to be terrific, but we will limit our dinner-restaurant selections to starred Guide Michelin restaurants.
It’s great to be king.
Ponte Vecchio from Ponte alle Grazie / Florence
Ingo Mehling - Own work
The Ponte Vecchio or the “Old Bridge” over the Arno River, in Florence, Italy, is one of the most iconic medieval bridges. The bridge has been home to shops across its span since the 13th century.
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Dinner/Food/Recipe
I tested ChatGPT: Give me a recipe for Hawaiian Garlic Shrimp
And I instantly got the response following.
Now I rarely, never, actually, use a recipe without serious alterations.
In this case, the recipe looks so on target that I promise to try it as is.
Here is a simple recipe for Hawaiian garlic shrimp:
Ingredients:
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt, to taste
Instructions:
In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat.
Add the minced garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.
Add the shrimp to the pan and cook until they are pink and opaque, about 3-4 minutes.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.
Add the soy sauce, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, and lemon juice to the melted butter. Stir to combine.
Pour the sauce over the shrimp in the pan and toss to coat.
Cook for an additional minute, or until the sauce has thickened slightly.
Serve the shrimp with green onions sprinkled on top and a sprinkle of salt to taste.
Enjoy this delicious and flavorful Hawaiian garlic shrimp dish!
Picture from Cooking Classy.com
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“The instant the doors open, you want to push forward as hard as possible, in an effort to get onto the train without letting anybody off. This is very important. If anybody does get off, it is legal to tackle him and drag him back on.”
~Dave Barry
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Local Bits
Taken while on my trans-continental trip that spawned existentialautotrip.com
Yellowstone was not my favorite destination, unlike the Grand Canyon, jaw-dropping.
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts, including links.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Our friend Howard sends us three of his recent adventures with AI.
As preface, he does say, as a footnote, his use of a common Yiddish word, below, to designate a quality of being “non-Jewish” was not meant to cause offense (especially as he was addressing a robot), though in some negative contexts it may be understood from the usage the term may indicate a form of condescension. From Howard:
Here’s my latest chat with chatGPT’s bot…
Q (me): do you really understand what I am saying, in the same way a sentient human would?
A (bot): As an AI language model, I do not have sentience or consciousness in the same way that humans do. I can generate responses based on patterns in the data I was trained on, but I do not truly "understand" the meaning of language or the experiences of those who use it in the same way that a human would. I can only provide relevant information and answer questions based on the patterns I've learned from the data I was trained on.
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And you might enjoy this. It’s from one of my little doodles last week…
An AI encounter
[Prompt to chatbot]: Write the beginning of a story about how my dad used to make special breakfasts on Sundays with salami and eggs, my favorites.
[first draft of the bot]
Every Sunday, as soon as I woke up, the smell of sizzling salami wafted up the stairs and filled my nostrils, pulling me out of bed. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and made my way down to the kitchen, where my dad was always whipping up his famous salami and eggs breakfast. He would have a grin on his face as he stood over the stove, flipping the eggs with a spatula and occasionally adding a few slices of salami to the pan.
As I sat at the table, I couldn’t help but feel grateful for this special Sunday tradition that my dad had started. It was a time for us to slow down and enjoy each other’s company, savoring the delicious food and catching up on the events of the week. And as I dug into my plate of warm eggs and salty salami, I knew that this was what Sunday mornings were all about.
[My first corrective response] “Rewrite, making it less goyische and more Jewish…”
[after three more iterations with corrections from me, about fewer clichés, correction of culinary mistakes: for example the bot tried substituting “cholent” (a traditional kind of stew with meat and vegetables) for salami, and then having the father make latkes and eggs in the same pan, a no-no; and then asking to go back to salami, plus some details I provided, it came up with this]:
“Every Shabbat morning, the sound of my tatteh’s busy kitchen pulled me out of bed. I washed my hands and made my way down to the kitchen, where he was always whipping up his famous salami and eggs breakfast. He stood over the stove, flipping the eggs with a spatula and adding a few slices of savory, juicy salami to the pan.
‘Tatteh had a twinkle in his eye as he cooked, humming a tune and tapping his foot. He was always in his element in the kitchen, and these Shabbat breakfasts were a way for us to connect and start the day off right. As we sat down to eat, I couldn’t help but think of the old Katz’s Deli slogan, “Send a salami to your boy in the army!” Salami was a staple in Jewish households, not just for its delicious flavor, but for its durability and long shelf life. It was a symbol of comfort and home, no matter where one was. And as I savored each bite of the salty, rich salami and the fluffy, creamy eggs, I felt grateful to be a part of this rich Jewish tradition.”
The bot still clearly has a penchant for clichés and worn stereotypes, but it’s impressive for how fast it “learns.”
Shall we go for a trifecta? (Blogmeister)
Me: How can I be sure what you say to me is accurate, and adheres to what is true as far as science can determine at this time?
Bot: I have been trained on a diverse range of text from the internet, including information from reputable sources such as academic journals, news articles, and books. However, it is possible that the information I provide may be incorrect or outdated, so I would advise you to verify any information that I provide by consulting multiple sources.
Keep in mind that as a machine learning model, I am not capable of fact-checking or verifying the accuracy of the information I was trained on. It is always a good idea to cross-check the information I provide with other credible sources.
Additionally, it is possible for my responses to be biased based on the data I was trained on, so it is important to keep that in mind when evaluating my answers.
Blog meister responds: Howard, that was a great dialogue! I love that we’re all finding unique ways to investigate what this AI stuff is all about. Although the more talented of us will push AI harder and faster than I will. Sorry. The truth.
And for a change of pace, this one from dear friend, Ann H:
Love this. When I had my kidney stone miso is on the stay away from list just a random fyi
See you next month
Xxoo
Blog meister responds: Glad you are no longer deprived. Let’s pick a date for our annual dinner.
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People
Sam Altman
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 03: OpenAI Co-Founder & CEO Sam Altman speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 at Moscone Convention Center on October 03, 2019 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch)
We asked ChatGPT for 100 word bio of Sam and it instantly gave us this:
Sam Altman is a renowned entrepreneur and technology executive. He is best known for his role as the President of OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research organization. Altman is also a co-founder and former CEO of Loopt, a location-based social networking company. Prior to his work at OpenAI, he served as the CEO of Loopt and as an advisor to startups such as Instacart and Airbnb. He is known for his expertise in the field of artificial intelligence and is a strong advocate for the responsible development and deployment of AI technologies. Throughout his career, Altman has been recognized as a thought leader in the tech industry and continues to drive innovation through his work at OpenAI.
*The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Community Pictures with Captions are sent in by our followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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