A real challenge for institutions: how can educational and similar organisations detect AI-generated texts, reliably? The truth is that it’s not simple or reliable, and perhaps this will be the case for a long time to come.
Mandira
Who would expect to find an Ayerveda wellness resort in AUstria?
ChatGpt: now the paid adverts with every chat
Well, even LLMs have expenses. Free users in the US will start seeing paid advertising relevant to their chat after each exchange.
OpenAI is apparently planning to excluse adverts from sensitive exchanges that involve, for example, medical issues and politics.
So folks who can’t or won’t pay will be more exposed to this new wave or advertising than others. It’s a new era of the attention economy. Which AI company will be next, I wonder?
Is it time for Europe to place economic sanctions on the US?
I am South African, and although I only experienced the justified sanctions on the country as a child, as an adult I realise both how santioning the country sent a message globally about what was unacceptable AND the role that international sanctions played in ending apartheid.
Of couse, SA wasn’t a world player like the US, and the level of inter-connectedness was different in the 90s, but that doesn’t stop me wondering what the US has to do for Europe to say, “No.” Is it time for Europe to act rather than react, and actively choose not to do business with countries that violate international law and human rights? What can we do to disentangle ourselves from this values-crushing mess?
Eierlegende Wollmilchsau
Apparently, a multi-hyphenate is someone who does lots of things, and has lots of hyphens in their job title. For example, I am a futures facilitator-science communicator-storyteller-sustainability chamption-educator-trainer-workshop designer-urban walker-artist. Am I a specialist who specialises in many things? Am I, as Marie Forleo says, “Multi-passionate”? These are all quite positive.
Perhaps others might describe me as a dilettante (not positive in today’s world – a person who “dabbles” in an art or a field of knowledge), or a generalist (also not a high-paying job description).
Frankly, I love the diversity of what I do, and how they interconnect. I’d rather say that my approach to work has mostly advantages and few disadvantages, much like the “Eierlegende Wollmilchsau” (egg-laying-wool-milk-pig), which in German refers to an imaginary farm animal first mentioned in a poem, which as a hybrid creature combines the advantages of different animal species, namely from chicken (laying eggs), sheep (delivering wool), cow (giving milk) and pig (meat).
Yup, I’m special. Practically mythical.
Eierlegende Wollmilchsau – Wikipedia
Eierlegende Wollmilchsau (auch eierlegendes Woll(milch)schwein) ist eine umgangssprachliche Redewendung, mit der etwas (eine Sache, Person oder Problemlösung) umschrieben wird, das scheinbar „nur Vorteile hat, alle Bedürfnisse befriedigt, allen Ansprüchen genügt“, eben deshalb aber irreal ist.
de.wikipedia.org
You call it procrastination. I call it thinking.
You call it procrastination, I call it thinking.
– Aaron Sorkin
The story:
In a talk about procrastination, Adam Grant shared this quote about procrastination. Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter behind “Steve Jobs” and “The West Wing,” was apparently known to put off writing until the last minute. When asked about it, he is said to have replied, “You call it procrastination, I call it thinking.”
The point:
Perhaps procrastination between deciding to do something, and actually doing it, gives us thinking space that helps everyday creativity.
Food and violence
Michael Shaikh’s “The Last Sweet Bite” is a fascinating exploration of how conflict changes how and what people eat. And food has so much to do with identity, so this is, for me, a book about how conflict changes cultures.
The Last Sweet Bite by Michael Shaikh: 9780593442845 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
A powerful and heartwarming exploration of cuisine in conflict zones, highlighting the courageous persistence of people struggling to protect their food culture in the face of war, genocide, and violence.…
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
Welcome, ChatMD
According to Futurism, OpenAI has launched a health-focused version of ChatGPT that can ingest full medical records. When people tap into this knowledge, they will see an explicit warning it shouldn’t be used for diagnosis or treatment. Isn’t this a bit like saying, “Don’t think of a pink elephant”, but instead of asking people not to think something, we’re asking them not use something?
On Attention
Attention changes the world. How you attend to it changes what it is you find there.
—British psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist
California’s Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan repurposes fallow land into a 21 GW solar farm
A new initiative in California will repurpose farmland that is no longer able to sustain agriculture. The arid land will be used to build large solar farms, providing renewable energy to the grid instead of growing food.