#12 - Evolution...
Joe Houghton
Husband, dad, educator, author, facilitator, speaker, consultant, coach, photographer - wearer of many hats! "People gardener".
Lots going on in AI world at present. ChatGPT has just added in a couple of significant updates to its capabilities - the ability to access the current Internet, and the introduction of plug-ins.
Catching up with Bing, ChatGPT had to make accessing information after 2021 past of the feature-set - well it's here - if you're a Plus subscriber. And the new Plug-Ins are also part of the Plus offering. You have to go into settings and turn both of these on if you have the Plus account - otherwise you'll just be using the previous versions...
Plug-ins are extensions to ChatGPT's capabilities created by companies, and these will clearly give super-powers to the base engine in ways we've not even dreamed of as yet. Watch this space - this will become a whole new market very quickly.
My previous article talked about the digital divide, and it does make me uncomfortable to see the new bells and whistles being limited to those who pay, perpetuating the haves/have nots separation, but then this is new tech and it does have to be paid for somehow... No easy answers here.
Probably the most fascinating new AI tool I've spotted this week is AgentGPT . This is an early beta but allows prompts into the ChatGPT bot to be strung together to create more complex tasks that the AgentGPT will create and run autonomously. It's limited at present so can't do really complex stuff yet such as writing a book in one go, but it'll break down an idea into headings and subheadings and create you a good starting point - very powerful stuff!
I'm reading about AI all the time these days and share the juiciest bits with you here, but if you are even more interested I curate a FlipBoard magazine where I drop most of the articles I do find useful - you can subscribe to that at ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | @joehoughton | Flipboard . I love FlipBoard - it's a great way to consume feeds from multiple sources and all presented beautifully - I use it on my iPad to catch up on the subjects I follow.
Grading - I'm deep in the end of semester grading this week, so writing this is a reward for 4 hours this morning of marking papers. This semester was the first one where I had specifically flagged up AI with a page in each course outline showing my AI policy. Basically I said, feel free to use AI but declare it and make sure that you amplify and check any material carefully. The reports and papers I've read so far certainly don't seem to have been bot-written - they are all presented beautifully, referenced well and seem to have authentic student voice in the writing. Maybe all the doom and gloom about this being the end of education as we know it was an over-reaction - we'll see as time goes on I guess...
A couple of quick tips to improve your AI results:
"Let's think step by step" - a great addition to ChatGPT prompts. Add this to the end of your prompt and chatbots will produce the steps of reasoning that get them to their answer... Try it - you'll be amazed!
Another really interesting approach is to ask the chatbot a question. Then, ask it to act as a harsh critic on it's answer, and to come up with ways to improve it. This often results in even better answers...
Some useful links:
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Online webinars on AI coming up from me:
I'm delivering an hour's online seminar for UCD Professional Academy on Wednesday May 25th at 13.00 (Dublin time) on AI in Project Management . I'll be using a number of different tools including ChatGPT & Bing Chat to work up a project plan - live, in real time. Come and see how AI can help speed up the planning process, help you generate ideas, cover all the bases, and amplify the work of you and your team.
I'm also delivering a similar session for The Institute Of Management Consultants and Advisors (IMCA) on July 5th 2023 at 13.00 (Dublin time). This one will be more aimed at consulting, but feature a live demo of using AI tools. Free to attend - grab a ticket via EventBrite here - ChatGPT - 101 Tickets, Wed 5 Jul 2023 at 13:00 | Eventbrite .
Nothing to do with AI but important all the same - great accessibility tip here from Ciara McCarthy
?I've been happily churning out content for a while now, completely oblivious to a small yet impactful detail that can make our creations more accessible to everyone. And it's as simple as using the right hashtag format! Who would've thought? ?? ♀?
I confess, ?? I used to be a lowercase enthusiast when it came to hashtags. Little did I know that this approach was limiting accessibility for many users. ????
It turns out that using camel case for hashtags can significantly improve accessibility. By capitalizing the first letter of each word within the hashtag, we make it easier for screen readers to distinguish and pronounce each word individually. ???
Imagine their joy when they encounter a hashtag like?#UniversalDesignInAction ?instead of?#universaldesigninaction . It's like an instant accessibility upgrade, and we can be the superheroes making it happen! ?? ♀???
Joe Houghton ?is an Assistant Professor at UCD Smurfit Graduate School of Business where he directs the MSc programmes in Project Management. After a career in IT in multinationals, Joe switched into a portfolio career of University teaching, management coaching and training.
He has authored 5 books to date including "Innovative teaching with AI: Creative approaches to enhancing learning in education ", and "Project Management made easy...: the ECCSR approach ".
Contact Joe on email at?[email protected] ?for any requests for training, workshops or keynote speaking.