Encouraging the mirror effect

This week I was encouraged by Timothy C. offices friends and their smoothy gift when he wasn't feeling great. Being in an office has its advantages. I've tried not to be jealous of Heather Elkington as she took advantage of being encouraged to work anywhere. Whilst another friend has found that the remote working landscape has shifted, with everyone seemingly "encouraging" people to be in the office 3 days a week but still listing roles as remote.

I also caught up with Robert Collings IRL to find out more about his exciting new role and eat pizza. I'm also a full month into managing my remote team trying to not come across like an uncool dad of two. Which is unfortunate, because that's what I am, okay not completely uncool but you get my point. Plus, for the last week I've had a cold, so I've been quite pleased that I'm remote.

To top it all off, I've read about lot's of people encouraging the new Bing Chat search to lose the plot. A lot of very clever people have been sucked in by it's conversational powers.

“In the light of day, I know that Sydney (Bing Chat) is not sentient [but] for a few hours Tuesday night, I felt a strange new emotion — a foreboding feeling that AI had crossed a threshold, and that the world would never be the same”

Kevin Roose?for?The New York Times.

I've had some really good chats about AI in some of the groups I'm in. I've decided that I'm a healthy sceptic about how it encourages you to believe it's output is true. There's a lot of mixed feelings about AI technology, but it's ability to surprise and be believable seems to be pretty uniform.

With all that going on I finally had some time to play with Bing Chat search on Friday night over a glass of wine and see what all the fuss was about. Could it freak me out? Will it fall in love with me? Will I believe that it is sentient even when it's not? Will it agree that it has the same name as my cat?

Unfortunately I was massively disappointed. It felt more like an Intercom chat search than anything meaningful or AI. With Microsoft limiting it's abilities, number of questions and shutting down instantly any questions directed to Bing Chat about it's existence. It was clear that Bing Chat was massively restricted and before I knew it I had used up all my search credits for the day.

I did manage to ask for suggestions for today's newsletter based on tech news from the last week. One strange thing I noticed was that Bing didn't provide the exact links, but links to sections of the website. https://www.theverge.com/tech

I can't say I was massively encouraged by the results, it's not a Google killer yet, but it is still in early testing, much can and will change.

So here's the results and my thoughts.

• Trek’s new electric cargo bikes for families: Trek has launched two new models of electric bikes that can carry kids and cargo. The bikes have a range of up to 100 miles and can reach speeds of up to 28 mph. They also have features like a front basket, a rear rack, a kickstand, and a lock.
• When I found the article I thought it sourced it's answer from. 16th Feb, but no mention of 100 mile range or 28 mph top speed, though there was a mention of 20 mph top speed.
• Quantum properties of collective optical-electronic oscillations on the nanoscale: Scientists have detected the quantum properties of plasmons, which are collective oscillations of electrons and light on the nanoscale. The results could contribute to the development of novel computer technologies and quantum sensors.
• I found the article from a few days ago and I'm not going to lie, it went over my head. However, the information here is so general that it seems unlikely to be incorrect.
• Perfectly spherical explosion spotted 150 million light-years from Earth: Astronomers have observed a rare type of supernova that produces a perfectly spherical explosion. The supernova, named SN 2020hvf, was caused by the collapse of a massive star and released more energy than our sun will in its entire lifetime.
• Again I found the article from a few days ago and felt it missed so many interesting things that it could have pulled out from the article to make me want to read more, assuming I had the link.
• BBC’s new digital voice assistant Beeb4: BBC has launched its own digital voice assistant called Beeb, which can be accessed through a web browser or an app. Beeb can answer questions about news, weather, sports, radio, podcasts, and more. It can also understand different accents and dialects.
• A bit like the Beeb voice assistant, this was massive let down and the articles were from nearly 3 years ago.
• NSA’s hiring spree of laid off Big Tech workers1: The NSA is scooping up workers who have been laid off by big tech companies like Amazon and Meta. The agency is looking for experts in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and data science. This is the largest hiring spree by the NSA in the past 30 years.
• This is hardly surprising news and there's plenty covering it over the last couple of weeks. I just couldn't find it on Yahoo quickly, so I gave up.
• Bruce Springsteen’s guitar mishap: Bruce Springsteen accidentally hit his guitar tech in the head with his guitar during a show this month. The incident happened when he threw his guitar to his tech after finishing a song. The tech was not seriously injured and Springsteen apologized later.
• Recent news but not quite what I was asking for. Glad his guitar tech is okay but hardly newsworthy in my opinion.
• Stock market volatility for tech stocks: Tech stocks have been underperforming in the stock market this week, as investors worry about rising interest rates and inflation. The Nasdaq fell more than 2% on Friday, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones also declined. Some analysts expect more volatility ahead for tech stocks.
• It sounds true but without the direct source I had to do some digging. Turns out it was about right but the time wasted fact checking (via Google) was annoying.

What I learned, Ask better questions and you'll get better answers, follow-up questions are great but now limited to stop Bing Chat going nuts. The results are slow to load. To the point where you're wondering if you should just Google it.

The biggest question I have: If we believe something to be sentient and that something thinks it is sentient, is it sentient?

To finish off this newsletter, I recommend reading "Introducing the AI Mirror Test, which very smart people keep failing" it goes some way to explain all the stuff in this weeks newsletter.