[Hoot Gibson]

In case you have not yet noticed, artificial intelligence is beginning to make a major impact one our technology and it will increasingly impact our economy and everyday lives in ways that we can only try to imagine.

I will share a few simple examples of my own attempts to harness the power of AI and I encourage everybody to give the technology a try.

Last night, I used an AI chatbot to create a recipe for beef enchiladas. I provided a list of ingredients that I wanted to use such as refried beans, 1.05 lb. of ground beef, a red bell pepper, Arbo chili peppers, Rotel, etc. Within seconds, the chatbot created a complete recipe, including nutritional information for six servings of homemade boof enchiladas.

A second example is that I requested the chatbot to create a JavaScript function to encode http requests. The result was a one line function, complete with an example showing how to use the function.

Another coding example is that I supplied a few HTML tags and asked the chatbot if the code was valid HTML 5 code. I had intentionally included a couple of errors and the chatbot returned corrected code, explaining how it corrected the code.

Whether or not you begin getting your feet wet with this new technology, AI chatbots will probably begin impacting your life within the next few months, whether you realize when it is happening or not.

Has anybody else dabbled with AI yet? What impact do you see it having on you personally and society as a whole?

Up to 80 percent of workers could see jobs impacted by AI

The chatbots are coming for your job.

A new research paper claims that a staggering amount of employees could see their careers impacted by the rise of ChatGPT, a shockingly intelligent chatbot released in November.
Researchers from OpenAI and the University of Pennsylvania argued in a new research paper that 80 percent of the US workforce could have at least 10 percent of their work tasks affected by the introduction of ChatGPT.

They also found that about 19 percent of workers may find at least 50 percent of their duties impacted by GPT, or General-purpose technologies.

Researchers also found that higher-income jobs will likely have greater exposure to GPT, but that it will span across almost all industries.

[jetpilot]

I was talking with some of my buddies about this last night. One of them owns part of a very small technology company. He said California tech jobs are going to be decimated by AI in the near future.

[Old School Hound]

I've had no doubt for two years that Hoot is a Bot. Hootbot.

[Hoot Gibson]

Scammers are already beginning to use AI. There are tools that allow you to alter your voice in real time. Nigerian scammers will soon be using celebrity voices. Thanks to AI, Akmed, the ugly, illiterate Nigerian scam artist will be able to do video chats where he looks and sounds like a young Racquel Welch.

A demented old geezer like Joe Biden will be able to campaign from his basement while looking and sounding like JFK during "live" interviews. Biden won't even need to be awake or coherent during his speeches and nobody will even notice.

[Hoot Gibson]

I was talking with some of my buddies about this last night. One of them owns part of a very small technology company. He said California tech jobs are going to be decimated by AI in the near future.

I think that AI may hit other sectors of the economy even harder than tech workers. Job losses in the tech sector will be partially offset by the creation of some jobs related to training AIs. I think that paralegals and legal admin assistants will take a big hit, as will lawyers who are not tech-saavy. A sharp lawyer will qucikly realize how few support people he really needs. The same for clerical staffs in medical offices and hospitals.

[Hoot Gibson]

I have been experimenting with AI quite a bit over the past few weeks. Yesterday, I became a paid subscriber on the Open AI website. I thought that I had a decent understanding of the state of AI but I was mistaken. AI technology is much, much more advanced than I had believed. The pieces are beginning to come together that is going to soon make it very difficult to distinguish between AI-generated content and human generated content. In other words, the day that we can no longer trust our own eyes and ears is approaching fast.

The YouTube video shown below has really brought the possible benefits and risks of making AI generally available to the public into focus for me. It also has me concerned about how our own government is almost certainly going to abuse this technology. I will lay out my predictions of how the government will abuse this technology in a future post. For now, if you are interested enough about the current state of AI, then I encourage you to watch the following video. 

[Video: ]

[Granny Bear]

This is very disturbing to me..down right scary!!

And I don't have enough damn sense to even ask the question or provide the information.

[Hoot Gibson]

This is very disturbing to me..down right scary!!

And I don't have enough damn sense to even ask the question or provide the information.

It's not that hard and it will get easier. I created the following image using this prompt: "A grizzly bear wearing a straw hat watching over her two cubs as a wolf approaches, soft cinematic lighting, intricate details." Obviously, it's not perfect. I guess the third cub belongs to one of her neighbors.
   

[jetpilot]

Not surprised AI can come up with drawings/pictures. That's the tip of the tip of the iceberg obviously. What does everyone want to use AI for?

For me:
1. research
2. personal assistant
3. business apps for the two industries I work in (make more money in way less time while improving the work product)
4. ghost writer for book I want to write when I retire

[Hoot Gibson]

Not surprised AI can come up with drawings/pictures. That's the tip of the tip of the iceberg obviously. What does everyone want to use AI for?

For me:
1. research
2. personal assistant
3. business apps for the two industries I work in (make more money in way less time while improving the work product)
4. ghost writer for book I want to write when I retire

So far, I feel like I have just barely scratched the surface of what is already possible with the AI software that is available but I am thinking of useful applications for it faster than I can try them. Here are a few things that I have already tried and some that I plan to try soon:

1. Early this morning, I created two custom background images for Microsoft Teams. One was an office from the early 20th century with a cherry credenza on which a large aquarium containing tropical fish rested. The other one was an ultra-modern corner office located on the 10th floor of a building overlooking Washington, DC. I requested an espresso machine on a credenza and the AI also included a small conference table and chairs.

2. I asked the chatbot to retrieve the FCC question pool for the Extra license class from the American Amateur Relay League (ARRL) website and create a multiple-choice test that it could then grade. In less than a minute, I was taking a 10-question multiple-choice test and entering my answers for grading. My prompt was not specific enough for the AI to pause and let me answer each question but I am sure that I could do so. I could also specify the number of questions to ask. (ChatGPT-4 does not have access to the internet, which means that it retrieved the ham radio questions from an offline database.)

3. I plan to use ChatGPT-4 and MidJourney, the art AI, to pre-process photos as part of the process of laser engraving photos on materials such as maple plaques.

4. I have not yet begun to use ChatGPT-4 for generating code but I have tinkered around with it some. I had it create a small JavaScript function and also fed it some HTML code with some errors and asked it to find the errors and correct them. Security restrictions will limit how much I can use AI for work until and if the government decides to allow the software on the network.

5. I have already cut way back on my use of Google. It is much more efficient to use ChatGPT for basic research and the results are not affected (yet) by paid advertisers. My phone, a Google Pixel 6, has great voice recognition built in, which makes it very easy to use ChatGPT.

6. Writing. ChatGPT is great at creating a first draft of everything that I have thrown at it. It makes some mistakes from time to time, but anybody who generates a bunch of writing and publishes it without reviewing and correcting it first deserves their fate. But nobody who gets familiar with using AI needs to suffer writer's block ever again. If you want it to spit out answers to your questions in iambic pentameter, a limerick, or as a series of haikus, then ChatGPT will gladly comply.

7. Cooking and nutrition. ChatGPT does a great job creating recipes, complete with the nutrition facts per serving. You can feed it a list and quantities of ingredients that you have on hand and it will adjust the proportions of ingredients so that you don't have to run to the store. You could easily write a cookbook and include "photos" of the prepared food using MidJourney.

[Hoot Gibson]

Tonight, I took a photo of my grandson and blended it with Luigi of the Mario Bros. Below is the result. It took about 5 minutes after I saved the individual pictures and learned how to use the blend tool in MidJourney.

   

[jetpilot]

Both posts are awesome Hoot. So fired up about AI, just have to steer clear of government like everything else.

[jetpilot]

Not surprised AI can come up with drawings/pictures. That's the tip of the tip of the iceberg obviously. What does everyone want to use AI for?

For me:
1. research
2. personal assistant
3. business apps for the two industries I work in (make more money in way less time while improving the work product)
4. ghost writer for book I want to write when I retire

So far, I feel like I have just barely scratched the surface of what is already possible with the AI software that is available but I am thinking of useful applications for it faster than I can try them. Here are a few things that I have already tried and some that I plan to try soon:

1. Early this morning, I created two custom background images for Microsoft Teams. One was an office from the early 20th century with a cherry credenza on which a large aquarium containing tropical fish rested. The other one was an ultra-modern corner office located on the 10th floor of a building overlooking Washington, DC. I requested an espresso machine on a credenza and the AI also included a small conference table and chairs.

2. I asked the chatbot to retrieve the FCC question pool for the Extra license class from the American Amateur Relay League (ARRL) website and create a multiple-choice test that it could then grade. In less than a minute, I was taking a 10-question multiple-choice test and entering my answers for grading. My prompt was not specific enough for the AI to pause and let me answer each question but I am sure that I could do so. I could also specify the number of questions to ask. (ChatGPT-4 does not have access to the internet, which means that it retrieved the ham radio questions from an offline database.)

3. I plan to use ChatGPT-4 and MidJourney, the art AI, to pre-process photos as part of the process of laser engraving photos on materials such as maple plaques.

4. I have not yet begun to use ChatGPT-4 for generating code but I have tinkered around with it some. I had it create a small JavaScript function and also fed it some HTML code with some errors and asked it to find the errors and correct them. Security restrictions will limit how much I can use AI for work until and if the government decides to allow the software on the network.

5. I have already cut way back on my use of Google. It is much more efficient to use ChatGPT for basic research and the results are not affected (yet) by paid advertisers. My phone, a Google Pixel 6, has great voice recognition built in, which makes it very easy to use ChatGPT.

6. Writing. ChatGPT is great at creating a first draft of everything that I have thrown at it. It makes some mistakes from time to time, but anybody who generates a bunch of writing and publishes it without reviewing and correcting it first deserves their fate. But nobody who gets familiar with using AI needs to suffer writer's block ever again. If you want it to spit out answers to your questions in iambic pentameter, a limerick, or as a series of haikus, then ChatGPT will gladly comply.

7. Cooking and nutrition. ChatGPT does a great job creating recipes, complete with the nutrition facts per serving. You can feed it a list and quantities of ingredients that you have on hand and it will adjust the proportions of ingredients so that you don't have to run to the store. You could easily write a cookbook and include "photos" of the prepared food using MidJourney.

This is huge for me. Like you said, everyone better have a good proofreader. I will gladly do all the proofreading and let AI ghost write 50-65% of my book under my supervision and I expect the finished product to be twice or more as good as I could have done on my own paying proofreaders/editors.

[Hoot Gibson]

Here is a long example of the kind of writing GPT-4 is capable of producing. An AI writing political jokes that are as good as most of the ones that are delievered by live comedians at the annual White House Correspondence Dinner just makes my jaw drop in amazement.

Prompt: Write a celebrity roast of President Joe Biden to be delivered by the late comedian Norm MacDonald to the White House Correspondents dinner attendees.

Unedited response:

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, and fellow correspondents, I'm Norm MacDonald, and it's a real honor to be here tonight at the White House Correspondents' dinner. I gotta say, I was shocked when they asked me to do a roast of President Joe Biden. I mean, come on, he's so old, when he was first elected to the Senate, his only constituents were the Founding Fathers.

But seriously, folks, I'm delighted to be here with President Biden, a man who's been in politics longer than I've been telling terrible jokes. And let me tell you, that's a long time.

You know, Joe's been in office for quite a while, but if you ask him how he's doing, he'll always say, "I'm just getting started!" I'm not sure if that's optimism or just memory loss.

But let's give the man some credit. President Biden has a way of bringing people together. And by that, I mean he's so prone to gaffes, both Republicans and Democrats can't help but laugh at him.

Speaking of gaffes, Joe's got a talent for turning even the simplest sentence into a verbal game of Twister. I mean, I've heard him string together so many unrelated words, I thought he was trying to summon Beetlejuice.

Now, President Biden likes to talk about his humble beginnings, growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Scranton is such a small, unassuming town that when Joe left for Washington, the population went down by half. And that's including the Biden family dog.

Joe's got a lot of love for Amtrak, you know. He's taken more than 8,000 round trips between Washington and Delaware. At this point, Amtrak should just name a train after him. I'm thinking the "Sleepy Joe Express" has a nice ring to it.

But let's not forget our First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden. She's got a doctorate in education, which is impressive. I mean, it takes a lot of patience and dedication to teach someone like Joe to read from a teleprompter.

I do appreciate President Biden's efforts to bring the country together, though. And in these divided times, it's nice to know that we can all come together to roast a man who's been in politics longer than the concept of indoor plumbing. So, here's to you, Joe. Thanks for giving us something to laugh about, whether you meant to or not.

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I'll leave you with this: May we all live long enough to see President Biden finally get the hang of Twitter. Good night, and thank you!

[Hoot Gibson]

A couple of more examples. My new avatar was created entirely in MidJourney. The following illustration of an old dog playing in traffic was created using MidJourney. I specified that the illustration should use the style of the Roadrunner cartoon.

   

[plantmanky]

AI is definitely smarter than what society is putting out there as human workers in todays workforce. Its sad really.

[Hoot Gibson]

I call this one BGR's Very Own Swamp Monster. 

   

[Hoot Gibson]

I just arrived home from at trip to Huntington, WV, over the weekend. During my drive, it occurred to me how valuable a voice-capable AI product would be. Basically, it would be a companion to people who travel a lot. Instead of spending endless hours listenening to the radio or audio books, you could be interactively learning a foreign language or studying for a big exam by taking practice tests. The possibilities are unlimited, you could use the time however you wanted without taking your hands off the wheel.

In order to become a true travel companion, the AI would need to remember its conversations with you, so obviously if you're Hunter Biden, you would not want to make the mistake of confessing to crimes again or engage in any new illegal activities. The basic technology for such a system already exists. Google, Apple, and Amazon already have popular products that can engage in very limited conversations. I am confident that all of the big tech companies are already working with voice-capable AIs.

[Hoot Gibson]

Here are a couple of pictures that I created using AI of my grandson riding a velociraptor and a Pixar elephant.