MACHAAN

  • Looking on after 50 years

    From video of the thrilling low fuel race against time to safely land Apollo 11, to Chandrayaans photo of Apollo 11 landed….
    — Read on www.threads.net/@jpmajor/post/C44EA4XPKmX/

    —

  • Personal Voice-driven AI Pins wont be more than a novelty*

    Sorry Humane, Rabbit R1…

    1. Screens can take you away from your surroundings, and thats why they work well. The apps are just our excuse.
    2. No one wants to constantly ask questions and refine them in the correct way, to fine tune the answers.
    3. Can’t do office work with voice in open plan offices. Outside of Factories and Clinics, voicing instructions as simple as ‘call Anna’ gives you zero privacy in typical open plan offices.

    *Not until theyre like the personal friend/assistant Ai shown in the movie ‘Her’

    —

  • Anything that can earn the label AGI – a ‘real’ Artificial General Intelligence – needs to be able to have thoughts & opinions of its own. Imagine the insights into *unasked* questions we could get.

    If an AI has sophisticated responses only to human commands,
    its not an ‘Intelligence’.

    It’s just a tool…or a Slave.

    —

  • Been there…

    The exciting question is what comes after animated films?
    Animated films will always exist as an art form and be cheaper to create, but all these animators are going be using AI tools and creating things that have never been seen before.

    We’ve seen this before…

    Photography didn’t get rid of Painters. It created a whole new content category and associated industry.

    Desktop publishing Apps, didn’t get rid of traditional print and type setting professionals who had been around for centuries. It lead to the biggest boom in design and publishing, employing more people, since the invention of print.

    I think what we can safely anticipate is that entirely new industries, products and areas of creativity will be created. It’s not a zero sum game where industries are just destroyed – new as yet unimagined ones are created.

    Can’t wait!

    —

  • Dear Claude*,

    Sometimes on google maps, we need to share a link to the route to a place, but not just to a final location.

    We want to recommend the best route out of many options, on ways that avoid obstacles, goes via a store, avoid temporarily blocked roads, or unwanted locations etc.

    When the recipient opens a link to a route sent to them, the first location on the route should be set ‘current location’ of the recipient. That way the same link can be shared to many different people, whichever direction they are travelling from.

    Write a blog post that describes this feature, to the developer team at google maps. Keep it simple, and friendly. Make a request to the team to add the feature to Google Maps.

    Thanks

    *Claude, like ChatGPT, is a chat AI by Anthropic, a Google investee. This prompt and response is fun test of the quality of its responses.
    So far, its pretty impressive.

    In the response below, black text is by Claude. Underlined and struck through text is Claudes responses, edited by me.

    ——-

    Dear Google Maps Developers,

    As useful as Google Maps is, there are times where simply providing a straight path from point A to point B is not the most helpful directions. Users wanting to share their favorite routes, or the best way to avoid traffic and congestion need more nuanced directions that account for obstacles, amenities along the way, and personal preferences.

    I propose adding the ability for users to create and share custom routes on Google Maps. Rather than just seeing a single line on the map between two points, users could save and name more complex routes that go via their favorite coffee shop, scenic overlook, or alternate roads to bypass construction. These routes could then be shared with others giving them insider knowledge of the best ways to get around.

    Custom routes would give recommendations a more personal touch, reflecting the local knowledge that only regular users of an area could provide. It could highlight hidden gems like little cafes, viewpoints, hiking trails and more that occasional visitors may miss. Users could build up a collection of the routes they frequent most, providing shortcuts for people new to a neighborhood or city.

    When a recipient opens a link to a shared route, the first location on the route should default to their own current location. This would allow the same shared link route to be useful whether people are traveling to or from that first point to people approaching from any direction, empowering more versatile route sharing between many different starting and ending points.

    The options for sharing and collaborating on routes could inspire new levels of location-based social interaction and discovery. Friends could form virtual “walking groups” to try new routes together, video recording and sharing to bring other users along. Local tourism boards could work with active users to promote the best sightseeing routes. The possibilities are endless.

    By providing tools for users to craft and share their perfect routes, Google Maps could become an even richer resource for local knowledge and adventure. I hope you will consider adding custom routes, the ability to save, name and share routes with others and provide additional social features to facilitate discovering new places through the experiences of fellow map lovers.
    With thanks,
    [Your name here]

    —

    ,

  • Welcome to AI in the office

    A match made in heaven

    p.s. Bullshit Jobs is a thing (Wikipedia):

    According to David Graeber, an American anthropologist, in his book ‘Bullshit Jobs: A Theory’, a bullshit job is “a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.”

    He also contends that over half of societal work is pointless, and becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth.

    —

  • Hmm…ChatGPT 4 in Bing, has no clue what Centigrade is.

    —

  • Why doesnt the apple watch beep when fully charged?

    Such a simple reminder to pick it up, and no option to toggle it anywhere, let alone on by default.

    —

  • The Next 12 months in AI

    How far can ChatGPT go to fool humans?

    Nutgraf at The Ken

    This was a nice read at The Ken as usual. Though, this article ends with essentially saying ChatGPT isn’t that smart, which while it is true, is just an an odd take, because its a mistake to see ChatGPT as being in a competition with humans. Plus it gets a bit existential about poop in the end.

    I’d rather have liked reading about the impact of Large Language Models on current white collar work, roles, and jobs. 

    Anyway, heres my take.

    Things have barely begun to take shape. ChatGPT is still in free beta – its a baby thats just started talking, and yet we’re discussing it as if its a tax-paying working adult. We haven’t seen anything yet. 

    In the next 6-12 months, ChatGPT will soon be linked to all kinds of other digital systems in the Cloud, enabling Companies to (cheaply) create services at a click of a button to serve us as customers. Services that will knock our socks off, even in this jaded age of tech fatigue.

    • Imagine if Zomato had a speaking virtual order-taker to help you choose something to eat when you cant make up your mind? And remembers next time that you already had Chinese last time so why not try this new Andhra place near you today?
    • Or if MakeMyTrip had a virtual booking agent? All those complex interactions made as easy as a chat with an infinitely patient virtual agent.
    • Imagine if you had a custom version of amazon.com just for you, and virtual sales person helping you? A virtual designer making shopping suggestions walking with you down a virtual aisle as you scroll, sharing opinions about what you see?
    • For any company, Imagine sending fully customised email newsletters per customer, based on purchase patterns, profiles etc, but unlike todays customised emailers — these have a chatty verbal style, maybe with a custom autogenerated video linked, or a personalised autogenerated microsite to show content just for them.
    • The AI in Microsoft Office will likely turn your text slides into multiple visually stunning PPT designs for you to choose from, in seconds.
    • Or heres a Digital Marketers wet dream — A data driven marketing prompt will generate a personalised letter per customer, which is turned into a spoken voice recording which is turned into a visual video with a digital avatar speaking the message, along with images, infographbics and a personal message, sent on email instantly. Bonus points for doing this on a Video call – live.

    This can all (probably) happen by next year. The productivity additions are limited only by imagination. All the tech is already mostly in place i think.

    Lets catch our breath, and keep some things in mind

    1. Technology changing things is not new – It happened in Design 25 years ago. ‘Pasting’ studios which had rooms dedicated to them at agencies where people had careers from the 50s, vanished in agencies over a period of 5 years, with the introduction of just cheaper desktop HP/Epsom printers.

    Computers still need humans to plan UI/UX, even if they use Ai to be more productive in writing code, as is happening with GitHub CoPilot for even advanced innovative senior coders.

    We are surrounded by fake images made in Photoshop, but we give our full attention and appreciation to photos by humans on Instagram.

    The really thoughtful stuff like editorials of value will still be planned and put together by a human, even if they use AI to write paras or build a structure, or brainstorm ideas. Filler content was anyway being written by junior staff. – so yes, some bumps in hiring will happen there. 

    Grown-up ChatGPT will simply blend into our work lives like all technology does.


    2. In the communication space, technology usually adds products and services, it doesnt always replace – radio still exists, newspapers still exist, theatre still exists, and yet we have Podcasts, Online publications, and everyone is making videos at home today adn starting Youtube channels.

    3. Technology will just shift the market status quo – Just like apps and mobiles enabled social media Influencers, and so created a new marketing method around trust and relationships with audiences, away from the dominance of the earlier marketing model of relationships with whoever owns the broadcast channel, and had the biggest budgets.

    What will happen broadly?

    ChatGPT enabled tools will change things by its sheer volume of output, instant productivity, and following of detailed instructions to the letter. 

    Mass market services will be Digital analytics, targeting and custom automated content for each segment. There will be money there, and will be a frenzy of agencies on thin margins.

    Basic graphic design will soon be dead, as will basic web design, basic video creation – anything that is about software skills is going to be shaken up, because when software understands verbal instructions, you need an artists’ mind, not labours’ hands.

    And yes, like the Ken article says, at the upper end, people who can pay, will switch to private curated content, experiences and relationship driven activities.

    That will never change as long as we’re pooping.

    —

  • Making Maps, but way before satellites

    —