@judith good to know… I’ll continue to feed Wattson, and get it the point where all subjects and answers are consistent.

@editor No objection from me to using AI if it spreads the word.  I personally use Perplexity quite a bit and find it helpful. 

But as others have mentioned, the black box with text seems to pop up whenever you scroll back up the page and seems to reappear after every new page is loaded.

Would it be possible for a cookie to remember when you have dismissed the black box and stop it reappearing during set period- say 10 minutes?

Alternatively if you are a logged-in forum member, no need for the black box at all - we all know what the avatar means and the pop up could appear only on mouse-over.

@downfield That sounds like a very good idea to me, my magnified version is EXTREMELY ANNOYING and vexacious! regards, Toodles.

@downfield and @toddles, this isn’t in the settings currently. I’ll raise it with the developers and see what can be done.

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

↑

I must admit I detest AI for AI's sake, partly because it's not really true artificial "intelligence" and partly because the carbon footprint is so high for running the servers to support AI.

Me too, for these reasons and also that what's often called "AI" lately is really just a plagiarism engine remixing other people's work usually without permission or giving credit.

So how do I stop that horrible thing from stealing my posts?

MJ

@mjr completely fed up with the AI drivel flooding social media and we’re staying vigilant here.

On this main site, Wattson only answers from content I’ve personally curated.

The forum version searches exclusively through forum posts. And we’ve blocked all AI bots from spidering our content entirely.

I hate all AI with a passion. No exceptions.

AI will be the death of us. Remember HAL, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Posted by: @morgan

↑

I hate all AI with a passion. No exceptions.

AI will be the death of us. Remember HAL, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

He, he. Yes, I remember HAL very well, but it was still a work of fiction. I remember Jurassic Park too, but in fairness my concerns about genetic modification are rather more prosaic.

All that said, I still stand by what I said; AI for AI's sake is hugely wasteful at the same time it's like buying a tool and then finding ways to use it. The tail's wagging the dog. However, I'm not against AI in principle any more than I'm assuming any intelligent alien life we may encounter is automatically wanting to wipe out humankind. Machine learning in its various guises has its place and is hugely valuable in those situations; it's just that creating or altering social media content isn't one of those situations. I'm a strong advocate for the right tool for the right job.

Posted by: @morgan

↑

I hate all AI with a passion. No exceptions.

AI will be the death of us.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. I too, as many know, also hate AI, but I avoid the passion bit, as it uses up energy I could use fighting AI adoption.

In very limited circumstances, something that people call AI (to sound trendy, it's a buzz word) but isn't really AI, it is just aggregate data, and the machine learning the Major refers to, has some use, eg for specific complicated medical diagnostic tests, but to use it for medical diagnosis is both absurd and dangerous. Diagnosis isn't just a science, it is also an art, and the art side can't be taught. How does an AI diagnostician pick up those subtle human signals that patients send out, like that momentary hesitation as they leave the consulting room that tells the doctor the patient really came about something different but couldn't get themselves to bring it up. Even Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle was a doctor) used a lot of art as well as science. Imagine AI that hasn't read and stolen Sherlock Holmes working out the riddle of the dog that didn't bark!

General AI is just a word counter. It finds associations, and regurgitates them. It has no true thinking capacity at all. That may well change (only the very foolish say something will never happen), but for now we should be clear, AI just counts words and associations. There is zero intelligence in that mechanical activity, but I do concede (because if I don't someone will mention it!), it can, at times, and in limited settings, have its uses. But calling it Artificial Intelligence is a nonsense. Orwell warned us about the fanciful abuse of language a long time ago, and we should not forget what he had to say.  

AI may well be the death of us. Some of the younger generations who spend too much time on social media are losing the ability to communicate face to face, where you get the full range of non-verbal communication, much of which is absent on screens. Sat navs and the like have all but destroyed geospatial awareness (which way is north) not to mention the ability to read maps. But AI is in a different league, because it is used as substitute for thinking about things across the board. Why think when you have AI? But thinking is a learnt process, and if you don't practise it, you loose it. I tell people in love with AI that every time they use it, a few more of their little grey cells die.

We are breeding future generations of morons, and morons as a rule are not very good at surviving. 

Blardy excellent post Mr @cathoderay 

Posted by: @cathoderay

↑

But AI is in a different league, because it is used as substitute for thinking about things across the board. Why think when you have AI? But thinking is a learnt process, and if you don't practise it, you loose it. I tell people in love with AI that every time they use it, a few more of their little grey cells die.

Great points, I agree it is overused. It is also a great way to subtly filter content, much better than the old search at that. I ran a few tests with queries on product selection with chatgpt and it is very clear it is filtering options out (as marketing folk know..). Horses and courses? 

The old watson is also great at not telling us when the posts were made, how many it filtered out, etc etc. So instead of knowing what we are searching for, we get served something that in my experience is not what we really want. 

I suppose though when we build our opinion based on an article or youtube instead of working it all out from raw data, we can also miss an opportunity to exercise the grey matter. AI is just another step in that. So if we had all the time in the world, we would not bother using AI.. 🤔 Perhaps we need more time?