Category Archives: Web & Technology

Web & Technology

Similarities between Survivor and chess | Bard | Google

Editor’s Note: I asked Bard to summarize the similarities between the tv show Survivor and chess. Here’s the response…

There are several similarities between the TV show Survivor and chess. Both games are strategic and require players to think ahead and plan their moves. Both games also involve a degree of luck, as players must sometimes make decisions based on incomplete information. Finally, both games can be very competitive, as players strive to outwit and outplay their opponents.

Here are some specific similarities between Survivor and chess:

  • Both games are strategic. In Survivor, players must make decisions about how to allocate their resources, who to align with, and when to make big moves. In chess, players must develop a plan of attack and defend their pieces from their opponent’s attack.
  • Both games require players to think ahead and plan their moves. In Survivor, players must think about how their decisions will affect the game in the future. In chess, players must think about how their moves will affect the game in the next few moves.
  • Both games involve a degree of luck. In Survivor, players must sometimes make decisions based on incomplete information. For example, players may not know who has an idol or who is planning to vote for them. In chess, players may not know what their opponent’s next move will be.
  • Both games can be very competitive. In Survivor, players strive to outwit and outplay their opponents. In chess, players strive to checkmate their opponent’s king.

Despite these similarities, there are also some important differences between Survivor and chess. For example, Survivor is a game of social dynamics, while chess is a game of strategy and tactics. Additionally, Survivor is a game of endurance, while chess is a game of mental focus.

Source: https://bard.google.com/

Google’s New AI Tools for Gmail, Docs Can Write Drafts for You – CNET

The search giant is testing generative writing and other AI features for its Workspace apps.

By Nina Raemont, March 14, 2023 8:12 a.m. PT

James Martin/CNET

Google plans to bring new AI-powered tools to its suite of Workspace apps. In a blog post on Tuesday, the search giant said it’s starting by testing generative AI writing features in Gmail and Docs that can help people get started on the writing process.

“Simply type a topic you’d like to write about, and a draft will instantly be generated for you,” reads Google’s post. “With your collaborative AI partner you can continue to refine and edit, getting more suggestions as needed.”

The tool, Google suggests, can be used to help create things like customized job descriptions or invitations for a kid’s birthday party. The company is also exploring ways to incorporate AI tools into Slides, Sheets, Meet and Chat.

Source: Google’s New AI Tools for Gmail, Docs Can Write Drafts for You – CNET

Neal Stephenson critical on metaverse – The Cryptonomist

By Alessia Pannone – 28 Feb 2023

from article…

Neal Stephenson, apparently the first to coin the term “metaverse,” has expressed his opinion about the future adoption of virtual worlds.

The science fiction writer and co-founder of Lamina1, a blockchain metaverse company, believes that building experiences that millions of people consider worthy in virtual worlds is quite difficult, hindering the process of technology adoption.

Summary

The socially savvy AIs that seem to possess theory of mind | New Scientist

With the recent news that the ChatGPT AI can pass a theory of mind test, how far away are we from an artificial intelligence that fully understands the goals and beliefs of others?

By Edd Gent, 14 February 2023 , updated 22 February 2023


Hollie Fuller

SUPERHUMAN artificial intelligence is already among us. Well, sort of.

When it comes to playing games like chess and Go, or solving difficult scientific challenges like predicting protein structures, computers are well ahead of us.

But we have one superpower they aren’t even close to mastering: mind reading.

Humans have an uncanny ability to deduce the goals, desires and beliefs of others, a crucial skill that means we can anticipate other people’s actions and the consequences of our own. Reading minds comes so easily to us, though, that we often don’t think to spell out what we want.

If AIs are to become truly useful in everyday life – to collaborate effectively with us or, in the case of self-driving cars, to understand that a child might run into the road after a bouncing ball – they need to establish similar intuitive abilities.

Source: The socially savvy AIs that seem to possess theory of mind | New Scientist

A Database of 5,000 Historical Cookbooks–Covering 1,000 Years of Food History–Is Now Online | Open Culture

in Food & Drink | September 3rd, 2020

Screenshot from article…

As you know if you’re a reader of this site, there are vast, interactive (and free!) scholarly databases online collecting just about every kind of artifact, from Bibles to bird calls, and yes, there are a significant number of cookbooks online, too.

But proper searchable, historical databases of cookbooks seem to have appeared only lately. To my mind, these might have been some of the first things to become available. How important is eating, after all, to virtually every part of our lives? The fact is, however, that scholars of food have had to invent the discipline largely from scratch.

“Western scholars had a bias against studying sensual experience,” writes Reina Gattuso at Atlas Obscura, “the relic of an Enlightenment-era hierarchy that considered taste, touch, and flavor taboo topics for sober academic inquiry. ‘It’s the baser sense,’ says Cathy Kaufman, a professor of food studies at the New School.” Kaufman sits on the board of The Sifter, a new massive, multilingual online database of historical recipe books. Another board member, sculptor Joe Wheaton, puts things more directly: “Food history has been a bit of an embarrassment to a lot of academics, because it involves women in the kitchen.”

Source: A Database of 5,000 Historical Cookbooks–Covering 1,000 Years of Food History–Is Now Online | Open Culture

FEATURE – Libraries in the Age of Artificial Intelligence | Information Today, Inc.

by Ben Johnson, February 13, 2023

Ben Johnson (bjohnson@councilbluffslibrary.org) is the adult services manager at the Council Bluffs Public Library in Iowa.

Screenshot of article online…

You can ask Google, Alexa, Cortana, Watson, or Siri—but will you be able to ask your local library? A century or so ago, electricity was a new, quasi-magical thing—a novelty with few applications. Back then, nobody could have predicted that it would give rise to telephones, production lines, and microchips. And yet, electricity transformed every industry, including agriculture, healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing. As a foundational springboard for so many new innovations, that novelty was the most important engineering achievement of the 20th century.

Now, in the 21st century, a new quasi-magical thing has come into our lives: artificial intelligence (AI). And just as it was in the early days of the electronic revolution, we are only beginning to grasp how completely this new technology will transform our daily lives. Nearly all of today’s emerging technologies are built on the foundation of increasingly sophisticated machine learning. Every major technology company is betting on machine learning, hoping to be a player in the coming revolution by developing proprietary machine intelligences to perform tasks that used to require human intelligence.

–from article

Today, our interactions with AI are mostly novel (“Siri, why did the chicken cross the road?”)—and the results crude—but so were the first lightbulbs and photographs.

Source: FEATURE – Libraries in the Age of Artificial Intelligence