It’s time that I came to terms with AI
Like many men in now their 70s, I came late to computing – and I would probably have come even later if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was asked to become Head of Research when the Communication Workers Union (CWU) was created in 1995. This made me head of a team of young researchers, all of whom were comfortable working with PCs and gradually so did I.
On the other hand, I was a quick adopter of the web. I created a personal site in 1999 and it’s still going. And I was quick to use social media: I started a blog in 2003 and it’s still running. I’ve been a long-term user of Facebook and post something almost everyday.
However, I’ve been slow to take on board artificial intelligence (AI). I guess it’s because I retired fully from the work of work seven years ago. So I don’t feel that I really need to use AI. On the other hand, as AI becomes ever more ubiquitous, I feel that I really need to understand it better.
I have read a book on the subject and I will shortly be attending a couple of lectures. But what better way to appreciate AI that to use it? So, this weekend, I downloaded three bots – ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Perplexity ai – and I’m going to experiment with them.