An interesting exercise: Ask several chatbots to do this: “Please summarize, with comparisons, the ethical concerns about each of the major AI platforms.” The responses are quite similar.
Google’s search results have become so bad that I recently subscribed to Kagi, and so far it’s been great. And because the subscription includes access to fairly high-level versions of all the major chatbots, I’ve been trying them out. So far my favorite is Anthropic’s Claude. A sample of the kinds of questions I ask:
- Is there consensus on when Terry Pratchett’s fiction began to decline in quality?
- What state parks in the USA compare in beauty and interest to the National Parks?
- Please provide, with quotations rather than summaries, some of Pope Francis’s statements about Catholic traditionalists.
- I like the Leica Q3 because of the high resolution and the fixed lens. Are there comparable cameras that cost less?
Claude gives clear, detailed answers with a list of sources at the end. I’m using it every day now.
Angus loves his crate.
The fact that professors and administrators as well as students are becoming inappropriately reliant on chatbots should tell us something: For most of the people involved, academia has become a bullshit job. If we don’t face that fact and commit ourselves to a serious re-imagining of the university experience, the American university won’t last much longer, not in a recognizable form anyway.
I wrote about a slightly comical musical experience.
Re: Ross’s column on the virtues of ideological art, I think there are far more virtues to art that resists or defies our familiar categories. But most readers/viewers/listeners when encountering a work that can’t be placed on their game board just call it “not relatable.”
TIL that the official title of King George III’s dentist was Operator for the Teeth.
My bet is that Nico Harrison will trade the rights to the number 1 pick to Cleveland in exchange for Tristan Thompson. 🏀
I had a good time corresponding with Phil Christman about John Milton, his great big poem, and Wlliam Blake.
I am blessed to have spent a career working in places that feature expanses of grass and many trees, but today, as I made my way to the office while dodging — or detouring around — earthmovers, road graders, bulldozers, and jackhammers, I was not feeling as grateful as usual. (And as I type these words some kind of drill has just started up somewhere in my building.)
I wrote about why it may not matter that much if we’re in a period of cultural stagnation, and what matters instead.
End-of-term vibe
Kevin Miyazaki’s “fictional publication containing only facts.”
Papam habemus e Chicago!!
(Honestly, I have no idea what to make of this decision … I never imagined they’d elect an American of any description.)
The new pope may be chosen to
- Continue the legacy of Francis
- Re-establish the legacy of JPII and Benedict
- Open new doors to the Global South
- Manage decline
Let’s see which the cardinals want.
Underscore: “Where I see Apple’s biggest mistake in their current line of thinking is that while I pay Apple huge sums of money each month, they don’t view me as a customer to be served. They don’t seem to see the benefit of making my experience and offerings better and better. They aren’t trying to win me over by being excellent; they are assuming my loyalty through strong-arm tactics and intransigence.”