I asked the ChatGPT drawing tool Dall-E, to help me come up with a suitable birthday image to celebrate 25 years of Google.
My request was, ‘draw a watercolour image of a birthday cake with Google written on it‘. This was refused as the word ‘Google’ was an infringement of copyright law. So, I then asked, ‘draw a watercolour image of a birthday cake with BIG tech written on it…’
This is what I got…
ChatGPT’s offering of a Birthday cake image and message for Google celebrating 25 years…
Competitors
Now, now, ChatGPT! – I know you are competitors but…
Yet more strike action continues to create chaos for travellers
Much of the UK will have no train services on Friday 1st Septemebr 2023 as the latest major strike action takes place.
Members of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, who work at more than a dozen train companies, have walked out and have refused to work.
Up to 20,000 RMT union members at 14 operators will also strike on Saturday in a long-running dispute
Meanwhile, a consultation closing most ticket offices in England ends.
Ticket office closures
Unions and disability groups have also taken action against other proposed working practices in the industry, such as ticket office closures.
Currently, nearly 300 stations in England run by train companies with Department for Transport contracts have a full-time staffed ticket office – 708 are staffed part-time. Under the proposals, most would close.
‘What’s the point in HS2 if there is no one to run it’? ‘Beats me… guess we’re stuck with it!’
Ongoing dispute
The UK train strikes are part of an ongoing dispute between the rail unions and the train operators over pay and conditions.
ASLEF members at 16 rail operators will strike again on Friday, 1st September 2023 and Saturday, 2nd September 2023.
‘What year is it? Strike action continues to hold inflation higher. Been here too many times before’.
RMT members at 14 train companies will strike again on 2nd September 2023. This will severely affect the timetables.
Pay dispute and working practices
The rail unions are demanding a pay rise that reflects the rising cost of living, as well as job security and improved working conditions. The train operators say they need to make changes to the ways of working in order to save money and improve efficiency, especially after the pandemic hit their finances hard.
The Rail Delivery Group, which represents the train operators, has offered a 5% pay rise for 2022, but the unions have rejected it as insufficient and conditional on reforms they oppose.
The train strikes have caused significant disruption and frustration for millions of passengers, especially during the peak summer holiday season. The government has urged both sides to resume talks and find a resolution
The former boss of NatWest is set to receive a £2.4m pay package this year, despite having quit in disgrace over her handling of the closure of Nigel Farage’s bank account.
Spike Milligan was a famous Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor famously known for writing the hit radio programme, ‘The Goon Show’.
‘I told you I was ill’.
The inscription ‘I told you I was ill’ is the famous epitaph of Spike Milligan.
He died in 2002 at the age of 83. He had once joked that he wanted this phrase to be on his headstone, but the local diocese did not approve of it in English. So he had to write it in Gaelic, which is ‘Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite’.
The phrase ‘Room 101’ comes from George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949.
In the novel, Room 101 is a torture chamber where prisoners are subjected to their worst fears and nightmares. The name of the room was supposedly inspired by a conference room at the BBC Broadcasting House, where Orwell used to work and attend ‘boring‘ meetings.
Cutural reference
Room 101 has become a popular cultural reference, especially in the UK, where it is used to describe something that is ‘undesirable’ and to be ‘locked away’.
There is also a BBC comedy television series called Room 101, where celebrities are invited to discuss their pet hates and persuade the host to consign them to oblivion in Room 101.
The party-gate scandal lead to SERVING members of the UK government being fined, including the then prime minster (since sacked by the party) – and the then chancellor of the exchequer (now our serving prime minister).
According to a recent news article, Google says people should use its search engine to check whether information provided by Bard is actually accurate, as it may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Google’s views. Just Google views I wonder…?
Google’s UK boss Debbie Weinstein said Bard was not really the place that you go to search for specific information, but rather an experiment best suited for collaboration around problem solving and creating new ideas.
‘Just checking the answer with my search engine!’
Hallucinate
According to an Android Authority article, both Bard and ChatGPT can hallucinate or confidently lie when asked about obscure topics. Bard does offer a link to search results and will sometimes cite a source or two. However, Google states that Bard can even lie about its own inner workings so you cannot trust everything it says…?
Testing… 1… 2… 3…?
According to a report by Marie Haynes, Bard predicts it will generate accurate responses 85% of the time by September 2023, but in an experiment, it posted an accuracy score of 63%, meaning it had incorrect information in more than 1/3 of its responses
Early days, or habouring a problem for the future?
