Author: The Conversation

You have just returned home after a long day at work and are about to sit down for dinner when suddenly your phone starts buzzing. On the other end is a loved one, perhaps a parent, a child or a childhood friend, begging you to send them money immediately. You ask them questions, attempting to understand. There is something off about their answers, which are either vague or out of character, and sometimes there is a peculiar delay, almost as though they were thinking a little too slowly. Yet, you are certain that it is definitely your loved one speaking:…

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) research company behind ChatGPT and the DALL-E 2 art generator, has unveiled the highly anticipated GPT-4 model. Excitingly, the company also made it immediately available to the public through a paid service. GPT-4 is a large language model (LLM), a neural network trained on massive amounts of data to understand and generate text. It’s the successor to GPT-3.5, the model behind ChatGPT. The GPT-4 model introduces a range of enhancements over its predecessors. These include more creativity, more advanced reasoning, stronger performance across multiple languages, the ability to accept visual input, and the capacity to handle significantly…

We are about to witness the birth of a new kind of religion. In the next few years, or perhaps even months, we will see the emergence of sects devoted to the worship of artificial intelligence (AI). The latest generation of AI-powered chatbots, trained on large language models, have left their early users awestruck —and sometimes terrified — by their power. These are the same sublime emotions that lie at the heart of our experience of the divine. People already seek religious meaning from very diverse sources. There are, for instance, multiple religions that worship extra-terrestrials or their teachings. As these chatbots come to be used by…

Imagine being stuck in traffic while running late to an important meeting at work. You feel your face overheating as your thoughts start to race along: “they’re going to think I’m a horrible employee,” “my boss never liked me,” “I’m going to get fired.” You reach into your pocket and open an app and send a message. The app replies by prompting you to choose one of three predetermined answers. You select “Get help with a problem.” An automated chatbot that draws on conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) is on the other end of this text conversation. CAI is a technology…

Most people are familiar with the deluge of artificial intelligence (AI) apps that seem designed to make us more efficient and creative. We’ve got apps that take text prompts and generate art, and the controversial ChatGPT, which raises serious questions about originality, misinformation and plagiarism. Despite these concerns, AI is becoming ever more pervasive and intrusive. It’s the latest technology that will irreversibly change our lives. The internet and smartphones were other examples. But unlike those technologies, many philosophers and scientists think AI could one day reach (or even go beyond) human-style “thinking”. This possibility, coupled with our increasing dependence on AI,…

The COVID-19 pandemic was a shock to higher education systems everywhere. But while some changes, like moving lectures online, were relatively easy to make, assessment posed a much bigger challenge. Assessment can take many forms, from essays to exams to experiments and more. Many institutions and individual academics essentially outsourced the assessment process to software. They increased their use of programs like Turnitin to check for matched wording in students’ assignments. And for closed-book, timed tests they used tools such as Proctorio, which monitor a student’s computer or phone while they write exams. But universities did not seize this chance to reflect on what…

“So far as the influence of the newspaper upon the mind and morals of the people is concerned, there can be no rational doubt that the telegraph has caused vast injury.” So said the The New York Times in 1858, when the transatlantic cable linking North America and Europe was completed. The telegraph was assumed to be a means of spreading propaganda that would destabilise society. It was also seen as a vehicle used to disconnect people from the real world by introducing false ideas in their heads. Today, we might dismiss this as an irrational fear – a moral panic. Go back further and…

Hot on the heels of the disappointing Green Comet, astronomers have just discovered a new comet with the potential to be next year’s big story – C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). Although it is still more than 18 months from its closest approach to Earth and the Sun, comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS already has social media buzzing, with optimistic articles being written about how it could be a spectacular sight. What’s the full story on this new icy wanderer? Introducing comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) Every year, a few dozen new comets are discovered – dirty snowballs moving on highly elongated paths around the Sun. The vast…

Popular culture is fascinated with the ability to detect liars. Lie detector tests are a staple of police dramas, and TV shows such as Poker Face feature “human polygraphs” who detect deception by picking up tell-tale signs in people’s behaviour. Records of attempts to detect lies, whether by technical means or by skilled observers, go back at least 3,000 years. Forensic science lie detection techniques have become increasingly popular since the invention of the polygraph early in the 20th century, with the latest methods involving advanced brain imaging. Proponents of lie detection technology sometimes make grandiose claims, such as a recent paper that said “with…

Social media services have generally been free of charge for users, but now, with ad revenues slowing down, social media companies are looking for new revenue streams beyond targeted ads. Now, Twitter is charging for its blue check verification, and Meta and Twitter both charge for identity protection. Users benefit from “free” services such as social media platforms. According to one study, in the U.S., Facebook users say they would have to be paid in the range of $40 to $50 to leave the social networking service for one month. If you value Facebook highly enough that you’d need to get paid to take a…