Category: Media
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AI is no oracle: It’s as subjective as a Spotify playlist
AI chatbots are useful. But they are trained to please when all you want is information — and that makes all the difference. I appreciate the convenience of having questions answered by Google itself, rather than being directed to other websites. Sometimes I enjoy diving into AI Mode, where Google…
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AI Mode and AI Overviews: Where curiosity meets instant answers
As an old-timer with a love for newspapers and magazines, I am glad to see traditional news writing getting a new lease of life from Google. For what are AI Overviews — those snippets of information sometimes found at the top of Google’s search results pages — but quick summaries…
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Sound advice: The best RP and BBC English podcasts
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” wrote Shakespeare. But the accent, I would argue, makes a difference. Crystal-clear Received Pronunciation—RP, or “BBC English”—is easy on the ears and perfect for podcasts. Here’s a brief guide. Hear, hear!Image: Ai-generated/ Gemini I loved the vowels and diction of…
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The most popular love songs of the 1960s and 1970s
“If music be the food of love, play on,” says Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night. Music, pop music, certainly overflowed with love back in the 1960s and 1970. There was no dearth of love in music from the 1950s — I love songs like Walk the Line by Johnny Cash,…
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Krishna and Jesus, according to ChatGPT
There’s an amazing similarity in the accounts of the birth of Jesus and Lord Krishna (seen with Radha in the picture). I was suddenly struck by the similarity on Janmashtami, the birthday of Krishna, which was celebrated by many people on September 6 and by others on September 7 this…
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Pop music from the 1950s to the 1970s
“I can hear music, sweet, sweet music,” sang the Beach Boys, and that’s what I am hearing, leafing through a marvellous history of pop music. Harvey Rachlin takes us on a spin down memory lane in Song and System: The Making of American Pop Music. Elvis Presley and the Beatles,…
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Bing! This chatty search engine is a writer!
Bing is no longer just a search engine. It’s also a chatbot which can chat with you and write email, blog posts and articles. The new Bing is powered by GPT 4, an artificial intelligence tool developed by Open AI, an American research laboratory in which Microsoft has invested billions…
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ChatGPT assesses The Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times
The chatbot ChatGPT with its amazing ability to write anything from poems to articles in no time at all has taken the world by storm. The media can’t stop talking about it. Fed and trained on reams of data, it can write on anything from Shakespeare to social media. Along…
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ChatGPT: A chatty, amazing writer
My initial encounter with ChatGPT left me in a state of shock and awe. Words sprouted on the web page as soon as I finished typing my request for a parody of Shakespeare. In a flash, ChatGPT churned out a poem addressing the Bard that went: “Let’s see, how could…
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Raffles, Singapore, Calcutta and Bengal
When a young man came to Singapore from Calcutta many years ago, he didn’t know he was following in the footsteps of Sir Stamford Raffles. The one difference: He came by air. Raffles came by sea — on the ship Indiana, with his deputy, Major William Farquhar, on board another…
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