Tracy on 13 February joined Simon to discuss what the AI language model ChatGPT does and how it differs from a traditional chatbot. The difference, she said, lies in the fact that traditional chatbots rely on answers pre-written by humans, whereas AI chatbots like ChatGPT formulate answers based on data they have been fed.

Training an AI language model is a lot of work though, so, while, on the long term AI chatbots might pick up some of the tasks previously done by humans, they are not yet ready to replace positions like copywriters or journalists for instance. A good example would be Google’s promotional video of its Bard chatbot--Google’s response to ChatGPT--which, by giving a well-formulated but factually incorrect answer to a question about the James Webb telescope, sent the shares of Google’s parent company Alphabet crashing.

AI chatbots still lack the “human touch” mentioned in Delano journalist on the topic, and therefore should be seen as a tool rather than a replacement for existing workers. The important part, as is always the case with automation, would be to keep upskilling employees. 

For the week ahead--a quiet week given that it’s a school holiday--Tracy selected three things to do: on 14 February, the Cinémathèque is for a special Valentine’s Day showing. On Saturday 18 February, readers can attend a workshop or a comedy stand up show called Simon added his recommendation: the organised for the Luxembourg Film Festival.

To kick off the week with mellow tunes, Tracy recommended by mysterious British music collective Sault. Her second recommendation was by young Berlin-based artist benzii.

Tune in again on Monday 20 January around 8:30am on Ara City Radio (87.8 - 102.9 -105.2 FM) or listen to the podcast on Delano.