Bears
Steve Wozniak's unique insight on ChatGPT; Project Voice 2023: The World of Conversational AI in 10 images
Some folks say there ain't no bears in Arkansas.
Some folks never seen a bear at all.
Some folks say that bears go around eating babies raw.
Some folks got a bear across the hall.
Some folks say that bears go around smelling bad.
Others say that a bear is honey sweet.
Some folks say "this bear's the best I ever had."
And some folks got a bear beneath their feet.
Perhaps the only thing more improbable than ChatGPT coming along and focusing global attention on conversational AI, is country crooner / Sideshow Bob lookalike Lyle Lovett marrying America’s sweetheart Julia Roberts back in 1993.
The marriage ended quickly, but one thing that remained was Lovett being fully elevated in American society as a high-profile, trusted commentator, living musically somewhere between country and Americana.
In 1998, Lovett covered Bears, a brilliant song written by 2007 Texas poet laureate Steven Fromholz, to lead off his new album Step Inside This House.
Lovett often prefaces his performances of this song as descriptor of human nature, as the song perfectly describes how our backgrounds cause us not to see eye to eye.
Amidst a loud and polarized debate these days on the extent to which ChatGPT, and similar LLM-based AI technologies, are helping society vs hurting it, Steve Wozniak showed up as a surprise guest at CNBC last month to discuss the technology.
He likened it to self-driving cars, another technology with tremendous utility but requiring ongoing human purpose and intentionality behind it.
Wozniak had so much to say about ChatGPT that he then returned to CNBC the following morning to continue the conversation, and this is where Wozniak’s higher-level exposure to technology, over the course of many decades, showed up:
The final minute of this interview is incredibly important viewing for anyone working in this space. I’m not going to spoil it by excerpting it or doing anything other than posting the video so you can hear it for yourself.
Interesting and decidedly optimistic perspective on our current ongoing technological evolution.
The question will be whether the rest of society gets on board.
Project Voice 2023: The World of Conversational AI
Summarized in 10 images, provided below
(Conference registration and program information is here)