Author: mark.obrien

Good old Meta. You’d like to think that after all their previous issues with data privacy, they would sail a bit more carefully, but I guess when this stuff is baked into your DNA because it’s how you actually make money, then it’s exactly what you would expect. Unfortunately, I don’t think $20m is actually… Continue reading The Cost of Doing Business

I love innovation and technology, so I tend to be generally optimistic about new ideas. But, anyone who knows me well would acknowledge that I was sceptical about the metaverse stuff right from the beginning. I was hearing all sorts of crazy predictions from consulting firms, Gartner, social media, everywhere… metaverse this, metaverse that… but… Continue reading Metaverse Musings

Clearly a name that everybody should be VERY familiar with and yet somehow he’s sailed under the radar for most. John Goodenough. Another great leaves us.

AI is not going to kill us because, frankly, the current ML-based technologies are just not that smart and, in my view, can never equate to human intelligence in the broadest sense. This is a terrific article and very well-stated commentary. Very much worth a read in these hyperbolic clickbait times.One of my favourite quotes… Continue reading AI is not going to kill the planet

Kind of sad, but XKCD nails it again… 😂

I have to admit that I find it difficult to process the idea of people who “take full responsibility” for things going wrong with no consequences at all attached. Is that really taking responsibility? It used to be you’d lose your job, maybe resign, or face some other kind of pain if you were responsible… Continue reading Taking “full” responsibility?

This is a really insightful article which I think articulates some important ideas about the real value of technology very nicely, especially when we consider the potential impact of things like ChatGPT. Strangely, it got me thinking about the value of “good old fashioned” approaches which we’ve often shelved a little too quickly in the… Continue reading Sometimes the old ways…

This article makes a great point. When legislators clearly don’t seem to have any understanding of the technology they want to regulate, they sound stupid and are hard to take seriously. Australia is not immune – I’ve read and heard some doofus comments by key government people on cybersecurity recently that make me cringe because… Continue reading Tick Tock… Boom

I’m always in admiration of highly productive (as opposed to just busy) people. Riemann was insanely prolific for a guy who died relatively young and laid the groundwork for much modern maths and physics which followed. Can you imagine what the list would have looked like if he had made it to 80?!

A lot of people have naturally been giving ChatGPT a go with varying results. What becomes quickly obvious is that the quality of your prompt/question to the tool heavily determines the quality of the response. For those of you struggling, here’s a tip I picked up along the way… simply get ChatGPT to coach you… Continue reading Get your ChatGPT game on