There’s a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence just at the moment. There seems to be a fear that we are hurtling towards a “2001 Space Odyssey” situation where the AI will start telling us what we can or cannot do. I’ve seen some concern expressed that people applying for benefits of various kinds, mortgages, loans for this that and the other which increasing involve online applications will have the final decision taken by a robot! We shall see!
Meanwhile Paul McCartney has apparently used AI to ‘clean up’ a tape made by John Lennon long years ago. This is a recording on an old-fashioned audio tape, the kind of thing some of the young IT experts have no experience of using. As Paul McCartney explained, it they basically told the computer “This is a human voice and this is a guitar. Lose the guitar”. And that’s what happened. And now a new song by the Beatles will be recorded. Presumably they will have to tell the computer to play guitar in the style of George Harrison, even if Paul McCartney and Ringo Star are able to record in person. Will it then still be a Beatles song? But how amazing that AI can do stuff like that!
Today came the news that Glenda Jackson, actress, then MP, then actress again has died, aged 86 I think. I remember Glenda Jackson as Queen Elizabeth I in the TV series long ago. On Tuesday the writer Cormac McCarthy died, aged 89. I still have a set of those old-fashioned audio cassettes of Brad Pitt reading “All the Pretty Horses” and the other books of “The Border Trilogy”. If I re-read the books, especially the first, it is Brad Pitt’s voice I hear.
So it goes!
Today my small grandson was convinced we had a bee in the kitchen, but it seemed it had flown out again through the open door. Some time late I found a small, sleepy bee on the kitchen window ledge. We popped him into a jar to take him outside but first checked how to revive him if he was feeling tired. And so I discovered that I shouldn‘t on any account give him honey as the stuff we buy might contain imported honey and so might be toxic to our bees. Sugar water is the order of the day. And then I found out that this should be made with white granulated sugar, of which we have none. Rather than risking giving the bee anything toxic, the advice said, it was better to do nothing. So we put him on the flowers in the front garden. He seemed to perk up! We hope for the best. Sometimes it’s hard to be helpful!
Life goes. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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