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January, 2023:

A Conversation (Sort of) With ChatGPT

Jan 29th, 2023
by Jeff Duntemann.
3 comments

An AI chatbot named ChatGPT has been getting a tremendous amount of publicity lately, and a boggling amount of what I consider unwarranted acceptance, bordering on the ridiculous. No, alas. That border is now behind us: Buzzfeed will soon begin using ChatGPT to generate content for their sites, which include the Huffington Post. The source is a paywalled article in the Wall Street Journal, or I’d post a link. Doesn’t matter. Buzzfeed is clearly trying to replace human writers with an AI. Their investors evidently think it’s a good idea, given that the Buzzfeed stock price rose 92% later that day.  I’d say I’m skeptical but I’m always skeptical. Being skeptical is part of my worldview. Other skeptics are out there: One clever wag on Twitter pretty much nailed it when he said, “Journos should have learned to code before the code learned to journo.” 

Heh. Anyway, after I stopped giggling I went over and created a free account at ChatGPT. You might recall my experiments with AIs writing fiction given a few sentences to start with. It was weird. Indie SF writers are in no danger, at least for the time being. I wanted to give ChatGPT a fair chance, just like I gave Sudowrite last year. Sudowrite started out weird and got weirder. Well, hey, I wanted to see it write fiction. My challenge to ChatGPT is to answer technical questions accurately and usefully.

It’s a chat program. So I started a chat:

Jeff: Will there ever be 128-bit CPUs?

I get asked this question a lot. My answer will be in the upcoming fourth edition of x64 Assembly Language Step By Step. It’s relatively simple, though there is some nuance.

ChatGPT’s first response:

It is possible that there will be 128-bit CPUs in the future, but it is not a certainty. The development of CPU architecture is driven by a variety of factors, including performance, power efficiency, and cost. Additionally, the need for increased computational power may be met through other means, such as the use of multiple cores or specialized hardware. As a result, the use of 128-bit CPUs will depend on the specific requirements of various applications and the availability of other solutions.

Hmmm. Saying this is sophomoric would be a slander on sophomores. But rather than reply to it immediately, I was given the option to re-generate the response. I clicked the button. ChatGPT thought (erk) for a few seconds and replied:

ChatGPT’s second response:

It is possible that there will be 128-bit CPUs in the future, but it is not clear what the need for such a large word size would be. Current 64-bit CPUs are more than capable of handling the vast majority of computing tasks and the industry has not yet identified a need for CPUs with larger word sizes. Additionally, the development of new technologies such as quantum computing may render traditional CPUs obsolete in the future.

This, in fact, is true, though it was still pretty much an obvious answer to a subtle question. So I clicked the “Regenerate” button again.

ChatGPT’s third response:

It is possible that there will eventually be 128-bit CPUs, but it is not currently a technology that is in widespread use or development. The current standard for most consumer CPUs is 64-bit, and there are also 32-bit CPUs still in use. The need for a 128-bit CPU would likely depend on advancements in technology and a growing demand for more processing power and memory capacity.

Sigh. Drink from the same well and you get the same water. I figured I needed a better question. I had one lined up and ready to go:

Jeff: Aren’t 128-bit registers useful for math?

128-bit registers can be useful for certain types of math, particularly for tasks such as floating-point operations and high-precision computations. Larger registers can increase the precision and accuracy of calculations, as well as allow for more efficient processing of large data sets. However, the need for 128-bit registers would likely depend on the specific application and whether the benefits of larger registers outweigh the cost of implementing them in terms of power consumption and hardware complexity.

I didn’t bother to regenerate this one. So far it seemed to be scraping Google, and while I mostly agreed with its answer, I would hope that Buzzfeed would require something more focused and in-depth. So I mulled it a little more and asked a third rather leading question. Read it carefully. There’s a lollapalooza in there:

Jeff: Wouldn’t the vector registers in the AVX-512 math subsystem make 128-bit registers unnecessary?

AVX-512 (Advanced Vector Extensions 512-bit) is an extension to the x86 instruction set that is designed to improve the performance of floating-point and vector operations. One of the key features of AVX-512 is the use of 512-bit wide vector registers, which can be used for a wide range of scientific, engineering, and financial workloads. The wide vector registers in AVX-512 can be seen as an alternative to 128-bit wide registers, as it allows to perform more operations in parallel with a single instruction, but it doesn’t necessarily make 128-bit registers unnecessary. For example, in certain types of workloads, it might be more beneficial to have a few large 128-bit registers rather than many smaller 512-bit registers. Ultimately, the choice of register size would depend on the specific requirements of the application and the trade-offs between performance, power consumption, and hardware complexity.

Bzzzzzzzzzt! Suddenly ChatGPT’s distant descent from poor ol’ Eliza became obvious. A few large 128-bit registers might be better than a bunch of smaller 512-bit registers. Right? Right?

I may test it more as time permits. After all, it’s free. But this will have to do for today. Among other things, I write humorous stories about AI. Looks like I just wrote another, without even trying.

Sudowrite would be proud.

Things That Are Slowly Vanishing

Jan 23rd, 2023
by Jeff Duntemann.
48 comments

What caught my attention was the rate at which people are abandoning landline phones. At least half the people I’ve asked about this don’t have one anymore. (We haven’t had one since we left Colorado.) In thinking a little, I discovered a few other things that seem to be going away so slowly people aren’t noticing. Here’s a list of what I think belongs in that category, in no particular order:

  1. Landlines. And phones that ring because they contain an electromechanical ringer with a metal bell.
  2. Bowling. I used to see bowling alleys regularly here and there. Heck, our parish church in Chicago where I grew up had one, and may still. Bowling was never a big thing in my family, so maybe I just don’t notice it anymore. I think I last bowled about 12 or 15 years ago, and even then I found myself thinking, “Will I ever do this again?”
  3. Roller rinks. There was one just outside Chicago called The Hub Roller Rink, where I went a few times as a kid until I realized that roller skating was not my thing. The Hub is long gone. The last time I roller skated was in Scotts Valley at a Borland Halloween party in the fall of 1987. I don’t remember the last time I saw a roller rink, anywhere, since then.
  4. Ice cream men in trucks. When I was a kid 55 or 60 years ago, Good Humor sent their trucks around my neighborhood on a regular basis in the summer, with their unmistakable bells. The last time I saw an ice cream truck was about 2008, when Carol and I had a condo in Des Plaines IL, outside Chicago. The truck we saw every week or so would play music electronically, and the music I remember clearly, because it’s a hymn that I have on a Lorie Line CD, but it’s not identified in the liner notes. (It’s in a medley with “Lord of the Dance.”)
  5. Dime-store kites. Although I see cheap kites (plastic now, not paper) in stores every spring, I almost never see kids flying them. I’m not talking about expensive fabric stunt kites you see on Amazon. I mean the plain diamond or delta kites that were ubiquitous 50-60 years ago, and probably peaked in 1964 or so. The only places I’ve seen them recently are at campgrounds, like where we camped in Nebraska for the 2017 solar eclipse.
  6. Metal construction sets. My dad bought me a British Meccano set when I was 7, and shortly after that I inherited my cousin Ron’s big Erector set. It was my favorite toy into my early teens.  I learned how a car’s differential works because I built one, out of brass gears and small steel girders. Lego took over that category (plastic is easier and cheaper to make than metal) but at least some kids are still building things.
  7. CB radio. CB was a craze in the 1970s. I bought a radio in 1971, and by 1972 most of my friends had them. I have a good antenna and a good radio that will receive (but not transmit on) the CB frequencies. I hear some distant heterodynes and an occasional trucker on the bands, but CB’s frequencies are now mostly vacant. “How ‘bout that Sundog!” was how we began a contact in 1972.
  8. Manual eggbeaters. Ok, we have cheap-ish cordless electric mixers these days, but when I was a kid I used a hand-cranked item with a red wooden handle, and used it mostly to mix chocolate pudding. It was still in the drawer when I left home in 1976. I’ve often wondered if anybody still uses them.
  9. Videotape. I still have a mini-8 camcorder. (I think.) The last time I used it was to make movies when we were fostering a mama bichon and her three puppies when their owner was in the hospital, back in 2009. One of the puppies we bought and named Dash. I still have a VHS tape deck. Ok, that stuff is already gone. but I took some terrific video with it.
  10. Sunken living rooms. These were stylish in the 70s and 80s, and the first new house Carol and I ever bought (in 1990) had one. They’re a trip-and-fall hazard, especially for the older set, and simply aren’t done anymore.
  11. Control-line model airplanes. These were big in the ‘50s and early 60’s. You stood in the middle of a circle with a handle and two wires connecting you to a gas-powered model airplane. You had a friend hook the glow-plug to a battery and spin the .049 engine until it caught, then you pivoted in a circle as the plane flew in a circle around you, going high and low in response to how you held the handle. Never did it myself, but I watched the older kids who did.
  12. Usenet. I got a Usenet login in 1981, because I worked for Xerox. It was fun, but I really didn’t know how to use it well. After I left Xerox in 1985, I didn’t see Usenet again until the mid-1990s, when most of the ISPs carried it. I had a lot of fun in newsgroups in the midlate 1990s on groups like alt.life.afterlife and the one or two that catered to assembly language. I had a paid Usenet account for a few years in the late oughts and early teens. I gave it up when what was posted was mostly porn, pirated content, and malware.
  13. Waffle irons. My parents had an electric one, and I think I remember them using it…twice. I never much liked pancakes or their nonskid brethren, waffles. But they really did used to be a thing. Maybe it’s just easier now to go to Waffle House and not make a mess in the kitchen.
  14. Drive-in movies. We went to plenty of them in the late 50s and early 60s, and I took Carol to a couple early in our history. I’m pretty sure that the land they required eventually got way too valuable to waste on a low-margin business like movies. There was one in Grayslake, near my family’s summer home, and I remember watching “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” on its screen through my 8” telescope, which dates it to 1966. It looked like two obnoxious people screaming at each other. Funny how many movies are pretty much that, even today.

That’s what comes to mind now, sitting here in my chair and pondering what was once a commonplace that just faded away. Got anything to add to the list? If I get enough I’ll run an addendum.

New Year’s Daywander–A Day Late

Jan 2nd, 2023
by Jeff Duntemann.
3 comments

But better late than never. I actually relaxed, played with our Lionel trains, and posted a few Odd Lots to Twitter, which I will gather into a Contra post later this week as time permits.

One of those Odd Lots posts went viral.

This has never happened to me before. I didn’t join Twitter until 2014, and haven’t used it as much as most users, especially the bluchecks, who more or less live there. I have better things to do than live my life on social media. I keep my Twitter account because every time I post a link to one of my books, I sell a few books. This doesn’t happen on Facebook, probably because my Facebook audience is relatively static, and I’ve sold about as many books to the people who read my Facebook wall as that static audience wants to buy. I’m ok with that. Saturating an audience is a species of winning.

Twitter is different. People who read something I post and like it can retweet (basically, repost) that tweet to their own followers, most of whom have never heard of me. If it catches their attention they can in turn retweet my original tweet to their own followers, and the chain reaction continues until it burns out.

This is not a good thing if the chain reaction consists of a Twitter lynch mob. That usually happens with political tweets, which I rarely if ever post. The tweet that sparked a chain reaction this time had nothing to do with politics. It was about food: A team of University of Washington researchers scrutinized decades’ worth of studies focusing on red meat consumption and its association with various illnesses, like cancer, heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. What they found was (a little) startling: The correlation between red meat and cancer, heart disease, and diabetes was down in the noise. There was no correlation with stroke. None.

Their conclusion violated all kinds of conventional wisdom, which warmed my heart. I have some sort of genetic aversion to conventional wisdom, most of which is deliberately designed by those in power. I’d seen some research showing the meat-disease connection to be false. This time, people at a reputable institution nailed it for all time.

And it took off like an F-14. Before the dust settled last night, that one tweet got 823 likes, 295 retweets, and 16 comments, many of which I answered, spawning still more comments. Come this morning I had 21 more followers than I had before I posted the meat-bomb tweet.

No other tweet of mine has every done a tenth as well.

There were some grumblers and at least one troll, who claims that he lost weight on a high-carb diet—and stated that all books saying carbs make you fat have been debunked. They haven’t, obviously, but I’m letting him be him. Maybe he’s a metabolic outlier. It’s ok. I don’t block people unless they attack me, and politely challenging a tweet I post is not an attack.

I have no idea why that particular link started a chain reaction. I don’t really care. It’s how I build an audience for my books, and to a lesser extent, for Contra. It’ll be very interesting to see if it ever happens again.

_…_  _…_

Yesterday was Public Domain Day. This year everything published in 1927 went into the public domain. The big fish in that pond is (finally!) Sherlock Holmes. The last Holmes story was published in 1927. So now the Conan Doyle estate can pack up their tent and go home. They certainly got their money’s worth.

What else is now free as in, well, free? It’s a decent list:

  • The first three Hardy Boys books are now PD. I was never a big HB fan, but I read The Tower Treasure and enjoyed it. Expect more HB adventures entering the indie pipe soon.
  • Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
  • The Jazz Singer.
  • …and a whole lot more.

_…_  _…_

I begin 2023 with a new blog editor for Contra: Open Live Writer. This is a fork of the Microsoft product Windows Live Writer 2012, which was open-sourced some years ago. I tried that item back in 2012, but it was not “better enough” to switch. I’ve been limping along on Raven Plus, an adaptation of the now-defunct Zoundry Raven, introduced in 2008 but basically killed by Windows 10. Raven Plus runs on Win10, if barely, and in 2022 I got tired enough of its glitches that I spent some time trying out new blog editors. Open Live Writer won. I won’t fully endorse it until I’ve used it for a few months, but so far it’s given me no trouble at all.

Oh—and I no longer post to LiveJournal. Nobody was reading the Contra mirror I maintained there, and the site finally killed my paid account for nonpayment.

_…_  _…_

So before I forget: Happy New Year, everybody! My plan file this year includes finishing the fourth edition of Assembly Language Step By Step, and finishing and publishing The Everything Machine, the first full-length Drumlins novel. If I can nail those two items, I’ll consider the year a good one. Thanks for reading and don’t lose touch!