Most writers hate writing a synopsis, so it seems like the perfect challenge for an AI. What I discovered reveals a lot about the current state and limitations of generative AIs like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. The current wave of interest in AI is fascinating because it inspires so much hype on both sides. I […]
Uploading your mind to a computer is a sci-fi trope that’s almost as old as the electronic computer. Yet the more I write about AI, the more I think that it’s never going to happen. The reason: embodied intelligence. Consciousness uploads are also a notion that gets transhumanists and some sci-fi fans extremely agitated. From […]
Does Google have a sentient AI lurking in its basement, ready to ace the Turing Test? That was the grand claim made by a former AI researcher at the internet advertising giant. Blake Lemoine leaked transcripts of his chats as evidence that Google’s AI had made the leap to sentience. Google says he’s wrong and […]
How do you turn a collection of story ideas into a coherent 100,000-word novel? Novel planning was one of the most daunting tasks I faced as a first-time novelist. As a journalist, I’d got used to writing a few hundred words without an outline, or jotting down a few ideas for a thousand-word article or […]
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space… …’cos there’s bugger-all down here on Earth Eric Idle, “Galaxy Song”, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life “AI” is one of the most over-used and misapplied terms in popular science, right after “quantum leap”. Animal intelligence is either embraced uncritically or dismissed prejudicially, rarely without […]