[ExI] report from the front lines

[spike at rainier66.com]

Hey cool, we tested two new (new to me) technologies on a three week camping
vacation from which I returned yesterday.

 

We like to camp up along wild rivers where there is no phone contact, but we
are power of attorney with medical knowledge on an 86 yr old parent who is
still living on his own, so three weeks out of contact is a bad thing.  My
bride bought a StarLink receiver.  It said it could be set up way out where
there is no cell phone contact.  That part turned out to be true: it is very
easy to set up.  The first night we used it, the bandwidth was terrible.  It
said that trees block the signal, which turned out to be true.  So the next
night we moved to a less tree-ey site, and it worked great, 40 mbs, which is
plenty for what we were doing, which is two users simultaneously playing
video games (my son and my bride) and one geezer doing web surfing for news
and crap like that (me.)  We were also in contact should there be any
medical emergencies.  I would call that technology successful, and it has me
thinking about what it means for anyone anywhere to have a good internet
connection.  It makes a lot of otherwise useless real estate a plausible
place to camp or possibly live.

 

The other technology is an attempt at something I have been going on about
for decades on this forum: an AI capable of talking to geezers in their
dotage, being as I am likely the next person to need that technology.  No
not for ME dammit, for my aged father in law, who lives alone.

 

My son set him up with Gemini, which kinda sorta carries a conversation with
a geezer.  He worked with it while we were there, so I watched and listened,
which led me to some ideas.  I noticed he talked to it a lot about sports.
The three of us (my bride, my son and I) know little to nothing about
sports, so it is immediately better than we are.  

 

For about the past decade or so, FIL has not really kept up with current
events other than professional ball sports, mostly baseball, somewhat with
football, a little with basketball.  Gemini was great for holding its end of
the conversation on those topics.

 

Something occurred to me when I listened to any discussion between FIL and
Gemini on any other topic: the device might be an even better GeezerAI
chatbot if it is trained exclusively on material written before 1990, with
emphasis and detail centering around the 1970s.  The goal isn't really to
inform the geezer as it is to be a comforting companion, capable of speaking
on topics the geezer knows well.

 

Verdict: the Gemini as a Geezerbot chat companion is getting there, but
improvement is easily foreseeable.

 

AI hipsters, is there a way to choose training material for AI that selects
older material?

 

spike

 

 

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