Ged Carroll

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  • ChatGPT for planning

    I was reluctant to put fingers to keyboards to type up a blog post about ChatGPT for planning. I didn’t want to be THAT person that turns out personal branding content on the latest fad as narcissistic clickbait. There is also a larger question of is it worth using ChatGPT for planning now that it has moved to a subscription model? Finally, while the next evolution of ChatGPT won’t be launched for a while, it propertied abilities seem to be evolving in certain areas the more people use it. Much of what I will cover in ChatGPT for planning also has an application with Bing’s search chat interface, or services like Notion.

    The Server Farm Has Landed

    Thinking about ChatGPT for planning, came after colleagues working the design team introduced me to their experimental efforts using Midjourney for image creation. Autumn rolled into winter, and ChatGPT started to become more accessible as a tool for the general public.

    What is ChatGPT?

    ChatGPT is a class of machine learning platforms known as a large language model. It’s given a huge amount of data and analyses it. It then uses that data to build a probability based model for what might come after a given set of terms. For instance, a user may type:

    Tell me about Fenway Park, the baseball stadium in Boston

    And it would be highly probable that ChatGPT would talk about how the park is home to the Boston Red Sox major league baseball team because there is so much content out online about the Boston Red Sox and Fenway Park.

    In this respect, the mechanism of ChatGPT seems to resemble Bayesian inference based on Bayes theorem in output, if not, mode of action.

    Bayes Theorem

    Named after the mathematician Thomas Bayes, the theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. For example, if the risk of having a car accident is known to decrease with the number of years driving without an accident; Bayes’ theorem allows the risk to an individual based on their prior driving record to be assessed more accurately by conditioning it relative to their driving experience, rather than simply assuming that the individual is typical of the wider population.

    Bayesian inference

    Bayesian inference is a type of statistical inference where Bayes’ theorem is used to update the probability for a hypothesis as more evidence or information becomes available. It works better with dynamically updatable data (like a user correction).

    Clear boundaries in using ChatGPT for planning

    I could see some obvious risks in ChatGPT in terms of how it works and in how it presents its responses. But, the more that I have looked into ChatGPT, the more that I saw how it could be useful. But that is contingent on having well-defined immutable guard rails are employed in the use of ChatGPT.

    A quick story

    This isn’t about using ChatGPT for planning, but using ChatGPT to help a friend out in January this year as they worked on their master’s degree. They were studying law and wanted to write an essay on a particular arcane area of law, doing a comparison between how it is implemented in two countries.

    We didn’t ask ChatGPT to write the essay, but used it to recommend academic authors who would have written papers on the areas of investigation, with a view to reading their works and incorporating their thinking as citations.

    We got names. Some of them wrote about law, but not the specific area that we asked about. Others didn’t seem to exist at all when we looked them up via academic database tools and Google. ChatGPT’s process had somehow conjured them up.

    Other people have been less careful than we were:

    I would not be surprised if these examples that have been called out are just the tip of the iceberg and others have got away with similar practices largely undetected. Also knowledge workers may be reticent to admit whether, or how much they rely on machine learning based tools. Think about that for a moment…

    Watchouts of using ChatGPT for planning

    ChatGPT can give you an example in terms of writing style. ChatGPT has been used successfully as a church sermon writing tool as an example. But everything needs to be separately fact checked – trust but verify.

    Secondly, ChatGPT can be used to ideate around a theme, in a similar way to using a thesaurus. This could be things like language for messaging, inspiration for search terms or even terms to use in the creation of stimuli for mood boards. Again, I would look to check all of this against a thesaurus as well.

    Additional inspiration on using ChatGPT for planning

    The Shopping List Edition – by Antony Mayfield – Antonym

    Power and Weirdness: How to Use Bing AI – by Ethan Mollick 

    The rise of Skynet – by Miguel – Genuine Impact Newsletter

    Oh the Things You’ll Do with Bing’s ChatGPT – Features Sneak Peek | Medium 

    Reinventing search with a new AI-powered Microsoft Bing and Edge, your copilot for the web – The Official Microsoft Blog 

    5 Uses for ChatGPT that Aren’t Fan Fiction or Cheating at School | WIRED

  • Synthesis + more things

    Synthesis

    Synclavier Regen Synthesizer Introduction – Synthtopia – the old New England Digital Synclavier was a floor to ceiling rack full of equipment paired with a monitor mouse, computer keyboard and musical keyboard. Synclavier was an early digital synthesiser and then evolved to create the first digital audio workstation, featuring digital tapeless recording, digital effects, sequencing of instruments, sampling and synthesis. By 1980, the Synclavier 2 was launched. Then you started to increased adoption including Michael Jackson for this Thriller album and across the US film industry for sound effects work.

    Michael Hoenig 1987
    Producer Michael Hoenig circa 1987

    The sampling and synthesis of Synclavier helped define the sound of 1980s record production for a wide range of groups from the era including

    At the time there was concern that the digital synthesis and sampling of the Synclavier would put live music out of the business, so many concert halls in the US banned the use of the Synclavier.

    Mirage FM: how patten created the first LP made entirely from AI sounds | Dazed – Pattern’s album brings synthesis forward to the present day. A mix of crude pads and textures hint at how machine learning can change synthesis over time. At the moment, record labels are looking to restrict the use of machine learning, which they view as a similar threat to the MP3 format of the early 2000s and digital sampling from the early 1990s. Like earlier technologies, they will eventually make their peace with machine learning based synthesis and use the opportunity to further gouge artists and creators

    Beauty

    Coty Group Global Chief Brands Officer Stefano Curti on plans to triple its China business through a strategic shake-up 

    China

    An in-depth look at China’s consumer electronics market | Daxue Consulting

    Outsourcing of internal security operations

    Ethics

    The Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook | UNEP – UN Environment Programme – interesting that this doesn’t look at the quality of clothing: making better longer lasting items

    Hong Kong

    Three years of National Security Law in Hong Kong: Farewell “special status”? | Merics – the NSL has severely reduced the rule of law in Hong Kong by granting the government powers to circumvent the courts and thereby deny defendants a fair trial. The case of media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai illustrates how this presents a risk to businesses and their property rights. The Hong Kong government froze Lai’s majority of shares in his company Next Media, which led to its liquidation and the end of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily. The case is highly political and does not reflect the situation of most businesses, but it does show the power the Hong Kong government can wield over business.  – German think tank on the NSL

    ‘Happy Hong Kong’: free coffee, discounts and 1-minute shopping spree up for grabs in HK$150 million retail promotion to get people smiling | South China Morning Post – but what doe these promotions do to brand? Byron Sharp’s work indicates that price promotions likely damage brand over time

    Japan

    Facing skills gap, Japan to train teenagers in battery tech – Quartz 

    RESTAURANT OF MISTAKEN ORDERS

    Luxury

    Rolex and Patek Philippe Prices Drop Amid High-Interest Rates and More – Robb Report

    Marketing

    Edelman Cutting Roughly 240 Employees Amid Reorganization | Provoke Media – Edelman is just the canary in the coal mine. Beyond (part of Next Fifteen) is closing down its London office, smaller agencies have been going to the wall and another of my former agency alma mater WE are laying off just under 5 per cent of their headcount. I don’t remember this happening during the 2008 financial crisis. There are likely to be several factors blamed:

    Rising interest rates combined with already lean cashflow has driven some agencies to the wall

    • Declining economic conditions has resulted in declining marketing budgets
    • Some agencies (Edelman being a case in point) bulked up on talent, expecting a fast exit from COVID driven decline
    • Brands are getting shaky on the commitment to brand purpose which will hit a lot of below the line agencies particularly hard
    • More marketing spend is being spent on innovation with an expectation of cost savings down the line (particularly in production and across B2B marketing)

    Brand Salience, Brand Availability and Other Metrics — Purdie Pascoe 

    Materials

    Rheinmetall Presents Mobile Smart Factory for Mobile Production of Spare Parts for Battle Damage Repair – Soldier Systems Daily 

    Online

    Russia’s digital scramble to control the ‘coup’ narrative – Coda Story

    Security

    “Russian spies are blowing up one by one:” Russian hockey player arrested on spy charges in Poland – War Is Boring 

    Russian Spies, War Ministers Reliant on Cybercrime in Pariah State | Dark Reading – lacking on the ground options to attack critical infrastructure due to decline in human spy network

    Software

    AI in chip design: Where does Cadence stand? | DigiTimes

    Telecoms

    China approved 6 GHz band for cellular services – PingWest

    Hackers attack Russian satellite telecom provider, claim affiliation with Wagner Group | CyberScoop

    Web of no web

    Google reportedly gives up on making AR glasses—for the third time | Ars Technica

    Wireless

    MikroE welcomes back IrDA with Click board | EETimes – IrDA was first introduced in 1994 for consumer equipment but has since been used in areas such as power systems where a light-based system is safer or RF is problematic. It’s slow with data rates up to 115kbit/s at 1 metre. The reality is usually much slower. I used to use IrDA for transferring business cards of a few KB each which would take 30 seconds or more

  • OceanGate Titan + more things

    OceanGate Titan

    Plenty have already covered the OceanGate Titan implosion in more detail. I will not repeat that work but wanted to bring to wider attention how marketers have jumped on the bandwagon. The following advert appeared in the print edition of the Financial Times, placed by Omega watches promoting their Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Ultra Deep series of watches.

    ‘Seamaster – Precision at every level’ next to a scale going beyond 6,000 metres.

    Omega
    Omega watch advert a week after Ocean Gate submersible accident

    I personally thought that the advert was too soon after the implosion for good taste. Although the watch community has seen a renewed interest in deep diving capable watches after the OceanGate Titan incident.

    Beauty

    What European beauty brands need to know about Chinese consumer trends – S’Young International

    China

    Police harassing woman who danced for Tiananmen massacre anniversary — Radio Free Asia

    Design

    Peter Yee and Oakley: futuristic fashion’s unsung hero — sabukaru – Peter Yee was responsible for about half the golden age designs of Oakley products. This a nicely written and researched profile of him.

    Energy

    Fact check: why Rowan Atkinson is wrong about electric vehicles | Electric, hybrid and low-emission cars | The Guardian – not convinced by the quality of the fact checking with the author citing his own organisation as an information source in this ‘fact check’

    Ceramic solid state battery to ship to car makers at end of year | EE Times 

    Finance

    China censors financial blogger as economic recovery falters | Financial Times

    Hong Kong

    Hong Kong’s crypto push puts HSBC and StanChart in a bind | Financial Times – I am surprised at how hard charging Hong Kong is on crypto, especially given the benefits it provides for capital flight from mainland China

    Japan

    Young Japanese are craving fast fashion. What happened? | Vogue Business – it’s the economy stupid, luxury is less accessible. Secondly, much of the youth looks like Gyaru peaked in the early 2000s due to financial issues and things haven’t improved since. Shibuya subcultures were as dependent on the ability to spend as on youth creativity.

    Luxury

    Kering/Creed: posh perfume buy embraces luxury gap doctrine | Financial Times – interesting purchase by Kering of a British heritage luxury perfume brand

    Court Orders Rolex Dealer To Reimburse Client | Fratello Watches – there seems to be an uptake in successful legal cases disputing the practices of luxury watch manufacturers.

    Marketing

    Richard Edelman: “Clients Are Really Nervous About Politics” | Provoke Media – fire department chief asks for more fire risks

    Media

    ixar flop shows Walt Disney struggling to revive the magic | Financial Times – there is a bit of snake oil salesmanship going on here, The Little Mermaid did well in the US but has underperformed in international markets such as Korea

    Online

    The Google Analytics transition away from Universal Analytics to GA4 is now being parodied.

    Singapore

    Singapore jails Indonesian who filmed himself having sex with 76 women without their consent | South China Morning Post – that this happened in Singapore was incidental. This is a problem around the world, Singapore managed to hand down a custodial sentence. The second thing that struck me was how what would have been fantastical in an old James Bond film is now commercially available for those with the inclination to buy the gadget.

    Software

    Apple’s Vision Pro SDK is now available, in-person developer labs launch next month | TechCrunch

    Technology

    Rebuilding Intel – Foundry vs IDM Decades of Inefficiencies Unraveled

  • Opel Corsa

    I haven’t been a car owner since 1998. Back then driving a car was a very analogue experience and had been for decades. I grew up reading Car Magazine and was excited to get behind the wheel and drive when I was old enough. The reality of driving was rather underwhelming. The Opel Corsa was also known as the Vauxhall Nova at the time, now it’s also known as the Vauxhall Corsa. The Opel Corsa of the time was known as a good first car for new drivers. This was back when joyriding was a crime wave sweeping the UK and Ireland and vehicles leasing or finance wasn’t as commonplace as it is now.

    Consequently insurance companies penalised car owners with punishing insurance premiums, to the point that my car usually cost less than the annual price to insure it. 

    Last car standing

    I owned or driven a number of the competitors to the original Opel Corsa including the Fiat Uno, the Ford Fiesta and the Rover Metro. Rover went bankrupt, Fiat now makes a retro-futurism of the Fiat 500 rather than a modernised version of the Fiat Uno and finally Ford sunset the Fiesta. So the Opel Corsa remains the last car standing. 

    Convoluted product DNA

    However, that belies the fact that GM Europe including their Vauxhall and Opel brands were sold to the PSA Group and then became part of Stellantis in 2021. Stellantis is the result of a merger between the PSA Group (Peugeot, Citröen, DS, Opel and Vauxhall) with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati and Ram Trucks.

    This generation of the Corsa relied on PSA underpinnings rather than previous generations based on General Motors designs.

    Modern Opel Corsa versus its ancestors

    Opel Corsa-e

    The modern Opel Corsa has a wedge shape with more overhangs that gives it a pleasant look. In the driver’s seat is when the experience starts to change from the original car. The wedge shape and high doors with obligatory side impact protection means that you have significant blind spots in the drivers chair. 

    The original Corsa was a three door car, but four and five door versions came along later. The modern Opel Corsa allows a little more leg room in the back. The boot would hold two carry on cases and a couple of tote bags, which from memory was a little larger than the late 1990s capability of the Opel Corsa. 

    Back to the interior. As a super mini, the Opel Corsa’s seats were one of its better features. The modern car had seats that felt weirdly similar to previous generations of Corsa, even down to the lack of lumbar support and a manual knob to dial in the seat back angle. 

    Because of the smaller windows and higher doors the interior also felt darker, rather than the light airy driving experience that I remembered.

    Dashboard

    The most apparent change in the latest version of the Opel Corsa compared to its ancestors is the dashboard. Digital car systems go back to the likes of Clarion’s Auto PC from 1998. There is no voice recognition, but there is a touch screen. This controls some of the car’s settings such as having the lights come on automatically, the radio and mapping. The digital experience was limited compared to systems from the likes of Mercedes Benz, but that’s no bad thing, as there was less technology to master. This was particularly important given that it was a hire car, that I wanted to get into and drive away with minimum fuss.

    I found its reversing camera invaluable, mainly because of the narrow view provided by the the rear window.

    My car was rented from Hertz. While Opel claims that the car is compatible with Apple CarPlay, I couldn’t get it to work so both navigation and media options were limited. This meant that the car’s information screen was of limited use and a smartphone holder became a must purchase item in order to use a mapping app.

    On the plus side, what was there was intuitive to navigate, which is important to the hire car experience. Maybe the system was restricted at the request of Hertz? I don’t know.

    The button controls for lighting off the screen would be hard to reach for drivers with smaller arms.

    Driving

    The 1.2 litre engine is fine for either motorway driving or in urban conditions. At no point did I feel that I would have preferred more power, to paraphrase Rolls Royce the acceleration and speed were adequate. I managed to get about 50 miles / gallon out of the car through a mix of driving, which surprised me.

    The car was skittish, yet unengaging in terms of its handling, with a steering wheel that was oddly shaped for using during longer journeys. The clutch was very progressive, but the brakes weren’t.

    The Opel Corsa isn’t a desirable car, but it is a perfectly adequate one.

  • North America semiconductor corridor + more stuff

    North America semiconductor corridor

    The North America semiconductor corridor looks at Mexico, the US and Canada as a potential production capacity eco-system for the semiconductor industry. The North America semiconductor corridor is framed in terms of increasing resilience in security. At the moment the semiconductor industry for reasons of cost and supply chain ecosystem is focused on the US Pacific coast and Asian countries from Singapore to Korea that face on to the Pacific.

    In the North America semiconductor corridor also has a political advantage bringing back more high value jobs across Canada, the US and Mexico. There are considerable challenges to the North American semiconductor corridor from talent to energy and water requirements. The US CHIPS and Science Act has looked to catalyse some of the change required.

    Ancient monuments to the dead

    The summer solstice on Wednesday reminded me of Ireland’s stone monuments. Some like Newgrange have a calendar type element, but most of them are solely monuments to the dead. The megaliths continue to guard their secrets well despite the educated deductive reasoning of archaeologists.

    Wilkie Collins radio dramas

    Wilkie Collins along with Arthur Conan Doyle invented what we now know as the detective genre. This stream of Wilkie Collins dramas is better than modern productions on BBC Radio 4.

    Technics SL-DZ1200

    Techmoan did a review of the Technics SL-DZ1200. I am a big fan of the DZ1200 over Pioneer’s CDJ devices and they did a good rundown of the device. Hopefully, the DZ1200 will come back in a new and improved form if Technics relaunch of the SL-1200 is sufficiently successful?

    Microsoft Auto PC

    Auto PC

    Back when I worked agency side on Microsoft I never heard about the Microsoft Auto PC experiment which seems to be Microsoft’s abortive move into in-car entertainment and information systems. This seems to be alongside the more successful personal digital assistant and nascent smartphones. It’s fascinating to see technologies like voice recognition, iRDA, compact flash (but not as a music media) and USB being incorporated because these capabilities were being put into future PDA and smartphone products.

    CES launch

    It was launched at CES in 1998 according to the Microsoft corporate website. It’s interesting, I still have similar problems with voice recognition.

    Directions

    The rudimentary directions software was similar to the turn-by-turn direction print outs that I ordered from The AA Route Planner service. during the mid-to-late 1990s for long journeys – but on your stereo screen. A similar approach was also taken by Palm app Vindigo for pedestrians about the same time. Disclosure: I worked agency side on the launch of the Vindigo London guide alongside the work I was doing on Palm PDAs at the time.

    (The AA Route Planner service still exists, but it is now online rather than something you ordered over the phone and received via the mail. However you can still print out turn-by-turn directions. It’s also likely to not send you on some of the interesting routes that modern navigation apps seem to manage.)

    Clarion

    I feel sorry for Clarion who were Microsoft’s only hardware partner. Clarion is now owned by Faurecia SE, a French headquartered auto parts manufacturer with Chinese car manufacturer DongFeng Motor Corporation who were the local partner to Peugeot, Nissan and Honda’s efforts in the Chinese market as a key minority shareholder.