I don't know if you've noticed, but for Lois and me, both turning 78 this year, "Onion News" is our handy "go-to" source of news, not just local but also national and international.
Keeping up with the news can be a bit of a "heavy" task these days, however, so we always turn first to the organ's amusing "Spoof News Page" to get a bit of light relief, before gritting our teeth and plunging into the real stuff. Maybe you do the same - let me know, won't you!
And there's quite an amusing item on the "Spoof Page" this morning, as it happens - you may have seen it - all about film-star, Scarlett Johansson, and her "alleged" (!) comments about the OpenAI, the US Artificial Intelligence research organisation. Health warning: remember, this is not real news, just a whacky "take" on the news, representing satirical comments probably penned by some playful junior, some scallywag on the paper's staff, in all likelihood.
But it's all in good fun, so that's all right!
But there's a serious side to this issue also, isn't there, and it gives Lois and me plenty to talk about, and laugh about, on our walk along the slopes of the 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills, through this new-build housing estate that we downsized to about 18 months ago.
Just how good is so-called AI? Steve, our American brother-in-law sent us this amusing snippet of news, showing that we can't always rely on software that claims to answer our questions by trawling the web and reporting back to us - and please note, although it's hard to believe, this is real news this time!
a typical chatbot couple
The horrific question remains, however. What on earth will the children be like??
Who knew, for instance, that Harold Godwinson, King of England and leader of the Anglo-Saxon army, was essentially a nice guy? Imagine that - an actual nice man, not a common thing in those far-off crazy days! He had a lovely wife, Edith the Fair, by whom he had 5 children, and everybody attests to his essential niceness.
Nice guys don't always win battles, though, do they, which is a pity.
Lois and I have plenty to talk about, and laugh about, today on our
morning walk along the slopes of the 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills.
As per Breitbart.com, Steve writes, the AI-generated overviews [which form] part of Google’s "ultra-woke" Gemini AI rollout, aim to provide users with succinct answers to their queries without the need to click through to other websites. While this may seem like a convenient feature, multiple instances of inaccurate information have been reported since its introduction.
For example, Google has suggested that users add glue to their pizza sauce when cooking:
And, as always, during our walk, Lois has plenty to say on her own account about this thorny issue. She says that according to her last week's copy of "The Week" magazine, which gives a digest of the week's news from home and abroad, it's not a good idea to play board games and other games with an AI opponent - because it's liable to cheat, according to research carried out at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Playing a game similar to Hasbro' "Risk", the AI chatbot under scrutiny even claimed to have a so-called girlfriend at one point, to justify a suspicious delay in making its "move".
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
Talking point: I suppose we shouldn't really begrudge Chatbots having girl-friends and boy-friends, and enjoying some sort of perhaps artificial, version of a love-life. But what do YOU think? Answers on a postcard please!
Yikes !!!!!!
21:00 We wind down for bed watching an old Richard Holmes "War Walks" programme about the game-changing Battle of Hastings (1066), which changed England, Wales and Ireland for good, and set back the fight for democracy in England by several centuries.
It's an old programme, and Lois and I probably saw it back in the day, but we don't remember much of the content, and Holmes is always such good value, isn't he, packing more into a 30-minute programme than many celebrity TV historians cover in a whole evening of "history light" pseudo-travelogues.
Harold's adversary at the Battle of Hastings, William of Normandy, whatever his other qualities, certainly wasn't a nice man. Today we call him "William the Conqueror" but to contemporaries he was "William the Bastard".
His father was Duke Robert of Normandy, but his mother was a tanner's daughter.
Harold and his Anglo-Saxon army started the Battle of Hastings in a state of semi-exhaustion, having just defeated a Viking Army a day or two earlier, up north at Stamford Bridge, and having walked all the way south to Hastings, 230 miles, to meet the new threat to England posed by William's invasion fleet.
Lois and I always think it's a pity that the two invasions didn't happen in reverse order, with, conceivably, firstly William's Norman army being defeated at Hastings, and then a tired English army maybe failing to beat the Vikings at Stamford Bridge. We think the cause of democracy would have been better served if our country had come under the sway of the Vikings, than under the sway of the Normans with their heavy-handed continental autocratic feudalism.
Still, it's too late to do anything about that now, to be absolutely practical about it! [You don't say! - Ed]
It's interesting, however, to see how very near the English came to defeating William's Normans, as well as those Vikings.
The battle was going all the way of the English, until William, by sheer dint of his great leadership qualities, succeeded in rallying his men, and galvanising them to fight back. And in the wake of the fatal shooting of Harold by a Norman archer, the Normans finally carried the day. And, as they say, the rest is history.
Fascinating stuff, isn't it!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz!!!!!
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