For the last 6 months, I have only left the house for classes and medical appointments. This happened because I had to go through an aHSCT treatment for Multiple Sclerosis. It resets the immune system as a way to control, or even stop, the disease progression.
We’re still on the fence whether it worked or not, but this last week I got the good news that I can gradually start going out.
I’m no stranger to working from home. All I need is my laptop and maybe some paper to scribble for the sake of scribbling.
Giving up my office helped set me free.
While I understand Nick, I felt trapped and deprived of more ways to engage with people. And it would have been even harder if not for these weekly posts and the small group that reads them.
This isn’t just a review of what interests me, it’s a compass to keep me on track and a way to share thoughts and see how they resonate with others.
I couldn’t be more grateful for having someone like you reading these posts.
Work life
We were working on custom reports at the Lisbon Collective.
Our clients get access to a GDPR-compliant analytics solution that doesn’t use cookies. This week we connected that software to automatic reports sent by email.
We built this automation using ChatGPT to write a Python Script. Two clicks create quarterly reports and then they are sent out after a human review.
Step by step:
- Write down requirements
- Provide context and documentation about the software’s API to ChatGPT.
- Add one requirement (read the API and output the data).
- Test the script locally.
- Ask ChatGPT for another requirement (run calculations) while providing the working code at the same time.
- Go back to step 4 until all requirements are met.
Interesting reading this week
What Twitter’s Blue Tick says about the value of symbols and authentication
The blue tick, which was previously a symbol of authenticity and status, now denotes a subscription to Twitter Blue. This change has led to confusion among users, as the same symbol now has a different meaning. An example of this confusion was when a tweet from an account with the new blue tick, which users mistook for pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, caused the company’s shares to drop.
This post by @Ana Canhoto made me think back to the #Values Systems’ school of thought for PR.
Values Systems were my masters’ thesis subject together with @David Phillips and @Mafalda Eiró-Gomes. In it, I discuss the work done by Hofstede to define Culture.
Culture consists of various layers and we often compare it with an onion. On the outer layer of the onion, you’ll have symbols, such as food, logos, colours or monuments.
Source hofstede-insights.com
The Blue Tick was a powerful symbol and @Elon Musk broke it.
Diversity and Inclusion in Artificial Intelligence
Cultural Values Systems and LLMs
Artificial Intelligence Researcher António Lopes discusses his experiences with AI imaging models, specifically DALL-E 3 and Google’s Gemini, and their tendency to inject diversity into image generation. He observed that these models often depict individuals with Middle Eastern features, regardless of the prompts given. Lopes suggests this is a deliberate attempt by the models to avoid perpetuating stereotypes. However, he criticizes this approach as it lacks sensitivity to historical, political, and social nuances.
He argues for a more reasonable approach where the AI makes the human reflect on the existing bias.
The Evolution of Search in the Age of AI Chatbots
The future of search is expected to be more conversational, personalized, and AI-driven, reshaping user interactions and expectations. However, there are concerns about the ethical implications, security, and transparency of AI, which could impact Public Relations.
@Neville Hobson’s post made me think that I trust AI as a technology more than I trust big Corp. Saturday 6th, The New York Times proved me right.
How Tech Giants Cut Corners to Harvest Data for A.I.
The race to lead in AI has led tech companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta to bypass corporate policies and potentially legal boundaries to gather necessary data. For instance, Meta reportedly considered purchasing the publishing rights.
OpenAI researchers developed a speech recognition tool, Whisper, to transcribe YouTube videos for AI development, despite potential conflicts with YouTube’s rules. The team transcribed over a million hours of YouTube videos to train their AI system, GPT-4, one of the world’s most powerful AI models.
Your AI Tools for this week
If you use a MacOS computer and want to try adding GPT-4 shortcuts to it, I wrote up a small tutorial. Let me know if you get stuck at some point.
While working on the automatic reports I also found two interesting approaches for that task:
https://reporfy.com/, helps you build reports and find insights.
https://coefficient.io/, import live data into spreadsheets to power your reports.
If you want to see innovative examples on how to use Excel for dashboards and reports, take a look at Big Excel Energy. I found Josh on TikTok and have been taking away more than just new ways to use Excel.
