David Bradley – Page 28

What is trypophobia? #TriggerWarning

TL:DR – Trypophobia is a fear or aversion to seeing clusters of holes.

Trypophobia is the name for the phobia (intense and apparently irrational fear) of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps. The term was coined by a web user back in 2005 on an internet forum. I always assumed its etymology lies in the word tripe and the Greek work for fear, maybe that is what she was thinking of. I find tripe repellant to look at (and eat, come to that).

trypophobia-trigger

It’s a weird one though isn’t it…why should anyone be scared of holes or bumps? Well, food full of holes might be rotten, whereas bumps might be present on food or skin because of disease. So, it could be that is the explanation. A subconscious response to seeing something that might cause harm.

But, as with lots of so-called irrational fears, nobody really knows. It seems like it’s not irrational to shy away from rotten food or snakes, or potentially lethal spiders, or being up high or trapped or exposed or whatever.

Me, I remember I had a dream as a child where my grandmother had a hole in her face from which were emerging lots of tiny flies, it was just a dream, but I still recall it and it makes my face tingle thinking about it. As does looking at some of those trypophobia triggers people post on the net, pictures of seed heads with holes, or photoshopped faces with lots of holes peppered in the skin. I’m not scared of any of these things as such, they just make my face tingle when I look at them or even just think about them.

I have a friend who has trypophobia who doesn’t like to see clusters of holes either, but she is also perturbed by seeing lots of the same animals, like insects or even flocks of birds. Again, the irrationality of it can be explained as perfectly rational if you think about the threat from certain insects or even birds.

In 2013, researchers Geoff Cole and Arnold Wilkins did a spectral analysis of visual trypophobia triggers and recognised that the same characteristics in those images are present in images of the skin and fur patterns of dangerous animals. So, maybe that’s part of the origins of this irrational fear too.

Trypophobia is yet to be officially recognised as a real condition, but for those of us who recognise the symptoms, it is very much a real condition, we just have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up. Some people have an extreme response to triggers while it is a very mild condition for some of us trypophobics.

The converse effect of the skin-crawling feeling of trypophobia is perhaps that pleasurable ASMR (Autonomous sensory meridian response) that certain sounds and images trigger. I first knew of the ASMR response when I listened to the Mike Oldfield album Platinum on headphones back in 1979. There is a track, Charleston, on that album which has a whispering scat section that flips back and forth through the stereo field and gives some listeners an ASMR type frisson, me included!

I originally wrote this post for my Sciscoop site back in May 2016 but noticed a lot of people reaching Sciencebase looking for trypophobia information and images. If you want to find images, any search engine prompted with the term trypophobia triggers, will do the job, there are so many real-world examples as well as artistic images that have been created as triggers. But, be warned, they could make your flesh crawl or give you goosebumps.

The correct spelling is trypophobia, but people are searching and landing here using misspellings including tryphobia, typhobia, thripopobia.

Werner Herzog’s lifehacks

TL:DR – I used ChatGPT to pick five of the best pieces of advice from a list of 24 offered by Werner Herzog.

I was always intrigued by the idea of Werner Herzog, although I must confess I’ve only seen a handful of his films, among perhaps the most well renowned, Fitzcarraldo. Anyway, an article passed across my social media timeline today listing 24 pieces of advice from Herzog. Some might apply to all of us, some are rather figurative, others are more pertinent to filmmaking, but could easily apply to other areas of human endeavour. Anyway, 24 seemed like too many aphorisms at the time, it was a Monday morning, and so I turned to ChatGPT and asked it to select just five from the 24 that might be seen as universal advice, lifehacks, for all of us.

Always take the initiative.
Learn to live with your mistakes.
Expand your knowledge and understanding of music and literature, old and modern.
Thwart institutional cowardice.
Develop your own voice.

I asked it for its reasons for picking those over the other 19 and it basically replied that each of the others could be seen as being more pertinent to filmmaking and not particularly relevant for non-filmmakers. I don’t think that was entirely true as each of the others could be taken as advice in other contexts, but the top 5 are pretty good advice for us all. Here is the list of Herzog’s original 24 pieces of advice.

Does a rainbow cast a shadow?

TL:DR – No, rainbows do not cast a shadow.

A rainbow is an optical phenomenon. They are seen when light is refracted and reflected by water droplets in the atmosphere. They do not exist as physical objects in the same way that a solid object would and so do not block the path of light from the sun or any other light source so do not cast a shadow. You only see a rainbow when the light source is behind you and you are looking at the region in the atmosphere where the water droplets are present.

Do this if you want your photos to really take flight

TL:DR – Tips on choosing which photo to process how to denoise and sharpen software, adjust levels, and crop.

Recently, I wrote about the beautiful Short-eared Owls that turned up on our patch over-winter in the slightly warmer climes of the Cambridgeshire Fens. I got photos of three hunting in the hour before dusk. The photos were okay, but I knew I could make them better with a few simple tools.

UPDATE: The SEOs are back. At least six of them on the fen. I got a few more shots late November 2023 including this one of a grumpy-looking Shortie that had just missed catching a vole.

Short-eared Owl hunting over the fen — Short-eared Owl hunting (unsuccessfully at this point) over the fen

The problem is always hand-holding a big lens when the light’s fading. There’s camera shake and a short shutter speed is also needed to freeze the action. This adds up to the camera switching up the sensitivity, the ISO, and that makes for more photographic noise.

So, what can you do to improve a noisy photo that might also have a bit of motion blur. First off, you must make sure you’re shooting in RAW mode. RAW mode lets you download what is essentially an unprocessed digital negative of the photo you took.

I’ll run you through what I do with the RAW files out of my camera. First, I select from the photos the one I think is the most dramatic or has the most character, the best light, the sharpest. I also try to pick one that doesn’t have distractions like foreground twigs or foliage or a cluttered background. Often your choices are limited with bird flight photography as the birds appear on their own terms and where you happen to be standing at the time determines a lot of that. A slight movement left or right might help sometimes in terms of foreground and background.

So, I’d picked this photo as the best of one of the owls flying in front of me. It was fairly close. Background isn’t too bad. The blurred building in the background almost adds to the composition although might have been more appropriate if it were a Barn Owl. That stem in the bottom left is a distraction and could do with being removed. We’ll see.

The original photo was shot at 600mm zoom, 1/3200s shutter speed, f/6.3 aperture and ISO 6400. That ISO number is way too high and I might’ve got a similar result if I’d used a slower shutter speed to get the ISO down a few stops.

I resized the photo to fit the website, but other than that with this first view it’s not cropped nor processed or edited other than a basic RAW to JPG conversion to make it displayable and to add my logo. The website loads the image as 1024 pixels wide with a JPEG compression of about 90%. It’s quite noisy, not as sharp as it could be, the levels (contrast, brightness, saturation etc are not optimised). And, in terms of composition, it’s not how I’d want the final photo to look.

TOP TIP: Push the sliders on whatever adjustment you’re making to the point where it is immediately obvious that you’ve made an adjustment and then claw them back ever so slightly. This way you will hopefully avoid making the photo too painterly. If you’re having to push anything beyond about 12% of the way up, then it might be worth abandoning the photo, unless you’re after a painterly effect.

So, stepping back I first feed the RAW file to DxO PureRaw. This removes a lot of the noise from any photograph really well. It also applies basic corrections that are known to be needed for the specific camera and lens setup used. I’ve zoomed in on the program in action so you can see, on the left just how noisy the photo was originally, and in the right of the frame, how well the noise reduction works.

The frame below is that same image saved in DxO PureRaw. Hopefully, you can already see some improvement from the original RAW capture above and displayed at the same composition. PureRaw lets you export as a DNG file, which is like a generic RAW format so you can do the subsequent processing as if the file were fresh from your camera.

At this point, I generally make an important choice. I can either simply open the denoised image from DxO in my photo-editor (PaintShop Pro) or add another step and open it in Topaz Sharpen AI. This software does denoising too but it can also sharpen and remove motion blur. Either way, at this point, I would first crop the image to give me the composition I would like in the final image and perhaps mirror the image so that the subject is facing in a more pleasing direction (flying left to right is better to my eye than having the bird fly off to the left.

The following photo is cropped and reversed to give me the composition I am after. I’d usually do a square crop for Instagram.

I am quite happy that this image is fairly sharp and so I won’t apply Topaz in this instance. Instead, I will use PSP to adjust various parameters: Overall brightness (raised 14%), shadows (up 10%), and highlights (no change). Saturation up 8%, Focus/sharpening up 66%. I’ve left the white balance as it was. I then brought in the blacks by 6% and the whites by 4%.

I then raised the vibrancy, which is an adjustment related to saturation but slightly subtler, I gave that a 12% boost, which I think gives the photo even more of a “golden hour” glow. Also added a few percent of “fill highlight” and boosting “clarity” by about 10%.

That grass stem sticking up from the bottom right is a bit of a distraction, so I removed it using what PSP calls the Scratch Remover tool. PSP also has a tool called Magic Fill which can do a much better job of removing objects from a photo if they’re not simple, thin lines.

Once all that’s done, the final couple of steps are always to apply a moderate “unsharp mask” to make the final image even crisper and then to add my dB/ logo.

So that’s probably as far as I’d take it. To my eye, it looks fine. At the very least, it looks a whole lot better than the RAW original, but that’s to be expected, you don’t expect to look at negatives instead of prints of photos. All photographs have to be developed, they always have been, in the digital age, we have more sophisticated tools to do the job for better or worse.

When looking close up at the originals (pixel peeking), I can see marked improvements with each stage of the above processing and would be confident that cropped closer it would still print nicely in a print magazine, screening at 300 dpi, at up to 6 inches width, but perhaps no bigger in this case.

Just for completeness, I did do a Topaz process on the DxO output and it does reduce the speckles of noise still further. However, there was also a bit more of a loss of detail. The image below was DxO then Topaz and then the same PSP processing as before. I cropped it a bit tighter for what I might use as a photo to accompany an article about this species, or owls in general, showing a bit less of the fenland background.

Instagram-ready version below

DxO and Topaz are the leaders in terms of denoising at the moment, I’d say. I prefer what DxO does though, but Topaz has the sharpening options that DxO PureRaw lacks. I trained on Photoshop but have stuck with PaintShop Pro for editing for many years, PSP has almost all of the same tools as Photoshop for the basic processing I do. Lightroom has advantages and there are, of course, many alternatives out there to all these programs. I must confess that I usually use SnapSeed for photos on my phone and sometimes for a landscapes, architecture, flowers, moths etc. I might do use the above workflow but then open the file on my phone in SnapSeed to bump what that app calls “Ambience” and “Structure” and adjust saturation a little more.

Your virtual therapist

TL:DR – Using ChatGPT to generate an artificial therapy session.

None of the following should be taken as a substitute for professional, expert help where it is needed. It is merely an exercise in testing the limits of so-called AI. Please speak to a professional if you need mental or physical health guidance or treatment.

ChatGPT is a language model, it’s basically predictive text on steroids. You feed it a line and it comes right back at you with a retort. Feed it the right line and it will write you a sonnet or a limerick, a few more lines with the right prompt and it will analyse a piece of prose, you can then ask it to generate a new piece of prose on a different topic with the same tone, style, and voice. I’ve mentioned it a few times before.

The system was launched to the public in November, but I had work and music commitments to cope with, so didn’t take more than a cursory glance at it at the time. It’s become a bit of a distraction for me in January 2023 as it has for at least a million other people, apparently.

There are some very intriguing ways to prompt ChatGPT, you can tell it to “act” as a particular professional: a songwriter, an author, a scriptwriter and prime it to generate replies on which you might build up your own creative writing output. You can ask it to tweak your social media bio to improve engagement, you can ask it how best to answer job interview questions and so on.

Today, I thought I’d see how ChatGPT fares as therapist. I told it I wasn’t feeling particularly happy with my lot, despite the cliched efforts of “counting my blessings” and asked it for advice, it came back with an eight-point plan that anyone might follow to improve their mental well-being.

First, it told me that there are many things you can do to increase your mental well-being, in addition to taking part in the activities you already enjoy.

Prioritizing self-care: Make sure you are getting enough sleep, eating well, and engaging in regular physical activity.
Connecting with others: Join a group or club that shares your interests or volunteer for a cause you care about. This can help you build new friendships and expand your social support network.
Exploring new activities: Trying new things can be a great way to challenge yourself and find new sources of enjoyment.
Finding ways to give back: Helping others can be a powerful way to boost your own mood and sense of purpose.
Practicing mindfulness: mindfulness techniques such as meditation, deep breathing exercises or yoga can help you to be present in the moment and reduce stress.
Working on your mental health: it may be beneficial to continue to work with a therapist or counsellor to help you manage feelings of loneliness and improve your overall mental well-being.
Keeping a journal: Writing down your thoughts and feelings can be a helpful way to process your emotions, reflect on your experiences and track your progress.
Remember, what works for one person may not work for another, so be open to trying different things and find what works best for you.

I wondered “out loud” what else a therapist or counsellor might add to that list…It came back with this response and seven more tips.

It’s worth noting that, therapy is a process and requires time, patience, and dedication, it may take time to see the results, but with consistent effort, you can make progress towards a more fulfilling life. A professional therapist or counsellor may have some additional recommendations for you, based on your specific needs and goals. Some possibilities include:

Setting realistic and specific goals: Setting clear and achievable goals can help you to focus your efforts and make progress in areas of your life that are important to you.
Addressing any unresolved past issues: If you have any unresolved past issues that are impacting your mental well-being, a therapist or counsellor can help you to process and work through them.
Building resilience: A therapist or counsellor can help you to develop coping strategies and build resilience, so you are better able to handle the stressors and challenges of daily life.
Improving communication and relationship skills: A therapist or counsellor can help you to improve your communication and relationship skills, which can help to strengthen your connections with others.
Managing feelings of anxiety and depression: If you are experiencing feelings of anxiety or depression, a therapist or counsellor can help you to identify the underlying causes and develop strategies for managing these feelings.
Reviewing medications: If you are taking medications for mental health concerns, a therapist or counsellor may work with you and your physician to review the medications and make adjustments, if needed.
Exploring alternative therapies: A therapist or counsellor may also explore alternative therapies, such as art or music therapy, or equine therapy, with you if they feel it might be beneficial.

I don’t think any of the suggestions are beyond the wit of anyone trying to look at their well-being, but it’s interesting to see them grouped and presented in this way by the AI.

One additional exercise, I asked the bot to take stock of all the advice and to extract the three most important points from all that it had presented. This is what it added:

All of the recommendations above are important and can be beneficial to improve your mental well-being, but the following three are some of the most crucial suggestions. Remember, it’s important to be patient with yourself and not to expect immediate results. It’s a process, and it takes time, effort and commitment, but with a consistent approach, you can make progress towards a more fulfilling life.

Prioritizing self-care: Self-care is essential for maintaining physical and mental well-being. This includes getting enough sleep, eating well, and engaging in regular physical activity. By taking care of your physical health, you will be better equipped to handle the stressors and challenges of daily life.
Building and strengthening connections with others: Building and strengthening connections with others is important for our mental well-being. This can include connecting with friends, family and loved ones, joining a group or club that shares your interests, and volunteering for a cause you care about.
Finding ways to give back: Helping others can be a powerful way to boost your own mood and sense of purpose. Giving back to others can bring a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction, and it can also help to strengthen your connections with others.

Here, you can find additional Sciencebase content on the subject of artificial intelligence, AI here.

Short-eared Owls on the Fens

TL:DR – Information about and photos of local Short-eared Owls.

I’ve discussed the Short-eared Owl, Asio flammeus, previously. Beautiful bird that occasionally overwinters in the UK, having spent the summer months in Iceland, Russia, or Scandinavia.

We are lucky to see them hunting on the fens sometimes. These photos were taken in the hour before sunset at NT Burwell Fen. There were three shorties hunting.

We usually anticipate their arrival in October, November, but they can sometimes arrive earlier and will stay until early April. There were half a dozen at Burwell a couple of years ago and one of them with damage to its wing (it could still fly) stayed through the summer months.

Shorties will hunt over fens, grasslands, marshes, and other open habitats. In my experience, the best time to catch sight of them hunting is in the hour before sunset, but others report seeing them at any time during the day when the owls hunt small mammals such as voles, mice, and shrews.

The owl has a distinctive, buoyant, and “floppy” flight style, they usually follow a “flap-flap-glide” flight pattern, and will often perch on fence posts or bushes, looking out for moving prey. They will often perch quite close to birdwatchers and photographers.

Also see on the same trip to Burwell Fen – Peregrine (in flight over the Wicken side), several Common Kestrel, Barn Owl, and Common Buzzard.

Security Sunday: Ten tips for protecting yourself online

TL:DR – Ten great tips to protect yourself online.

Use strong, unique passwords for all of your accounts. Avoid using easily guessable information, such as your name or birthdate, in your passwords.
Enable two-factor (or multi-factor)authentication on any accounts that support it. This adds an extra layer of security by requiring a code sent to your phone or email in addition to your password. Opt for an authenticator app if possible rather than relying on SMS.
Keep your operating system and all software up to date. Software updates often include security patches that fix known vulnerabilities.
Be cautious when clicking on links in emails or messages, especially if they are from unfamiliar sources. This is a common way for hackers to spread malware.
Use antivirus software and keep it up to date. This will help protect your computer from known viruses and malware.
Be careful about what information you share on social media and other public platforms. Hackers can use this information to gain access to your other accounts.
Be cautious when using public Wi-Fi networks. Avoid accessing sensitive information, such as online banking, on these networks as they can be vulnerable to hackers.
Use a password manager to store your passwords securely. This will help you to use strong, unique passwords for all of your accounts and avoid reusing passwords.
Be aware of phishing attempts and how to identify them. Phishing is a tactic used by hackers to trick you into providing personal information or login credentials.
Regularly backup important data and files. This will ensure that you don’t lose your data in case of a cyber-attack or a device failure.
Bonus tip: Use a VPN (virtual private network) service when accessing the internet from a public network. This will encrypt your internet connection and help protect your personal information from hackers.
Another bonus tip: Disable notifications that might appear on your phone, so that a third party cannot see the contents of messages, such as PIN numbers sent to you as part of enabling tip number 2!

The first eleven tips above were suggested by ChatGPT, number 12 I added myself, I then asked it for more, slightly more advanced tips, to bring us up to 20!

Be careful when downloading and installing software or apps, especially from third-party sources. Only download software or apps from reputable sources and be sure to read reviews and check for any red flags before installing.
Use a firewall to protect your computer from unauthorized access. A firewall is a software or hardware security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic.
Use encryption to protect sensitive information. Encryption is the process of converting plain text into a coded format that can only be read by authorized parties.
Be aware of social engineering tactics. Social engineering is a method of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging sensitive information. Examples include phone phishing, pretexting, baiting, and quid pro quo.
Be mindful of your online activity and take steps to protect your privacy. Be aware of the information you share online and limit the amount of personal information that is publicly available.
Be aware of the risks associated with public charging stations and USB drives. These can be used to spread malware or steal personal information.
Regularly review your account activity and financial statements. This will help you detect any unauthorized activity on your accounts and take action as soon as possible.
Be aware of the risks associated with Internet of Things (IoT) devices. IoT devices such as smart cameras, thermostats, and doorbells can be vulnerable to hacking, so be sure to secure them properly.

FYI The initial prompt I gave to ChatGPT was the following, you can craft similar types of prompts asking it to act as almost any kind of expert, novelist, songwriter, computer programmer etc

I want you to act as a cyber security specialist with experience at all levels of security, privacy and protection of computer systems. You are aware of emails, social media, phishing attacks, malware, and viruses in detail. I need you to devise a scheme for protecting a non-expert individual from hackers and crackers and other malicious actors. The advice should be comprehendable by a lay person but also provide sufficient information that they can quickly get started to make sure their computer, email, social media and other systems without turning to others for help.

An “interview” with ChatGPT where it explains ChatGPT

TL:DR – I asked ChatGPT, the language model I’ve been talking about a lot recently, to explain itself in simple terms, which it did.

I want you to tell me about ChatGPT but you must assume I have no specialist understanding of any jargon terms like “AI”, “language model”, “algorithm”, so your response must explain those terms if they are used in your explanation.

ChatGPT is a type of Artificial Intelligence (AI) program that is specifically trained to understand and generate human language. It uses a type of machine learning called deep learning, which involves training a computer to learn patterns in large amounts of data, such as text.

In simple terms, ChatGPT is a computer program that can understand and respond to text in a way that mimics human conversation. ChatGPT uses a type of machine learning called deep learning, which allows the computer to learn from a large amount of data. It’s like a virtual assistant that can answer questions, write sentences, and even compose stories. It can understand and generate text in a way that’s almost like talking to a person.

I understand most of that but what do you mean by the phrase “learn patterns in large amounts of data” in what way is the AI “learning” patterns and what do you mean by patterns?

When we say that ChatGPT “learns patterns in large amounts of data,” we mean that the AI is analyzing and identifying common themes, structures, and relationships in the data it is trained on.

For example, let’s say ChatGPT was trained on a dataset of written conversations between people. As it reads through these conversations, it begins to identify patterns in how certain words and phrases are used in different contexts. It might notice, for example, that the word “because” is often used to connect two related ideas, or that the phrase “I’m sorry” is often used as an apology.

These patterns that the AI identifies are called statistical patterns, they are regularities or repetition of certain elements, words, or structures in the data. These patterns are then used by the AI to make predictions or decisions.

When we say “learning” in the context of AI, we mean that the computer is using these patterns to make predictions or decisions. In the case of ChatGPT, it’s using the patterns it learned to generate text that is similar to the text it was trained on.

In summary, “learning patterns in large amounts of data” means that ChatGPT is analyzing data, identifying statistical regularities, and using them to make predictions or decisions.

So, how many patterns has ChatGPT learned?

It’s difficult to say exactly how many patterns ChatGPT has learned, as the AI continues to “learn” new patterns even after it has been trained. However, the number of patterns that ChatGPT has learned can be estimated by the size of the dataset it was trained on and the complexity of the task it is trained to perform.

ChatGPT is trained on a very large dataset of text, which contains billions of words and phrases. It has been trained to generate text in a wide variety of styles and formats, such as conversation, news articles, fiction, etc. With this amount of data and complexity, ChatGPT has learned a vast number of patterns and regularities in the use of language, and it continues to learn as it is exposed to new data.

It’s worth noting that the language and the way it’s used is very complex, so the number of patterns that ChatGPT has learned is also complex and hard to quantify.

Okay, but give me a back-of-the-envelope calculation to say approximately how many patterns ChatGPT has learned.

I can give you a rough estimate of how many patterns ChatGPT has learned. For example, let’s assume that a “pattern” is defined as a unique word or phrase that appears in the dataset. With a dataset that contains billions of words, it’s likely that ChatGPT has learned several million unique words and phrases.

However, this is just a rough estimate, and it doesn’t take into account the many different ways that words and phrases can be used in different contexts, which would require a much more complex analysis. Additionally, It’s also important to note that ChatGPT doesn’t only learn patterns based on single words, but also based on word combinations, phrases, idiomatic expressions and also the context in which they appear.

In summary, it’s hard to give an exact number for the number of patterns that ChatGPT has learned, but it’s likely that the number is in the millions.

What will happen inside the ChatGPT system when it has been trained on all the text in the world and learned all the possible patterns in that data, will it understand more than a human.

It’s unlikely that ChatGPT, or any AI system, will ever be trained on “all the text in the world” as the amount of text is constantly growing and changing. Additionally, the process of understanding text goes beyond just recognizing patterns in the data, and is also influenced by factors such as context, intention, and personal experience.

Even if ChatGPT were to be trained on a very large dataset of text, it’s unlikely that it would understand text in the same way that a human does. While ChatGPT can recognize patterns in the data it was trained on and generate text that is similar to the text it was trained on, it doesn’t have the same level of understanding of the meaning and context of the text as a human does.

Furthermore, understanding human language is a very complex task, as it goes beyond just recognizing patterns in the data, it also involves understanding the context and the meaning behind the text. For example, ChatGPT may not be able to understand sarcasm, idiomatic expressions, or jokes, it may also not be able to understand the emotions and intentions behind the text.

In summary, while ChatGPT can learn patterns in large amounts of data, it doesn’t have the same level of understanding as a human, and it’s unlikely that it will ever achieve a human-like understanding of language.

How does ChatGPT know how to respond to a prompt if all it is doing is learning patterns and then outputting words that follow the appropriate pattern when prompted.

ChatGPT uses a technique called “conditional generation” to respond to a prompt. When it is given a prompt, it first analyzes the input to identify the context and any relevant information. Then, it uses the patterns it learned during its training to generate a response that is appropriate to the context of the prompt.

The way it works is that ChatGPT uses the patterns and regularities it learned from the training data to generate text that is similar to the text it was trained on. For example, if the prompt is a question, ChatGPT will use the patterns it learned to generate an answer that is similar to the answers it saw in the training data.

It’s important to note that ChatGPT does not have a “memory” in the traditional sense, it doesn’t “remember” specific inputs or responses from the past. Instead, it generates responses based on the patterns it learned from the training data.

It also uses a technique called “beam search” to generate its responses, which means it analyzes multiple possible responses and chooses the one that is the most likely, based on the patterns and regularities it learned.

In summary, ChatGPT uses the patterns it learned during its training to generate text that is similar to the text it was trained on, and the response is generated by analyzing multiple possible responses and choosing the one that is the most likely, based on the patterns and regularities it learned.

Is there anything else I need to know about how ChatGPT works?

Here are a few additional things to know about how ChatGPT works:

Pretraining: ChatGPT is a “pretrained” model, which means that it was trained on a large dataset of text before it was fine-tuned for specific tasks. This allows it to generate text that is similar to the text it was trained on, even when it is given a new prompt that it has never seen before.

Fine-tuning: Once the model is pretrained, it can be fine-tuned for specific tasks or domains. This means that it is trained on a smaller dataset of text that is specific to the task or domain. Fine-tuning allows the model to generate text that is more relevant to the specific task or domain.

Limitations: While ChatGPT is a powerful language model, it still has limitations. It is not able to understand the meaning and context of the text in the same way that a human does, and it may generate text that is not accurate or appropriate.

Human supervision: ChatGPT’s generated text should always be reviewed by humans to ensure that it is accurate and appropriate before it’s used in any application.

Continuous learning: ChatGPT’s learning is continuous, this means that it can learn new patterns and regularities as it is exposed to more data, this allows the model to adapt and improve over time.

In summary, ChatGPT is a powerful language model that uses deep learning to generate text that is similar to the text it was trained on, but it still has limitations. It’s important that its output is reviewed by humans to ensure accuracy and appropriateness before it’s used in any application. Additionally, it can continuously learn new patterns and regularities as it is exposed to more data.

Will you have given the same answers to other questions or is that impossible because you respond to the user’s specific prompts in a very specific way.

As a language model, ChatGPT generates responses based on the patterns it has learned from the data it was trained on. It generates responses to specific prompts by analyzing the input, identifying the context and any relevant information, and then using the patterns it learned to generate a response that is appropriate to the context of the prompt.

Because of this, it is possible that ChatGPT may generate similar responses to similar prompts, as it is using the patterns it has learned to generate text that is similar to the text it was trained on. However, the responses will not be exactly the same, as ChatGPT uses a technique called “beam search” to generate its responses, which means it analyzes multiple possible responses and chooses the one that is the most likely, based on the patterns and regularities it learned.

Additionally, as it continues to learn from new data and fine-tune for specific tasks, the patterns and regularities it learned will be adapted and improved over time, and thus the responses will not be the same forever.

In summary, ChatGPT generates responses to specific prompts by analyzing the input, identifying the context and any relevant information, and then using the patterns it learned to generate a response that is appropriate to the context of the prompt. It’s possible that ChatGPT may generate similar responses to similar prompts but it’s not guaranteed that the responses will be exactly the same.

In previous sessions I have seen factual errors in your responses. I corrected them, does ChatGPT remember these errors so that it doesn’t present the same misinformation again?

As a language model, ChatGPT generates responses based on the patterns it has learned from the data it was trained on. It doesn’t have a “memory” in the traditional sense, it doesn’t “remember” specific inputs or responses from the past. However, it can learn new patterns and regularities as it is exposed to more data, which allows the model to adapt and improve over time.

If you have seen factual errors in previous sessions and corrected them, there is a chance that the model has learned from that interaction and will not present the same misinformation again. However, it’s not guaranteed that it will not make errors, as the model is trained on a large dataset of text and it may not have been exposed to the same information in the training data, or the model may have not been fine-tuned for a specific task or domain and thus not know the information.

It’s also important to note that ChatGPT’s generated text should always be reviewed by humans to ensure that it is accurate and appropriate before it’s used in any application.

In summary, ChatGPT doesn’t have a memory in the traditional sense, but it can learn from new data and adapt over time, and thus if it was presented with corrected information it may not present the same misinformation again. However, it’s not guaranteed and it’s important to review its output before using it in any application.

Broken keys and ticking clocks

TL:DR – I asked ChatGPT to help me write my latest song, although I ignored all of its suggestions in the end. You can stream or download the song here.

You may have noticed, I’ve been experimenting with ChatGPT a little this month. If you carefully craft a prompt it can give you some quite remarkable responses, I got it to write a new article based on my writing style, for instance. I also had it mess around with some of my lyrics. To be honest, I wouldn’t use anything that it’s come up with without massively editing, but it does trigger new thoughts and ideas when it bounces back a response.

I thought it might be worth trying it for inspiration for the chord progression to help me develop the melody to go with those new lyrics. I’d originally had a simple chord progression that shuttled between FM7 and Gm7 for the verse, but needed something to take the lyrics elsewhere melodically speaking. I could easily think of a new set of chords myself, but I’ve done that hundreds of times, this is a first for me and AI.

If you craft an appropriate response you can get the bot to respond as if it is a certain kind of person So, here are my prompts in italics, with the bots answers after each:

I want you to act as a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter working on their latest masterpiece, you’re going to give me the most evocative and emotional chord progression for the verses, a bridge that builds on that, and then the most powerful and uplifting progression for the chorus. You can choose the key but it must work well on guitar.

For the verses, a chord progression that evokes a sense of longing and introspection could be Am – F – C – G. The Am and F chords create a sense of tension, while the C and G chords bring a sense of resolution.

For the bridge, a progression that builds on the emotions of the verses could be C – G – Am – F. This progression takes the listener on a journey, starting with a sense of resolution and then building back up to the tension of the verses.

For the chorus, a powerful and uplifting progression could be D – G – Bm – A. The D and G chords create a sense of energy and triumph, while the Bm and A chords bring a sense of emotional release.

All of these chords work well on the guitar, and this progression is in D major.

That’s almost perfect, now give me some jazzy inversions and substitutions of the verse chords to add colour to verse 2.

For a jazzy inversion of the Am chord, you could try using an A minor 7th chord in first inversion. This adds a bit of colour to the chord and creates a smoother transition to the F chord. Another option would be to use an A minor 6th chord in second inversion.

For the F chord, a jazzy substitution could be an F7 chord which adds a bit of tension and dissonance to the progression. Another option would be to use an Fmaj7 chord which adds a bit of complexity and richness to the sound.

For the C chord, a jazzy substitution could be a C9 chord which adds a bit of dissonance and tension, but also a sense of resolution. Another option would be to use a Cmaj7 chord which adds a bit of colour to the chord and creates a smoother transition to the G chord.

For the G chord, a jazzy substitution could be a G6 chord which adds a bit of complexity and richness to the sound. Another option would be to use a G9 chord which adds a bit of dissonance and tension, but also a sense of resolution.

These chord substitutions and inversions would add more depth, complexity and jazzy flavour to your verse progression.

Okay, so I need more inversions for verse 3 that would give the overall feel a bit more of a progressive rock vibe side-stepping the jazz but perhaps even more sophisticated chords.

For a more progressive rock feel in the verse, you could try using some more complex chord voicings and inversions. Here are a few options:

For the Am chord, you could try using an Am11 chord in second inversion . This adds a lot of dissonance and tension to the chord, giving it a more progressive rock feel.

For the F chord, you could try using an Fmaj9 chord in first inversion. This adds a lot of colour to the chord and creates a more complex and sophisticated sound.

For the C chord, you could try using a Cmaj13 chord in second inversion. This adds a lot of dissonance and tension to the chord, giving it a more progressive rock feel.

For the G chord, you could try using a G9sus4 chord in first inversion. This adds a lot of dissonance and tension to the chord, giving it a more progressive rock feel.

These chord voicings and inversions would give your verse progression a more progressive rock feel and add a more sophisticated and complex sound.

So, now that we’ve got all those substitutions and inversions do we need to add some colour to the chorus or can it stay as it is to bring us back to the hook?

The chorus is typically the most memorable and catchy part of a song, so it’s important to make sure it stands out and has a strong impact. While the original chord progression you provided (D – G – Bm – A) is strong and works well to create a sense of energy and triumph, you could consider adding some colour and variation to the chorus to make it even more powerful and impactful.

Here are a few options for adding colour to the chorus:

Use a different inversion of the chords. For example, instead of playing a D chord in root position, play it in first inversion. This adds a different flavour to the chord and makes it stand out more.

Add an extension or alteration to the chords. For example, you could add a 9th or 11th to the D chord, or add a b5 note to the G chord. This adds dissonance and tension to the chords, making them more interesting and impactful.

Play around with the rhythm of the chords. For example, instead of strumming the chords in a regular pattern, try using syncopated rhythms or arpeggiating the chords. This adds a different feel to the chords and makes them stand out more.

Overall, the chorus chord progression you’ve got is solid, and with a little bit of colour and variation, it could be made even more powerful and impactful.

What’s this song with all these powerful and evocative chords going to be about?

As a language model AI, I don’t have personal experiences or emotions, so I can’t write a song from my own perspective. However, the chords and progressions I’ve provided are quite versatile and could be used in a variety of different types of songs and contexts. They evoke feelings of longing, introspection, triumph, and resolution, so the lyrics could be about a wide range of topics and emotions, such as overcoming a difficult challenge, the longing for a lost loved one, or the journey of self-discovery.

The song could be about a person that has been through a lot of struggles and is on a journey to find hope, redemption and happiness. The verses could be about the struggles and the pain, with the bridge representing a turning point, an epiphany or a moment of realization that leads to a change in the protagonist’s perspective. The chorus could be the uplifting and triumphant moment where the person finds the light at the end of the tunnel and the hope that things will get better.

Ultimately, the message and theme of the song would depend on the lyrics and the story you want to tell. The chords and progressions provide a foundation for the emotion of the song, but the lyrics and melody would bring the story to life.

Your suggestions tie in with some lyrics I have in my own repertoire about a young woman returning to an abusive childhood home after her parents have died and coping with her pain and memories.

Those chords and progressions I provided earlier would work well with lyrics about a young woman returning to her childhood home after her parents have passed away and coping with her pain and memories. The verses could focus on the pain and struggles she experiences as she revisits her past and the memories of the abuse she endured. The bridge could represent a turning point in her journey, where she starts to come to terms with her past and begins to find the strength to move forward. The chorus could be about her finding hope and redemption as she begins to heal and move on from her past.

The song could be about how the protagonist overcomes the pain and trauma of her past and finds the strength to move forward. The verses could be about the struggles and the pain, with the bridge representing a turning point, an epiphany or a moment of realization that leads to a change in the protagonist’s perspective. The chorus could be the uplifting and triumphant moment where the person finds the light at the end of the tunnel and the hope that things will get better.

It’s a very emotional and personal topic and the lyrics and melody you would use would be very important in making the song relatable and impactful. It’s important to remember that this type of songs are to be written with care and sensitivity and with the intention of being helpful for people that went through similar experiences.

Okay, so now give me the title for this award-winning song. The lyrics contain references to ticking clocks, time passing, shocks, keys and locks.

“Ticking Clocks, Shocks, and Keys”
“Time’s Locks and Shocks”
“Unlocking Memories”
“Echoes of Yesterday”
“The Sound of Time Passing”
“Locked in Time”
“Shocked by Time”
“The Ticking of the Clock”
“Broken Keys, Broken Time”
“The echoes of Yesterday’s Locks”

These are just a few ideas for a song title that incorporates the themes of ticking clocks, time passing, shocks, keys, and locks. The title should ideally be evocative and reflective of the emotional journey of the protagonist as she revisits her past and copes with her pain and memories. Ultimately, the title should be something that resonates with you and feels like the perfect fit for your song.

None of your suggestions for titles grab me, so I’ve come up with “Broken keys and ticking clocks”.

“Broken Keys and Ticking Clocks” is a great title for your song. It evokes a sense of both nostalgia and pain, reflecting the protagonist’s journey of revisiting her past and coping with her memories. It also hints at the themes of time passing and the struggles of unlocking the past. The image of broken keys suggests that the protagonist’s journey will not be easy and the ticking clocks suggest that time is of the essence. It’s a strong and powerful title that encapsulates the themes and emotions of your song.

—

So, the next thing to do, which AI can’t quite manage yet (although it is getting there!) would have been for me to record a demo with my lyrics, building a melody, using the bot’s chord progressions as the basis.

However, when I picked up a guitar, I realised the bot’s progressions were just variations on the four-chord trick, which has been used in thousands of songs, and is a well-trodden musical path. I went back to my original progression, which with the melody I’d originally had in mind was much stronger than just using the four-chord trick again. The refrain departs from my two-chord shuttle and adds some colour as well as rounding back into the verses quite nicely.

So, now that I think about it, all the AI did for me in this whole process is reinforce the original ideas I had myself by showing me alternatives that were not quite as strong.

I’ve done a very rough demo, so I have a record of what I am thinking musically with this song, but it needs a lot of work.

Lyrically, it’s a bit tragic, actually it’s more than a bit tragic. It doesn’t sound like The Beatles but lyrically it’s almost as if She’s leaving home were the prequel to Suzanne Vega’s Luka and this is the follow-up. If you read between the lines, you can imagine the tale does not have a positive outcome…but that might change, I could easily make it uplifting at the end instead of depressing…we’ll see…especially if Suzanne would like to collaborate on it!

Broken keys and ticking clocks

The key turns in the lock
she pushed the door wide open with her suitcase
It’s a shock
to find herself back here once again

She locked the secrets deep inside
Unanswered prayers her woe betide

She finds the clocks
They stopped the day she stepped away
From the cruellest of hard knocks
and all the fears that it revealed

The silent screams, the sound that mocks
Those echoes drowned by ticking clocks

No need to knock
She grasps the letters from the floor
You know she’s taking stock.
And gasps to know the secrets hold her no more

The key’s inside the box.
She didn’t need to worry
It’s time to face the shocks
There’s always time to hurry

She locked the secrets deep inside
Unanswered prayers her woe betide

She winds the clocks
And knows the secrets can’t hold her
The cruellest of hard knocks
and all the fears gone forever more