Phillip Winn @pwinn@qoto.org

My opinion on the current batch of "AI" services based on Large Language Models continues to develop, but I realized today one analogy for how I currently feel.

I've begun to feel about LLM-driven AI bots the way I feel about sudoku puzzles.

Most people think of "sudoku" as a 9x9 puzzle with 17 or more given digits arranged so that when a person adds digits to make a finished grid that includes 1-9 in each row, column, and 3x3 box, there is only one possible arrangement. Given that definition, it's pretty easy to write software that generates such puzzles, and many, many, many people have.

Books and magazines are published filled with computer-generated puzzles, websites generate them on demand or on schedule, and while there is a technical a finite number of possible starting grids (5,472,730,538 without mirrored or rotated grids), the set feels infinite.

While I had discovered a few variants (Killer Sudoku and Sudoku-X) long ago, it was only watching Cracking the Cryptic during the pandemic that I learned there is so much more to sudoku puzzles. Even if one is limited to "classic sudoku" puzzles fitting the definition I outlined above, there is still a vast gulf between a typical computer-generated puzzle and one hand-crafted to lead the solver along a path, finding telegraphed deductions in a certain order the bring joy.

LLM-driven AI chatbots are like computer-generated sudoku puzzles.

They meet the definition of conversational communication, and follow the rules, but they lack the spark and joy of hand-crafted human communication.

I won't do computer-generated classic sudoku puzzles any more, because once I got into the hand-crafted variety, the generated puzzles seem like a waste of time.

I think reading well-written communication, fiction or non-fiction, provides the same result: once you've read a good article or book, the computer-generated stuff just falls flat.

https://www.nikoli.co.jp/en/puzzles/sudoku/why_hand_made/

#nerdery #ai #llms #sudoku

With iOS 17, I was really impressed by how well my AirPods were handled. Gone were my frustrations of having the AirPods connect to a seemingly-random device, and having trouble manually switching to the one I actually wanted to use. With iOS 17, it seemed as if the AirPods would connect to multiple devices simultaneously, and just "move" to whichever one of them was generating sound actively. So I could watch something on my laptop while my phone sat inches away silently and my Mac mini sat a half-meter farther away also silently, and if I wanted to interrupt the movie to watch a YouTube clip, I could just hit 'Play' on the Mac mini, and the movie would pause on the laptop, while my AirPods started giving me the audio from the desktop. It felt magical!

A few days ago, I updated to iOS 17.2 If I could go back to whatever I was running before, I would.

Now the two computers still work the way they did before, but only if I manually disconnect the AirPods from my phone. Otherwise, the phone grabs the AirPods after about 30 seconds, despite the phone sitting silently in StandBy mode. It will pop up a widget so that I could play music if I wanted to, which I don't. I have to manually connect the laptop to the AirPods again, which works. Then I have to hit Play on the laptop again, which works. And then about 30 seconds later: BOOM. The video pauses, I hear the tone that tells me I've connected to something new, and I see either the aforementioned paused music widget, or a little tiny indicator in the top center of the StandBy face indicating that it has audio output. It doesn't. It's silent.

It will do this at least four times in a row, which is how long it took me to give up and manually disconnect them from the phone.

This is worse than it was prior to iOS 17, which I was unhappy with at the time!

#nerdery #Apple #iOS #airpods