The weekend is almost here which means it is time for our weekly “Fun Friday” topic! I originally was going to have today’s conversation around one subject, but two others came up that I have to share. So instead of listening to me ramble, let’s get this started!
The Matz’s Birthday
Did you know that Yukihiro Matsumoto was born 58 years ago on April 14, 1965? Not sure who that is? If you’re on GitHub, you may know him as Matz. Still not sure who that is? He is a computer scientist and software programmer best known as the chief designer of the Ruby programming language where he blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new one that balanced functional programming with imperative programming. So, make sure to wish him a happy birthday!
NYPD robocops: Hulking, 400-lb robots will start patrolling New York City
Okay, this one may be more in the interesting column than fun. Eric Adams, a self-declared “geek” and former cop, h recently held a press conference in Times Square. New York City’s mayor presided over the press conference alongside police officials to discuss a pair of pilots designed to increase the city’s surveillance.
From Ars Technica:
For active patrol work, the NYPD plans to deploy one Knightscope K5 robot. This is a 400-lb, 5-foot-tall wheeled robot that looks like a real-life giant R2-D2. The egg-shaped robot has no appendages and is mostly just a ball of sensors. It has a 360-degree camera system, a thermal camera, LiDAR, sonar, GPS, 16 microphones, and speakers to play back pre-recorded or live messages. It can autonomously patrol an area, detect people, and recognize license plates and has facial recognition, though the NYPD claims facial recognition will not be used. As a wheeled robot, it can only access ADA-compliant areas via ramps.
You can read more about this on Ars Technica. The moment I read the story, “You have 20 seconds to comply,” ran right through my head. If you’re unfamiliar with that line, it’s from 1987’s Robocop movie (YouTube clip).
AI rap battle between Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
And the topic that I originally wrote today’s convo about... I enjoy a good rap battle, especially funny ones. Here’s one that has been currently circulating the web with an AI rap battle between Bard and ChatGPT. To set the stage a little bit, here’s something the creator posted on reddit:
I gave both Google Bard and ChatGPT prompts [1] to engage in a rap battle. Bard starts [2] and each AI got three attempts per round, by me copy-pasting their responses to their opponent. Total of four rounds, chat history reset between each round. I used whatever results came, in original order, and didn't keep generating and generating to find some diamond.
Personally, I’m a fan of Epic Rap Battles (it’s a channel on YouTube) and AI chatbots are still very popular so this hit a sweet spot of interest for me. When I saw the time of the video, though, I did only play on watching the first battle (out of four) … but it kept me interested and I ended up watching the whole thing.
If you're interested, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0XlPuQ5C2o
Have a great weekend everyone!
