Loch Ness is a truly magnificient sight to behold. It is one of those unique places on earth that is simply awe inspiring and the more you know about it the more amazing it becomes.
Those humps in the water below are not the Loch Ness monster...or are they?
Lock Ness Scotland
I launched my drone to get some high angle shots but failed fast as the wind was howling up the valley. My drone (DJI Mini SE) can handle 22mph winds but it was rocking around way to much to risk it. Anyone that has a drone will understand the frustration of this kind of experience. Great location but the weather isn't playing ball. I switched to using my Canon 70D dslr.
Drone Shots Aborted
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last century you will no doubt have heard of the illusive Lock Ness Monster.
There have been several famous hoaxes of course but also many people truly believe that they have seen and even photographed Nessie.
The hunt for Nessie has been long and exhaustive but with very few concrete results.
The Loch has been poked, prodded and scanned over the last 50 years but so far no Monster has been found? Looks like the air force is having a look around the Loch?
Lockheed C-130 Hercules
Stepping back from the whole Nessie aspects of things. When we look at the Loch from a landscape point of view we can see that this whole area was gouged out by an enormous glacier sometime during one of the ice ages of the past.
A quick wiki search gives us the dimensions of Loch Ness.
Loch Ness is 36 kilometres long and only 1.5 kilometres wide. It is the second largest Scottish loch by surface area at 56.4 km2 (21.8 sq mi), after Loch Lomond ...
Max. length: 36.2 km (22.5 mi)
Average depth: 132 m (433 ft)
Max. width: 2.7 km (1.7 mi)
Surface elevation: 15.8 m (52 ft)
Source:
Loch Ness Monster = Tourist Magnet
Something that I learned whilst visiting this part of Scotland is that Loch Ness is actually connected to the sea via Loch Linnhe in the south and Loch Beauty in the north so it is plausible that sea creatures could get access to Loch Ness via either of these routes much like when we have whales finding their way up the River Thames? Which is a relatively common event.
Source
Loch Ness Sea Access
Landscapes such as this have to be seen in person to be believed. It's one of those places that make you feel very small in comparison to the forces of nature that created it.
Photographs really do not do it justice but hopefully these images capture my impressions of Loch Ness.
Loch Ness Mysterious and Moody
Loch Ness is a place that you have to experience in person to really appreciate it's majesty. In my opinion it is well worth a visit if you get the chance.
The AI Monster Debate
I have been investigating Google's Bard AI and we all know about the debate that is happening here on Hive about the legitimacy of using AI to create posts. I have reproduced screen shots of Bard's output so that this post doesn't run foul of the AI detection services running on Hive.
I am against it primarily because of it's potential for abuse and it goes against Hive's fundamental principle of proof of brain.(created by a human)
We have enough to contend with already without throwing this into the mix.
For comparison here is what Bard generated from a simple prompt.
Prompt: Write a blog about Loch Ness.
This is the output below and we can see 3 optional blogs are offered for us to consider. It is factual and to the point but it has no way to check if it's output is factually correct. First problem.
Loch Ness According to Bard AI
Note here that it states that the water visability is poor?
Bard AI Fact Check
In another iteration of the AI output the water is suddenly very clear?
Bard AI Facts Change
In one iteration of the AI output it stated that the Loch was 300 feet deep and that you could see the bottom of the loch as the water was so clear?
Finally we come to what is most telling at least about Bard. It's sources. As we can see below these AI blogs basically just scrapped wikipedia. The writers of wikipedia I'm sure would be screaming 'plagirism' right now and rightly so.
Bard AI Automates Plagiarism
So what are we to make of all this?
As someone who has been around advanced technologies throughout my entire working life I am facinated by what it can do to the skills base of humans.
First we mechanised human skills into machine based tasks to speed up production as in the manufacture of automobiles which were originally built by coach builders. Henry Ford developed the assembly line which sped up production and as a byproduct deskilled the labour force.
From mechanisation industry moved to automate these machine based industries.
Today Tesla has virtually no production workers on the line.
Has it made life better?
New technology does destroy whole sectors of the economy but it also creates many more new job opportunities.
AI has fantastic potential in so many fields that we haven't even thought about yet and yes it will destroy many jobs but it will also create many new jobs and industries that will transform our lives. For the better or worse is for us to decide.
It should not be used to churn out blogs just to game the system and I haven't even discussed AI art which many consider as outright theft.
Bard and any other AI cannot experience life as we do. It cannot express feelings...yet.
Artificial intelligence is just a machine learning algorythm built by humans and in that build there will be all of our flaws and strengths.
Finally we have to consider the impact on the public. How many people research the information they find online?
We have seen the impact of misinformation on many recent events.
The average reading age of people across all age ranges may surprise you.
The USA
12 to 14 years old
Your audience's reading age is lower than you think
U.S. illiteracy statistics from the Literacy Project Foundation offer some surprising insights. The average American is considered to have a readability level equivalent to a 7th/8th grader
The British average reading age is 9 years old according to the same source which seems rather low in my opinion but we do have to factor in English as a second language for millions of people in both countries.
NB I'm aware that the public version of BARD AI has been heavily constrained for this first release of the public beta version.
What are your thoughts on AI? Is it a good thing or just all bad?