As I look back a full year at this column, we were just getting inklings of the turmoil to come at Twitter, since renamed, in Elon Musk’s mind at least, as X. And a little-known application called ChatGPT was just surfacing as the year drew to a close.
Fast forward a year and that little known application has become a juggernaut, transforming the technology landscape in ways difficult to have envisioned when it first arrived.
Fittingly, the first four columns of the year were centred around artificial intelligence (AI), at least of the large language model (LLM) type that is ChatGPT, and its associated art product, Dall-E. In fact, the lead-off column was entirely written by ChatGPT.
My initial plan for that first column was to let it be written by ChatGPT and only letting readers know in the last line. However, and probably wisely so, my editor suggested making it clear at the outset how the column came about and how I instructed the chatbot to generate its work.
Here we are a year later, and we are at a point where we are consuming content written by machines and not necessarily knowing it. Will this very paper be machine-generated within, say, a year or so?
Subsequent columns on AI products included an interview with the first person to use ChatGPT to write a novel and have it published, all over the course of a weekend. So common is this now that Amazon has placed a restriction on the number of books an “author” can publish in a day!
Another column featured an interview with artist and iconographer John Suter where we put him through the paces with art generator Dall-E. He was amazed to see just how the AI art program could parse very specific and lengthy instructions and generate multiple variations of an artwork.
Later in the year we took a look at the concerns expressed by the so-called godfather of AI, Geoffrey Hinton. Not much has happened to address those concerns but governments are grappling with the need for controls and limits, not to mention regulations, for the adoption and use of artificial intelligence in all aspects of modern life.
As in previous years there were columns on my regular battles with the telecom companies. One of these concerned the ignominious end to my decade-long battle to keep a copper landline running in my home. At just $10 a month I considered it good insurance for an emergency situation in which electricity is out for an extended period. But, no, TELUS forced my hand and began cutting off customers in my area who maintained that copper connection in favour of, or in addition to, a glass-fibre feed.
Another column covered my annual battle with car audio provider SiriusXM. Actually, the satellite service has branched out and now also provides a feed through streaming hardware provider Roku. I’ve had a subscription since 2016 and enjoy it very much but I draw the line at paying more than $6 a month, whereas the company wants around $20.
Seemingly never-ending email, texting, and web-based scams featured in a couple of columns, as they have each year for many years now. At least most of my readers treat all communications with skepticism, but, sadly, there is no shortage of dupes and victims for what is in some cases state-supported e-terrorism.
In multiple columns we speculated on the future of cable TV, and of streaming services. We noted how advertising-supported streaming has gained a foothold, in part an attempt by the major services to retain customers as households slim down their monthly subscriptions to the likes of Amazon, Netflix, Disney and others. By the end of this month Amazon will have begun serving commercials on its Prime Video platform to those unwilling to pay a few additional dollars to avoid uninterrupted programming.
Two columns looked at a wide variety of mobile apps and web sites devoted to weather, both terrestrial and space. In my own case I actually pay to remove ads from some of the apps and I am considering premium upgrades for both Windy.tv and AccuWeather. There will likely be another weather apps column during 2024 as a lot of content remains to be covered.
Late in the year I wrote two columns, with more to come in 2024, on my efforts to deal with age-related hearing loss through the use of hearing aids. I described various hearing tests and businesses that sell such devices, and I lamented the cost of these units. In one of my upcoming columns, I will detail my experiences with the hearing centre at a big-box store.
As in the past the last column of the year featured an overview of cameras and camera packages available in Metro Vancouver. In particular I observed how the total complement of such camera listings was showing a decline and was now the lowest since 2016. I also noted that just one new DSLR camera was introduced in 2023, the manufacturers having essentially pivoted completely to mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras.
Yes, there was a column devoted to the Musk-driven turmoil at Twitter/X, but it’s not worth dwelling upon. Similarly, a column on upstart social media platform Threads, by Meta, is rather forgettable. Musk seems to have caused so much damage to Twitter that the entire social media scene may have been impacted to the point that people are posting less in general when it comes to social media. That, and the impact of artificial intelligence, are among the technology hallmarks of 2023.
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