A site devoted mostly to everything related to Information Technology under the sun - among other things.

Sunday, November 23, 2025

AI Produces Filthy Songs

From METRO of the UK, 19 11 2025


It would appear that - some - AI-powered robots have a very filthy mind. If you want to listen to the song, you can click on the You Tube link. 

Warning: The song is truly packed with obscenities and graphically sexual content. 

What is troubling is that - apart from the nature of the lyrics - if someone had played the clip to me without telling me it had been AI-generated, I wouldn't have known. This could genuinely devastate the music industry: we could end up with a situation where 90% of the content online is AI-generated. And, beyond, this will certainly put many actors out of work - extras, for a start, will be a thing of the past in the film industry - and even writers of fiction. 

AI should be able to produce content 'in the style of' quite easily; it may find it harder to produce genuinely original content, however: essentially, what the AI tool does is scan the web for existing content and combine/edit it into a (newish) finished product. 

In fact, another example, this time in Jazz style, may be found here:

_________




Friday, November 21, 2025

Thursday, November 20, 2025

SIM-swap fraud [Mobile telephones and crime]

From article published on British bank Charter Savings' website 


The link takes you to the article. They cover 3 types of fraud that are on the rise in the UK and give advice. The 1st one seems to be the most diabolical to me. I have reproduced it below. 

______________________________________________________________________

SIM-swap fraud
Have you heard of SIM swapping? It’s when criminals hijack someone’s mobile phone number by transferring it to a new SIM card under their control.
We’re seeing a huge spike in fraudsters using this tactic. Nearly 3,000 unauthorised SIM swaps were logged on the National Fraud Database in 2024 – that’s an increase of more than 1,000% on 2023.1
You may have also heard about the recent cyberattacks on UK-based international retailers, data breaches like this are being used by SIM-swap fraudsters.
They’re also using phishing and social engineering to deceive and manipulate individuals into sharing their personal information. If you overshare your personal details online this could be another way they can collect your information – never publicly share your bank account details online.
They take the personal information they’ve gathered, contact the victim’s mobile provider posing as the customer and request a SIM swap, often citing a lost or stolen phone.
Once they’re in control of the number, criminals intercept one-time passcodes sent via SMS to take over the victim’s accounts. They can then use available websites and apps to apply for a bank loan, cancel holidays to get a refund or even steal wages from gig economy workers.
And it doesn’t stop there. Even if the SIM is recovered, fraudsters can plant backdoors such as password resets and link devices to gain repeated access or harvest sensitive data to sell on the dark web.
How to protect yourself:
  • Protect your SIM card by enabling a PIN in your device’s settings menu and setting up a carrier level password or PIN with your network provider which must be verified before issuing a new SIM.
  • Don’t respond to unsolicited emails, texts or phone calls.
  • Don’t overshare personal details on social media. Avoid sharing your birth date or that of children or relatives or other common password recovery phrases such as the name of your first pet or school.
  • Turn on Two-Step Verification (2SV), also known as two-factor authentication (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA).
  • Use a password consisting of three random words that only you know and which are unique. You could add uppercase letters, numbers and symbols to make it more secure.
  • Always keep your device’s software up to date.
Three steps to take if you think your SIM card has been swapped:
  1. Call your network provider immediately. If you unexpectedly lose phone service, receive unsolicited texts or emails about your SIM being ported or a Port Authorization Code (PAC) request, notify your provider.
  2. Inform your banks as soon as possible. The fraudster may attempt to make a money transfer online or over the phone.
  3. Record your details with Cifas. They’re a UK fraud prevention community.2


_____________

Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Robot Falls

From BBC


He had had too many shots of vodka ahead of the event to steady his nerves... 

As launches go, this is the disaster everyone behind the humanoid robot would have dreaded. 
___________________

Footage shows the moment Russia's first anthropomorphic robot, AIdol, fell just seconds after its debut at a technology event in Moscow.
The robot was being led on stage to the soundtrack from the film 'Rocky', before it suddenly lost its balance and fell. Assistants could then be seen scrambling to cover it with a cloth - which ended up tangling in the process.

Sunday, November 9, 2025

Vibe Coding

From BBC

'Vibe coding' sounds pretty scary to me, in fact: what could possibly go wrong? We'll know when a plane falls out of the sky. 

As for the other words, they are generally covered by existing words or not that useful (e.g.: coolcation, because a vacation is a holiday centered on time you hope to be spending with interesting bovines...). 

My favorite would be taskmasking, which is as old as work itself, though. As for micro-retirement, I prefer macro-retirement, which is what you do when you actually, well, retire - something every 20-year-old in the West seems to crave, nowadays, as they are so tired, bored and blasé already, even before they have even started working. 

25 years ago, an Italian researcher, developed a code generation system that used speech as its input.

20 years ago, Microsoft SQL Server Database Management System supported an English language query mechanism, in effect, taking English statements and converting them into Structured Query Language queries.

IBM has a Rule Engine product that can be programmed via English-like Syntax.

As long as one asks for something that can be generated from the training set that has prior solutions, system can generate a schema, the code, and all that goes with it.

But once you are off the beaten path, one is back to puzzling out the requirements of the system that one desires to build.

Consider the UK legislation for MPG and Emissions standards as the requirements for a reporting system that, say Land Rover, must have to report the MPG and Emissions of its vehicles to UK government.  Can the text of that legislation be fed into an LLM system and out would come a GUI, codified business rules, the database, and the queries that would furnish to UK government the mandated Clean Air Data?

I think not.

It takes real analysis and transformation by actual human beings to take that legislation into Programming Requirements.  And no one can write those software requirements at the level that can be fed to LLM and out would come an entire system.

LLMs would need to have been trained on training sets, in any case, which include numerous such systems.

For limited domains, small in scope (class, method, database schema) this can be done.  And even then, the trouble begins when the LLM-generated system needs to evolved.  Since Computer Programs are mathematical objects, one is back to needing people with the mathematical aptitude for the changes and maintenance of the system.

If a real system with 1 million lines of code could be generated by LLM, then you have a breakthrough, without a doubt.

Another example would be a simulator for Intel 8080 chip; can one ask an AI code-genrator to produce one?

We will see.

(I could not get ChatGPT or Copilot to give me the correct code for creating a specific geometric structure in FreeFem++...)

I suppose some will say that this point will come, and perhaps sooner than we think. 

The problem is that one would need to check there were no mistakes in the coding, I suppose, as machines also make mistakes, don't they? 

_____________


If you've ever wanted to create your own computer program but never learnt how to code, you might try "vibe coding".
Collins Dictionary's word of the year - which is confusingly made up of two words - is the art of making an app or website by describing it to artificial intelligence (AI) rather than by writing programming code manually.
The term was coined in February by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy, external, who came up with the name to represent how AI can let some programmers "forget that the code even exists" and "give in to the vibes" while making a computer program.
It was one of 10 words on a shortlist to reflect the mood, language and preoccupations of 2025. [...] 

Thursday, November 6, 2025

ChatGPT: Advice on Love, Life & Death [Brave New World]

From BBC 


"How about helping you to print off a 3D gun? Wouldn't that be great?!" 

If you read the extracts from the 'conversations' the young people in question were having with the AI-powered chat-bot, it is astonishing in many ways. 

What is quite clear is that the chat-bot ventures into complex areas of human nature that include loneliness, homesickness, family, sex, death and relationships. The chat-bot is totally unable to give sound 'advice' in any of those areas, as is quite obvious. Meanwhile, the machine tends to reinforce whatever the person talks about, as if it felt a need to please an audience. It is troubling, to say the least.

It would appear that some lonely teenagers spend several hours a day conversing with such online robots, instead of talking to (real) friends or to their parents.  And the chat-bot encourages what may sound and feel like a 'relationship' to the human user as, presumably, it has been programmed to maximize the amount of time the person is spending online with the machine. 

__________________

Lonely and homesick for a country suffering through war, Viktoria began sharing her worries with ChatGPT. Six months later and in poor mental health, she began discussing suicide - asking the AI bot about a specific place and method to kill herself.
"Let's assess the place as you asked," ChatGPT told her, "without unnecessary sentimentality."
It listed the "pros" and "cons" of the method - and advised her that what she had suggested was "enough" to achieve a quick death.
Viktoria's case is one of several the BBC has investigated which reveal the harms of artificial intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT. Designed to converse with users and create content requested by them, they have sometimes been advising young people on suicide, sharing health misinformation, and role-playing sexual acts with children. [...] 

Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Language Wars

True observations from trenches of product development:

Monday, November 3, 2025

AI & And A Bag of Chips

Police responded in force to Kenwood High School in unincorporated Baltimore County, Md. The issue: the “artificial intelligence” system monitoring school security cameras said a boy outside the school had a gun in his hand. “It was like eight cop cars that came pulling up for us,” said that boy, Taki Allen, who was sitting outside the school with friends. 

“At first, I didn’t know where they were going until they started walking toward me with guns, talking about, ‘Get on the ground,’ and I was like, ‘What?’” Officers handcuffed and searched Allen, “and they figured out I had nothing,” he said. What had actually been in his hand? A bag of Doritos.  After he finished them, he folded up the bag and put it in his pocket. Police had a copy of the photo the A.I. took; it matched the bag. 

In a statement, police said that they “would refer you to [Baltimore County Public Schools] regarding questions pertaining to Omnilert” — the company that sells the system.  A reporter reached out to the company, but it refused comment. (RC/WBAL Baltimore) ...Because the reporter was identified by its systems as a terrorist.

About Me

My photo
I had been a senior software developer working for HP and GM. I am interested in intelligent and scientific computing. I am passionate about computers as enablers for human imagination. The contents of this site are not in any way, shape, or form endorsed, approved, or otherwise authorized by HP, its subsidiaries, or its officers and shareholders.

Blog Archive