Mailbag #95
/The week before last I went to a Generative AI event at Google's offices here in the Boston area. Interesting stuff, and the perfect opportunity to use the Pseudo Chatbot in the Jerx app. Amazing results. People are so torn: They know it can't be real; but they also know it can't not be real.
I made just one small change in the app response text. AI engines would not make a mistake and then acknowledge the error in the way suggested:
My mistake, I just noticed that one of the black face-up cards is actually the two of spades.
I changed this to something like:
Exception: If the woman is Jewish, one of the Club cards is likely to be the Queen of Clubs.
Much better! Thanks for the great idea! —DK
Nice. I’m glad it worked well for you.
I understand the rationale for the change you made, but it probably wasn’t necessary. “AI engines would not make a mistake and then acknowledge the error in the way suggested.” - is a feature of this trick, not a bug.
Speaking of AI making mistakes, a couple of weeks ago I was trying to remember the term “psychometry,” so I asked ChatGPT what the term was for the mentalism trick where the performer can divine things about a person by touching objects that belong to them and this was the response I got back:
Which is kind of funny until you realize ChatGPT is probably just as inaccurate on most subjects you’re asking it about.
A few months ago, while reading some ideas you published with the Konami code from Tomas Blomberg, I came up with an idea that I wanted to share with you.
It's just the beginning of an idea, and I need to develop it further, but it's a fun concept to play with, and I believe there is some potential.
I realized that in certain cities or neighborhoods with a street layout consisting of parallel and perpendicular streets (grid street plan according to Wikipedia), such as Manhattan, Montreal, Barcelona, Chicago, etc., you can force a specific location within the city/neighborhood using the Konami code.
For this, you will need:
- A stack of business cards (maybe 10 to 15 cards), with each card indicating one of the four directions: North, South, East, or West.
- A city with an architectural layout of perpendicular streets forming blocks.
- Knowledge of the Konami code principle.
- A specific starting point.
- A forced destination.
The basic idea is as follows:
Let's say you and your friend want to go to a restaurant, but instead of always going to the same place, you suggest playing a game to randomly find one.
You and your friend leave your place and start walking towards the next street intersection. Then, you take out the stack of business cards and you ask your friend to shuffle them and give you the first card from the stack. Let's say it indicates "North." You then proceed to walk in the North direction until you reach the next intersection.
At each junction, your friend takes the top card from the stack and follows the direction indicated, then hands you the card to signify that it has been used. It will create a weird and fun way to walk in the city.
You continue this process until your friend has used every card in the stack. By the end of it, you will have reached a street intersection determined by the "randomness" of the shuffled cards. From there, you try to find a restaurant around you. Of course, you managed a way to land in an area where there is only one restaurant (your forced one).
As you can read, it's not a finished idea, but I think it's a pretty fun concept to use if you want to force a place in a city without the feeling that the place has been forced. If you play with it, you need some work to be sure it will work in your area. —CLR
Yeah, I think there’s something here.
While this situation wouldn’t arise that often, a great use for this idea would be to direct someone to their own surprise party. You say you want to take them on a “random” walk to determine where you’ll take them for their birthday dinner. “They say the best way to ensure a positive start to the year is to do something spontaneous to kick it off.” Then, in the closest restaurant to where you end up, they find all their loved ones waiting for them.
You don’t actually have to walk the route, if that’s not possible. You could just do it with a map in front of you, and mark off the route on the map to find the eventual destination. This could allow for a lot more “movements” because you don’t actually have to walk it in real life. You would just use it to determine your destination and then go there. (Although, as you might guess, I prefer the time it takes to do the walking.)
Also, if you’re using a map, you don’t need to only perform this in a city with a grid layout. Many maps and atlases have the area laid out with grid references on the top on bottom, so you can use that to guide yourself to a specific location.
Or, if you don’t have a map that works for that, you can just make your own. You can get an overhead map at the scale, that you want it to be, lay a grid on top of that, and then figure out the necessary cards you would need to start from your house (or another logical starting point) and get you to the destination.