Hi everyone!
1. There are upcoming meetups in Grass Valley on Tuesday, June 17th and Auburn on Wednesday, June 18th (both 5:30pm – 7pm). Meetups are a great way to stay connected, share experiences, and continue learning together. The Grass Valley meetup is at Sierra Nevada Children’s Services, 420 Sierra College Drive #100, Grass Valley CA. The Auburn meetup is at Crooked Lane Brewing, 536 Grass Valley Hwy, Auburn, CA.
2. There’s an interesting challenge with providing an appropriate persona for the AI to use when answering a question. If you make the persona too general (e.g. “You are an expert lawyer”) then the answer to your question won’t be as good as if you make it more specific to your question (e.g. “You are an expert in California labor law”).
But if you’re using AI to help you explore solutions to a problem, then making it too specific (by assuming what the solution should be) will mean you don’t get the full benefit from AI’s ability to brainstorm and think outside of YOUR box. E.g. “You are an expert in litigating labor disputes in California” presumes that the solution to a workplace problem involves a lawsuit.
One way to help find the right balance is to think about what kind of person you’d want to discuss the problem with, if you hadn’t yet decided on a course of action. What would that person’s background and expertise look like? As another example, if you’re looking for input on how to advertise for a new position at your nonprofit, the ideal AI persona might be someone who deeply understands the kind of person who thrives in a nonprofit environment, where you often have to wear many hats, and where it’s a significant advantage to care deeply about the nonprofit’s mission.
3. Ethan Mollick has been testing out an “otter prompt” for image & video generation, starting around 3 years ago.
If you scroll the bottom of his most recent Substack post at https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-recent-history-of-ai-in-32-otters
…you’ll see an amazing video made using Veo 3. The movie starts with an image of a photographer on a beach. And the entire movie is fake.
I think this shows both the promise and cause for concern of AI-generated content.