Geoff Arnold's Blog

I’ve been playing around with local (self-hosted) AI systems, and wanted to share my experiences.

I keep reading pieces which dismiss concerns about the environmental impact of AI data centers.

This is a long, depressing, blockbuster of a piece.

Personal anecdote, inspired by something in social media: In September 1975 I was a postgrad student at the University of Newcastle-on-Tyne, doing research on operating system command languages for my (never-completed) PhD.

I just asked Microsoft Copilot if it would be possible to eliminate the anthropomorphic aspects of my interactions with the system.

I recently had a lively online discussion about chatbots and liability, and it quickly emerged that one source of disagreement was that many people in the US tend to think that US precedents are all that matter.

It seems to me that today’s LLMs try to solve all classes of problems with the same set of mechanisms.

[My inputs in italics; edited for length.]

When I’m filling in an opinion poll, I am usually asked which party I support.

Tim Bray nails it: I’m not sure the profession I joined last century would attract me today.

For many years I’ve collected model buses, aircraft, and trains, mostly from the UK.