Three years ago, AI was a tekkies’ fever dream, barely real but high on the magic of what’s coming.
Two years ago, AI could put together a sentence, but you had to double-check every word for hallucinations.
Eighteen months ago, AI could write sentences, even paragraphs. They weren’t clunky, either.
Twelve months ago, AI could write a speech, though it still sounded disembodied.
Six months ago, it could write an entire book or screenplay. True, it needed a human to do one final edit to…humanize it, but likely the human simply put the entire book through an AI bot that makes AI sound more human.
Three months ago, AI wrote a 20-minute speech for a bank executive to deliver to a group of investment bankers.
It was much better than any speech I could write, more comprehensive, deep and nuanced, the kind that any subject matter expert really wants to hear: no glossed-over analysis, no fudging the projections, and lots of new ways to resolve the nagging issues.
What I did to get the speech was write a 140-word ‘prompt’ into Perplexity, the AI platform I use for research and writing. You can do this too.
First, go to perplexity.com and type in your prompt. (You can use it for free for basic search and writing.) Here’s my prompt:
“You are a senior infrastructure banking executive at RBC Financial. You are giving a 20-minute speech to a side-session of the attendees of the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto on Sept. 14 and 15.”
“The Summit is focused on attracting new investment into Canada to advance Canada’s nation-building projects, create new career opportunities for Canadians, and grow our economy. Among the attendees are 100 global infrastructure investment bankers you want to consider investing in Canadian infrastructure, partnering or co-investing with your bank. Write the speech and the slide deck to accompany it.”
“Remember, the audience is highly sophisticated. Yet they might know little about the factors that make Canada such a high-quality investment environment, including the quality of its corporate governance. The speech must be replete with the latest facts and projections for any potential investing partners in the audience.”
10 minutes later, out popped this speech whose quality I urge you to judge for yourself.
Note, I didn’t have to tell Perplexity anything about RBC Financial, or infrastructure investing in Canada. I also didn’t have to tell it anything about me, like I did when I started using AI. But it’s come to know me shockingly well, just as it’s completely fluent in the arcane language of infrastructure investment.
Now it’s your turn: How can you solve your family dynamics problem? What big new thing can you easily do from the old things you already did? How best to take up music again? Are you fit enough to hike in the Alps? How to pitch your architectural services when you’re a distant long-shot for the next big assignment. How to find love in all your unfamiliar places.
You can ask Perplexity anything, and the more you refine your prompt, the better your answer will grow to be.
So when I wrote that speech for the notional banker on infrastructure three months ago, I didn’t put down my pen and step out on to the window ledge, though I was tempted.
I mean, if AI could do this – write a speech better than any I could write with 30 years of experience writing for Canadian bankers – what hope did I have?
But instead, and very much because I’m an old writer and not a young writer, I decided to do what I could to get my friends using AI even more than I now do. Hence my occasional blogs where I exhort readers not to avoid AI, but to embrace it. Hence last month’s writing contest, where I didn’t ask you to write a document or a letter, but to write a prompt, the kind of thing I did for that banking executive. Writing prompts is easy. The first step is to tell AI who it is, i.e. what character it should play throughout. If you’re asking Perplexity to do a detailed itinerary of a 10-day trip through Japan, start by saying: “You are a Toronto travel agent specializing in trips to Japan….” If your dermatologist says you may have skin cancer, start your prompt: “You are an oncologist specializing in melanoma…”
Maybe the strangeness of prompts is what kept the number of entries in our prompt writing contest down. Let’s hope next year’s prompt writing contest draws more because it’s less strange.
The winners are…Silver
“1. Persona: Five years ago I acquired a Covid comfort creature, a kitten named Sophie.
2. Task: How can I get Sophie to like me rather than my husband who never wanted a pet.
3. Constraints: She cannot be bribed with treats and affection; I tried that. She will not accept another cat; she was suicidal when we tried to get a companion cat and we had to rehome the wonderfully affectionate interloper.
4. Format: Create a plan to woo Sophie, and if impossible, to relieve me of jealousy. Explain cats to me and estimate whether she will outlive me.” – D.T.
And Gold…
“I’m sitting beside the hospice room window. The day’s first light crawls up the sash and creeps across the bed slowly revealing my friend’s translucent skin and laboured breathing.
I need instructions to prepare him for the end of consciousness and the beginning of what lies beyond, meeting his goal to again be with loved ones gone before and those to follow.
Cost is an issue. He came with nothing; he leaves with only his place in the memories treasured by his friends.
I must be able to convey these instructions in minutes and begin within 48 hours.” – John Dale
So……if you aren’t actively learning how to use AI, why not start here and now?
Who knows what it will bring? There’s an entire industry of AI skeptics and they have good reason to be.
But I do know it’s better to know what life is serving up than not.
Onward.
Meanwhile…
1. Canada slumbers no more. First, what was that B.C. Pipeline deal Mark Carney announced in B.C. one morning last week, and the next day Part B in Alberta? Here’s the ABCs.
Next, the submarine deal, which Germany and Norway won over South Korea. Here are their respective promo videos, and possibly why Ottawa chose Europe.
Lest we think we’re not innovative, here’s a history of Canada in 24 Canadian objects.
2. Dance 10. Looks 10. Spanish is flamenco no more. No more. More. Plus a new take on Bohemian Rhapsody. And nearly ninety minutes of Thom Yorke at the Sydney Opera House.
Finally, in March the Boston Symphony Orchestra fired its revered conductor Andris Nelsons. The BSO’s President, Chad Smith, has been flayed for being tone deaf to the wishes of the musicians, audience and donors. Here’s an analysis of one of his justifications (you may need to be a CPA to understand it).
3. Worth joining. Are you a citizen researcher? Do you want to be? Bellingcat is calling. Plus, who actually goes to therapy? Plus, it’s time to talk about pregnant pooping. Finally, connect yourself to the 60s via its 100 best songs.
4. This is your mother. Are you coming home? Also, another ‘man’s occupation’ falls to women. Plus, Wimbledon women wear white (including kimonos), not pink. Finally, the economics of women’s weight.
5. The Dementia Industry. “Even with the best of care, we cannot always diagnose the true cause of dementia while the patient is alive.” Meanwhile, AI is transforming medicine. Just ask Medscape, the site doctors use, whose AI answers anything medical.
6. Big World Cup winners. Cape Verde of course. Just ask the Cabo Verdeans when their team got home. The man who told their story best (and so many other World Cup tales) is UK content creator Rob Oseh. Hear him on Norway who knows how to unite their country of 5.6 million people.
Plus Messi’s old coach breaks down how he plays. And finally, a non-World Cup sport, competitive rowing, or crew, and what it teaches you.
7. Report cards. First, the world’s top universities. MIT is #1, Imperial College London and Stanford, tied for #2. The U of T is 32nd, McMaster 174th, York is 322nd, and TMU is 669th. And career advice from George Monbiot.
Also, after six months as Mayor of New York, how is Zohran Mamdani doing? Also, peering into New Yorkers’ windows.
And earlier this week, Prince Harry (and Elton John and more) lost their civil suit against Associated Newspapers for breach of privacy. Harry and his fellow claimants could face a £50 million legal bill.
8. Canadians explore two of the world’s most famous shipwrecks. Explorers from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society are partnering with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on a “once-in-a-generation” expedition to survey Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Quest and Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova.
If this rings a bell, in 2024, Quest), the ship that Shackleton died on in 1922, was first discovered by the RCGS and Expedition Leader John Geiger in the Labrador Sea. You can follow their progress here.
9. Last chance to touch the hem of heaven this summer. Join us at The Canada Summit, the fabulous four-day heli-hiking trip from Aug. 30 to Sept. 3, where four leading Canadians (Steve Paikin, Dr. Heather Ross, Ron Deibert, and Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux) will discuss where we’re headed around politics, healthcare, cyber and Indigenous relations. If you can walk around your kitchen table, you can heli-hike. Details here and register here.
10. Then and now. Here’s what America was in 1926, and here’s what entertains us today. We’re even smashing yesterday’s croissants for a better tomorrow. But some things never change, including mechanical pencils (invented in 1822).
11. Up and coming. The annual Massey Lecture (delivered this year by urbanist Leilani Farha) lands in Toronto on September 8. Tickets here.
And already here, corporate scents. Plus brands that get worse on purpose. Plus, rabbit holes galore, and oddest of all, Trump’s very short fingers.
12. What I’m watching. This week I went to see The Secret Chord, which began as a Soulpepper production about Leonard Cohen and his songs, and has now moved to Mirvish, where it’s on until Aug. 9. The great old songs are never newer and fresher, and everyone on stage is spectacularly original. Sprint to see it.