'Hour of Code' Cartoon Includes a Shout-Out to AI (instagram.com) 23
Nonprofit Code.org has posted this year's cartoon for "Hour of Code," their annual learn-to-code event for schoolchildren.
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes its animated pigeon gives a shout-out to the AI that could ultimately replace programmers: In an Instagram post introducing the video, Code.org explains: "Bartlett the Pigeon just learned how to code and now thinks he's smarter than us. Honestly...he might be. Meet the face (and feathers) of this year's #HourOfCode." In the video, Bartlett wows a social media influencer with his coding skills. "Is this pigeon typing code?" she asks in disbelief. "I'm going to film this for my socials!" Bartlett goes on to explain that the song he remixes with coding blocks — Aloe Blacc's "I Need a Dollar" — could have instead been generated by simply using AI, which he says is "like having a personal DJ assistant who never misses a beat!"
Interestingly, Blacc noted in a 2011 interview that he wrote "I Need a Dollar" after being made redundant in his career as a business consultant by Ernst & Young. That multinational company is now advising global business leaders on how they can harness the power of GenAI "to achieve more with fewer resources" by disrupting professions — like programming — that "involve a high degree of repetitive and data-driven tasks that AI can automate."
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes its animated pigeon gives a shout-out to the AI that could ultimately replace programmers: In an Instagram post introducing the video, Code.org explains: "Bartlett the Pigeon just learned how to code and now thinks he's smarter than us. Honestly...he might be. Meet the face (and feathers) of this year's #HourOfCode." In the video, Bartlett wows a social media influencer with his coding skills. "Is this pigeon typing code?" she asks in disbelief. "I'm going to film this for my socials!" Bartlett goes on to explain that the song he remixes with coding blocks — Aloe Blacc's "I Need a Dollar" — could have instead been generated by simply using AI, which he says is "like having a personal DJ assistant who never misses a beat!"
Interestingly, Blacc noted in a 2011 interview that he wrote "I Need a Dollar" after being made redundant in his career as a business consultant by Ernst & Young. That multinational company is now advising global business leaders on how they can harness the power of GenAI "to achieve more with fewer resources" by disrupting professions — like programming — that "involve a high degree of repetitive and data-driven tasks that AI can automate."
Stop vacuous sock puppets now (Score:4, Interesting)
'Nuff said.
Don't even know if the story has potential for Funny.
On the topic, I just started a third round with ChatGPT... This time trying to port an entire database app from many years ago. Shocked that it even recognized the file formats--before it started losing its marbles again.
Time to try the evil google's solution approach? Or maybe give Claude another shake?
Re: (Score:1)
Maybe do it yourself? Because that is the only reliable way to get results.
In six months (Score:2)
This is what people will be thinking [imgur.com] six months from now when they go back and look at their code from this 'hour of code' they've been doing.
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You think any of them will go back? I do not think they will care enough. To most it will be clear that this was just another pointless exercise. School is full of them these days.
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To be fair, Hour of Code is an absurd waste of time. It's like they're actively trying to find the least effective way to introduce programming. I can't image anyone being interested in the output of one of those pointless exercises beyond nostalgia 20 years from now.
We ought to bring back BASIC. It was simple enough that a bright child could figure out what a listing did without any help at all; an average child required just a few minutes. It was so simple and so commonly understood that we used to pr
Replace Programmers (Score:1)
Disruption (Score:3)
This post wasnâ(TM)t written by AI, I promise, but the first disruption on my list is AI commenting. If Slashdot stories are more interesting with astute or funny comments, then while not have AI make them? Indeed, the article posters could preview the probable comments in advance to see how much engagement their post will make. Further, that too could be tweaked iteratively until the post generates the best level of commentary that will meet the goals of the site. If the goal is to get first posts, then donâ(TM)t make any comments, but if the goal is to get humans to engage, then a mixture of comments works well, including some that state facts completely wrongly so that humans jump in and correct them. If you think this is wrong, then complain to newspapers who have been printing curated letters to the editor for a very long time.
The next personal AI engine is the one mentioned in the article- music. Already today services like Spotify and saturated with AI music (good and bad) but do the services need to exist? A decentralized (so you can share the good ones) personal on-the-fly music generator could work well. It could stash any music you like (or donâ(TM)t hate) to replay. Replaying of music is a critical part of learning to like a tune or track. With a âoeyou gotta hear thisâ button, some tracks may become shared, but the days of mass music where many people like the same new tune are pretty much over. Only big money is keeping them going. Note that I wrote âoenew tuneâ. Old tunes will continue to exist. Live music will still survive too.
Another one will be PPE. Whatâ(TM)s that? N-95 masks? No, itâ(TM)s a Personal Porn Engine. PPEâ(TM)s are starting the gain steam, but are only with early adopters right now. The point of PPEâ(TM)s is that they are *personal* and not for distributing their output. Of course, some people will do that, and pay the consequences for it, but in normal use, what is shown by the PPE, stays in the PPE, or to be more accurate, nothing is stored or saved; everything is ephemeral and generated on the fly. Take a machine learning algorithm to work out what you like to see, along with options to spice up the selection, and feedback cues taken from when you stop, etc, and the PPE will be a highly personalized and thoughtful tool to bring you satisfaction. At think point authorities will in certain jurisdictions make them illegal to possess or use because of reasons.
The next engine is an AI-powered sense augmentation tool. Meta and others are already working on this, but the key is going to be speed and accuracy of feedback to the user. For sight, you wear some kind of camera. It could be on glasses, or a body cam or whatever. The input is continuously analyzed and prompts are fed back to the user via sight, sound, or potential other methods, eg, a pain literally in the butt to indicate someone you donâ(TM)t wish to engage with. Again the point of the AI is to go beyond machine vision, and instead provide interpretation or enhancement. Navigation, a personal assistant whispering in your ear, etc. are all options.
Traffic management - this is an oldie, but goodie. Everyone should be familiar with timed/sequenced traffic lights. In Germany they have dynamic signs thatâ(TM)ll tell you how fast you need to go to get through the next light on green. The US doesnâ(TM)t. In the UK, home of computing, Manchester had the city traffic lights controlled to change based on the time of day to manage inflows and outflows. Take this to the AI extreme â" so now, instead of Waze or Apple/Google Maps just routing traffic for you, there is a centralized system for say the city of New York, that will facilitate traffic control citywide totally dynamically. I think weâ(TM)ll see this in China first if it isnâ(TM)t there already.
Last one, for now, the Personal Responder. This one is imminent and does the job of tracking and suggesting all communications going to you. Straight off, it will reduce your email folder spam to zero and remove you from any subscriptions. But itâ(TM)ll monitor all your social media, Slack, email, both personal and work related. Itâ(TM)ll curate a personality that will appear to be you (a good version of you) for responses. It will have ready to go responses to every input, or, and this is crucial, know what it doesnâ(TM)t know and escalate those to you. Further, it will check everything you plan to send out checking for accuracy, tone, deceit (itâ(TM)ll check and learn if that is actually what you are trying to do), and give you insight into what kind of impact it will have - what will your audience/recipient think/feel/do? When you start work in the morning, itâ(TM)ll have a time reserved on your calendar to go through the correspondence from the night before. Essentially, this one is a Personal Assistant and everyone can afford to have one.
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Really simple to deal with: From the wall-of-text dysfunctionality, it is clear before reading a single word that doing so is a waste of time.
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What the heck are you talking about? For me at least, the whole point of communication is that it is between human beings. I have zero desire to read posts written by/engage with machines. What would be the point? I want to know what other human beings think and feel, even if it is sometimes unpalatable/badly written, not wade through machine-generated, recycled dross and drivel.
What youre talking about will the be the death of several beautiful and life-enriching/affirming forms of music and art. If you su
Schoolhouse Rock says (Score:1)
Clearly, the "Hour of code" is a lie (Score:1)
But what is the purpose of the lie? This cannot be about getting kids interested in coding. The ones that are will find it by themselves. The others do not care. So what is the purpose of this fuckery?
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The ones that are will find it by themselves.
You are mistaken. I know someone who runs an introduction to programming course at university, in year 2, not in a computer science department. It's one of the most popular modules in the department and is oversubscribed every year.
Lots sign up because they think it will be useful and/or help with a job.
Every year there is a small group, maybe 5% who just flip into turbo nerds and get super into it and find they really love programming. They are the ones who ask
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And have you looked at what is left after 5 and 10 years? Because that is how you actually evaluate education...
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Now you're moving the goalposts.
You said interested people would find it themselves. My observation is that it is not the case.
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This cannot be about getting kids interested in coding. The ones that are will find it by themselves.
Kids can't develop and interest in a subject they don't know about. Exposure is prerequisite to interest. This is absolutely about getting kids interested in 'coding'.
Though, admittedly, code.org does a much better job at stifling interest.
The idea that you can create certain kinds of things yourself is not obvious to most people. Even if a kid knows that some things don't exist unless people make them, they might believe that the ability to create some things is inaccessible to them. To a child, how so
Obama Lost His Coding Job to Bartlett the Pigeon (Score:2)
Bartlett the Pigeon follows in the footsteps of President Obama, who Code.org tapped as the face of the 2014 Hour of Code [archives.gov] (as well as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, who were the faces of the inaugural Hour of Code [slashdot.org] in 2013). In a late-2014 interview, Obama lamented that his daughters hadn't taken to coding [slashdot.org] the way he'd like [the former First Daughters have since opted for Hollywood [harpersbazaar.com] over Silicon Valley], adding that "part of what's happening is that we are not helping schools and teachers teach it in an inte
Re:Fuck sexist code.org (Score:4, Informative)
That is a lie. You are a liar.
Umm (Score:1)
Yeah, whoever thinks repetitive tasks make up a large proportion of a programmer's work day, clearly knows fuck all about actual programming.
Who the hell is "hour of code", and why does someone pretend to teach programming to kids when they are so clueless about what it is?
Re: Umm (Score:1)