Do we really need ChatGPT?

The majority of my posts this week appear to be about ChatGPT and the excitement of what this type of program addition is going to do for us, the other shoe has to drop and have us take a long look at what  the entrance of this type of applications will do to our crativity and capabilities. Nicholas Sutrich wrote an article from this viewpoint that you may want to read called:ChatGPT is everywhere these days, but do we really need it?

He makes the argument on a result of embracing this technology can't ultimately dumb us down and actually have a negative result rather than being a tool that can free you up to make you more efficient and be able to process more data in a shorter time. Hmm! I wonder what direction we will take?

SharePoint Online Gets Closer to Azure AD

We are continuing to see a trend with quite a few of our clients to replace their on site servers and moving to the cloud to share their files with others in their organizations. With the increased security being placed on this practice we are much safer than before for outside risks.

I have recently run across an article from office365itpros.com that discusses the closer integration of Azure AD B2B and SharePoint Services. It describes the need to review your Azure B2B Invitation Manager policies. This is the list that describes the allow and denial of access of domains. This is worth a quick look. I have included a quick list from their site that includes what this article contains.

Table of Contents

• ·         Azure AD B2B Collaboration and Guest Accounts for SharePoint Sharing
• ·         Rationalization Around Azure AD
• ·         Time to Review Applicable Policies
• ·         Review Guest Accounts Too

What is B2B in Azure AD? - B2B collaboration is a capability of Azure AD External Identities that lets you collaborate with users and partners outside of your organization. With B2B collaboration, an external user is invited to sign into your Azure AD organization using their own credentials.

What are the benefits of Azure B2B? - Azure AD B2B can also benefit your organization in other ways.

• ·         It's easy to invite guests and internal users quickly. ...
• ·         Guest users/collaborators can self-serve. ...
• ·         Use policies to securely share your apps and services. ...
• ·         Application and group owners can manage their own guest users. ...
• ·         Integrate with SharePoint and OneDrive.

Sophos Demonstrates How to Make ChatGPT a Cybersecurity Co-Pilot

I've already talked about Microsoft's new copilot applications and now they're working with their desktop apps, here's an article- press release from Sophos discussing GPT-3 which is the language model behind ChatGPT in how it might be an integral part of deciphering malicious activity found in their data lake. this isn't quite there yet, but this may be an integral part of being able to quickly and more precisely determine if an attack has happened and then help with the possible mitigation of the event. It's worth a quick read if you are interested in this subject.

As a hoot, let’s generate an article from Bing Chat!

In playing around with the Bing Chat program I wanted to see just what it could do. I created a request as follows: 

Bing Chat responded with parsing the request:

And the result:

Cute!

So, you want to get out ahead of this ChatGPT craze?

In this industry, we always seem to be in a learning mode. Here is another instance of new technology getting a lot of focus and me sitting here thinking about whether I want to go ahead and get on board and start learning more about it or waiting to see if it really is going to be as big as it seems that it will be based on the amount of chatter around the product.

I came across an article this morning with the title: 10 of the best ChatGPT courses you can take for free this week that provides some links to free courses that you can take. The links provide access to all video content and will at least get you started in the right direction. Good Luck!

YouTubeTV Price Increase

Having made the leap to cutting the cord a couple of years ago, I still don't regret the move.

We have seen price increases across the board now with most of the services, so it seems like a great time to reevaluate all the services that we are using, and maybe, not using.

I have acquired quite a few online digital services for my online entertainment content. I listen to quite a few audio books and I was quite lucky to be able to take advantage of my early membership with Audible to have latch on to the 5 credit per month at the 2 credit price. They don't even offer more than 2 credits anymore! This kind of membership allows me to quickly take on a new author's book series and consume it. This is not even on the table.

We also have the Kindle Unlimited service. This is probably one that we could dial back on but my wife is starting to better understand that service. So it is another one that for now we will keep but watch if it continues to be something we take advantage of.

Now back to what originally started this article! YouTubeTV. It is my core TV service so it has to stay in as well as the 4K option. With the increase in the primary and the decrease in the 4k I still have a net $2.00's savings. This is a no brainer. However, we have Hallmark Movies and I think this is going to go. my wife just like gave me confirmation. This service will be terminated. Sorry Hallmark!

Amazon Prime has to be a keeper as well. It has a couple of series that I enjoy and the other benefits of service makes it a service to keep as well.

Hulu is a strange one that we don't visit much. With YouTubeTV giving us the opportunity to record anything with unlimited storage, why would we? That is another expense that I’m having a hard time justifying.

Netflix we use a lot for comedy specials and of course movie's so I am pretty much stuck there.

Peacock is another example where special content makes you come back.

Acorn has become our go to service for our favorite TV series to watch. We just love British shows and believe it or not, this is the least expensive of all of the services. I have to keep this one, too.

Add them all up and I really still feel that we are getting good value for our money compared to what cable offers. l am still quite happy with our decision to cut cable television from our lives.

How about you?

Note: Hallmark Movies gone! Hulu is still making the cut!