"The day ChatGPT learns to sort out Mrs Miggins' password problems, I'm stuffed"

Are these tales involving AI, dodgy porn sites and motorhome plumbing just a shameless plug for the PC Pro Podcast? Like and subscribe to find out

- LEE GRANT

As all the cool kids know, the place to be on a Thursday at 1pm is sitting next to your crystal-set, listening to the PC Pro Podcast as it broadcasts to the nation. There are over 700 episodes to endure because it began way back in 2007 (don’t do the maths, there have been a few “pauses”), making it one of the longest-running technology podcasts on the planet, which is rather impressive.

My reason for including this shameless plug is that as the podcast covers the latest tech news, we have the luxury of talking about developing topics over many months, and our current “oh-hell-are-we-talking-about-that-again?” is AI.

What is particularly fascinating for me, as a PC Pro Podcast listener, is discerning the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) differences between the hosts about how they use AI technology and the broader implications of its use. As a PC Pro Podcast guest, my contributions to our round-table often focus on the environmental aspects of the technology as I’m often compelled to admit that my initiated use of AI, in day-to-day life, is rare. The Damoclean caveat being that the day ChatGPT learns to hold a soldering iron or sort out Mrs Miggins’ password problems, I’m stuffed.

However, a desktop PC arrived in the shop last month for a CPU upgrade and I resorted to AI in order to finish the job. If you read Tim Danton’s fabulous feature on the joy of desktops (see issue 374, p26), then you’ll have seen me wax lyrical about how their modularity will often bring long-term upgrade options to keep hardware in use for far longer than semi-disposable laptops. Usually, upgrades are easy to perform, greatly reducing the chances of damaging components with a fitting error. This machine was more challenging.