harlekins spirit

Is that intelligence already or can it go away?

What, not another piece about AI?! ChatGPT is making waves, most people have heard about it, but is it really “intelligence”? What is artificial about it and why are so many so enthusiastic about it? Some people are already see in it it the end of the world, but…

Chat GPT

Efficient tool or the end of independent thinking?

You must have been offline and probably off in deepest space not to have noticed all the fuss about Chat GPT lately. The possibilities, limitations, risks and side effects of the chatbot are currently being covered in all media. The interest in the website is now so great that access is not possible for hours. Although we at Harlekin.blog don’t see ourselves as trend followers, we thought it was time to react to all the hype about AI and try out the chatbot ourselves.

Risk management for urinals

After my first article for the Harlequin was about a rather neglected topic, i.e. toilet seats, it is time to look again at something somewhat neglected by the public: the urinal. Although not all readers can boast of personal experience in this context, the topic seems at least comprehensible to inexperienced third parties.

Can Botox save the car?

Where did the good cars go?

Car design has always been emotive. There are fashions just as there are for clothes. Hollywood glamour influenced lines in the 30s,…

State of matter with second time dimension makes quantum computers more robust

When I recently spotted the title in a science journal, my first thought was: Huh? (Hessian for Whaaaaat????) I understand the individual words, but I don’t know what they mean together.

I remember an episode when my brother happened to be standing in my office and overheard me talking to a colleague about a current IT project. When the colleague had left the room, my brother asked: “What were you actually talking about? I didn’t understand a word. What kind of gibberish was that?” He is a lawyer and therefore at home in his own language.

Breaking News: Deutsche Bahn finds light switch!

At the beginning of August, an attentive Deutsche Bahn employee activated a switch in the Bahn Tower in Berlin for the first time. It turned out to be the light switch. The Deutsche Bahn press office is now convinced that this switch can turn off all the lights in the building. Overwhelmed by the innovative power of his company, a railway board member himself proudly posted a press release to this effect on LinkedIn. Malicious tongues had claimed that the railway is Germany’s biggest energy consumer and would now lose its top position.

Dear Mr Söder,

on 22.06.2022 you said on Deutschlandfunk radio on the topic of extending the operating lives of nuclear power plants that the situation was very serious and that one should not “retreat to ideological corners” in this situation. Oh, Mr Söder, you speak from my heart! By the way, as far as the issue itself is concerned, the head of the energy company RWE, Markus Krebber, has an interesting objection. He said that the fuel rods could not simply be bought from anywhere, because they would have to “match the reactor type exactly”. And unfortunately, most of the uranium comes from Russia, which is why the “question of safety architecture or safety checks” should not be underestimated. When questioned about this, you pointed to expert appraisals by the Bavarian Ministry of the Environment and TÜV Süd, which came to completely different conclusions.

An algorithm has no tact

Where artificial intelligence gets it wrong, why it affects us and what we can do about it

I am not a specialist in Computer Science issues, but have been at home in the IT environment for many years as an Agile coach and organisational developer. I can recommend the book with the title above especially to “non-IT people” like me who want to take a closer look at the cryptic and not easily accessible topic of artificial intelligence and associated algorithms. In casual language, the author explains to us what algorithms are, how they work, what difficulties the unrestricted use of algorithms entails and at what point we can (and must) exert influence on their uncontrolled use. Katharina Zweig is a professor of Computer Science at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, where she heads the Algorithm Accountability Lab and is the founder of the “Socio-informatics” degree programme, which is unique in Germany.

Quantum physics for hippies

While regularly checking my SPAM filter last year, I came across a news mail that surprised me. I knew that research was being done in the field, but this message showed it in a completely different light:
Fraunhofer and IBM present live: Quantum Computing in Germany
Inauguration of Europe’s most powerful quantum computer in an industrial context 15th June 2021 – 14:00

While I was still in the process of clearing the SPAM filter, the realisation hit me that I hadn’t the slightest idea of how quantum computers work. As a result, I bought some books and read posts about it. But just as a basic understanding of the electron is needed to understand how the current generation of computers work with transistors (or formerly valves), a basic understanding of quanta and quantum physics is needed to understand a quantum computer.

The Digital Na(t)ive

The promise of digitalisation is everything will be easier, faster, more efficient, … you name it. Also important: you integrate your customers. Sounds good, doesn’t it? I work in IT myself and benefit directly from this narrative, but sometimes I am not only speechless, but really infuriated at how badly it can be messed up. What got me in this state? The instrument of direct debit authorisation.