Letters
Tell us what’s on your mind
Most Brits would support Government against Apple
Well done Apple and other privacy campaigners for forcing the legal case against the Government to be heard in public (Issue 708, page 7).
I have no idea whether the Government’s request to be given access to Apple’s encrypted files is reasonable or justified, but it’s significant enough to be open to public scrutiny.
The Government might even come to be thankful for the ruling because what’s revealed in the case might actually support their position, especially if the scale of the threat posed to the public is revealed. I suspect most Brits would be prepared to sacrifice full encryption if it gave police more powers to tackle terrorism or child abusers.
Ray Dixon
ChatGPT couldn’t help me with simple Excel task
I was as disturbed as Ralph Johnson when I read that ChatGPT accused a man of murdering his children (Star Letter, Issue 708). It’s a moment to pause and ask whether we really want to be governed by AI in the future. I’ve found ChatGPT helpful when writing formal letters to my bank, solicitor and insurance companies. But it’s still riddled with inaccuracies.
As an experiment I asked it how to perform a specific (but relatively simple) task in Excel. It gave me several steps that I followed and soon realised were wrong. I explined this to it, and it apologised and gave me more instructions. These too were wrong, and it apologised again. This happened several times. It only takes one negative experience like this to put you off trusting it as a reliable tool. It certainly has never given me instructions as crystal-clear as you’ll find in the pages of Computeractive!