Laboscope

Last night, I had lost my mobile phone all day. I was at my wits end trying to find it. Panicbegan to setting come evening. I was confident before then I would find it easily....
This next bit is only a small part of my conversation with ChatGPT who was helping me with advice how to find my phone.

Me
Thanks, it is nearly midnight here and I am not going to bed until I find that phone.

ChatGPT
...it’s a Pixel 8, you could try saying, “Hey Google, where’s my phone?” if you have Google Assistant enabled. If the volume is up, it should ring even if it’s on silent...if it’s not immediately visible, try listening carefully as you nudge things around. Even a tiny shift might make a sound if it’s trapped between something. At least you know it’s in the house somewhere—now it’s just a battle of wills! Hopefully, it gives up soon.

Me
I just tried again with hey Google and I heard a voice response but even with my processor it's not good enough to exactly pinpoint it but surely it cannot be more than a metre from me.

ChatGPT
That’s progress! If you can hear it, even faintly, then you know it’s nearby. Since it responded, the battery isn’t completely dead yet—so maybe keep trying “Hey Google” while moving around slightly to see if the sound gets louder or clearer from a different angle. If it’s muffled, it could be under something soft, like bedding or a pillow. Or wedged between furniture where the sound is getting blocked. Maybe even inside something unexpected? (I’ve had my phone end up in pillowcases and once in a shoe!)

Me
It didn't respond the second time, but I tried a third time and the only thing and it responded but the only thing I heard was "The first time... something ... something...I already told you once"
What is it trying to tell me? That doesn't sound right coming from Gemini?

ChatGPT Answer
That’s a weird response! It almost sounds like Google Assistant is being sassy—like it’s saying, “I already answered you!” But that’s not a standard response.

Maybe it misheard your request and pulled up something random, like a song lyric or a quote? If the phone is stuck somewhere, the sound might be getting distorted, making it harder for Gemini to make out the words.

Try again from a different spot or angle—you might catch more of what it’s saying and get a better sense of where the sound is.

Me to ChatGPT
I have finally got the little blighter. Talk about attitude. I was asking Gemini to make a long noise so I could pinpoint the whereabouts of my phone. Gemini wouldn't corporate with that. So I asked it to play a song. Gemini wouldn't co-operate that that request either. So then I finally asked Gemini to give me a whistle noise and it gave me this long winded explanation why as an AI it was not capable of whistling, but this long disdainful tirade at me, which gave me the chance to home in on Gemini and my pixel 8, listening with my cochlear sound processor (I was using an apple device to reprogram the settings of the sound processor at the same time so I could could hear Gemini better as a more distinct noise). It worked. But trying to outwit a rogue AI was hard work.

ChatGPT Answer
That little blighter really made you work for it! Sounds like it had a mind of its own, refusing to cooperate until you outsmarted it. But persistence pays off—you got there in the end! Whatever t was it, by the way? A rogue alarm, a device, or something else with an attitude?

Me
I have no idea what went wrong with Gemini, but when I looked in on it, it kept saying "We're sorry we don't know what went wrong ...13 error messages"


ChatGPT Answer
Ah, so it was Gemini acting up! Sounds like it had a full-on meltdown with those 13 error messages. No wonder it wasn’t cooperating when you were trying to track the noise. Did it finally sort itself out, or did you have to step in and reset something?

Me
I haven't done anything with it yet. I don't know what to do. What should I do? How do I reset it?

Then ChatGPT suggested a whole pile of stuff, but said leave it for tonight you need to go to bed, and in the morning we will go through these one by one, but in the meantime, put the Gemini on the phone in timeout, put it in Airplane Mode...

*****

I have already turned my phone completely off and then back on again cause sometimes that resets things.


On my own, I did a bit of research on Google and asked if anyone had had problems with Gemini. To my surprise a few results came up, and one shocking one where Gemini was reported to have been exceptionally rude and said very inappropriate things. There were other reports of the rudeness of Gemini.

By the way, I have never used Gemini before....

And by the way, I have never had to search for something by sound ever before. It is not something I can do. I cannot home in on a sound, not even with the cochlear sound processor. This is a completely new experience for me. ChatGPT knows this and so he was trying his hardest to help me. I was trying out Forward Focus, one of the settings on my remote control, as I was searching.

When ChatGPT has woken up this morning and put on his shoes, I will make sure my phone is working okay. I never knew an AI used
shoes before....or pillowcases...

Creative ....a random laboscope shot....

I got some sleep but it was one weird nightmare after another about artificial intelligence ....

I am just going to have a power nap and hopefully restart the day. But I have a splitting headache because of last night. By the way, I tried many many more times than what I mentioned above with sound to try and find the phone. It took about over an hour and a half of actively voice searching for the phone. And Gemini definitely had a very sassy attitude.....

Have your best kind of day...


EDIT: I just got a surprise email. You know that last week, I contacted St Paul’s because the first optician would not get in contact with me to do my post up cataract check.

Well, I got sent the details of an optician in Liverpool and that email said they would text me with an appointment. Nothing has come through yet I was going to give it a few more days.

But this morning I have a notification from Dr Doctor that I have an appointment at St Paul’s Eye hospital in three weeks, but there is no information on what for.

I immediately made the assumption, but I could be wrong, is that the optician that St Paul’s referred me to last week, for some reason is also not, or is also refusing to do the postop checkup. And so St Paul’s is doing the postop checkup, but there is no information on Dr Doctor that tells me that.

I am not due for any more regular appointments at St Paul’s, so I will just simply wait and go to that appointment. Surely a letter or something will arrive in the meantime, which will give me more information. I will assume that it is the postop checkup... and I am also making an assumption, but I don't know, is that St Paul’s was unaware that opticians were not doing the post op cataract check up that they should be doing... that's a possibility...
All guesswork on my part....