Video of the Week: Google Omni
- Mal McCallion
- 13 hours ago
- 2 min read
Right. Settle down. I said settle down.
Now.
I've been asked to explain what's happening here, and I'll do my best, though I should say upfront that something is slightly off and I can't put my finger on what. My chalk is behaving correctly and writing clear, accurate equations; sin²θ + cos²θ = 1, there it is, rendered perfectly - which is more than I can say for Darren in the third row, who has drawn what I am hoping is a pistol on his exercise book.
I am self-evidently teaching a trigonometry lesson. The classroom smells of floor polish and mild indifference, as it should. The fluorescent light at the back has been flickering since 1982 and nobody has fixed it. These are constants. I find them reassuring.
However, I understand that machines have learned from everything humanity has ever written, drawn, filmed and published and one has chosen - of all the infinite things it might have made - to generate this. A trigonometry lesson. I find that either deeply flattering or profoundly depressing, and I haven't decided which.
I'm also told that people who sell houses might find this useful. The video, I mean. Something about making professional-looking content in seconds. With text, which was previously almost impossible. I don't know why they'd want a maths lesson, but I don't make the decisions.
What I can tell you is that if a machine can now render chalk equations correctly - and apparently Google's new 'Omni' AI, likely to be launched this week at something called an 'I/O Conference', can - then it can probably render a kitchen extension or an advert for the best local estate agent rather well too. It's the same principle, more or less. Accurate representation of something real. We've been trying to do that in maths since Pythagoras, though, and look how that turned out.
Right. Back to the unit circle. You - yes you, Darren - put that away.
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