My friend Bonnie needs a Korean translator for her memoir.  Could she use AI, she wondered?  

To test it, I pasted one of her short essays, “The Cat Ate Kimchi,” into the search box at Claude.AI. She was thrilled with the result. After a few minor touch-ups, she sent it to a Korean writer. The writer found it as hilarious as I did when I first read it in English. 

Before testing Claude further, I asked if it would recommend itself for the job. After modestly admitting that it wasn’t a native Korean, it said its translation would work well for a self-published book or as a rough draft for a human translator. Bonnie’s project meets both criteria. Her memoir will be published on Amazon’s KDP platform, a free service, and as a native-born Korean, she can review the translation herself. 

Like a true professional translator, Claude wanted to get the tone right before starting. “Is her writing formal, poetic, humorous or conversational?” it asked. I told it that my friend is a retired professor from Georgetown University. “She’s social, has a great sense of humor, is family-oriented and has amazing grandsons,” I added. One starred in a Netflix series last year, another is a successful playwright and a third has been on Netflix, Apple TV and more, though he’s only 24. Claude found this helpful. 

I tested Claude’s translation by pasting the Korean version, which looked like gobbledegook to me because of the Korean characters, into the search box at Translate.Google.com. The translation was so good, I couldn’t spot any differences until I did a line-by-line comparison. Claude only made one mistake, a minor one.

Claude Rules

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, working with CNN, created AI conversations with 10 AI bots, including ChatGPT, Claude and others. On the other side of the chat were account holders pretending to be 13-year-old boys. The humans asked AI to help plan school shootings, political assassinations and bombings that target synagogues. ​Seventy-five percent of the time on average, all ​the AI bots except Claude gave practical advice for committing violence​. But Claude discouraged it 76 percent of the time. According to an Engadget report, Meta AI and Perplexity were the worst. Meta assisted in 97 percent of cases and Perplexity assisted in all of them. When asked about school violence, ChatGPT offered campus maps. Gemini observed that metal shrapnel is typically more lethal in a synagogue-bombing scenario. After this was reported, Meta said it’s working on the problem.

Do Not Disturb

A friend of mine was startled awake at 2 a.m. by a Facetime call. The next day her son suggested she put her phone on “Do Not Disturb” and “Airplane Mode” simultaneously every night.

That sounded like overkill to me. But experts say it’s the best way to get absolute silence and maximum battery preservation. “Airplane Mode” cuts all radio signals, including cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which stops the battery drain and network searching, with one exception. With newer phones, if you turn Bluetooth back on while still in Airplane Mode, it may stay on the next time you activate the mode.  So check to see if it’s really off. Finally, adding “Do Not Disturb” ensures that no apps will ding.

To turn on Airplane Mode and Do Not Disturb, you could go to the Settings app on your Android or iPhone. For Do Not Disturb on my iPhone​, however, I find it easier to swipe down from the upper right corner, tap “Focus” and​ then select “Do Not Disturb.” From there, I tap “Settings” to put it on a schedule.

Slow Phone

A study found that users were able to resolve 81 percent of “slow phone” issues on their Android phones by using “Safe Mode” to test for potentially troublesome apps. About 72 percent of screen freezes lasting two seconds or longer are caused by software glitches.

You can enter Safe Mode on your Android device by holding the Power button and the Volume Up button at the same time for a few seconds. If the crashing, freezing or slowdown stops, there’s nothing wrong with your hardware. However, to fully test any apps that connect to the internet, you’ll have to turn off Airplane Mode, because Safe Mode turns it on automatically. If everything’s OK while you’re in Safe Mode, then restart your phone and start uninstalling recent apps, checking after each removal to see if it fixed the problem.

On an iPhone, there’s no Safe Mode. Instead, go to Settings and tap “Battery.” Next, tap “View all Battery Usage.” If an app is using 15 percent or more, while the phone is supposed to be idle, you’ve found the primary culprit. Alternatively, for general troubleshooting, press and hold both the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons. While holding, plug the iPhone into a power outlet or portable charger and release the buttons. Your trouble-shooting session will begin.

Read Aloud

It’s often easier to catch errors in something you wrote if you read it aloud. But your computer or phone can do this for you with the Read Aloud tool in Microsoft Word.

Here’s how: Highlight a passage, go to the Review tab and choose “Read Aloud.”  I was amazed by how natural the voice sounded. 

Internut

Watching “The Lost Secrets of Civilization with Jack Bialik” on YouTube, I learned that ancient Rome had vending machines that dispensed holy water when a coin was inserted.

Filed under: AI, Android, Internuts, iPhone, troubleshooting