As ChatGPT goes Enterprise, here are Ten GenAI Reality Checks you need to take… - A long list of practice advice for planning out AI use in the enterprise.

Google’s $30-per-month “Duet” AI will craft awkward emails, images for you - All about Google’s enterprise AI announcement. For me, Google Apps/G Suite/(whatever) is hands down the best all in one collab thing - Office 365 is so weird between desktop apps and web apps that I still can’t get my mind wrapped around it. Collaborative editing in desktop Word is so weird, and their sharing dialogs are awful. Plus, GMail is so good.

Halloween creeps a little closer: Seasonal supply chains accelerate - “Among outfits, the best performers have been those linked to clowns, which increased by 43% year over year” // Somewhere, there’s a financial analyst who really cares about the increase in clown costumes this Halloween.

Jennifer Riggins and The New Stack crew have a good booklet out on Platform Engineering. I read over it and talked with Jennifer a couple times. I should have recorded those calls to munge into some articles, but, whatever.

You should check it out, I think it’s a good go at trying to nail down exactly what that term means. This month, at least :)

Download the ebook for free

ChatDM, The Paper

This is what spurred me to start using ChatGPT as a ChatDM, here’s The Register article that led me to it.

I’ve yet to ask it questions like “describe drinking games that the satyrs are taking part in that are so dangerous someone could get hurt doing them” or “why would a Displacer Beast Kitten leave the safety of its den if it believes an intruder is nearby?”

One interesting point that’s worth bringing into the bigger AI/LLM discussion. “Hallucinations” can be bad if you want real, truth (in which cases, they’re “lies” from the wide meaning of that word). But, when you’re creating and story telling, “making things up” is the whole game. Thus, ChatGPT’s downside of making things up becomes an advantage when you’re trying to be creative.

Here’s the paper. As with most PDFs I’ve downloaded, I haven’t read it in detail. I could go all nuts and check out the github repo too. Here’s one of the other papers cited.

Making a discord bot helps scale it up, but it’d be great to just get four or five prompts you could feed into ChatGPT. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. You need a prompt to tell it you want it to DM (or play), one describing the world you’re playing in, one describing the start of an adventure, and then some mechanics (like feeding it monster stats, etc.). You’d also need to remind it of these things once the ChatDM’s memory had rolled off.

Automating that all with a bot would be helpful, sure. But then I’d have to figure out how to do all that.

Never underestimate the power of a cupcake

My co-worker Bryan Ross has been writing articles based on a video series I did…last summer? (Was it so long ago?). His most recent one is a round-up of his tips to get people to use your app platform. (Yeah, “platform engineering” - that’s a phrase I think I should stop using? I don’t know.) It’s a great write-up.

He’s got several more all ready to publish as well, and I’ll share those as they come out.

Upcoming

Talks I’ll be giving, places I’ll be, things I’ll be doing, etc.

SREDay London is coming up in a few weeks, I’m speaking there. They gave me a discount code for “friends and team members.” Feel like you’re all at least on my team, right? The code is 50-SRE-DAY and you’ll get 50% off the tickets.

Meanwhile, travel season is back, and here’s where I’ll be, so far:

Sep 6th O’Reilly Infrastructure & Ops Superstream: Kubernetes, online, speaking. Sep 6th to 7th DevOpsDays Des Moines, speaking. Sep 13th, stackconf, Berlin. Sep 14th to 15th SREday, London, speaking (get 50% of registration with the code 50-SRE-DAY) Sep 18th to 19th SHIFT in Zadar, speaking. Oct 3rd Enterprise DevOps Techron, Utrecht, speaking. Nov 6th to 9th VMware Explore in Barcelona, speaking.

Wastebook

• Related followup on yesterday’s customer value is “dangerous” episode.

• “People have been asking what celebrations I’m planning. I tell them none, but they’re welcome to come streetwalking with me as long as they don’t speak. Just allow me to shake my head, sigh deeply and not look where I’m going. Birthdays are not for flâneurs. You can’t saunter lazily through the city observing its rich variety if all you can think about are the years you have left to you.” Here.

• And: “I had hated exercise at school when it was free, so there was no sense in paying someone to make me as unhappy as I’d been then.” Ibid.

Relative to your interests

• Why We Glorify Overwork and Refuse to Rest - One of the better explanations of what’s probably wrong with me: “It’s the most reliable way to feel a sense of his own worthiness — and to avoid difficult emotions.”

• Europe’s new rules for Big Tech start today. Are they ready? - “Under the DSA digital service providers - including hosting services, online platforms, VLOPs and even intermediary service providers like ISPs - have obligations to ensure that products sold are safe and not counterfeit, and to eliminate advertising that targets minors or is served using sensitive data. Another requirement is to get rid of dark patterns in advertising. Clarity on how orgs moderate content and a requirement to present their algorithms for scrutiny is also required.” And larger services that reach 45m+ EU people have more, they “have to share data with ‘vetted’ researchers and governments, allow users to opt out of profiling recommendations, submit to regular audits, and have risk management and a crisis response plans in place.”

• The new spreadsheet? OpenAI introduces ChatGPT Enterprise for businesses - Can handle longer conversations, encryption, by default doesn’t share your stuff with the training AI, and SOC2 accounting controls. Also, of course, an admin panel.

Logoff

I’m starting to do the final think through of talk I’ll be giving next week at DevOpsDays Des Moines. I was asked to speak at the conference long ago (it’s a real compliment to be asked to speak), and I see was I clever enough to write an interesting, but ambiguous abstract!

There are a few things that I’m pushing around in my mind:

1. A conversation I had with an enterprise architect recently that went something like “why don’t we just use what we have correctly instead of installing a new paradigm?”

2. You’re working harder on the wrong things.

3. Optimizing vs. satisficing. Or: "once you've trained in accountancy, it seems like the only job."

I keep getting pulled to “do less, focus on one thing,” but I want to escape that kind of obvious bromide. Perhaps more of what I’m trying to get to is: “it’ll work itself out, don’t pre-optimize.” And, point one is key too: before you hop back to the start of the diffusion of innovation curve/hype cycle, have you tried reading the manual for what you currently have and following the directions this time?

Chance are high, you’ll skip reading the manual for this new thing. Case in point, the need for the Kubernetes community to tell everyone that it’s a platform for building platforms (insert Tweet screenshot) and that it’s not really intended for application developers. Then, lo and behold, when you don’t follow the original intent and scope of Kubernets, it’s complex and difficult! Security-blah-blah, skills gap, etc., costs, etc.!

A visual from a Torsten Volk study I saw recently:

What you see here is that Kubernetes is a tiny part of the overall stack you have. The infamous CNCF landscape shows this as well. What matters are all the things you wrap around it. I didn’t realize this early on in the container wars - I was famous on Software Defined Talk for saying “I thought Kubernetes already did that” when some new startup or project popped up. And I don’t think when we talk about “Kubernetes” we realize that Kubernetes is a tiny part of what we’re talking about. If you’re building a platform, or whatever, Kubernetes is probably the least of your problems. If you’re not already good at all that other stuff, you’re just fucking yourself up by changing that one box out. Why not just try being good at that other stuff first with what you have?

Anyhow, save it for the presentation, I guess.

ChatGPT finds a role playing Dungeons & Dragons - This is what spurred me to start using ChatGPT as a ChatDM. I’ve yet to ask it questions like “describe drinking games that the satyrs are taking part in that are so dangerous someone could get hurt doing them” or “why would a Displacer Beast Kitten leave the safety of its den if it believes an intruder is nearby?” One interesting point that’s worth raising into the bigger AI/LLM discussion. “Hallucinations” can be bad if you want real, truth (in which cases, they’re “lies” from the wide meaning of that word). But, when you’re creating and story telling, “making things up” is the whole game. Thus, ChatGPT’s downside of making things up becomes an advantage when you’re trying to be creative.

Why We Glorify Overwork and Refuse to Rest - One of the better explanations of what’s probably wrong with me: “It’s the most reliable way to feel a sense of his own worthiness — and to avoid difficult emotions.”

The new spreadsheet? OpenAI introduces ChatGPT Enterprise for businesses - Can handle longer conversations, encryption, by default doesn’t share your stuff with the training AI, and SOC2 accounting controls. Also, of course, an admin panel.

Europe’s new rules for Big Tech start today. Are they ready? - “Under the DSA digital service providers - including hosting services, online platforms, VLOPs and even intermediary service providers like ISPs - have obligations to ensure that products sold are safe and not counterfeit, and to eliminate advertising that targets minors or is served using sensitive data. Another requirement is to get rid of dark patterns in advertising. Clarity on how orgs moderate content and a requirement to present their algorithms for scrutiny is also required.” And larger services that reach 45m+ EU people have more, they “have to share data with ‘vetted’ researchers and governments, allow users to opt out of profiling recommendations, submit to regular audits, and have risk management and a crisis response plans in place."

Don’t get hung up on “customer value” and “business value”

I feel like this metaphor of “customer value” (and “business value”) has gone too far. It’s become something that people think is real, not just metaphor.

Instead of “value” what we’re talking about is something like “is useful at a price the customer will pay.” Jobs to Be Done theory feels a lot closer to real.

The other issue: there are not ROI spreadsheets for a lot of things in our personal lives. What’s the ROI of eating dinner? What’s the ROI of watching a good TV show, enjoying the cup holders in your car, paying a lot extra to get a private pool at your AirBnB?

The pervasiveness of thinking about “value” and seeking ROI makes it hard to say things like “sure, those trash bags are one euro more a box, but they just work better than the cheaper ones.” Or, “I don’t know, we should just keep paying for Netflix because I like watching things on it.”

There is no spreadsheet that will show the ROI of getting surgery: avoiding death has intuitive value. You can get ripped off: you could have gotten the same for a cheaper price. I think of lot of ROI analyses should be reduced to that: did we get the best price, and are we happy with the outcome? Never mind “the return on investment.” Thinking that keeping your computers running is an “investment” is like thinking of getting needed surgery as an “investment.”

I don’t know, as a customer I don’t want “value,” I want to be satisfied with what I got, I want it to do the job I needed/wanted, and I want to pay a fair price. And then, usually, I don’t want to have to manage it or think about it.

You can call that all “value,” but the danger is that you’ll lose track of the original, literal thing. And then you need this kind of advice to pull you back.

Wastebook

• Those who are satisfied do not speak. Here.

• New hunch: PE firms mess with the evolve or die tenant of capitalism, “creative destruction.” They’re like cheat-codes that extend your video game characters life.

• All is chaos. Thus, you can’t solve chaos by introducing more chaos. All you can do is accept the chaos and move on with your life. The enlightened use chaos to create more chaos. All evil is the denial of chaos and the sad attempt to beg Apollo to bring order.

• To say that you cannot trust your perceptions and your model of reality - the basis of all those who believe that all is nothing - prima facie disproves itself. For, if you believe that, how can your trust your conclusions thus?

• “data isn’t oil; data is sand.” Tim O’Reilly.

• “we are very short-term oriented, so we hardly stop to consider that this very mundane moment we are in now, a moment that seems so plentiful because it happens as part of our daily life, will become a precious piece of history one day.” Here.

• “the general raucousness of the occasion” Here.

Roll 20 for Distraction

Since last time, I’ve added a whole new layer of obsession to my renewed D&D hobby1…I guess you’d call it. I’ve managed to play several times with my kids. Once on a long bike ride, no dice needed, but you can use the color of the next car coming over the bridge if you need something random, I mean, they’re all basically black, white, grey, or “other” when it comes to color.

What I’ve done, though, is started using ChatGPT to both be a ChatDM and also a player. And also a co-writer for world building, adventures, and the like. So much so, that I started a blog to dump it all into: Eldergrove.quest. You can see my working theory for how to do D&D stuff with ChatGPT in the about page. I’m thinking of a way to livestream this “ChatDM” stuff. I think if I read the responses out loud it’d be something - and just general how to commentary. I have to tell you, D&D videos get a lot more views than digital transformation videos!

Midjourney is also pretty good, though a completely mystery to use precisely.

The ChatDM is great at little tasks like coming up with nonsense things a pixie would say to stupefy people. I’ve used to do some world-building, and it’s been a fun co-author for hyper-focused NPC studies.

Anyhow, I’ll maybe mention some more stuff I figure out here, but check out the blog if you’re into this kind of thing for the ongoing updates.

Relative to your interests

• VMware Explore’s 5 Big Reveals: Updates To Tanzu, vSAN, NSX+, Workspaces And An AI Deal With Nvidia - As it says. Includes some actual deal size info for Tanzu and Workspaces. Also, see this Broadcom/VMware analysis from the Silicon Angle crowd.

• Developers Are the Future Of VMware (Part 2): Multi-Cloud and AI, Torsten Volk - Good examples and thinking on using LLM AI in systems management stuff, in this case with VMware Tanzu and Aria.

• Rory Sutherland interviewed by Rick Ruben. - There’s a lot going on here!

• IBM sells off The Weather Company to Francisco Partners - I have to imaging that it’s a company that kind of runs itself at this time. If your business is consumer weather reporting, you’re kind of just repacking reality, and you’ve got a product that most everyone wants daily access to. Ratchet up the ads and a subscription business, and all you’re doing is an occasional UI and UX redesign to seem new and fresh. Perfect for a PE cash machine. // “As to what Francisco Partners intends to ultimately do with The Weather Company, you can probably guess. The PE fund said it will focus on making the most of three core areas: The Weather Company’s website and app, as used by netizens; its forecasting services for businesses and other orgs; and its advertising platform.”

• You Think You’re Not That Ambitious. Are You Dead Wrong About That? - “This is why finding the right balance of ambition and self-care is a lifelong challenge. Because it’s HARD to recognize when you need a real break, a real rest, a true period of nothingness long enough and big enough that you can rediscover who you are and what you love. But it’s also hard to notice when that freedom starts to become oppressive. It’s difficult to keep your eye on your own control panel, adding and subtracting structure and scheduling and organization from your life in order to maximize your happiness and productivity.”

• US judge: Art created solely by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted - This is going to be weird for a few years, at least.

Logoff

Big props to the guy in this sleepy, Amsterdam suburb walking home from the grocery store and taking ten minutes to get the perfect selfie, pencil thin blunt hanging out his mouth, backlit by the golden hour sunlight. It’s good knowing he’s out there, taking her easy for all us sinners.

US judge: Art created solely by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted - This is going to be weird for a few years, at least.