April Fools!

April 1st. A time of year that I would typically write some ridiculous story to try to fool and/or entertain you (or me!)  This year I’ve decided not to write an April Fools post but instead have requested my upcoming replacement, Bard, to develop one instead.

It was a beautiful day at Angle Lake. The sun shone, the birds sang, and the water was crystal-clear blue. A group of friends enjoyed a picnic on the shore when they noticed something strange. The water was starting to bubble and churn.

"What's going on?" one of them asked.

"I don't know," another replied. "But it looks like something is coming up from the bottom."

As they watched, a giant creature emerged from the water. It was a Loch Ness Monster-type creature with a long neck and a humped back.

The friends were scared, but the creature just smiled at them.

"April Fools!" it said. "I'm just kidding. I'm not really a monster."

The friends laughed and were relieved.

"But what are you doing here?" one of them asked.

"I'm just taking a vacation," the creature replied. "I've been working hard all year, and I thought I deserved a break."

The friends chatted with the creature for a while longer, and then it said goodbye and swam back into the lake.

The friends never saw the creature again but never forgot its April Fool's prank.

Introducing Bard.

Bard is an experimental Google chatbot that the LaMDA large language model powers. It's a generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) that accepts prompts and performs text-based tasks like providing answers and summaries and creating various forms of content, including Blog Posts. 

In the coming weeks, I have been asked by our Board Leadership Team to continue to collaborate with and train Bard in preparation to turn over my current ALSC Blog responsibilities to him… her… them… it? After which, I will officially resign from the board.

If you’d like to experiment with the application yourself - you’ll find Bard at: https://bard.google.com/