World Cup Fever, a Hell of a Book, and a new tool for the future
Hi friends,
Welcome to another edition of The Retrospect! With the World Cup in full swing, I can't help but plan my mornings around each match. From waking up at 5 am, to watch my beloved #BlackStars all the way to sneaking streams during meetings (but don't tell my manager this). However, as much as I'm enjoying each match and the drama and tensions in each group, I cannot help but feel conflicted, given the tournament's controversy. From allegations of corruption in the bidding process to the concerns about the harsh and inhumane treatment of migrant workers who built all the stadiums for our entertainment, it's been hard to fully enjoy each match without understanding all the lives sacrificed for our own enjoyment.
On the other hand, there's nothing more passion-filled than cheering on your own country. My team, Ghana, qualified for the first time since 2014, and it was by our luck we were placed in a sorta "Group of Death" containing Ronaldo's Portugal, Heung-min Son's South Korea, and Luis "Hand of the Devil" Suarez's Uruguay. From our narrow defeat to Portugal to our resilient victory against South Korea, I felt we showed our qualities. However, the match that mattered the most, our ill-fated revenge grudge match against Uruguay, ended in defeat, with Andre Ayew, the only remaining member of the 2010 Quarter-final defeat, missing a key penalty kick. We entered the match with too much passion and a bit too haunted by 2010's ghosts. Despite all of this, South Korea did the unbelievable to defeat Portugal in stoppage time to simultaneously knock out Uruguay, which felt like a type of consolation for my Ghanaian kinfolk. Despite the tough group, I am beyond proud of our performance and cannot wait for the 2026 World Cup, where I genuinely believe we can show the world just how far an African country can go.
Thanks for hanging with my World Cup thoughts; in case you couldn't tell, it has consumed me🍿.
Book Talk📚
I've been reading Hell of a Book by Jason Mott this week, and I'm really enjoying it. It's provided excellent commentary on the black experience in America in a casual yet insightful manner. I'm about halfway through, but I'm looking forward to finishing it.
Intentional Content Consumption📰
🧠 AI Tool - This week, I've been obsessed with and slightly terrified by ChatGPT. It is a natural language processing chatbot that uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to generate conversation similar to how a human would respond. It is designed to mimic human conversation and to be able to interact with people in real time. The super cool thing is you can ask it about any question — from basic questions like "explain the controversy surrounding the 2022 World Cup" to programming questions like "how do I code x in [insert language]." It can even outline ideas about anything, like an essay on the origin of coffee blends, or even creating a christmas poem about public transit! Look at the example below:
While I can see this being a potent tool to improve the quality of work I do (even if it's by streamlining some of my processes), I am a bit concerned about how it could dampen critical thinking skills. If used properly, it can act as a resource, but if not, people could easily become overly reliant on it. Additionally, it could perpetuate inherent biases in the training data the model is based on, which could lead to discriminatory or even harmful behavior. Overall, I think we need to keep in mind the rapid pace technology is advancing and develop frameworks for us to keep up and use them ethically!
Well, folks, that about wraps this week's Retrospect. It has been quite the week - from cheering on Ghana to exploring the ChatGPT AI tool, I've been on an emotional roller coaster. Until next time!
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Best,
Awoe ✌🏾