e510 — Singing To the Dolphins

e510 — Singing To the Dolphins

Author: Michael Rowe, Michael Martine, Andy Piper April 21, 2025 Duration: 31:28
dolphin in the water
Photo by Ádám Berkecz on Unsplash

Published 21 April 2025

e510 with Andy, Michael and Michael – AI stories ranging from privacy, dolphin communication, open source models for robots, Game Transfer Phenomenon and much more.

Andy, Michael and Michael get things off to a fast start with all things AI with a Bloomberg article reporting on Apple “analyzing data on customer’s devices in a bid to improve its artificial intelligence platform”.  Apple shares a deeper take on the differential privacy and how it is employed to improve on the synthetic data used to train Apple Intelligence.  Then, the team turns to a different way of training LLMs without forcing human language, which they found to be much more efficient, and potentially may unlock new chain of reasoning operations.  Andy’s “autocomplete for stuff” description of AI is amazing.  Next, is an intriguing AI model being developed to better understand dolphin communications.  The chain of thought from this article leads to the camera only recently recovered from Loch Ness, Star Trek, Star Wars and of course, Douglas Adam’s fictional treatment of dolphins.  After discussing open source AI robots and the challenges / benefits posed by AI geolocation sophistication, the team turns to OpenAI’s work on a social media platform.  

After an article on Game Transfer Phenomenon, which describes how games and gameplay leak into the real world, the co-hosts wrap up with a PICO-8 demake of Warcraft III and a hearty endorsement of the Mythic Quest tv show.  Both Michael R and Andy have watched the entirety of Mythic Quest, and Michael M has put it on the list to watch.

What do you expect the dolphins have to say to each other, and to humankind?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! 

These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot.  All rights reserved.  That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Selected Links

AI

Bloomberg article: Apple to Analyze User Data on Devices to Bolster AI Technology

Apple’s Machine Learning Research Blog post: Understanding Aggregate Trends for Apple Intelligence Using Differential Privacy

Quanta Magazine article: To Make Language Models Work Better, Researchers Sidestep Language

ZD Net article: Google is talking to dolphins using Pixel phones and AI – and the video is delightful

BBC article: Camera set up to catch Loch Ness Monster discovered

Games At Work e495: Personal Planetarium for use of AI in translating animal communications

The Hitchhiker’s Wiki entry: Dolphins

The Hitchhiker’s Wiki entry: Mice

IMdB: Star Trek: Lower Decks (dolphin navigators)

Wookipedia entry: Purrgil (space whales)

Wired article: An Open Source Pioneer Wants to Unleash Open Source AI Robots

Huggingface: closed-vs-open-arena-elo

ChatGPT's o3 model can pinpoint a location from a photo, and give a pretty good deduction as to the point the photo was taken from. It's no Rainbolt, but any photos taken at or near your home, even with stripped metadata, are no longer safe
flausch.social/@piegames/11435

— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social)
2025-04-17T15:11:54.594Z

Reuters article: OpenAI is working on X-like social media network, the Verge reports

Games Carrying Over IRL

BBC article: Health bars and power ups: The ‘freaky and unpleasant’ world when video games leak into the physical realm

Taylor and Francis Online article: Prevalence and Characteristics of Game Transfer Phenomena: A Descriptive Survey Study

Making

lexaloffle.com blog post: Picocraft – demake of Warcraft III

itch.io Top Rated Games tagged Demake and PICO-8

Wikipedia article: PICO-8

Media

The Verge article: Apple’s Mythic Quest has come to an end

IMdB: Mythic Quest


The weekly conversation hosted by Michael Rowe, Michael Martine, and Andy Piper, Games At Work dot Biz, explores the intersection where our digital play and professional lives collide. This isn't just a review show; it's a deep dive into the technology that powers our hobbies, the business behind the leisure, and the cultural news shaping both worlds. Each episode feels like pulling up a chair with three friends who are as passionate about the craft of game development and the evolution of hardware as they are about the pure joy of finding a great new title. You'll hear specific discussions on everything from the latest graphics card impacting performance to the narrative design of an indie darling, all filtered through the lens of professionals who live in the tech space. The Games At Work dot Biz podcast operates on the belief that the games we play and the tools we use are inextricably linked, offering listeners a consistently thoughtful and engaging analysis that goes far beyond a simple score. Tune in for a regular dose of insightful commentary where the serious business of technology meets the serious fun of games.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 50

Games At Work dot Biz
Podcast Episodes
e531 – Games and Such [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:02
Epredator created AI Generated image Michael R and Ian “Epredator” Hughes get together for a chat about #gaming, #VR, and #technology. We talk about some of our favorite comfort games, how they are procedurally generated…
e530 — Vibe It! - Ready Player Chum [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:47
Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-robot-toy-on-gray-concrete-floor-9026299/ Published 29 September 2025 e530 with Michael and Michael – an AI extravaganza with vibe coding, AI gaming c…
e529 — Shake, Shake, Shake Your iPhone [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:12
Photo by Ravi Sharma on Unsplash Published 15 September 2025 e529 with Michael, Andy and Michael – stories about AR glasses & snarky AI wearables, Carrot Weather, Rabbit OS2, shaking to summarize, Doomscrolling and a who…
e528 — Monstrous Mice & Nano Bananas [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:59
ChatGPT 5 generated image of a banana in the midst of an atom cloudgenerated 31 August 2025 Published 8 September 2025 e528 with Michael, Andy and Michael – stories about AI image editing with Nano Banana, GAN enabled LL…
e527 — AI Taco Trolls [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:06
Photo by Daniel Hooper 🌊 on Unsplash Published 1 September 2025 e527 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stories about AI restaurant experiences, historical LLMs, zoetropes and a whole lot more. After Michael R gives his im…
e526 — Beans and Bricks [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:24
Photo by Michael Martine, Chapel Hill, NC August 2025 Published 25 August 2025 e526 with Andy and Michael M – stories about focus – finding things that are missing, reducing distractions with apps like Focus Friend and B…
e525 – See Thru Wooden Pixels [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:02
Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash The Michaels take some time to talk about AI, Apple and Gaming this week, while Andy is out. While we are not an all Michael podcast, we did see a few Mike posts on Mastodon from Mike El…
e524 — Googlenight, AI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:14
Googlenight, AI virtual book cover Published 11 August 2025 e524 with Andy and Michael M – stories about AI generated goodnight stories, Med-Gemini, GPT-5, skeuomorphism, scrobbling, seeing through doors and a whole lot…
e523 — Two hundred and sixty six starlings [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:42
Photo by Pete Godfrey on Unsplash Published 4 August 2025 e523 with Michael R and Andy, possibly arriving via carefully-arranged starlings? – stories about AI again, obviously; iPadOS 26; games, old and new; and, an inno…
e522 — Pointing at Doomed Fish [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:58
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash Published 28 July 2025 e522 with Michael M and Andy – stories about AI in multiple forms: bees that listen, a cat that chats, and then some fun with animating fish you draw, a GameBoy you…