There is no dearth of clocks out there featuring E Ink displays made by enthusiasts from around the world. They come in all shapes and sizes and are made to show time in different ways. However, here is one that begs to be different in that it shows a new poem every minute. Guess where the poems are sourced from; it’s none other than the AI chatbot ChatGPT that is composing a new poem for every minute showing on the clock.
Matt Webb, who designed and created the rhyming E Ink clock however had initially designed a regular clock featuring an old Inky wHAT screen and a Raspberry Pi. However, the idea of linking the clock with ChatGPT struck him later while playing around with the chatbot.
“There’s a single prompt to ChatGPT, and the clock uses OpenAI’s API. The time is a parameter to the prompt. The prompt instructs the AI to respond with two rhyming lines, and encourages it to be imaginative and profound,” said Webb while speaking to The Verge.
Webb further stated that ChatGPT is also provided with information such as the physical location where the clock is placed, something that is also taken into account in the poems that the chatbot composes. Here is an example of one such rhymic creation – “In cozy shelves, I do reside, / It’s nearly noon, the clock confides.”
Webb also stated he would like to integrate GPT-3 with the clock but isn’t able to do so given that the standard ChatGPT version comes free and is naturally the most affordable option at the moment.
“If I were an AI sommelier I’d say that ChatGPT is an easier drink with a long finish, very smooth, but GPT-3 is more complex and spicy,” says Webb (who also describes his work as that of an “AI sommelier”). “It’s tight with its words and has a better vocab. But not quite worth 10x the cost for something sitting on my bookshelves.”
Webb also stated there has been overwhelming response to his rhyming AI clock project, something that has made him contemplate if it can be made a commercial entity. For instance, he can offer buyers ready-made clocks that can be bought off the shelf and plugged in for them to start functioning. Else, the other options would be to provide kits that DIY enthusiasts can then use to make their own version of the clock themselves.
There can be future versions with more advanced functionality as well. For instance, there can be a switch or a knob that will let users change the tone of the poems to match their mood. However, right now, Webb is more concerned with creating a refined product that people would like to own and operate. That includes keeping the operating cost of the clock to just the bare minimum.
Webb explained it would now incur a daily expenditure of $1.80 in making API calls to ChatGPT. While that can be a considerable amount for each owner to bear, the cost can be minimized if it is spread across numerous devices. That is what Webb is aiming to achieve by ‘creating a custom backend to send out times to multiple clocks’.
Yet another issue that Webb said he has faced with the clock has to do with the very manner ChatGPT operates. It is about the chatbot reporting erroneous times once in a while just to make the lines rhyme. Webb said he has seen this happen after about every 15 mins when the chatbot seems to have the tendency to simply cook up data of its own.
“The fibbing is hilarious. Sometimes you can’t tell — it might say ‘one past two’ when it’s actually ‘two past one,’”
Such niggles apart, the rhyming E Ink clock stands out from the rest of its ilk and is indeed something that can make seeing the time a lot more interesting than ever before. That said, making ChatGPT compose a new poem every minute might seem to be overkill of sorts considering that no one checks out the time that frequently. There surely are going to be a lot of poems that one would miss out on. Maybe a better option would have been to generate a new poem after every hour or so. That would make staring at the clock more worthwhile.
In any case, the rhyming E Ink clock happens to be one of the more interesting DIY projects we have come across in recent times. There is also the Mana featuring an E-Ink Spectra display that we came across in recent times. It isn’t a clock but shows inspirational quotes every few hours depending on the topics you have chosen.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
