The Senses of the Machine

Photographs, PDFs, Word files and spreadsheets all go in through the plus button, and the habit worth building is to attach first and then write the prompt around the attachment - what it is, where it came from, what you want back. Two things are particular to this platform. Given a file of figures it can write and run code over the data rather than reading it by eye, so ask for the calculation and ask to see the working. And Voice mode is a true spoken conversation: you talk, it answers aloud, you interrupt it, you switch language mid-sentence or say “slower” and it adjusts - which is this whole chapter for a reader who does not type comfortably.

From the book Upload images and files with the plus button and ask about them as you would a person. For speaking instead of typing, tap the Voice mode button and talk naturally in your own language; you can say "speak more slowly" or "answer in Hindi" at any time.

• Attach first, then write what it is and what you want out.
• For a sheet of figures, ask for the calculation and the working.
• Ask it to name what it cannot read instead of guessing.
• In Voice mode say “slower” or “in Hindi” - it adjusts mid-answer.
• Crop or cover names, numbers and addresses before uploading.

[Attach the photo of the leaf. If you can, add a second of its underside and a third taken standing back from the whole plant.]

These are from my tomato field near Kolar, Karnataka. The monsoon has just begun. About 20 plants out of 300 look like this, mostly the older lower leaves, and it has spread over roughly a week.

1. Tell me only what you can actually see in the photographs - the colour, the pattern, the edges, where on the leaf the spots sit. No diagnosis yet.
2. Then the two or three most likely causes, and for each one the single thing I should look for in the field to rule it in or out.
3. Then what I can do this week without buying anything.
4. Then the questions to put to my Krishi Vigyan Kendra or the agriculture officer.

If a photo is too blurred or too dark to judge, say so and tell me which photograph to take instead - closer, from behind, in different light. I would rather take another picture than act on a guess.

[Attach the 40-page circular.]

Using only this attached PDF, and nothing from outside it, help me work the new pension procedure.

Read Section 4 and the annexures at the back first. Look at the rest of the circular only to check whether anything there modifies Section 4 - and if it does, tell me where.

Then give me, in this order:
1. The steps an employee must follow, numbered in the order they actually happen.
2. Every document required, set against the step it is needed at.
3. Every deadline or time limit named anywhere in the circular.

Put the page number in brackets after each point. Where the circular is unclear, self-contradictory or silent, write “Not stated in the circular” instead of filling the gap with what such circulars usually say.

Before any of that, tell me how many pages you were able to read, and whether any page came through as a scan you could not make out.

(Spoken, in Voice mode, after photographing the bill with her thumb over the consumer number and the address.)

“I am showing you my electricity bill. Please speak slowly, in simple Tamil, as you would to your own grandmother.

First tell me two things only: how much I must pay, and the last date. Say the amount in rupees and the date in words. Then stop and wait for me.”

(After it answers, keep speaking.)

“Now look at the units used this month and the units last month, and tell me in two or three short sentences why the bill has gone up. Then one or two simple ways to use less current at home - nothing that means buying a new machine.”

“If any number on the bill is not clear in the photograph, tell me which one and I will take the picture again.”