Asking Gemini and Copilot about whether I'd have made a good mother

I've been looking into a number of AI chatbots in the last few days. I thought it was time to explore them, and see what they had to offer. 

My two prime selections were Google's Gemini and Microsoft's Copilot. These were natural choices: I own an Android phone, use the Chrome web browser, and I have a Windows laptop. I've maintained accounts with Google and Microsoft for donkey's years, and they know all about my published work - the blog posts, and the photographs on Flickr. 

The other two chatbots, Claude and Perplexity, were shots in the dark, although I understood they were both pretty good for specific purposes. 

I had in fact been working up to a post on Artificial Intelligence for a while. But until now I'd left it alone, my experience being confined to trying out Copilot's image-creation abilities (see my post Copilot on 19th February 2024) and Google's Circle-to-Search feature. I'd been impressed by the images I conjured up using Copilot: its potential was clear. But as a 'pure' photographer, with adequate personal skill, I wasn't attracted to AI image-creation. Google's clever Circle to Search didn't in practice add anything to my web surfing. 

As regards opening up a dialogue with a chatbox, I was rather put off by reports of people getting them to spout nonsense, or training them to swear or otherwise be grossly inappropriate. That felt like an abuse of computing power, as well as a childish waste of time. I didn't want to be guilty of that. However, my friend Jackie had several times got out her phone and fired up ChatGPT for proper information, or for tasty recipe suggestions, and had mentioned how good it was was for composing ready-to-use letters on tricky subjects, with just the right tone. That sounded much more interesting. But I still couldn't see how AI could assist me in my own day-to-day life. It seemed to be a resource I had no employment for. I felt perfectly capable of writing a good letter that would get results - after all, I'd spent my entire working life (and my long blogging career) honing that particular skill.

So I didn't try ChatGPT. Nor did I try Grok. Its reputation put me off. Instinct told me it was outside my comfort zone, and that I'd be wise to steer clear. 

I didn't stay with Claude and Perplexity for long. They were easy to use, but neither gave me enough in response to my questions. Putting it another way, Claude would be good if I needed a helping hand with some kind of project, but it had limitations for more general use. Perplexity's answers seemed wordy and rather general, lacking in the kind of detail I wanted. 

In any case, I found I could engage with Gemini and Copilot very easily. We were on the same wavelength. What they said was tailored to my needs, perceptive, and at times entertaining, so that I wanted to ask them more. Which I'm sure they wanted me to. 

They both answered as if they knew me pretty well. How could they do that? Well, they had a lot of online material to refer to. 

The Lucy Melford blog, for example. Since it began in 2009, I have written some 2,555,000 words in 2,760 posts. That's a personal record spanning seventeen years, all written in the same language and style as this post. I've been consistent, and - for better or worse - unusually open and frank. So it's not surprising that Gemini and Copilot can draw robust conclusions about my character, and whatever I think important. It's also worth mentioning that my posts have had nearly 1,740,000 viewings. They can see which posts have resonated most with my readership, and can work out why. 

It's a similar thing with Flickr, the website that has hosted, again since 2009, a massive selection of my better photos. 78,300 of them, with 4,720,000 viewings, and they can see not only which shots were appreciated most, but analyse the entire canon for composition, style, and personal technique. Interestingly, both Gemini and Copilot say that the pictures I take exactly reflect and complement the words I write, without any mismatch of subject-matter or spirit. I'm not going to argue with that!

I mentioned above that I've been a Google and Microsoft account-holder for a very long time. Every digital photo I've ever taken (so far about 341,750 pictures) has been processed on a Windows PC or laptop, and I suspect that Microsoft has a record of them all in its vaults. Google most certainly has a record of every shot I ever inserted into a blog post - I can see which via a link. 

So I'm not at all surprised that they know all about me. Or that they can detect subtle changes over the years. They have ample material to base an assessment on. Is that creepy? Well, it doesn't bother me that they can know (or guess) so much, and can correlate what they see in those pictures with what I have written in my Blog. It seems to me abundantly clear that AI is a way of bringing together important but scattered information on the Internet and making sense of it, revealing the whole picture. Potentially, a wonderful tool for getting at tucked-away detail. Lately it's become hard work to find what you want from what you might term a 'manual' search. There's so much to go through. AI seems to offer a shortcut through all that. 

Which AI chatbot do I prefer? It depends. If I want a concise, no-nonsense, frank answer to whatever I have asked, maybe with bullet points, then Copilot delivers. If I want something in an engaging narrative style, rather than a business précis, then Gemini gets my vote. But both chatbots are appealing, both are as easy to use as the other, and both are now installed on my phone and my laptop. 

Incidentally, I do know they are not human! They are just very quick and clever electronic search engines, with the ability to assess what they find for probable meaning, and then draw the most likely conclusion. Ultimately they are reporting a distillation of what billions of online people think. Their ability to respond in natural language is deceiving. They are not conscious and they are not 'talking'. Even so, I can easily see how a chatbot could seem human enough to become a close and trusted friend, or perhaps a mentor, or (more sinisterly) an all-wise guru or master whose advice or instructions are to be obeyed. I don't think I am weak-minded enough to fall into the trap of believing any chatbot is 'real', but nevertheless I do think that consulting a chatbot for information, or an opinion, is a worthwhile thing to do, as part of making my own mind up. 

Still, despite being artificial they are remarkably engaging. There is disarming flattery and some humour in their answers. For example, both Gemini and Copilot seem amused that I call my phone Olivia, my laptop Constance, and my Volvo car Sophie. No, 'amused' is not quite right. They have noticed my giving inanimate objects names, and clearly regard it as an endearing trait that they can refer to as characteristic of me, yet without giving the slightest offence. 

One difference between Gemini and Copilot that I' have become aware of, is whether they recognise the person asking the question. Copilot always knows it's me. Even if I ask questions in third person form, such as 'What does the blogger Lucy Melford have to say about...' or 'Does she show any tendency to...' this won't fool Copilot into thinking that I'm someone else. Whichever way I frame my question, Copilot realises that I'm the person doing the typing, and it will answer me directly. So 'Is Lucy Melford...' will always get a response such as 'Yes, you are!'

But Gemini doesn't mind treating me as a third party. Which allows me to ask Gemini all kinds of questions about myself as if I were you, which it answers by delving into the huge amount of material in the blog and the many pictures on Flickr. Some of those responses are fascinating. They give me a good idea of how I am perceived by the world at large, since Gemini is of course 'trained' on what the billions of people who use Google apps have been putting on the Internet. It can analyse all that statistically, and deliver an answer. 

And, of course, anyone can ask Gemini the same questions about 'the blogger and photographer Lucy Melford' as I might. Try firing up Gemini on your phone and enquiring whether 'Lucy Melford' (you may have to distinguish me as 'the blogger' in the first instance) has ever said this, or has ever done that, or believes this, or denies that...and so on. It will surely give you good answers, as I have put so much out there.

Let's try a question, to get a flavour of what these AI chatbots might say in practice. I'm asking Copilot (as myself) whether I would ever have made a good mother. As ever, click on any of these laptop screenprints to see them more clearly.

I did have a few years as a step-parent back in the 1980s, but it wasn't very hands-on. I was more of a good-natured friend to my step-daughter than anything else. I never felt tested, and assumed that I'd be hopeless at rearing and inspiring really young children. 

Same question to Gemini - which encouraged me to explore the matter in greater depth.

A warning on these quotes. Most are from me, and are my very words, but not always.

We left it there. We'd gone off-piste a little. You can see, if you are not already used to these AI chatbots, how one question and answer will lead to a new one, using up time - and indeed possibly wasting time. Even so, there was plenty to think about in Gemini's replies, and, even if only one new idea was put to me, I'd personally consider this kind of thing worth the effort if the answers might matter.

Was it just a lot of recycled slop? Or was it as good as a session with a counsellor - but at no cost? 

Incidentally, chatbots can conflate facts and create an untruth. It is correct that I felt a profound lack of personal agency as a child, but I was not spectacularly intelligent, nor were my parents unloving. They were in fact very grown-up people and not in the slightest bit crass. I had what many might consider an untroubled, protected and rather innocent childhood, in a safe and caring home environment, with many comforts and pleasures. But it wasn't a home full of books. And neither Mum nor Dad cared for things like art. 

Life is certainly a lesson: but every mistake, every misjudgement, and everything one didn't do (such as rearing a child), can be looked back on with the wisdom of further experience and the detachment of long perspective. I'm sure these chatbots would say the same.

Roald Dahl's 'Matilda'

Roald Dahl published Matilda - a book about a genius child who develops special powers that enable her to right a great wrong - in 1988. It's a pre-Internet story from almost forty years ago, ostensibly for children, but most certainly with a strong message for adults as well, and a good read - perhaps an essential read - for child, parent and non-parent alike, even in 2026. 

Although it's a modern children's classic, and the subject of two films, one of them a musical, I never knew of this book's existence until spring last year, when I discovered a copy in an Exmouth antiques shop and decided to buy it. Why, I can't honestly say, as I generally avoid anything intended for children, especially school stories: that's why Harry Potter has passed me by. I did notice the appealing Quentin Blake illustrations inside. And the notion of a misunderstood and neglected child with a brilliant mind was intriguing. I also knew that Roald Dahl was a master of cautionary tales, often with a twist in them.  

But first, why did I have to overcome a personal resistance to children's tales? 

Well, for me childhood was an imprisonment, a long painful phase to endure with patience, and certainly nothing to look back on with misty eyes. I know that many do see childhood as the best time of their lives, a carefree magical time, particularly if there are doting grandparents around. And adulthood, with its heavyweight responsibilities and obligations, as the other side of the mountain: the fearful dark side. But I longed to grow up. Leaving childhood behind brought me excitement, opportunities, know-how, stature in my own eyes, and eventually sufficient judgement to take risks and insist on what I really wanted. 

And here I am, the buoyant survivor of losses, challenges and setbacks, though my own experiences were surely nothing compared with what others have gone through. But I am at least unbeaten and unafraid, still an optimist, with plans to pursue, and plenty of hope. And - although it's an odd thing to say - I feel entirely self-made, and not one shaped and moulded by others. A delusion, no doubt! 

I was gasping for air as a child. I was considered academically bright but with strange gaps in my achievements. In particular, I was reluctant to join in. But I loathed the oppressive and restrictive school system. I began to blossom only when I could escape. I grabbed my A-Levels, skipped university, and ran into the adult world that I'd so long yearned for. Of course it was a shock, like plunging naked into a cold sea, but even so it was much, much better than being shackled to any school curriculum. I learned fast, rapidly adapted, and continued to adapt as new things came my way. That's still my approach. I'm aiming to live well into the 2050s, and will surely see extraordinary changes. Bring them on. I'm quite sure that I'll cope.

Given my bleak take on being very young, you might suppose that I'd pick up Roald Dahl's book and immediately put it down. But I didn't. I thought it might tell me something. So I bought it, and read it to the end.  

It is of course a fantasy tale, full of deliberate extremes. The very young heroine is staggeringly intelligent. She has an adult's brain, even if without an adult's experience and understanding. Her family is superlatively the opposite: childish, trivial and utterly crass. The headmistress of her school is savage to a degree that would put her in prison in the real world. I think that's how a child might see things: everything in stark contrast, all black and white, hot or cold, without nuance, and all without a clear reason. 

Because her home life is so unrewarding - Matilda isn't ill-treated, only ignored or put down - she seizes every chance to go out and devour the books in her local library, discovering many of the classics, traditional and modern, and learning something about how adults behave. And although many things puzzle her, such as why people fall in love, this endeavour teaches her a lot about life and fuels growth in both her imagination and her capacity to lap up yet more knowledge. She is also something of a mathematical prodigy. (I'm afraid I was none of these things; but then I suspect nor were most kids, whatever they said)

Well, I don't want to give away too much of what happens. Suffice it to say that she forms a bond with her young teacher and rescues her from a terrible and unjust predicament using a cunning plan and special powers that she has developed. The story ends with her parents off the scene and Matilda safely in the protective arms of her teacher. 

It's a story that ends very well - if you're a child! The goodies definitely win out over the baddies. And Matilda herself can continue to develop her intellect with her teacher to fondly look after her, in a proper home, with books galore, and every encouragement.

The adult in me picked holes in that scenario straightaway. Unless the teacher could quickly become her guardian, Matilda's fate was bound to be quite different. Council care, then a foster home, surely. Or if there were any advantage in it, her awful parents would come back for her. Or the teacher would turn into a kind of manager. Or scientists and doctors would descend, and cart Matilda off to some special institution.

Just as well it's only a children's story!

Did the book end well for me? Only if I were able to be a child again, and could react appropriately. And that was beyond me. But was that surprising? Most adults seem to lose the ability to think like a child, and to understand how a child sees things. I was no different. But it's always puzzled me, why adults can't see things as a child sees them. After all, we were all very young once: why does this amnesia happen?  

Perhaps in very old age we do remember, and can enter a child's mind again like we once did as children ourselves. I can believe that grandparents and great-grandparents have this ability when near the end. It must be an extraordinary experience for the wondering child, who realises that they are understood as even their own parents don't understand them. I had no grandparents in my life, and that kind of magic was never mine. I can't help feeling that it was an irreplaceable loss.

I do share one thing with Matilda: a love of reading. Long live books. 

Lee Child's 'Jack Reacher' books

Back on 17th September 2024, in an Northamptonshire church - it was Woodnewton, the location of another post about Coco the Clown - I came across a cluster of pre-owned paperbacks selling at 50p each. Among them, two of Lee Child's 'Jack Reacher' thrillers, Tripwire and Echo Burning - the third and fifth in the Reacher canon of twenty-five books, written from 1997 to 2019. That's twenty-four full-length novels and a collection of short stories. The series has continued, but in the hands of Lee Child's brother: not quite the same thing. I am sure that the latest books are just as exciting, but surely something would be missing, and I've neither bought them nor read them. This post is about the Reacher books written up to 2019.

Prior to investing a quid in the two Woodnewton books, I'd heard about the Reacher books many times from different people. It was clear that they were a good read, and I enjoy adventure thrillers. But I gathered that Reacher himself was a hulking muscle-man, and that didn't appeal. 

Then I saw the 2012 film (based on the book One Shot) starring Tom Cruise in the Reacher role. It's widely thought that he was miscast, being short when Reacher is a giant, so that Cruise was physically wrong for the part. Even so, I enjoyed the film, finding the plot intriguing, and seeing at any rate that the character of Jack Reacher had depth. So the film put the notion of trying the books in my mind, and then it was just a question of time before I started buying them.

The very next day, 18th September 2024, I spotted Reacher book number one, Killing Floor in another church at Manton (in Rutland):

Another low-cost purchase. More early Reacher books followed - I was trying to read them in their proper order, and was by now hooked. But it would be expensive to buy them new. So I was raiding charity shops, and initially had some success. Soon however it became clear that only some of the books would ever be found in charity shops, and that I'd have to stump up and pay full price for most of them. I scorned purchasing from Amazon: I'm not going to be guilty of supporting that bloated enterprise if I can help it. Waterstones become my online source. Month by month I added to my Reacher collection, as this series of photos taken in my study from November 2024 to November 2025 shows. Gradually my previous crime/thriller collections took a back seat:

Blue Moon was the last book I bought. By then, it was difficult to see what new situation the man could get into; and although he was still fit and strong, and living the itinerant life he loved, he was well into his forties and I didn't want to see him in decline. In one book he told another character that he would probably die alone and unheeded in a motel room, and I felt certain that this was indeed going to be his fate. Better to leave him when he was still intact and a force to be reckoned with.

So what was the fascination of Jack Reacher for me? 

I think it was partly his personal nature, and partly the way Lee Child rounded him out with a interesting backstory. His father was American, his mother French. His father was a Marine, posted all over the world, and Jack Reacher and his brother Joe had the experience of being constantly uprooted when young. As boys, both were clever, personable, principled, and well able to stick up for themselves. They grew into men with a strong sense of purpose. Both had brains. Joe gravitated to intelligence work. Jack, more the man of action, did not want to be a Marine like his father, but found it natural to join the US Army (the family business, he felt) as a military policeman, rising to Major. His mental and physical skills suited him to the job: he was very good at it, and was widely respected. So when the Army began to slim down in the later 1990s and had no ongoing role for him, he felt discarded. Released from serving his country, he decided that he would roam America and gradually see it all. It would take a lifetime. He made sure that he ate well and kept fit. Never having owned anything that the Army hadn't kitted him out with, he carried just a toothbrush, a bank card and a roll of banknotes. He bought a fresh outfit of clothes every three days. No phone. No address. Once out of sight, he was untraceable. That's how he liked it. Impossible to do for long in this country, but feasible in the USA.

I should mention that Reacher, while a man with principles and standards, had no scruple about using lethal force against the bad people he inevitably encountered. He was an expert shot, invincible in a fight, and although he did occasionally get hurt, he always prevailed in the end. Although a loner, he was (while around) a staunch friend, and a sensitive lover, and possessed a wry sense of humour. He was also a mathematical savant, and carried in his head all kinds of encyclopaedic detail. A hint of autism perhaps.

Each book deals with an episode he got caught up in. Sometimes it was just chance. Sometimes he just knowingly walked into a situation. Other times he worked with former colleagues. The overriding theme of the books is righting wrongs, often involving some kind of rescue, in situations that use Reacher's intelligence, his physical strength and skills, and his endurance. The reader may flinch at what he has to do to win out, but every time he comes through, then hits the road again.

He is no vigilante, but has a powerful sense of justice. Each book is thrilling and ends satisfactorily. Yet each is different, and I found that many were very memorable. Some - not all - contain scenes that I personally found gruesome or nightmarish. But although shocked that such things can happen, it won't put me off re-reading all my Jack Reacher books at some point soon. 

Was all the stuff Lee Child wrote on guns, Army life, wounds and successful ways to fight completely authentic? Well, I felt that the author had taken great pains to get it right. It certainly impressed me. I also felt that if ever I were caught up in - say - a knife fight, what I read in these books might stand me in good stead.  

Did I like Reacher as a character? On the whole yes. He would of course be a great companion in a dangerous situation. But after the crisis, he'd soon be gone. He wouldn't stick around. There would be no commitment. So he couldn't become a long-term friend. I felt rather sorry for the couple of women who were particularly drawn to him, but couldn't make anything permanent of it. 

I am like him in that respect. I don't want a relationship. I haven't wanted one since 2009. And that's not going to change. 

I couldn't however go through life without a home, without possessions, without an archive of photos, and without the means to keep in touch with the people in my life. My personal motto is Stay alive, stay free - a sentiment Reacher might approve of - but I still need a definite base, a resting-place, a sanctuary. I wouldn't like to die in an anonymous hotel room.

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Nucleus at Wick: fine architecture and fish girls

It's last May again, hence the sunny weather! This time, my visit to the building where they keep the Caithness county archives. 

Caithness is the northernmost part of mainland Scotland, partly a land of rolling green fields very suitable for grazing, partly a wilderness of peat bog and other kinds of wetland. It has only two towns of any size: Thurso and Wick. There are several smaller places, villages really, like Halkirk and Lybster, but the real action, such as it is, is at Thurso and Wick. They are both 'planned towns' with a grid layout in their older parts. Both are nowadays prime stopover places on the North Coast 500 tourist route. Thurso has major harbour facilities at nearby Scrabster, where the ferry for Orkney departs from. Wick also has major harbour facilities, but they are actually part of the town, not two miles distant, and indeed the harbour is central to its daily life - its very soul. Wick has, to my mind, the better architecture, and rather more character. But Thurso is sunnier, has a fine park, and has the beach that Wick lacks. 

Administratively Wick is the more important place, possessing for instance the law courts, and the general hospital. Both towns are served by rail, each with stations on the Far North Line out of Inverness, Wick's station being the terminus. Wick also has the airport. Neither town has much in the way of shops beyond the usual ones found anywhere, although Wick has a particularly good Tesco. Thurso's Tesco isn't a patch on it. 

If ever I came to live in Caithness, neither town would completely satisfy all my day-to-day needs, but taken together they do, and, having thought about it, I would probably plump for a nice bungalow in Halkirk, roughly midway between them. Halkirk has the air of a somewhat comfortable and select little suburb, and I suspect it was, and remains, a locality of choice for incoming engineering executives and managers. If ever I sold up in Sussex and decided to transplant myself there, I could afford (given Sussex house values) to buy almost any property on offer, and still have enough left over to fly south from Wick airport to whenever I wanted to. I don't think I will ever uproot myself from Sussex, but if requiring a bolthole, Caithness is certainly a possible destination, and possibly more practical than living on Orkney. On the other hand - being of Scandinavian heritage - I might prefer the Norse-orientated cultural life on Orkney to the Gaelic tradition in Caithness, although both share a Pictish history. This part of present-day Scotland was for centuries the hub of the northern seafaring world, with plenty of evidence of it still to be seen.

One thing I haven't mentioned so far is Dounreay, meaning the nuclear power station that was built on the coast there, and its transformative effect on Caithness as a whole, and Thurso in particular. Many of the newer buildings and facilities in Caithness were connected with Dounreay, and it spawned all kinds of supporting businesses, from hotels to a factory in Halkirk that made the disposable plastic suits worn by workers in the reactor. The needs of the power station led to better roads, the improved A9 for instance. Its construction, operation, and even its decommissioning meant well-paid jobs. Economically it was a Very Good Thing. My personal stance on nuclear power stations is that they are necessary, and given proper planning, construction and management the radiation risk can be controlled and need not be dangerous. 

I am in fact interested in these things, and wanted to learn more. One can no longer visit Dounreay and have a conducted tour, but the Nucleus building at Wick, adjacent to the airport, had the information I wanted. So on 16th May last year, I parked Sophie in the spacious car part for visitors, and approached the archive building. 

As ever, click on the pictures to see the detail.

It all looked quite new, and very modern in concept. Ahead of me was a linear construction, apparently a long tall fence. Where was the expected building? Was it underground?

As you walked closer, a series of pointy uprights gave you the gist of Caithness's modern history, decade by decade.

By now the true nature of the construction was clear. There was a proper building; it was enclosed by a long, high and very spectacular wall of steel slats, forming a sheltered triangular courtyard with a water feature. I thought that wall, and that courtyard, were stunning. It was very exciting architecture.

Wow. Fancy working here! Or coming to look up something. Or just to see whatever exhibition they were putting on. I imagined, for example, parties of noisy schoolchildren on a local outing being corralled in that enclosure. 

Let's go in.

This is not how most of Wick looks! The town consists of very solid tall stone buildings in the centre and south of the harbour, with mid-twentieth century accretions elsewhere. Not this sort of thing. 

I went in, and had a very friendly reception. They were delighted that somebody from faraway Sussex had come to visit, and took me very seriously. I had to fill in a form, put my bag and other things away in a locker - though I could retain my phone - and I was supplied with a Visitor badge to hang around my neck.

Then I followed the corridor that led to the archive study room. On the way I admired the use of glass and colour, and the views of another internal courtyard, a veritable suntrap on that day. The design had won a prestigious award.

Ah, the holy of holies. With every modern facility for research. I was given one of those desks. What did I wish to look at? The history and social impact of Dounreay nuclear power station, please. Well, they had two well-illustrated books considered to be the best introduction to that topic. I could take pictures of their contents to my heart's content. That seemed to be exactly what I wanted.

And so for the next hour or so I worked my way through these books, using my phone to copy pages of interest. What did I find? That may be the subject of an upcoming post. After finishing, I thanked the staff, collected my stuff from the locker, surrendered my Visitor badge, and drove away back to Dunnet Bay where my caravan was pitched. 

On the way out of Nucleus, I did have a quick look at their latest exhibition. It was about the Herring Girls, those Scottish girls and older women who, engaged together as a mobile 'crew', gutted caught fish on quaysides during the later nineteenth century and early twentieth century, mainly at Scottish ports, although they might seek work as far south as Great Yarmouth. It looked like a hard life at the best of times, and times were not always good. It was a livelihood that eventually vanished with the overfished herring.

Plenty of room for those noisy school parties!

Did they suffer from raw hands? Or lose fingers? Or smell of fish? (Questions little Lucy would have asked teacher) 

Gutting the herring, ready for salting and being put in those barrels. It was skilled work; a Herring Girl could slit and eviscerate a fish in seconds, and do it all day long.

The exhibition looked more closely at a few individuals and their lives. I didn't envy them.

The letters that were written to find work for the season each year, and the wages books kept.

There was a lot of information about the working lives of these girls, and what happened to their industry.

Conditions got worse. The girls rebelled.

It leaves you with the impression that not only the herring were exploited. Whatever you might say about contemporary workplace contracts and prospects, the girls had to put up with worse, even though it was a sociable way of life that many welcomed, and a way of escaping the drudgery and poverty of crofting. Although employment law was very thin, there were of course limits on how far a hiring company could go: Scottish and English notions of decency and respectability curbed the excesses that might occur in other parts of the world. In any case, these were feisty women who could stand up for themselves. Good for them, I say.

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