AI It’s “Human” and What We Do

 Why This Image?   Because We are Human

Why artificial Intelligence is So Very Human

So… Chongo and his Sister Elizabeth (even in 22,000 B.C.E. females had out-evolved  their male counterparts jk) are out hunting for some ingredients for elephant soup which of course requires some elephant because fast food restaurants and SPAM had not yet shown the world you could use “meat-like stuff and get away with it.  Anyway our distant ancestors were trying to bag an elephant and as one might imagine a couple people tossing a few rocks and a sharp stick just didn’t quite make the grade.  However, sitting around the cave later eating some tasty blueberries Chungo and Lizzy pondered “what if we could throw rocks farther and faster?”  Fast forward a few years and presto Bambi is running scared when hearing the retort of Uncle Steve’s AR15.  After all what is a gun?  It is the human expression of wanting to throw a rock faster and farther.

Oh let’s look at Galileo  for a second now he learned how to use a telescope and why?  Because he had this idea that maybe the physical universe didn’t quite match what those noted scientists in Rome (the Pope and his boys) were putting out.  So this telescope was just a device that made his eyes stronger and able to see better right?  Well you can read the Galileo story in many places, but the bottom line is he stood up and said I sort of agree with Copernicus  on the whole “the Earth is not the center deal”. Well the Pope says “Dude  we can have a stake fry and you can be the main course or we can charge you with crimes against the cross and lock you up for the rest of your life…   Well since there wasn’t Door Dash, Netflix, Amazon, XBox or even Nintendo 64 Galileo lived out his incredibly unfulfilled life knowing he had only done what humans have always done evolved through using a human invented device.  

Oh and who among you has a cell phone?  Or who among you uses a computer?  Phones were all invented because AG Bell was working on something to help his hearing-impaired mom.  Yep he made this thing called a telephone as a disability accommodation so the next time someone suggests that an accommodation might be made… think hell that’s a good idea..how can we help?    Anyway this phone idea spread like  the need for someone to remind you that you can extend your car warranty and also now you can talk to friends and family across town, the country, and around the world.  

We invented keyboards, dictation software and laser printers because there was never going to be enough feather quills to go around and monks like chanting  far better than walking around with candles in dreary rooms and eating with inky fingers.  Even “fast-fingers Father Phil couldn’t crank out the 23rd Psalm as quickly as most 2nd graders can build cities with Mindcraft.  

And that brings us to the “Seeking Peace and Joy” portion of this entry.

You see… we might be freaked out about what AI can do, yet don’t you think we have been freaked out about what we can do with a gun, what we can see with a microscope or telescope, or how many scam calls we still get?  

If you want to gain peace with regard to this….understand AI is just what humans do… 

If you want to seek some joy even in the AI world invite your neighbors to a picnic sit down and talk with them about their lives, sing a few songs, raise a toast or two…. Set your cell phones and iPads on the picnic table and every 20 minutes or so make sure the phone is off because if you shut it off it won’t be talking with the group, making dinging or other noises and that silly android just won’t have any fun at all.  Then the next day while you are out planting a tree set your phone  on the porch and try to figure out how it helped the planet that day.  You see finding some peace and joy in what your spirit housed in a human body can do in ways that a series of codes housed in a machine cannot.  Oh and possibly STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHER PEOPLE AND MACHINES.  

I bet you wish this was written by chatGPT  lol no chance. 

Peace 

The Most Important Question to Answer About AI

 So.. generally the 8 Line Rhymes stand alone, however, this one merits  a little Side Order of Curiosity.  

perhaps instead of wondering  if we should be afraid  of how much machines can become like and replace  humans—

MAYBE WE SHOULD ASK 

HOW HAVE WE ALLOWED PEOPLE  OR CONSTRICTED PEOPLE  TO BECOME SO MUCH LIKE MACHINES THAT WE NOW BELIEVE A MACHINE  COULD EVER REPLACE ONE PERSON LET ALONE A WHOLE BUNCH?    In short, why are we growing human machines?

And now we fear machines

Used by businesses and teens

Forging themes and rural scenes

writing books and magazines

Congress folks and college deans

Set aside your counting beans

Will these chips replace our genes?

Can you tell us what life means?

Artificial Intelligence

The Real Reasons We Fear AI a Three-Part Mini Drama The opening Salvo

 Should Congress Try to Regulate AI?

Well .. asking folks who likely hire others to use and understand  technology any more recent than a touchstone. Phone  to become educated and to make decisions. About an industry that is now trying to figure out how to recapture it’s money making potential… is going to be a fool’s circus.  

The horses are not only already out of the barn they have rounded the far turn and are lumbering down the backstretch…  oh well let’s move on.. Shining a Little Light On the subject

So in the AI world what does one do while waiting for their friends to trickle charge?  Maybe we take a minute or two to reflect on a few facts that come across our very quixotic and nimble neuron-synaptic processor **sometimes called  a mind or brain**.  

In reflection on some of the facts it would seem a small yet growing tsunami of fear is rolling toward most of us and that is the fear of AI. 

Yep in the seeking peace and joy universe it seems reasonable to examine all fears including this one so let’s do so shall we? 

Yep it sure seems like new AI products and processes  are showing up everywhere and are probably chugging away in places we don’t even know.   Hence, as the function of bots increases and completes “once human “tasks  some folks wonder if their employment /job will disappear.  Well of course it will just ask any blacksmith, typesetter, keypunch operator, or Blockbuster store assistant manager.   If these folks aren’t available track down a chariot builder, a coal truck delivery worker, TV repair person —well you get the picture… entire classes of employees in industry after industry has come and gone and has it changed how much we like chocolate, sex, or hotdogs (Americans eat about 20 billion with a B or 70 apiece each year)?  

One might say…wait a minute this is different… well maybe—maybe not?  It was not so long ago when many of us heard math teachers and many other educators crying out that these handheld  4-function calculators needed to be kept out of schools and if they weren’t the world was doomed… Well it seems like the math and science needed to fuel advanced tech and communications survived  those pesky little nerds flashing their Texas Instrument marvels.   

(Side note) I am the first person to argue that we need to teach children computational concepts and enlarge  our memories with math “facts” because it is the mental exercises we do  in problem solving  when doing math in our heads is incredibly valuable in finding options in solving other challenges and humans are genius  at creating and discovering new and unique situational issues that need evaluation and actions followed bye review and reworking… doing math in your head builds the tools for doing that…. No matter how much we hated those story problems.  

Back to AI… you see those calculators were/are math AI….and many of them are solar-powered now…. Oh wait they solve that problem too?  

The challenge it seems is not what AI can or cannot do or who will have their jobs replaced…. After all jobs are rarely done for jobs sake are are done to give people a sense of earning esteem or security and when 44% of all jobs in both the industrial and professional realms are repetitive….why isn’t a given robots will have them?  

Anyway  why do I jump around in these posts?  No rational system like a computer can or would follow this runaway train of emotions and thoughts and it is my responsibility to be a creating and unique contributor to life among and between us… ask an AI to seek peace and joy why don’t you and see what happens?  …In short …grow you.

This was not created by “chatgpt”

Spacing out the darker side of the moon

 The “Darker” Side of the Moon

So… those among you who are real music history  experts will find mistakes here.  Some of them are probably  important, yet read for the spirit of this okay?  

Today, or someday that looked a lot like today except it was 50 years ago—holy crap  this entry is featuring something that. Was  a half century  ago which is like  a high school senior writing about something that happened before the depression, the invention of television, smart phones, YouTube, the internet, and yes even before shopping malls remember them?  So if there are some slippery inaccuracies  put them in the same category  as things we don’t know about dinosaurs and get over it.

anyway about fifty year  ago today more or less the Dark Side of the Moon climbed  up the billboard chart and well it kind of stayed there not for a week or three but for  930 some weeks it has appeared  in the top 200.  Now these were non-consecutive, but this still merits a ‘stop and think about it” moment.  That’s 18 years… so if Dark Side hit the charts when your child’s was born in 2006 it would still be there.  

also Dark Side. Has sold  over 45 million copies and some of the money it made was used to finance Monty Python’s classic  “Holy Grail.”   Some other things most people don’t know… it was recorded  at Abby road.. yep that place where some quartet  from Liverpool was known to do some fooling around.  Also  unlike  a lot of efforts today the entire content of the work was performed live on the road before the studio albums  was pressed.   

However… this entry. Isn’t really about the music…it’s about the moon.  

The moon  and the things we use to put things into space have  been in the news in recent days due to the fact that Japanese  mission to deliver stuff to the moon crashed  instead of landed there and a privateers test rocket experienced a malfunction  and blew apart  in the sky.   Now … here’s what has. To make folks wonder … why are we giving so much attention to the rockets that blew up instead of the new pile of trash  we just put on the moon?   Well maybe there’s an answer..

There’s already  a all kinds of stuff  we have left up there.  

Okay we left a flag or two.  There are some golf balls up there.. We have of course left some moon cars up there because they don’t have a place in the trunk for a big subwoofer  and no cup holders  or heated seats.  

We needed to reduce the weight of lunar landers in order to relaunch and meet the mother ships so astronauts  tossed  all kinds of stuff  some of which had meaning..like a  bible left on the dash of one of the moon cars, however some of the stuff I’m not sure  we should be very proud of.  

Like… 96 sealed bags of astronaught crap.. Yes there is moon poop and we left it there.  Now in order to  see this in context we pick oup  our own pet dog crap and dispose of it  in a civilized way… So how do we justify leaving  bags of stuff all over the night sky?  Well NASA  actually has claimed they might go pick up these bags at some later date in order to study  it.    Don’t you want to hear that conversation?    “No Eugene, you stay  here for second….…Thomas and Claire are going to study the geologic samples and Harmony is looking at the atmospheric data… we’ve got 96 bags of 100 year old diarrhea  sitting on the table  in your lab and the world needs to know  how space impacts the digestion of Tang and freeze-dried burritos.” 

Okay.. with the crash of the Japanese  hauler there is  about 400,000 tons of stuff  that mankind has left on the moon.  Are we really ever going to go back and are we going to clean up this stuff?  Will we wreck our own planet enough  so that we absolutely have to use the moon and if we really think that maybe we should send some things up there worth going back to get.   Here are some suggestions..

Let’s send  a hundred hundred new and classic cars  (they weigh about 4 tons). So guys would stare up there and Elise ways to get  a 68 Charger or a 73 Corvette.  

How about we send 165,000 cases of beer … some folks will go to almost any limit to get beer.  

or maybe before we send anything.. we should stop and think about why… 

Did we plant that flag up there to say ….. we own the moon or did we do it to say… we let our curiosity drive our science and our human need to  seek new knowledge?    If we can be proud of seeking new knowledge and wisdom can we take a bit  of time everyday to seek that right here  on earth?  And while we’re. Doing that  can we help each other seek some peace and joy too?  … or are resigned to have a bad moon risin’?  (With a bag of crap to stare  at tonight?  

It’s draft day and it’s important

 The “NFL” Draft: Why is it so Important?

Forward by Captain Obvious

When it comes to sports in these here United States football is king.   No not the kind where parents bring orange slices and water or juice boxes and stand looking at each other while a hive of kids chase a black and white ball around for 45 minutes on Saturday morning.   We are talking about “American” Football where 300 pound freaks of nature put on various pieces of plastic and then charge at one another in a brutal attempt to place an oblong ball across a thick chalk line.  

Oh… does it sound like I’m not giving this sport respect?   Oh that is so not true… and here’s why.

You see today is draft day and later today and then in the next couple days our favorite gridiron groups will be selecting new eligible players in an effort to win more games or remain the champs.  So is the draft so important because it might mean winning?  No no NO you see the draft is important because it is all about believing in hope.  It is a group of people pointing to some youth and saying…”we think you can help us do something better”  It is about a team saying we need some new tools—we need somebody who isn’t quite like the people already here”- we will invest in you up front and we will expect you to be your best and to keep learning.  

Isn’t it important to have hope?  Isn’t it important to believe in the youth  who will enter the “professional” workplace?  Isn’t it important that entire communities can care enough to say “here…wear a shirt that we are all proud of?”  

On draft day we often see stories about  how different players got to the point where they might be chosen.  We see happy families because these families have sacrificed time and energy and their lives will now change forever (in some cases).  Now… let’s stop  and breathe… and imagine..

What if we treated the local schools like our football teams?  What if we had a “kindergarten draft?”   How many parents would have sacrificed and cheered their kids on in getting ready to enter school?  Can you hear the announcer?  “ In the second round st. John’s Elementary selects Maria Thomas Math Teacher prospect.  Maria  can count to 7 4, add and subtract all numbers between 1 and 6, and can identify  5 different regular polygons in 9 seconds.”  

No on the clock is Houston Texas Public School 119 rumor has it they are debating between Jacob Finley and Marcus Watson.  Finley reads Dr. Seuss with almost no assistance while Watson asks questions rapidly and politely and then listens to the answers.  This choice is made more difficult as both children have demonstrated the ability to create  and modify numerous LEGO structures and help their little brothers find clean socks in the morning….

You see… the draft represents  something pretty cool and instead of decrying the attention paid to a few people who will now be rich for playing a game… maybe we could expand  some of the concepts like hope, community support, and belief in the youth and the future?  Just as these athletes have used resources to be ready for the selections to come… maybe we can value the process of preparing  all people for a chance to take on an important role in life….. Just a thought….

We are on the clock. 

Isn’t this alarming?

 Several times a day in several places you’ll go it is almost for certain you will hear a cell phone give off some sort of notification or alarm.  Because we know that sound is meant for us or someone specifically  for a special reason we jump to it.  Well recently there was a situation in my domicile where there were no cell phones and thus no alarms not even to wake up people for work.  This prompted the question, “what the hell did we do before alarm clocks?”   More importantly how did this thing called the alarm get to be such a critical part of everybody’s life?  

Well as it happens for most of recorded history and before that human beings didn’t set alarms and somehow we got by.  Now there were of course roosters and morning doves and of course cats are always good for waking people up.  However it wasn’t until good old Levi Hutchins an industrious early American invented the alarm in 1787 when we started wrecking the natural sleep cycles of folks.  Now this first alarm was limited in that it only went off at 4:)) in the morning.   I guess Levi had to stoke the fire, grind the coffee, milk the cow—nobody wanted that straight black coffee) and then he had to wake up the rest of the neighborhood by cranking up his accordion?  

Well that once a day system worked pretty well for a good long time as it wasn’t until halfway through the next century or 1867 when a French inventor put together an alarm that could be set at various times.  Way to go Antoine Redier … I would hazard a guess that this dude and the person who invented the necktie has been cursed by more humans than any other notorious  human in history to date.  

Seeking Peace and Joy and why not to get “Alarmed” About it.

So the alarm evolved from a once a day thing to a noise you could set.  Now we get alarms when  someone sends us a post on social media, when we are supposed to get up in the morning, when it’s time to change the batteries  in things and charge the batteries in other things.  Ww can set alarms for anything at any time and these alarms can make almost any sound.   We are now programmed to be alarmed about everything all the time.  We rarely pay attention unless someone claims it is “breaking” news.   However, all this alarm  stuff sort of leads to the question..

If we can have all these alarms all the time then is all this stuff really that alarming?  Maybe not… maybe we have evolved or devolved into a human race that expects to fear missing the start of things or missing them altogether.  Maybe some alarms are needed, however, maybe some can be turned off.  Are your friends really going to quit texting or tweeting you if you take 2 minutes to answer rather than 4 seconds?  A lot of employers complain that workers pay more attention to their social media than their work… but how many employers would say “sleep when you are tired and then come on in to work rested.?”  

Okay… maybe some of us need reminders and prompting some of the time and yet what would happen if none of the apps on our phone had to tell us to pay attention?  Wouldn’t it be great if our smart phones could be set up to shut off all alarms automatically two days a week… let’s say on the weekend just so we didn’t live on pins and needles?  Or maybe every alarm should have to cry out…”BE AFRAID BE AFRAID BE AFRAID” so that we would realize that many of the folks that urge us to set alarms are really prompting us to be afraid of missing every little thing and the price is only a little peace.. and the chance to understand the flow of life you might prosper from?   

Anyway… time’s up… how do I know?   Not from an alarm… so relax and think about this… 

Peace 

Online shopping

They’ll smile and they’ll wink

“You can dress in silk and mink”

It’s easy click the link

But I beg you not to blink

As interest rates won’t shrink

Accounts display red ink

Because you didn’t think

And now you’ll need a drink 

Shop online

Ruining an Otherwise great walk outdoors “Mulligan” Stew

 Down the faraway strolls the strutter

Balls were rolling  smooth as butter

One missed swing — a tiny sputter

Internal swear words champions mutter

Then the magic leaves the putter

Now the world starts to flutter

Forehead sweats and forearms shutter 

The disaster now it seems is utter

Mulligan Stew?

President's Day Are You Buying It? With a Cherry On Top

                                            

Presidents’ Day—Are You Buying It?

So this week we celebrate Presidents’Day and apparently we honor presidents by buying things and not just certain things.. everything from suits to computers and subscriptions and memberships.  I wonder if John Quincy  Adam’s or Herbert Hoover feels honored  when customers get 30% off a touch screen all in one with 2TB solid state drives?  Now when I was younger we used to celebrate a couple of specific president’s birthdays but now we don’t have time for all that and we have learned some facts about presidents we’d rather not  spend time focused on like the fact that Jefferson  believed that all men were created equal and set about creating babies with all ethnicities just about equally.    Oh and now we are pretty certain that George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree nor then did he confess to his father he couldn’t tell a lie.  But alas the cherry  seems to have come through this okay as in this same week  we also have National Cherry Pie Day.   

So let’s transition between this cherry tree fake news to some real facts.  While we recognize cherry pie day… government  has abandoned the Washington  tale but not all states have cleared the books of cherry-related mandates.  In fact, Kansas  has deemed it illegal to prepare and serve cherry pie aala mode.    Okay let us move ahead shall we?

There are two basic types of cherries—sweet and tart.  Tart is the type we use to bake with and in the part of country where this entry originates  tart is the type that we are semi-famous for in a region less than an hour away.  If we travel less than an hour we can view the world’s fastest carry picking  process where tree shakers can harvest thousands of cherries in mere seconds.  In fact, a whole tree (7000 cherries) can be collected  in a quaint 7 seconds.  That’s probably enough cherries for  somewhere between 25 and 28 pies if you are generous with the cherries.  

But if pie is not your thing you can also get cherry wine, cherry cream soda, cherry jam, all types of cherries and chocolate and of course cherry BBQ sauce!

Travers City MI is known as Cherry City U.S.A. and it’s minor league  baseball team is the “Pit Spitters.”  This serves as a reminder of a saying from  several decades ago that has sort of gone by the way side…by the way which side is the “way?”  We all know the inside, the outside,  the upside  and downside, the left side and the right side and even the suicide .. and yet the “way side?”  

Okay let’s get back to the saying… Life is a bowl of cherries but sometimes it’s the pits…. And speaking of the pits… NASCAR is back and that means baseball  is coming soon… so we’ll wrap  things up with this… 

No matter if  life is the pits, it’s always time to step up to the plate in life and take a swing.   

So take your discounted laptop and hotel rewards membership go out and salute  Grover, Herbert, Tricky Dick and Old Hickory… and have some dessert  with a cherry on top