Artificial Intelligencce – Page 12 – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

Still bouncing back and through some health issues, but it’s Sunday and we’re approaching the start of the baseball season. So here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share.

David Todd McCarty wonders how we convince friends and family that they’re wrong and we’re right in today’s mixed up world in Those Closest To Us. My hunch is that’s becoming no longer possible.

The Internet is as mixed up and crazy as everything else in the world these days. Was it always? Joan Westenberg published a zine that you can download for free called I Miss The Internet: a zine. I’d grab a copy if I were you.

The bills always come due. But this one might never get paid. Christopher Mims takes a look at the growing problem of technical debt in The Invisible $1.52 Trillion Problem: Clunky Old Software.

It didn’t take long for someone to create an AI worm. Makes one wonder where the good guys are who might use AI to beat this stuff back. Matt Burgess sounds the alarm in Here Come the AI Worms.

Sports analytics has been the latest craze for quite some time now. With the Major League Baseball season just around the corner, some are concerned that AI will eventually overwhelm the new wave of analysts and the games. The AP has this report from Jimmy Golen, Sports Analytics May Be Outnumbered When It Comes to Artificial Intelligence.

And from the tech future to the tech past, check out American’s Last Morse-Code Station by Saahil Desai.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Playing a bit of catch up after a week off due to some health issues and travel to visit the grandkids, so here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to catch up on and share as the world continues its wobbly spin.

Context is Everything. I concur with NatashaMH. Cat piss and all.

Trigger me this: John Mellencamp says that one way to combat our US problem with guns is to start showing the carange on the news. Daniel Kreps tells us about it in John Mellencamp on How To End Gun Violence: ‘Show America the Carnage.’ I think Mellencamp is right.

Teri Kanefield has a nice rundown on Why Some Prefer Oligarchy and What’s Russia Got To Do, Got To Do With It? If you don’t follow Teri’s stuff, you should.

Michel Schwirtz and Adam Entous writing for The New York Times put out an explosive piece on The Spy War: How The CIA Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin. It’s not explosive for the content because those who need to know these things already do. What’s intriguing is that when info like this hits the Main Stream Media, there’s always a motive. The question is whose?

James Carville writes a piece for The Bulwark entitled A Crusade for Something Noble. If the title triggers you, read the article. If the subject matter doesn’t trigger you, well… let’s just say don’t say you weren’t warned.

Christopher Mims says AI means It’s The End of the Web As We Know It. I think he’s right, but have we ever really known this moving target?

David Dreams of Everything is a nice piece of introspection from David Todd McCarthy. Also check out his piece Fish Or Cut Bait.

Sunday Morning Reading

Here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share on a day when the political world is fixated on diatribes about age, infirmity, and a tottering judicial system that’s too long in the tooth and already rotted out with decay. Meanwhile a majority of eyeballs are getting ready to tune all of that out and watch some talented young athletes bash each other’s brains out on a playing field, hoping for a moment of glory. But hey, you can always do some reading.

First up, Clare Malone wonders Is The Media Prepared for An Extinction Level Event? The short answer is no. But read the article. It’s good.

And speaking of bordering on extinction, David Brooks in The New York Times pens an interesting piece titled Trump Came for Their Party But Took Over Their Souls.A bit like that old axiom about shutting barn doors after the horses have galloped away, but worth a read.

Smart Is Not Always Wise, says David Todd McCarty. He’s right. I may have linked to this already, but it’s worth you catching up to if you haven’t yet. Also check out The Scale of Evil Things. Smart and wise.

One of the mysteries of our time is how so many got suckered into so much bullshit thinking about things that used to feel like touchstones in our lives. In this piece, Reed Galen is talking about religion. The scary thing is how spot on the title is: Hiding in Plain Sight.

NatashaMH thinks she needs to be fucked up in order to be creative in her piece The Fucked Up Creative. Here’s to being fucked up if that’s the case.

Back on the politics beat, but also the fucked up beat, Ronald Brownstein talks about the non-secret plans the decaying orange turd has if he gets elected again in Trump’s ‘Knock on the Door’. We can’t say we didn’t see it coming this time around.

The Apple Vision Pro continues to dominate tech talk and here are a couple of interesting takes from this second week of that beta project’s life in the wild. Apple Vision Pro Review: Eyes on the Future by Jason Snell of Six Colors and Christopher Mim’s analysis that Apple’s New Face Computer Is For Work.

And finally to close out the morning here’s a look at How Steinbeck Used The Diary as a Tool of Discipline, A Hedge Against Self Doubt, and a Pacemaker for the Heartbeat of Creative Work by Maria Popova. No AI or fancy tech required.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Winter is bearing down on big portions of the U.S. Some places are already digging out. I’m in one of the former portions (Memphis) that doesn’t handle it well. So today, Sunday Morning Reading will contain less links than usual. We’re rushing to get things accomplished before folks anticipate a rough time (or a snow day) in this old southern town. But don’t rush through these links.

As for winter, Zoë Schalnger has a good piece up about The Threshold at Which Snow Starts Irreversibly Disappearing. Given deadlines and what’s impending here I sort of wish it never would appear, but that’s not the point of this article.

U.S. Politics may be a hot topic, but not enough to defeat Old Man Winter in Iowa where the first caucus will be held tomorrow for apparently no reason. The debate also rages on about the 14th Amendment. This piece from Jason Linkins, The Fourteenth Amendment Scolds Abetting Trump’s Return, turns up the heat on that issue and the media that keeps screwing up the coverage.

Natasha MH, talks about school reunions in The United States of Reunion. Great piece about the inner conflicts they can dredge up.

Smart is Not Always Wise. I concur. So does David Todd McCarty who penned this piece.

And for those who come here for a little tech, check out John Siracusa’s take on Artificial Intelligence entitled I Made This. Well worth your time.

Some Things We Just Know On The Merry-Go-Round We Call Life Today

On the merry-go-round of life some things we just know. Some things we just know but find that others want to pretend something different. Here are some things we just know.

Donald Trump is a criminal, a rapist, an insurrectionist, a scumbag, a loser, a lousy liar, and more beyond redemption than most of the evil people in recorded history. He’d love to top even that list. He wants to dismantle the US Constitution and any other aspect of governance as long as he can stay out of a prison jump suit that might clash with the color of his makeup while grifting his way to the grave.

The Republican Party is the largest collecton of cowards and liars ever gathered under the guise of a political party, afraid of any shadow with a hint of orange in it, and terrified of the ignorant constiutents they represent and claim to love. They deserve whatever comes from their cowardice and lying. The rest of us don’t.

Elon Musk is a drug-addled fool who just happens to control a few companies, somehow has a national security clearance, a hoard of wealth, and could care less about anything other than for whatever is in his brain at the moment. Or the next.

Too many American voters don’t know which way to turn because either fork in the road seems like a tortured path. Too many American voters need to pay better attention, because if they are not careful they’ll lose the ability to make choose how severe the torture is going forward.

Big Tech isn’t Big Tech anymore. Big tech, like most other human endeavors, is in the Big “Let’s Make All The Money We Can before the merry-go-round stops” game. The merry-go-round always stops.

Artificial Intelligence can be both a boon and a bust. It will be both. You don’t have to be intelligent or real to see that coming.

Social Media can be fun. Social Media can be harmful. In either case, only if you let it.

Wars are destructive, foolish expressions of ego and and desire. Rules and Laws of War are silly made up sing-songs to allow men to destroy each other and anyone in their way in service to those egos.

The Media is a mess of its own making in covering any of the above, and seems to enjoy swimming in its own slop with its mouth agape. Anyone in their right minds would have stopped the bleeding by now. Unless they just enjoy self-harm. But if it bleeds it leads. Even it’s draining the lifeblood out of you.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Some culture, some politics, some tech, and some fun to share in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. There’s also a bit of Picasso tossed into the mix. I’m in Memphis starting rehearsals for The Lehman Trilogy at Playhouse on the Square so life’s rhythms are a bit fractured currently, but life’s slower on the Mississippi.

Kicking it off, David Todd McCarty in We Could Be Heroes asks what do we do when mystery no longer sustains us after we’ve moved past enlightenment? I’m thinking the answer is either drink more or drink less. Pick your poison. Also check out his weekday daily columns here.

Susan B. Glaser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos explain How The American Right Came to Love Putin. My $.02? It’s simple. It’s not about Left and Right in the traditional sense. It’s about take what you can because the good guys have proven they can’t really stop you.

Ray Naler in Time Magazine has an excellent piece on Artificial Intelligence called AI and The Rise of Mediocrity. We’ve been rising/sinking to that level for awhile now. The pace is quickening.

Speaking of quickening, what was Twitter continues to quickly plunge into past tense. The Verge has an excellent and fun piece called Elon Musk Killed Twitter from a team of writers.

More and more journalism these days seems to be telling us what we already suspected, already surmised, or already knew. Jodi Kantor and Adam Lipton fill in a few blanks on how the disaster that was the Roe v Wade decision came down in Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe v Wade.

Jason Snell makes a case for Apple to develop its own clipboard manger for macOS. He’s right.

NatashaMH in The Madness of Pablo takes a walk into the wildside with Pablo Picasso.

Continuing on the art beat to wrap things up this week, have you ever asked What’s With Those Hilarious Medieval Portrayals of Animals? Well Elaine Velie did and wrote all about it.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.

Sunday Morning Reading

It’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and also the Sunday after Black Friday which seems to have been going on since the 4th of July. To help you recover from the hustle and bustle, both behind and ahead, here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share. There’s not a deal to be had. Just some interesting reads and good thinking.

Kicking it off David Todd McCarty wonders just What Are We All Really Thankful For? There are times when my response would be “You got me.”

Chauncey Devega strings together a list of comments from a few pundits as they headed into Thanksgiving on the dangers they see ahead culturally and politically in Democracy’s Last Thanksgiving: Experts Imagine America in a Year if Trump Wins The 2024 Election.

Denny Henke (BeardyStarStuff) tackles the deepening political and social crisis we’re facing in this post with the looming threat of losing Democracy as we think we’ve come to know it. Here’s a quote: “It has been eroded to a thin veneer with little substance because the substance of democracy is the people. And the majority of people of the US stopped caring decades ago.”

State of play? State of Mind? With 2023 heading to a close that means 2024 beckons and so too does another presidential election in the US. But this one seems a bit, well, let’s just call it divisive. There’s certainly tumult ahead. Some are picking up and moving to safer places. Do those exist? Timothy Noah takes a look at The Red State Brain Drain Isn’t Coming. It’s Happening Right Now.

The bigger they are the harder they fall. But these days it just means they’re landing in a cushion of money. Douglass Rushkoff takes a look at the move fast and break things bunch in ‘We will coup whoever we want!’; The Unbearable Hubris of Musk and the Billiionaire Tech Bros.

Speaking of broken things, what’s going on in the world of Artificial Intelligence after last week’s craziness with OpenAI and Sam Altman? No AI engine could possibly figure it out, much less a human. But Christopher Mims seems to think that ‘Acclerationists’ Come Out Ahead with Sam Altman’s Return to OpenAI.

Apple doesn’t like to admit mistakes and makes us live with some of them far too long. *Cough* *iCloud* *Cough*. Jason Snell lays out A History of Apple’s Mistakes and Failures—and How It Hates To Fix Them.

And from the world of entertainment John Carreyrou takes a look at another episode of not admitting costly mistakes in The Strange $55 Million Saga Of A Netflix Saga You’ll Never See.

Just for fun, here’s another entertainment industry piece, Caity Weaver takes a look at the career of Flo. You know Flo. She sells insurance. But do you know the actress who plays her? Check out Everybody Knows Flo From Progressive. Who is Stephanie Courtney?

And since you’ve read all of this on some screen or the other, take a look at this piece from Scott-Ryan Abt as he wonders What Happened to the Man on the Train? Here’s quote: “Maybe there was a time when people didn’t stare at their screens, but those days are forgotten. Maybe there was a time when you’d have a shared human experience on a train, at an airport, at a coffee shop, or on the street. Screens have changed that.”

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.

Artificial Intelligence is No Match for Human Goofiness

Everyone’s intelligence is being challenged given the decidely human drama going on over OpenAI’s adventures in whatever it is adventuring in. The story’s not over by any stretch of the imagination (or hallucinating) but from what we know it only proves that anything humans touch, humans can screw up.

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Here’s a link to a story on TechCrunch about what, at the time of its publishing, was the latest news that Microsoft. CEO Satya Nadella, exercising the muscles Microsoft built up with its 10 billion dollar investment in the company, hired Altman and the company president Greg Brockman after a weekend of boards, CEOs, directors, and investors doing what they typically do. Employees of OpenAI have signed a letter saying they’ll leave unless Altman is brought back. Even the guy who suggested outing Altman has signed on to do so. Goofy? You bet.

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But I’m thinking all the horses are out of the barn into more Azure pastures.

All of this is about AI, a powerful and world changing technology, fraught with possibly as much potential harm as promise. That genie is out of the bottle, never to be put back in with a future no human or AI model can really predict. This story will continue to unfold, as will the technology. What won’t change is what I said in the opening paragraph: Anything humans touch, humans can screw up.

Sunday Morning Reading

Chili was on the menu last night and it’s a chlly Autumn Sunday morning. So it’s time to share some Sunday Morning Reading featuring a little poetry, some politics, some not so intelligent moves in the Artificial Intelligence world (is it a world?) and just some damn good writing worth your time.

Let’s start with the poetry. One of my favorite new writing discoveries is NatashaMH on Medium. She popped out a piece of poetry, Pereginations, the other day on Ellemeno and this morning she’s got a terrific piece called The Day I Learned Poetry. Good stuff. Good times. Good fun. Nothing artifcial about the intelligence happening there.

Speaking of AI, it was and still is quite a weekend on that front. OpenAI’s board surprisingly fired poster boy CEO Sam Altman, now he may come back after lots of hueing and crying. Or he may not. Who knows. Om Malik has a great piece called Foundational Risks of OpenAI looking at the story but rightly hitting the bullseye that this is more than about corporate chaos and investment returns. I’m not sure AI, or its champions, is built for looking back with a long view.

Our politics here in the U.S is still a mess with no foreseable correction in the cards. Dan Balz, Clara Ence Morse and Nick Mourtoupalas take a look at some of the foundational biases in the U.S. Senate that, in my belief, need to change before any next card can be revealed. Check out The Hidden Biases at Play in the U.S. Senate.

Sometimes an outside view is needed for perspective. In this case not so much. Even so, The Economist weighing in with Donald Trump Poses The Biggest Danger to the World in 2024 offers good context in its global round up.

Like it or not, much of our life on the Internet is changing. Social Media is a crazy free-for-all and so is the world of entertainment. In How Social Media Is Turning Into Old-Fashioned Broadcast Media, Christopher Mims takes a look at the stew that’s stewing.

And where would we be without critics? Probably better off, but that’s not necessarily the point of Siskel, Ebert, and the Secret of Criticism by Richard Brody. Here’s a quote:

Criticism is a fraught profession because it’s parasitical. It depends on the work of artists, without which criticism couldn’t exist. A critic who acknowledges and accepts the fact of this dependence is trying to salvage the dignity of the activity; critics who don’t are just trying to salvage their own dignity.

David Todd McCarty is starting a daily column entitled A Bit Dodgy. I recommend subscribing, following, but most of all reading. I’m sure it will be quite a ride.

And in case you’re wondering, worried, or concerned about all of the insanity happening in the world that makes it feel like we’re approaching the End Times, Jeannie Ortega Law tells us that Left Behind author, Jerry Jenkins thinks that all of those End Times prophecies have been fulfilled. So check that off your list.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.

The AI Pin Feels Less Than Humane

It’s tough to do a hot take on the AI Pin from Humane given how creepy cold the launch and the video was. The makers’ chill approach sure didn’t light any fires of enthusiasm. I’ve seen friends in a hangover stupor with more enthusiasm about their prospects of greeting a new day. If that’s the sort of calm, cool, and collected monotone our future AI world promises it sure doesn’t feel like a very Humane one.

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As for the technology, certainly at some point in the future we’re headed to something like this and I’ll give the makers credit for their efforts so far. At this point there’s no way to really judge the product or its future, but you can see a certain promise in this kind of Star Trek type of human to computer interaction.

Even so, whether collated and sorted by AI or generated by apps you still need to somehow get something “on screen” at some point. And I’m thinking that needs to be larger than your palm. I can’t imagine negotiating with a laser image of someone’s face in my palm, and “voice only” only gets you so far.

That’s the big disconnect in my first reaction. The AI Pin feels more like an input accessory than an end point. If I’m out for the day and snap a few pictures or video they need to be viewed before they are of any value other than further training an AI engine or sending location tracking data. And yes, i can imagine a future with some sort of headset or glasses to view those images, but I also imagine whatever that face computer might be, it will also have the same approximate features as the AI Pin.

So, I say kudos for pushing the discussion. Push it with a little more human enthusiasm next time around.

Here’s the video.