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

AI Customer Support Devalues Customers And The Company That Adopts It

AI customer support isn’t all that intelligent or supporting

I noticed an article on MacRumors that Apple is getting ready to roll out it’s “AI-powered Support Assistant.” Apparently Apple’s only willing to take the risk with tech support and not customer support. That’s where money might exchange bank accounts.

Shutterstock 2482823939.

This is the way the world is spinning at the moment. My prediction is that companies will ratchet back these cost saving moves but not until the realize what it costs in customer loyalty. We have to go through the suck, before we get to the less suck.

I base that prediciton on my experiences spending the better part of this Summer and past Spring helping clients and a few relatives, some elderly, work to cut back on expenses and take care of some warranty repairs for appliances. (Hint: Ditiching warranty services is one way to cut montly costs.)

Timing is everything. My efforts coincided with several of these companies caught in the process of switching to AI solutions for customer and tech support. To be direct, it was a mess. For me, the customer, and also for the employees left holding the bag on the other end of these crazy corporate strategies.

No one would argue that most customer and technical support systems were in good shape previous to these kind of moves. They were indeed ripe for re-inventing and they have always been easy marks for the bean counters to cut corners.

Chatbots had already begun to proliferate, descended from automated phone trees like some form of inverted evolution that only a sadist could love. No one would ever conclude that they had been intelligently designed. My previous experiences were always hit and miss, but at least I understood that if I followed the steps I could eventually reach someone on a phone or live chat. During these transitons that became nigh on near impossible.

Prior to one of the companies I worked making the switch, it had become obvious that they had abandoned call centers and let their agents work from home. I kid you not, I spent one phone call with a barking dog in the background of whatever small quarters this rep was in, and another with two small children fighting with each other in the background of another call.

Let me give you one example from my recent experience with one company undergoing a transiton to AI tech and customer support.

Sears Home Services

Sears Home Services has been a popular home warranty service for many throughout the years. It’s been apparent for a while that services like these have lost their luster and some have devolved into scams. But for folks of certain generations they were always in the monthly budget. In my experience with one of my clients, prior to their switchover, it worked about as well as it was advertised to work. You made a call, talked with an agent, set up an appointment, a technician arrived to check things out, ordered parts if necessary, rescheduled the appointment, and then came back to effect the repair or replacement.

The first repair I assisted with happened just like I described above. The entire process from first call to final signoff on the repair took 10 days.

The second call not so much.

I guessed things were in trouble when the phone number prominently displayed on the webpage would not yield a method of speaking with an agent, but kept pushing me to their chatbot. The chatbot had limited options that you could select. It did not have a way to enter any request beyond those options. My guess is the company didn’t want customers speaking to an agent.

Undaunted, I did the usual online searching for phone numbers and finally stumbled on to a Reddit thread where users experiencing the same problems were reporting phone numbers that worked. Until they didn’t. It was a cat and mouse game of dialing a phone number before it was changed or taken out of service. That lasted about a week.

Finally I succumbed and scheduled an appointment via the chatbot. That chatbot sure was happy. I was told the support technician would contact me the night before to schedule a more specific appointment window. Things were looking up. That call never came. The morning of the appointment I got a text telling me the appointment was scheduled between 8 and 5pm. In my previous experiences these appointments were scheduled in four hour windows.

On the afternoon of the repair, at 5:30pm I got a phone call from a support person saying he would be their in a half-hour. He showed up 45 minutes later. He diagnosed the issue, said he would order parts and they would be shipped directly to me. This was a change I’ll describe later. He then said he needed to go sit in his truck and work with the system to get the parts ordered and that would take a half-hour or so becuase the system was constantly kicking him out mid-order and he would have to start over.

When he came back to finalize everything for that appointment he reiterated that this new system was screwed up. I told him I wasn’t a fan either. We had a good conversation.

Previously, according to him, each night technicians like him would get a list of their appointments for the next day. They would go to a drop ship pickup location for any parts for that day’s appointments, head out and do the work. Now the system sent parts directly to the address of the repair and required the customer to reschedule the next appointment once the parts arrived. Because customers were not receiving notifications of these part shipments, the parts would just show up, often get returned, delaying the inevitable service.

Most striking in his telling was the fact that he no longer received the next day’s list of appointment the night before. Only the first one for the day. Once that was completed he would receive his next appointment. Again, according to him, the previous system in place for dispatching personnel was pretty good at scheduling the next day’s appointments with minimal travel time between appointments. Now with the new system, he would find himself traveling between appointments, often located far apart, more than he would working the repairs.

To begin to bring this ancedote about this repair to a close, suffice it to say that the entire episode from first call to eventual repair has not yet been completed. It begin on May 20. Once it was determined that the appliance needed to be replaced, not repaired (that took two appointments,) a new one was ordered. Then canceled by Sears Home Repair’s system. Then re-ordered.

On the night before the scheduled delivery I got a call that it would be delivered the next day. That morning I got a call saying the delivery would take place that morning. Ten minutes later I got a call saying that the appliance had not been delivered to the delivery driver. (It was too large for a home delivery.) This necessitated canceling the order, re-ordering and a repeat of the process.

Somewhere in the middle of the process phone calls with agents became possible again. Progress? Not quite.

After several discussions with several agents I discovered that they were as challenged as their customers were by the new system. I’m sure you’ve played the escalation game to get to a supervisor and I played that game here as well. At last count I’m waiting on approximately 7 phone calls from supervisors that never came in.

Eventually the appliance was delivered to the delivery person. But there was no record in the system of an appointment to install the new one and remove the old one as per the warranty.

It took a month and two more canceled appointments for installation before Sears finally gave up and said a check would be forthcoming to cover the installation costs. That check has yet to arrive. (That’s why I consider the transaction not completed.) We did get the appliance installed on our own.

But of course, we did receive the usual survey request asking us to rate how well Sears Home Repair Services performed. Once the check arrives and clears the bank, my client will be cancelling that warranty. That will be our response.

Xfinity

One bill I was working on reducing for another client was Xfinity. I probably don’t need to say more if you’ve ever dealt with that company. But I will. I simply wanted to call and discuss plan options for reducing the bill.

No where was I able to get through to a live person. I was sent links to chatbots that would promise a live person, if I followed along, but those calls never connected.

I eventually took a trip to an Xfinity store and got the info and made adjustments to my client’s bill in person. The staff member at that store told me that they were seeing more foot traffic because the online and phone systems were such a mess.

Back to Apple

Now, I began this post mentioning Apple’s move to a generative AI based technical support system. I find this greatly disappointing. In general, because I believe this type of cost cutting move represents a decline in how I value a company because it represents a decline in how these companies view their customers. And in Apple’s case, I have typically found Apple’s tech support to be better than most companies. Not perfect. Still flawed. But better than most.

I’ve had to work through some tricky issues over the years with Apple’s technical support. Some easily resolved. Some not so. One of those issues required several months worth of conversations, eventually reaching up the chain to Craig Federeghi, before getting the issue resovled. I can’t imagine any tech support system being able to measure up to what Apple has currently, even with flaws and failures that require steadfast persistence and often negotiation.

In my attempts to aid my clients I’ve tried some of the AI chatbots that aren’t part of the specific company I’m working with. Typically they spit out much of what I imagine is in the documentation most phone bank customer service reps use to begin a diagnostic process. (Yes, the device or appliance is plugged in.)

I imagine that Apple will use this new system to handle those rudimentary requests that come in that I’m sure fill up the tech support queues and can be resolved easily. I can only hope Apple then passes more difficult issues to an actual human being who can do the type of intervention necessary to reach a resolution. Heaven help us all, and Apple, if they ever automate the degree of support that requires screen sharing over to a robot.

I have yet to meet anyone in the real world that thinks AI on any level is going to fulfill anything close to the promises made by those pushing it. Folks have already seen and felt the results of these early efforts and have turned sour on the entire concept. I think of this like I imagine the last century’s transition to the automobile. Regardless of how some felt upon seeing the first automobiles on the same streets as pedestrian and horse traffic, everyone knew, for better or worse, it was a future they would have to adapt to.

I have encountered a few business owners who think AI will help them create efficiency and reduce costs, but their discussions about what is possible demonstrate a real hype-fed ignorance and hoped for way of cutting costs. I have one client who is smitten with the promise, but is constantly getting bitten by the results.

I’m betting Apple’s move will take a bite out of its customer satisfacton numbers as well.

(Image from Munthia on Shutterstock)

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

The Quest for the Unicorn AI Device

Hyping a tech war that won’t ever happen

Reporters love to declare war, crown winners and dismiss losers. Except of course when it comes to shooting wars and the rhetoric that often leads to them. But that’s not what this post is about. Tim Higgins of The Wall Street Journal, and his headline writers, are declaring that Mark Zuckerberg Just Declared War on the iPhone.

I usually expect this kind of nonsense from the half-a-gazillion blogs and social media accounts out there that like to ginny up controversy to generate clicks. With AI glasses will clicks become blinks?

Now that I think about it, I’m wrong in my expectations because the WSJ, like most of the mainstream media is trying hard (too hard) to follow that pattern these days. It’s an easy game to play in the short term, but then so is the game of companies and governments making big announcements about the future. Remember the “pivot to video?” Remember “virtual reality?” The faux legs went out from underneath that pretty quick.

Higgins does and mentions those failures to capture marketshare beyond the initial hype and funding fevers. Nevertheless, he forgets a few simple things during his embedded tour on this march to the promise of “Personal Super Intelligence.” (That’s this fiscal quarter’s new label.) Zuckerberg might indeed be banging the war drums by propagandizing AI glasses as the latest form factor of mass destruction, but it’s too much hype without enough rhythm to marshall the troops. And to be fair, most of Higgins’ column is just regurgitating old news (AI summary?) that has been bouncing around in what passes for new news these days, tacking Zuckerberg’s recent announcement on as the headline war cry.

Bottom line in my opinion, we’re not going to see any new form factor take down iPhones, smartphones as a category, or computers, as the way we live, work and play in any near future. Folks have been waiting for all kinds of second comings for quite awhile now. I love how even the coming of advanced AI is now referred to as “near emergence.”

One day perhaps. Long after most of us interested in what this technological moment might eventually yield will have forgotten what Medicare and Medicaid were actually about. If and when that day arrives, the real clicks (blinks?) will be in tutorials on how to turn off all of the notifications and other distractions and keep the tech from tracking you.

I’m old enough to remember when FourSquare came on the scene. The promise was you’d walk down the street and receive a notification from the coffee shop you just passed about the daily special. That never really materialized, but the tech was different then. Google and Waze later tried that and just annoyed any driver who stopped at stoplights looking for their next turn.

When the marketing survelllance mavens can figure out how not to send me ads for something I just bought I think there might actually be a chance for that kind of thing to work. A small chance, but a chance. But they’re not even close to that on the backend, let alone integrating them into some device that might pinch your nostrils after wearing them for too long.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it is indeed cool when companies create niche products that give some people joys and hobbies. Bits and pieces of that kind of innovation often creep into bigger things that do help our lives somewhere down the road. Even if they become creepy. Obviously I’d prefer they not become creepy, but that’s where the money is and the creeps always follow the money.

I’d much prefer to see the money and the hype meisters follow something like this that could probably actually help humanity. But even that kind of innovation can attract the creep factor.

Call me when a reporter can research, write, and submit for editing a column like this one I’m complaining about with a pair of AI glasses, an Alexa device, or a pendant, or any other smart device currently in the works.

Call me again, when the AI summary machines can actually deliver an accurate summarization of that article.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Roads traveled too well

Some things defy understanding. Others appear less murky. Occasionally some hit the target. That’s why I read. That’s why I share. I’m still traveling and on the road for a bit, but there’s plenty to share in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. Tomatoes and potatoes may be involved.

Phillip Bump recently accepted a buyout from The Washington Post and hasn’t announced new plans yet. But he’s still writing. Glad he is. He has always been one of my favorite writers and chroniclers. Check out his latest piece Humans Didn’t Evolve To Understand Our World.

When you reach a certain age (certain is alwasy self-defined) you start looking back to the beginning and wonder what will mark the ending. Cris Andrei calls them Bookends. This piece hit the target given that I’m visiting some old haunts on this trip. Oh, and approaching a certain age (self-defined.)

Tuning out news, noise and distractions is never easy. NatashMH takes a look through the marking of Ozzy Osbourne’s passing and other recent cultural touchpoints in Fractals of Modern Life. If you don’t look too hard, all the news, noise and distractions don’t really touch or point towards much in the grand scheme of things. But are we entertained or just dulled into carrying on?

Sometimes writers write just for the fun of it. David Todd McCarty says that’s where this piece, Killing Time Waiting for Friend, came from. I need to find more of the fun of it. Anyway his piece, gave me a chuckle. I did not read it at Denny’s, although I visited one of my favorite locations of the past during my travels.

I’ve linked to and written about Cory Doctorow’s theory of enshittification quite a bit. I’m doing so again with this piece You Can’t Fight Enshittification. I don’t think it’s a question of not fighting, I think it’s a question of not knowing there was a fight to begin with.

Staying in the tech vein, I’ve been linking to Mathew Ingram and others who are talking about the demise of Google Search. Take a look at Pete Pachal’s piece, What Content Strategy Looks Like In The Age of AI. Look beyond the headline on this one.

Speaking of Mathew Ingram, you should read Social Media Didn’t Start The Fire, It Just Fanned The Flames. I agree. That said, if you drink acclerants through a firehose you’re bound to bust.

On the political beat, Jon Pavlovitz offers up Everyone Believes They’re Esssentially A Good Human Being. Actors who play villains will always say that they look for what’s good in their evil character. It’s a form of coping. I happen to think this bunch of performance artists trying to burn down the country never bothered looking beyond the glee they take from their villainy. Apologies to real performance artists.

And to close things out on a competely different note, check out Will Dunham’s piece on the Evolutionary Origins of the Potato Revealed — and a Tomato Was Involved. Some things do defy understanding.

(Image from Mr. Abstract on Shutterstock.)

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. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Mark Zuckerberg Says We All Need AI Glasses

The blind leading the blind-to-be

Mark Zuckerberg, trying to see his way clear to dominating the Artificial Intelligence race, is now saying that those of us who don’t use AI glasses will be at a disadvantage in the future. Reminds me of the X-Ray glasses hype from my childhood.

When you consider Zuckerberg’s checkered legend with starting what would eventually become Facebook, after running a college website called FaceSmash to rate girls, the comparison to the come on for X-Ray glasses does have a prurient parallel to many an adolescent boy’s fantasies.

I guess Zuckerberg needs to justify all of the money he’s spent building out AI infrastructure and wooing talent but it also is very reminiscent of the days he mucked up the media by declaring text was out and the pivot to video was in. In fact, much of this AI race feels very much like that. Sure, some of that stuck, but it mostly just made a mess and the legacy of that pivot left more than a few scars.

This entire AI race feels like that to me at the moment. I believe some of it is going to stick around and actually be useful. But mostly it’s just messing things up at the moment as everyone jumps into the deep end of a pool hoping to learn a new way to swim.

I’ve dealt with a few different companies of late trying to help some elder clients cut down on bills and solve some issues. Several of those companies have been switching much of their customer service to AI chatbots and the like. In those transitions they’ve more than made a mess of things for their customers and their employees who are left trying to clean up the mess.

I’m not completely down on Artificial Intelligence. I can see some benefits from the technology. At this point in the game it’s tough to sort out what that might be from the hype that seems to be authored by the folks who keep promising self-driving cars and those that promised X-Ray glasses.

You’d think by now someone would have developed an AI platform for investors and corporations that could see through the hype.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Through A Glass Darkly: Apple’s Liquid Glass Future Isn’t Clear

Continuing to watch Apple’s Betas from the sidelines.

Apple’s adventures with its new Liquid Glass design language reminds me of the title of a terrific, yet gloomy, Ingmar Bergman film, Through a Glass Darkly. Keep in mind that I’m not running the beta and living vicariously through the reactions of those whose opinions I trust. That said, based on some of those opinions of the recently released 4th developer beta, the future of Apple’s new design approach appears less than clear.

From most accounts it’s a battle between legibility and the “coolness” of the design’s featured transparency that overlays content with the intent for the content below to bleed through. The challenge seems to be finding the right amount of bleed through that also allows users to easily read a notification or a control.

In my view, the challenge with that challenge seems to be one of fighting things you can’t control. Holding liquid in your bare hands without spilling a drop might be easier. Every website and app designer has their own preference and approach. Even Apple apparently has difficulty as some of their own apps with background bleed through obscuring text.

Since Apple announced Liquid Glass there have been three iterations of the approach. In a sort of Goldilocks and the Three Bears adventure with Apple dialing transparency features back and forth. Now in the 4th version of the developer beta reengaging more transparency. Searching for a “just right” solution doesn’t yet seem to be yielding any clear direction. But then, Apple’s ambitions, perhaps by design, have created a lose-lose short term future. The eventual product will never please everyone with this design change. But to be fair, that’s always the case with design changes and the folks at Apple knew that going in.

There are other usability issues as well, including things like making it easy to tell which tab or control is in focus, and having to tap multiple times to perform a function that used to be one tap to name a couple I see repeatedly mentioned.

But the clear focus of complaints (and some praise) is Liquid Glass. I would venture that for users it’s still too early to judge, but supposedly the Public Beta is due soon and the consensus is that what we see there will be pretty close to what we see in the Fall. Developers on the other hand are increasingly worried about Apple’s search for a “just right” solution while they try to find a path forward to have their own apps ready for the big release alongside or close to the release of this new wave of operating systems.

The problem becomes magnified when designing for the lowest common denominator with so many users. From my perspective of supporting clients and family members, most folks just want to pick up their devices and do what they want or need to do. They don’t want a new learning curve getting in the way. They certainly don’t want legibility issues to get in the way. There’s a real tension between what Apple needs to do to keep the cash registers ringing and the familiarity users want that I don’t think the folks in Cupertino understand given the annual pace they seem locked into.

The Bigger Picture

From where I sit on the sidelines, I think Apple has also created some real and perhaps less transparent problems beyond how Liquid Glass eventually rolls out.

Coming on the heels, and at least somewhat intended as a distraction from last year’s Apple Intelligence and Siri woes, Apple needs to create a clear narrative surrounding Liquid Glass in order to sell this year’s new crop of iPhones. (I imagine the commercials have already been scripted if not filmed.)

That already seemed like quite a challenge given that the only big hardware news this year is the rumored introduction of a smaller, lighter, apparently with less features iPhone Air. I don’t imagine that Apple’s traditional iPhone lineup is going to have new features to tout that makes those familiar device form factors must haves or must upgrades.

If you’re counting on a flashy UI design change as the distraction that gets criticized as much as the issue you’re trying to distract from you’re magnifying your problems. Unless of course, you bank on criticism of the distraction further distracting from bigger issues.

Adding to that, the larger narrative has somewhat already passed by this year’s iPhones to what comes next year, with just about everyone assuming Apple’s version of folding iPhones will be the new focus.

Sum all of that up and this is starting to feel potentially like a lost year for Apple. Sure, Apple will sell lots of iPhones, but if it can’t capture the imagination the way Apple usually does, much of the narrative will be wait ’til next year. Apple historically takes a long view. Time will tell if they have lost control of the visible horizon.

iPadOS 26

That said, somewhat under the radar, iPad beta users continue to trumpet the success of changes made in iPadOS 26. I’m looking forward to seeing that myself. That said, as much as those potential changes will be welcome, I can’t imagine that’s the tentpole Apple wants to rely on to create excitement this year.

I mentioned the film Through A Glass Darkly in the opening of this post. The story of that classic film is about a family that gathers to try and heal after a member diagnosed with schizophrenia is released from an asylum. If you ask me, the challenges we’re seeing at Apple with design changes, Apple Intelligence and Siri among other things demonstrate that there are multiple personalities exhibiting control at various times within Apple, at a time when some turnover at the top is already underway, with quite a few calling for more.

As always, I recommend Michael Tsai’s Blog as a good source to keep track of how all of this continues to develop.

And with that, I’ll leave this update from the sidelines with this.

Update: The public betas for all of Apple’s new operating systems were released shortly after this post was originally published.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

With aging comes awareness. Or at least it should.

We’re on Lake Time this weekend, but there’s still time to share some Sunday Morning Reading.

Two weeks ago I shared a piece from youngster David Todd McCarty titled When I Was Old. I’m resharing it this week since I celebrated a birthday on Friday, getting one year closer to marking seven decades on this rock. Also sharing another great piece from David, called I Was Told There’d Be More.

“Scented memories.” I like those two words put together by NatashaMH in her piece, The Fragile Geometry of Becoming.

I’ve been an Elmore Leonard fan for as long as I can remember. Anthony Lane’s Elmore Leonard’s Perfect Pitch may not be perfect, but it is damned close enough.

David Struett delivers a terrific ode to Chicago bike messengers, their culture and their jobs in Meet Chicago’s Last Bike Messengers. Here’s How They Survive.

You might notice a touch of sentimentality and reminiscing in the pieces above. Comes with the thoughts during a birthday weekend. Fair warning though that most of the links shared below are a bit darker, and yes, more political than those above. With aging comes awareness. Or at least it should.

Mathew Ingram wonders What Do We Do When The Facts Don’t Matter? I think we’re not liking what we’re finding out.

Mike Masnick’s piece Facism for First Time Founders offers the next generation a clue or two, assuming the current generation doesn’t crash it all before they get a chance to discover them.

I’ve written about the concept of enshittification in tech quite a bit. Mostly as regards the Internet. Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman take a look at The Enshittifcation of American Power.

Another big contributor to enshittification is the media who increasingly seem more and more clueless and devoid of any self awareness. Charlotte Kim takes a look Inside The Media’s Traffic Apocalypse.

Speaking of things toxic and shitty, Adam Aleksic explores How Incel Language Infected The Mainstream Internet — and Brought It’s Toxicity With It. I’ve spent almost 70 years on this planet. I have no idea why guys turned into such misanthropic, self-loathing idiots.

In a world seemingly more and more intent on criminality, there are very few surprises, but there are legacies. Jessica Winter’s What I Inherited From My Criminal Great-Grandparents. Great story.

To conclude this week I’m sharing a film review by Sonny Bunch. This one of the new film Eddington. I haven’t seen the film. I plan to. Rarely does a review encourage or discourage me from seeing a film. If it’s anything like Bunch describes one way or the other I’m sure it will be worth it as it sounds like a fun, yet conflicted, summary of lots of things we’ve all been living through since 2020, and continue to do so. I’ll leave it with this quote:

The feed never stops, the algorithm never tires. There’s always more. It never ends. Just a few more videos. You can sleep later. You can never sleep, if that’s what you’d prefer. Who knows what you’ll miss when you’re asleep?

And we wonder why everyone has gone a little nuts.

Scott Hanselman’s TEDx Talk On The Promises of Technology

Worth your time to give this a watch

Scott Hanselman is a someone I’ve followed for quite some time. I’ve always found his insights on technology and the intersection technology has with humanity to be valuable and that they make me think. Strange that I think of it has an intersection, given that technology wouldn’t exist without humans.

I recently saw he that his TEDx talk titled Tech Promised Everything. Did It Deliver?

Scott breaks down the three promises of technology into Connection, Convenience, and Creativity. I won’t hint at where the talk goes, you should watch it for yourself.

As an intriguing side note given the subject matter I found in remarkably inconvenient that WordPress decided to do some sort of work on their backend as I went to publish this post. Technology is great when it delivers, right?

Regardless, what Scott has to share is excellent stuff and highly recommended.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Notice the good things amidst the bad.

It’s been a week. But I repeat myself. These days it seems like that’s always the case. Superman’s back. (Again.) So too are this season’s butterflies. Everything circles back. Today’s Sunday Morning Reading is a potpourri of topics of interest that stroke a number of chords, some familiar, some not so, some good, some not so. Either way, enjoy.

Photo 1693722379283 fd3627e18cea.

In That Was Good, Merlin Mann says that smart people always find the best reasons for being very sad. I can relate. He suggests the cure for that might be noticing some good things. Even the small ones. Check it out. It’s a good thing.

This week featured the news revisiting the subject matter of several plays I’ve written or directed in the past. One of those, Inherit the Wind, the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, is a semi-fictional retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. This year marks the 100th year anniversary of that trial. Neil Steinberg has a terrific piece, both commemorating and commiserating. Given how short a distance we’ve traveled in this circle we keep walking in. Check out 100 Years Ago, The Scopes Trial Gripped The Nation, And Here We Go Again.

Twice a week on social media I post “This is your now weekly, and continuing reminder that we’re still fighting the Civil War.” Frankly, I don’t see it any other way for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain. I don’t often post interviews in this column, but I’m making an exception this week to post Amita Sharma’s interview with political scientist Barbara Walter who has helped forecast civil wars in other countries. Take a look at San Diego Political Expert Details Steps That Could Lead To US Civil War.

I blow hot and cold on Tom Nichols’ political commentary. I very much like his piece Damn You All To Hell! Find out his thoughts on how Hollywood taught a generation to fear nuclear catastrophe. It might have worked with that horror. Funny, yet sad, how it hasn’t worked with all of the goings on currently.

History is indeed always an incomplete picture that’s always evolving and struggling to take hold. In Texas Man’s Fight To Move A Lynching Marker Sparks New Battle For Truth, Christina Carrega pinpoints one of those moments of evolution.

Mathew Ingram says We Shouldn’t Blame AI For The Stupid Things That People Do. I agree. AI is the prime example.

Chris Castle takes on a piece of the Section 230 argument, thinking that a new theory of liability is emerging, grounded not in speech, but in conduct. Give a look at The Duty Comes From The Data: Rethinking Platform Liability In The Age of Algorithmic Harm.

And to round out the circle this week, take a look at David Sparks’ A Remarkable, Unremarkable Thing. Don’t let the small things go unnoticed.

(Image from Anya Chernik on Unsplash)

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

Mixed feelings and mixed emotions on a Summer Sunday by the lake.

The 4th of July weekend is wrapping up in the U.S. and many are having mixed feelings this year. Today’s edition of Sunday Morning Reading will feature some excellent writing on some of those mixed feelings in addition to some interesting reads on familiar topics from familiar writers, and some not so familiar. Enjoy.

Giuseppe argenziano J04GmVkKSLQ unsplash.

First up, let’s take a look at Elizabeth Lopatto’s view on the state of things in the states in her post The American System of Democracy Has Crashed. Excellent. Should be required reading.

Neil Steinberg also has thoughts well worth your time in He’s baaaaaaack.

Jack Hopkins gives us The 4th of July: What We Were Meant to Celebrate — and How We’re Failing It. Again, worth a read as we close out the long holiday weekend and this section of today’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Now for some catching up on some links I’ve delayed too long in sharing.

First up is The Chosen Few and the Cost of Global Silence from NatashaMH. History repeats. All the damn time. As she also demonstrates in this piece The Cruelty of Indifference.

Relative youngster, David Todd McCarty writes about aging in When I Am Old.

Writers are having trouble finding the right fit when it comes to how to make a living. Matthew Ingram tells us Why Substack Shouldn’t Be The Future of Online Publishing. We

Chuck Wendig argues about and bemoans the loss of downtime in his writing process given all that’s happening around us in A Small But Vital Thing, Taken.

While writers search for new ways and new homes, Joshua Rothman wonders What’s Happening To Reading?

Never Forgive Them is a piece from Edward Zitron from December 2024 that seems relevant again in more ways than it was intended then.

Composer and poet Stan Stewart recently had his computer die on him. He writes about what he lost and found in Of Dead Computers and Really Living.

Matteo Wong says The Entire Internet Is Reverting to Beta. Sure everything is a janky work in progress, certainly in the janky days of AI. But I think that’s how those who think they run the joint like running the joint.

And to close out this week, take a good look at this wonderful long read from Eric Konigsberg from all the way back in 2001, entitled My Uncle The Hit Man.

Image from Giuseppe Argenziano on Unsplash.

Should We Teach Our Children To Lie Better?

The truth is everybody lies.

I remember my grandfather saying “Politicians always lie. That’s why they get elected. It’s a dirty business. Stay away from it.” Keep in mind, he was a good acquaintance if not a good friend with all the local elected politicians. It was always weird seeing him be friendly with them at church or other social gatherings. So, from my perspective there was always a disconnect that’s been a part of my view of politics and politicians for most of my life. I doubt I’m alone.

Jametlene reskp Q79XFGuTFfM unsplash.

Of course politicians aren’t the only ones who lie. Corporations do. Ordinary humans lie to other humans. Hell, these days, even AI chatbots lie. It’s all an expected part of the game of life, regardless of what the ninth of the Ten Commandments say.

Most legal systems are built on the premise that one side of the other is going to lie in some form or the other and it’s up to a judge or jury to determine where the truth my lie. But rarely does the losing side get punished for using lies as a defense.

What I do wonder though is why we waste so much time teaching our children not to lie. Given that we know full well they are going to grow up in a world where lying is not just the coin of the realm, but the realm itself, why bother? We do spend time teaching them to beware of the lies being told by salespeople, politicians, friends, etc… But I don’t think many parents spend time providing their progeny with better deceptive skills to be successful.

It’s a weird disconnect. Of course we want our kids to own up when they do something wrong. But eventually they figure it out anyway and everyone goes around living the lie about not lying. Rinse. Repeat.

Bad liars are easy to spot. So I guess arming youngsters with better skills wouldn’t’ necessarily be a bad thing. These days, even the bad liars seem to be rewarded for getting away with it, so a better skill set might unlock better achievements. But then again, choosing sides between Kant and Aristotle on the virtues of truth telling and situational ethics isn’t really good fodder for a dinner time conversation with the kids.

There are many old sayings that end with “_________makes liars of us all.” You can fill in the blank with “the world,” “fear,” “marriage,” “The Internet,” etc…. You can pick your target for blame. Just don’t pick yourself.

Perhaps hallucinating AI chatbots will one day level the playing field of liars by “reasoning” this down to the lowest common denominator. Regardless of what their makers say, they can only learn and spit back what humans have already learned and regurgitated back into the world. We’re all lousy liars, some lousier than others. We lie to the tune of our own rhyme or reason in the moment. And we certainly haven’t learned to pretend other as we endlessly recycle our inability to do different.

Image from Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.