Are We Giving Up On Facts?

Artificial Intelligence remains and will remain all the rage. Whether it be text in Large Language Models or Digital Art creation there’s a rush, gold and otherwise, into this new world fueled by impressive technology. Impressive as it may be, at its core it remains a regurgitation of creations by humans. Which we all know at times have been impressive and at other times less so. (See Today.) Even once it reaches the point when new AI creations are redigesting its own regurgitations, its core will still be based on what has come before.

Ouroboros dragon serpent snake symbol

Set aside the sometimes laughable mistakes (two different models have declared me dead) and the “who owns this stuff” issues over the text and images these engines are trained on. Set aside the labor issues. (I’m waiting to see the sex-worker protests over AI generated porn spring up.) Those are fundamentally no different than the advent of any new disruptive technology business springing up. See Uber. See the explosion of rented scooters. See food delivery services. Ship it and sort out the problems later. The rush of the immediate craze always meets reality at some point and slows down before settling in, and in some cases fading from the scene.

But this rush feels different. Not the gold rush part. There’s nothing new under the sun there. But the rush to adopt. Which now that I think of it is essentially the same thing.

It feels different because I think it means we’re giving up on facts. Yes, sure these models are being trained on facts. But they are also being trained on a ton of bullshit. Because hey, again, they are being trained on all the stuff we’ve spewed out and is indexable on the Internet.

I may be wrong but I can’t find any reading that suggests that there are any attempts to weed out the wheat from the chaff. We can’t solve that problem in the real world, so I don’t have much hope that anyone even desires to in the artificial one either. On the on hand why do that? Aren’t these just tools for humans to use? And humans do human things like make mistakes, make stuff up, and make trouble. Often while trying to make money.

On the other hand, I’m not sure there will be another hand. If this new technology phase achieves the aims its creators are using to sell it, the next phase will be new tools that promise to do that wheat/chaff separating. Which, in turn, will get fed back into the same machine in an infinite loop that eventually churns out bread that all tastes the same. I can’t wait to read all of the AI generated articles that feature headlines reading “Everything You Need to Know About AI” a decade or so down the road.

There’s no great conclusion here. There’s merely questions. Or maybe just more fodder for the AI bots to suck up. But as I ponder this I am reminded of this quote from Frank Herbert’s Dune:

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Essential Reading: The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet

Read this book. Highly recommended. 

That’s the summary and the sum. 

I’m a big admirer of Jeff Sharlet. Have been for awhile. That admiration deepened with his latest book The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. (That’s not an affiliate link if you’re wondering.) 

411G8vIdhrL

Sharlet likes to get right into the middle and the depths of the topics he’s exploring. He certainly does here as he walks the walk and talks the talk with a number of folks in the MAGA world seeking to understand just how close the embers of their smoldering hatred is to igniting. 

Here’s a quote from the blurb that comes close to doing this book justice:

Exploring a geography of grief and uncertainty in the midst of plague and rising fascism, The Undertow is a necessary reckoning with our precarious present that brings to light a decade of American failures as well as a vision for American possibility.

Make no mistake. While Sharlet’s style makes for more than engaging reading the subject matter is not easy to swallow. But it’s a medicine that I think we all need to take if we want to understand what’s afflicting our national psyche in this era beyond the media moments both social and otherwise.

As someone who thinks we’re already in the early stages of this country’s next Civil War I would argue the word “slow” in the title might have more aptly applied 7-10 years ago. That said, the stories and moments Sharlet relates leave no doubt that the divisions we face are so deep that the chances to bridge them are few and far between and perhaps already out of reach.

Again, I highly recommend the book as I do the rest of Sharlet’s work. If you haven’t seen The Family on Netflix. I’d encourage you to check that out as well as Sharlet’s other work.  

Amazing Story: His Software Sang the Words of God. Then It Went Silent

Every day is a good day when you learn something new. And this amazing story certainly offers something new to me. 

 

TropeTrainer was software that had been taught to sing the words of God.

Then it went silent.

A developer created TropeTrainer, software that helped prepare kids for their bar and bat mitzvahs. He passed away. Due to advances on computers his software abruptly stopped running on new or updated computers and much was lost. 

CleanShot 2023 04 04 at 07 03 51 2x

 

Most magical was the voice synthesis, which featured an adjustable timbre and a playback speed, Buchler boasted on his website, that could be set “from unbearably slow to comfortably fast.”

In a wink to exasperated Torah tutors, he devised the slogan “Software With Infinite Patience.”

That brief description and excerpts here risk trivializing this story. So, go read the story. 

The American Catechism Comes To An End

The Rule of Law.

We are a country of laws not men.

No one is above the law.

If you’re of a certain age you can recite those tenets of the American Catechism as easily as drawing breath. I say of a certain age because I’m not sure they drill those fundamentals into the brains of youngsters anymore.

Unknown 16

On the one hand, that’s too bad. On the other, maybe not so much. Those truths, never self-evident, weren’t much more than man-made myths anyway. We’ve been mauling those myths since we made them. They’ve always bordered on being a bromide. Meant to comfort. Meant to explain without the need of any real explanation. There’s always been a finger tipping the balance on the scales of justice and Lady Justice has been known to take a peek from under that blindfold now and again.

The magic behind any myth is the buy-in. When the customers aren’t buying anymore, well that leads to bankruptcy, dissolution, or disaster. Unless of course you’re a bank.

“Indications” are that the indcitment of the decaying orange turd is going to turn into the buttressing of our current American pathology as the media rakes in the ratings while spewing out speculation. I’m surprised they aren’t selling ads at Super Bowl rates as I’m sure they’ll follow the decaying orange turd’s plane to NYC like they followed OJ’s Bronco. But there’s not going to be anything resembling what we’ve come to think of as justice in any of this when all is said and done. I’m guessing we’ll see some sort of deal, artful or not, in the name of preserving our sanity for the sake of healing the country.

I know. Try not to laugh at that last part. Tough to heal a country that tore itself in two almost two centuries ago and has reopened those old wounds now that the bandages have been ripped off again.

We’ve accelerated the mauling of the myths and cratering of the catechism. But there’s a silver lining. There’s no longer a need to bend a knee and recite the litanies. Instead use that energy to find one of the increasing number of lawyers who don’t practice all of the supposed rules of their professsion if you get in trouble. Turns out those rules and regs were just myths also.

So many compare favorably our sacred sayings against the clichéd catcalls condeming third-world countries when political fortunes rise and fall. Well now that we’ve dispensed with another of those long held “we’re better than the rest of the world” legacies about the peaceful transfer of power, I’d put us pretty damned close to admission into that thrid-world circle and getting closer every day. We haven’t accepted that “failed peaceful transfer of power” reality and we’re still clinging like kudzu to that myth as we live through its continuing aftermath.

Bottom line. We’ve been had. We’ve let ourselves be had. We used to like that we’ve been had. We used to live with that quite comfortably just like we lived with most other myths and magical sayings that allowed us to sleep at night. Some are pissed off about it. Others are trying to pretend we can return to past like you can return to bed pulling the covers over your head to avoid the day a little longer.

The day is either here or damned near.

And yeah. I’m pissed.

Ink Diaries: And the Reviews Start Coming In

The cast did a glorious job at Friday night’s opening of Ink at Playhouse on the Square. They received a well deserved standing ovation. And now we’ve got our first review in from the Memphis Flyer, headlined Murdoch’s Legacy: Fast-Paced Ink Delivers at Circuit Playhouse. 

The Circuit cast is solid and the production smartly executed. It’s entertaining from the get-go and stirs up enough issues to provoke discussions long after the final bows.

P1040603

 

Check it out. 

 

Ink Diaries: Wrestling the Doubt Demons

I’m not sure which summons the doubt demons more: Thinking over your work the next morning in the cold light of day or watching that work unfold standing in the back of a darkened theatre. One moment you’re thrilled with how you’re telling a story on stage. The next you’re wondering if you’ve lost your mind.

IMG 1094

Self-doubt is an affliction most artists recognize. You see it in every mirror. No one questions you more than you. No one argues with you louder than you. And generally, no one has any idea but you. It’s a lonely, creepy, dark place.

I’ve reached that point, now that we’re rehearsing on stage, where I’m living and breathing more doubt than air. My oxygen intake will decrease in fits and starts over the next 10 days while the doubt swells. Things start to take shape and become searingly solid on stage and in my brain I’m thinking “wow, that’s good” simultanesouly with what I did with that moment just sucks. I dream the show at night and wake up in a cold sweat with anxieity over a moment I’ve just dream watched.

Fortunately I’ve learned better how to face those demons. I generally trust my gut and my instincts. But every now and then my gut ties itself up into a knot of Gordian proportions. That tangle tightens when you look to you collaborators for some sign of affirmation one way or the other and the answer you see in their eyes is “you’re the boss.”

Well, yeah. That’s true.

But you both long for and hope against pushback.

The dreams are another thing. If they keep landing on the same moments it means I need to reexamine that work. Or I just ate the wrong thing before falling asleep.

On the other hand, if those moments of self-doubt don’t creep in I would know I’m just pretending. Decisions beget decisions. Bold ones beget bigger moments of doubt and bigger chances of success. And bigger demons.

So. I’m back in the river of doubt. In a paradox, it feels good and right to be here again, swirling throught the rapids, simultaneously wondering if I’m just all wet and have hit my head on a rock