Politics – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

The Golden Age Of Shit. Super Intelligence Style

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. -Walter Scott

The farce that unfolded in Washington DC yesterday regarding Artificial Intelligence wasn’t comedy. Yet it was super hilarious. At some point you have to understand that the wool is being pulled over all of our eyes, including those of the president. And you have to laugh.

Us president donald trump attends national design studio launch event for america gov a new ai powered government website at t.jpg.

In an election year that sees American’s distaste for anything approaching the topic of AI growing like kudzu, the folks running the AI show keep rapidly alternating back and forth between requests that the government step in and stop them from destroying humanity and telling us that their products will create a new golden age of abundance.

If there’s a joke in the circle jerk of a game they’re playing, it’s that the president croaks that he got the assembled AI oligarchy to sign on to a “morally binding” agreement to self-police. You read that right. “Morally binding.” There’s lots of laughing about a group of technologists who built empires on stealing the work of others, who never met a law or a moral they wouldn’t spit on, signing such a document put forward by one of the most outrageous criminals the world has ever known. But that’s just the set up.

The joke is that these conmen are playing the decaying before our eyes president for all they can while he’s still breathing. He no longer understands what’s put before him. He doesn’t have a competent staff. A fact made abundantly clear by the misspelling of the United States under the president’s signature and the fact that his administration’s AI fueled new website spent the day disproving all the lies he’s foisted upon a population with an average reading age of a sixth grader. You’d think his flunkies would use AI to do some basic proofreading and fact-checking. But that’s above a sixth grader’s skill set. Apparently they’ve already “corrected” the website to spit out the lies again.

These tech bros are openly yanking the president’s chain, taking advantage of his infirmity, our divisiveness, our curiosity, and the greed of the markets. The rest of the world is doing it. Given their desires to run the planet, into the ground or elsewhere, they might as well get in on the act before the curtain comes down.

Couple all of that with the supposed name change in the order, rebranding Artificial Intelligence to Super Intelligence. On the one hand it’s good to know that if the technology kills us all there will be no shortage of superlatives to describe the end of times in the summaries all the robots, Muses, and Dots will spam each other with after we’re gone. It beats being wiped out by something branded as artificial, I guess. On the other, the name change is just super silly. Call me when OpenAI changes its name. I’m just surprised he didn’t name it American Intelligence. Or Trump Intelligence.

If there’s drama ahead in any of this, it’s that at some point it’s going to all go to shit. Mostly it has already. Those who dismiss every warning as merely marketing remind me of early climate change deniers. Those who take the warnings seriously remind me of every bandwagon jumper that’s ever leaped to a conclusion. As in most things, what truth that exists probably lies somewhere in the muddy middle, which is exactly where those who will profit over either their success or failure want it to stay.

Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to. 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. This site does not use affilate links.

Sunday Morning Reading

It’s all complicated. Until it’s not.

In some weird way another Sunday has rolled around and pulled into the station that signals the end of another week. I say weird because it’s one of those weeks where you lose track of where you are day by day, and have to keep reminding yourself which day that ends in “y” you’ve landed on. It’s complicated. In a way to avoid my momentary confusion, here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share. If I’m sharing it, it must be Sunday, right?

Matthieu marseille JzmM3xTu2Xw unsplash.

Artificial Intelligence continues to complicate the news with more and more problems predictably arising daily out of that tempestuous soup we called technology. Ian Duncan has a more than interesting essay on the matter titled Sex, AI, And The Apocalypse that’s worth your time. Whether you’re buying what anyone, including Duncan, is selling, it’s worth examining the merchandise.

Aurra Kawanzaruwa reminds that’s it’s not the lie that’s told that matters as much as the doubt it creates in The Liar’s Dividend. Who Benefits From Your Doubt.

Meanwhile, David Todd McCarty takes a look at An Uncomplicated Life. Easier said than done. Better done than not.

JA Westenberg says Outrage Is Our Last Campfire. Any piece that begins with examining a bit of Anton Chekov is worth your time in my view. I’m not sure if outrage is the last or not, but it sure is consuming us more than keeping us warm.

I miss good sports writing. Chicago is a crazy sports town, and at the moment, with both major league baseball teams in the playoffs and the NFL season underway emotions are running rampant. The stakes are high, but the odds are fading with the Chicago Bear’s star quarterback and thus that team’s hopes injured. Most of the hopes and baseball dreams will come to naught in my opinion, but it makes for an uncomplicated way to while away some time between commercial breaks for online betting. Matt Lombardo’s has a good piece of sports writing in The Official Quarterback Hell Travel Guide worth checking out if you’re into such things.

Sad to say, you can’t talk about sports today without talking about gambling. Alex Klavens, Walk Bogdanich and Jenny Vrentas investigate How Draftkings Uses A.I. To Target The Gamblers Likeliest To Lose. Bet you didn’t see that coming.

To close out, give a read to Timothy Snyder’s piece A Medidation On Train Stations. The things we know, and the things we just set aside to deal with so many other things are enough to complicate countless lifetimes.

(Image from Matthieu Marseille on Unsplash)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to subscribe if you want. It’s free. 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. This site does not use affilate links.

Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence, and Hive Mindlessness

I always look at everyone when we’re on the street and think, ‘We’re like sheep or ants.’ – Lee Ryan

The stock we place in leaders to change the course of countries and companies is more times than not an illusion. The bigger the organization the greater the illusion. For the moment at least these organizations are still made up of humans, and in most cases to think humans march in lockstep you’ve got a hitch in your step.

Oktavianus mulyadi Ir0LXvMPnyc unsplash.

We watch presidents and dictators and CEOs and heads of this and that issue orders, decrees, mission statements, warnings, social media posts, and what have you, and it’s easy to put whatever statement they make to bed and move on whether it’s a problem solved, problem created, or a promise made. Yes, leaders set a tone and an agenda. But leaders don’t do the dirty work down under that make the trains run on time.

Often it’s underlings who think they’re doing what’s called for. They can sometimes twist and turn the agenda to their own purposes. Occasionally they turn their own zeal into a tempest that laps the original intent of whatever they’ve been ordered to accomplish.

And then there are those not in the mix that follow. Seize the agenda. Jump on the bandwagon and try to turn it into the permission slip they’ve always wanted to do now that they feel justified. Or perhaps just because it’s possible. They and the curious who sit on the sidelines can also upend any agenda.

Wealth certainly doesn’t trickle down, but bad motivations do. Strike that. The gravity occasionally runs the other way. Permission slips open up a plethora of permissive possibilities that even the strongest hand of the strongest boss can’t control. That’s human nature. Like Mother Nature, it’s a delusion we can control either.

Even so, we like to think there’s a world out there where we’re all pulling with the same purpose towards the same goals. That’s the illusion.

What prompted this little bit of an essay, beyond watching the always on/off political posing these days, was watching Meta’s new attempt to conquer the world, Muse, rocket up to the top of the app charts with surprising speed. Given all that we know about Zuckerberg’s machinations and maniuplations I don’t believe there was a public out there thirsting for this next move. But it’s being devoured and guzzled in gulps not seen since votes were secured with beer and a sandwich in Chicago taverns back in the day.

Humans are an evolved species that can reason. Perhaps that’s the illusion. Insects that revolve around queens like ants and bees don’t reason. The irony of the gender difference of bosses between the insect world and our technologically driven one is amusing, but the willingness of the drones that follow the leader is depressing.

(Image from oktavianus mulvadi on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

Yes, and…or No, But?

It’s a Sunday. Yes, and it’s raining. Yes, and it was darker than I prefer when I sat down to write this edition of Sunday Morning Reading. The content feels darker too. Sign of the times? Or just a look inside what’s caught my attention? You read. You try to figure it out. I don’t think I can. Neither can anyone else it seems. Game on.

Michal vrba AJlaheUF IA unsplash. Boys playing chess

AI safety is all over the news, which means it has become practically a dead horse of a topic. Is it scam or a real threat? No one knows. Funny. I think that’s how the scammers prefer it. Especially if there’s a there there. Juliette Kayyem says Destroying Humanity Is Against The Law. Is it?

Anand Giridharadas repeats the obvious in The System Is Rigged. The Cavalry Is Not Coming. We’re On Our Own. Obvious as it may be, it’s worth your time.

Phillips Payson O’Brien says The American Age Is Over. Duh.

David Todd McCarty takes on The Abject Failure Of American Media. McCarty also sprinkles some wisdom on the Ed Sheeran controversy in Ed Sheeran Learns The Hard Way That Neutrality Is Not A Safe Space. There are parallels about more than just safe spaces if you’re of a mind to see them.

Anyone who didn’t think The Kennedy Center was going to be just another in a long list of casualties that would take a miraculous act of resurrection after Trump spoiled all the parties was deluding themselves. Everyone knew the lies going in. Janay Kingsberry reveals the financial ones for the few who pay attention in What The Kennedy Center’s Tax Returns Reveal.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the improv technique “Yes, and…” Dennis Hogan asks “What was Improv?” in his piece No, But. If you know, you know. If you read, you’ll find out.

Justin Neuman says we are most human when we play freely, imaginatively, and pointlessly. There’s wisdom there. There’s also wisdom in what he offers about this era when everything is gamified in More Nothing Now.

Neil Steinberg brightens the morning by suggesting that sometimes all we need is a kitten in Farm Kitten.

(Image from Michal Vrba on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

Reading and thinking on a rainy late-summer morning.

I have a love/hate relationship with late August in Chicago. Hints of Autumn, my favorite season, become stronger. The sun rises later, which I’m not a fan of. That’s where we are on this rainy Sunday morning in Chicago, so it’s time for a little Sunday Morning Reading. And thinking.

Ronit shaked ENNtoNUxhU unsplash. Transparent umbrellas appear to float in the sky.

I like to think I keep an open mind. I also like to think that the life we’re living currently will one day be better. Bottom line, I like to think. Daryl Van Tongeren says that Everyone Wants To Think They’re Open-Minded. Here’s Why Most People Aren’t. My mind is increasingly closing to the possibility of things getting better in my lifetime.

Natasha MH explores egos and gatekeepers in The Structural Shift Beneath Our Feet. I’d argue the shift is in our minds.

David Todd McCarty says that Engagement Might Be The Problem, Not The Solution. To my way of thinking, it never was the solution. Unless you were running one of the engagement platforms.

Davi Ottenheimer sees a similarity between the tech bros and plantation owners. He’s not wrong. Check out “AI Own” And The Techbro Dream of Plantation Life.

Zoe Williams tells us How To Spot A Psychopath, saying ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat.” Given that most probably haven’t encountered the latter, perhaps it’s no surprise that the real deal is often so difficult to spot.

Neil Steinberg continues to delve into his archives, this time with a piece from 2015 called Face Fear. When you look and think beneath the surface, there’s no wonder what wonders you’ll discover.

I’ve attended a number of wakes, visitations, memorials, and celebrations of life recently. “Wake” is my favorite term of art for masking grief. It just feels more appropriate to my way of thinking. Timing is everything, so Natasha MH’s piece While The Dead Was Sleeping struck a chord this week.

Speaking of those departed, this week we lost one of the good ones, Dolly Parton. Lots of things written about her extraordinary life and legacy. I particularly enjoyed this piece from Heather Cox Richardson.

It’s a dreary day and some of the links above are also are a bit dreary. So, to close on a cheerier note, Mastodon friend Ian Robinson linked to this piece called How To Talk To Comedy Writer from Andy Reilly. If you’ve ever paid attention to comedy, I bet you’ll recognize some of what you’ve seen, if not why you laughed at it.

(Image from Ronit Shaked on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

“Cowardice is stronger than common sense.”

Another Sunday with yet another stab a sharing some Sunday Morning Reading. What caught my eye this week revolved around history, featuring fiddle players, photography, and a bit of Chekov among other topics. Rosin up the bow and enjoy.

Guillaume gryn_dvs kv5v3 Yh _M unsplash. Black-and-white close-up of an older man playing a violin, wearing a light fedora with a dark band and a patterned shirt, focused with an expressive, open-mouthed expression as he draws the bow across the strings.

Kicking things off are two great pieces from Robin Ince. He jump starts the first with a well worn quote from James Baldwin:

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

I think we’ve all been gaslit a time or two in our lives. Even if you think you haven’t you should give both The Gaslight Years — Part One and To The End — Gaslighting Part Two a read. I think the fact that Baldwin wrote “hates” in the plural tells a tale.

“Agreement is cheap. Challenge is expensive.” So, says JA Westenberg in The Intellectual Circle Jerk And Why We Can’t Stop. Regardless of the hit to the pocketbook, both come with a cost.

We’ve always fought over history, even while we’re making it. Fine to fight over it, because history teaches us you can’t erase it, no matter how hard you try. Kelsey Ables takes a look at The New History Wars.

Speaking of history, Alan Palazon looks into The Forgotten Photographer Who Put A US President In The White House — And Pioneered Photographic Branding.

Harrison Smith tells the story of Violet Hensley. She Set Aside The Fiddle To Raise Children. At 99, She Made Her Opry Debut. Ms. Hensley recently passed away. Rest in peace.

I’m glad to see that Natasha MH keeps pursuing her art and her writing about it. Check out In The Canvas Grotto.

And to close, here’s a piece from 2018 that Neil Steinberg pulled out of his archives to highlight again this week. Glad he did. The title is a famous quote from Anton Chekov. Cowardice Is Stronger Than Common Sense. Maybe history does just rhyme after all.

(Image from Guillaume Gryn DVS on Unsplash)

We’re Going To Need A Bigger Woodshed

Angry thoughts.

“We’re going to need a bigger boat.” I’m reminded of that great moment and line marrying comedy and horror together in the movie Jaws, when Roy Scheider’s hero realizes he and is compatriots are up against a bigger challenge than they thought after seeing the shark up close.

Shutterstock 2567949113. A weathered, ramshackle wooden shed with a corrugated metal and tarp exterior, filled with scrap wood, planks, and discarded building materials, standing in an overgrown field surrounded by dry brush and green trees.

With so many sharks swimming around and feeding freely these day, in my own warped little mind that line twists and turns a bit, when I think of all of the punishment I’d like to see meted out whenever some semblance of sanity returns to the world, if it ever does. Along those twists and turns I imagine taking all of these villains to the woodshed my mother always threatened me that my father was going to take me to when he got home on one of the many days I misbehaved.

What’s funny about that twist is we never had a woodshed. It didn’t matter. Any room or location would do when it came time to teach me a lesson. Yup. It was a different era and that kind of lesson wasn’t frowned on like it is now. We did have an a old out building down the hill in the woods. Until I and my neighbors burned it down playing with matches. Given that my father was the chief of the volunteer fire department you can imagine how the aftermath of that unfolded.

But to the point, we’ve essentially given matches and cans of gasoline to so many prepubescents and adolescents masquerading as adults in so many sectors of our lives and are watching the smoke rise out of the trees down the hill. If not the flames licking at our foundations.

I’m starting to get the sense that even with fresh outrages flaring up each day, with no help from those who seem to know better, that too many are becoming content to let things just burn out, hoping for some sort of regrowth under the ashes.

Call me old fashioned, or just call me old. But either way, most of the damage that’s being done in our political, social, and technological lives seems to be egged on by some who might have profited from a visit to that proverbial woodshed.

Enough trips to the woodshed with enough switches used to somehow flip a switch that changed behavior for enough of us in my generation to make the unconvertible stand out as those you wouldn’t welcome into your life.

Buy, hey. Feelings.

I don’t blame kids for misbehaving badly. I do blame adults. Especially adults who let other adults act out. Frankly, I don’t see a chance for any new undergrowth happening without that bigger woodshed and a line out the door waiting to enter.

(Image by ja-aljona on Shutterstock)

Jason Kelce, Liquid Death, and Garage Beer Want To Send Your Pee To AI Data Centers

“Let’s pee on computers together”

This might actually be an effective ad in the campaign against data centers. It’s certainly a good piece of satire. The makers of Liquid Death and Garage Beer have enlisted former pro-footballer Jason Kelce in as an anti-data center campaign that pisses on the entire concept.

Called We Want Your Pee the clever ad offers a satirical take on how to deal with the voluminous cooling requirements these data centers require by mailing your pee to the data center near you. Given the anti-data center outrage that still seems to be growing, it certainly can’t hurt to use add a little vulgar humor into the mix. I can imagine the lyric, let’s pee on computers together catching on.

While I’m sure some may find it vulgar, it certainly isn’t any more vulgar than the way these companies and politicians are trying to visit these monstrosities on communities. For my money we could certainly use a lot more of this kind of ad making taking the piss on all sorts of topics and tech and political personalities in the days ahead.

The only thing is, I’m sort of surprised some tech bro or financial guru hasn’t already thought of this. Here’s hoping it doesn’t give them any ideas.

You can watch the video below.

Sunday Morning Reading

A moment to breathe differently

The road to our time at the family lake house is a mile long and a bumpy washboard filled with twists and turns. Arriving after shaking out a filling or two, there’s a leveling out that leads to a sort of peace, even if only for a few days. I’m not sure I leveled out fully this weekend, but the moments to breathe differently sure helped. Even if the weather only cooperated for a few hours.

Thanks to science, apparently the human origin story is being rewritten according to Ross Anderson in The Human-Origin Story Is Being Radically Revised. Probably a good thing given that today’s story tellers keep rewriting recent history. So it begs the question as to who might listen to any new version science rewrites.

Speaking of science, and also how we might define the human story and its origins, Claire L. Evans takes a look at the creation of brains in labs in AI Is Dead. Organoids Are Alive.

Whatever the twists and turns, bumps and bruises of history, science, and the stories that make up different versions of our lives, I happen to agree with Lauren Leek that everything is being flattened to feel all the same. Check out Temperature Zero For Culture: Why Everything Is Starting To Look The Same.

Given the intermittent rain storms, it was a battle to keep most of us away from our phones this weekend. Neil Steinberg suggests maybe adults need to adopt the practice of some schools in Maybe Adults Should Follow Students In Setting Down Our Phones.

Natasha MH takes a look at crippling anxiety is Sunshine After The Rain. Be the sunshine.

Dealing with anxiety can be painful. Lots of that to go around these days. David Todd McCarty examines The Upside Of Pain.

Disunion by Kurt Anderson is a terrific short story. It may be speculative fiction, but it feels all too real. I don’t know why, but reading this does not make me feel anxious or cause me pain.

With things flattening out, I believe the extreme edges are where things always matter. Robin Ince writes How I Became An Extremist.

Using quotes from throughout history, literary and otherwise, Jordan Dworkin built a fascinating webpage that tours through the ordinary things of an apartment, reminding us that the things we take for granted were once new and invented somewhere along the line and that “we remain restless in the midst of progress,” and our lives today are “a gallery of past generations’ heroic efforts to do the same.” Check out Ordinary Abundance. It’s a lovely piece and worth your time. I wish I felt the same about the things we’re trying to create today.

(Photo by the author)

Sunday Morning Reading

Where does it begin? Where does it end?

Origin stories. Crazy stuff sometimes. Living in a world when we can make up, massage, or hallucinate just about anything, it’s no wonder that origin stories captivate and often capture us in our quest for meaning. Perhaps so we can have disagreements over them. I wonder what the origin of that is all about? This week’s Sunday Morning Reading touches on origin stories as well as some of the usual topics that I find of interest and worth sharing.

A typewriter with a page inserted with the sentence "In The Beginning" Getty images c O6QssKbtI unsplash.

Ross Anderson tells us The Human-Origin Story Is Being Radically Revised. Even if we discovered that this is all a simulation, I’m sure it would be debated, monetized, summarized, and bastardized into meaninglessness somehow.

No origin story is complete without some sort of religious or spiritual interpretation. Even Artificial Intelligence isn’t immune to that human phenomenon. Hayden Field explores How AI Bots Started A Religion — Humans Immediately Followed.

Everybody makes mistakes. Neil Steinberg suggests we might be getting too comfortable with that fact and a writer’s duty is to aim higher for accuracy, while admitting our flaws in To Write Is Too Err.

On a political front, everyone seems mired in a mud fight about how the Democrats might be unable to reconcile their progressive and moderate wings. Jay Caspian King takes a look at Subaru Socialists And The Great Disappointed, trying to figure out what’s behind some of the millennial thinking these days, as well as that of the generation that followed them, which he labels “The Great Disappointed.” Life is disappointment. Living is how you deal with it.

Meanwhile, David Todd McCarty asks What Does It Mean To Be A Moderate? I don’t have the answer to that. Frankly, given that everyone is so pissed off I don’t think it matters. That said, while how we insist on defining ourselves might help talk about political life, it sure isn’t helping cure what ails us.

Apparently the one thing that all flavors of the political spectrum can agree on is that data centers are not a good thing. Except those who make the policy and accept the bribes to allow data center construction in my backyard or yours. Molly Taft looks at How Data Centers Broke American Politics. I might argue that they revealed rather than broke. Because the bagmen got too clumsy.

I’ve been following the goings on at Google for most of the summer because the goings on are going to change things. In my view, not for the better. Like Donald Trump, Google hasn’t been shy about saying it’s going to screw things up. (My words, not theirs.) This week there was a shakeup among Google’s AI hierarchy that suggests the screws on the screw up are tightening down in what seems like a rush to productize too soon. Hayden Field gets into The Messy Politics Behind Google’s Big AI Shakeup.

Every origin story is one that also reaches an end. I commented on the passing of Om Malik several Sunday’s ago. Thanks to John Gruber for linking to Om’s final blog post, something I somehow missed. It’s about so much more than the headline suggests. But that’s what Om Malik was about. So much more. Check out The Myth, The Mythos and the Man. I’ll close with this quote from his post:

The sophist is selecting, sequencing, and presenting in ways that produce belief without requiring the audience to do the work. Mythos, for Plato, was the domain of poets and myth-makers. Useful for educating the young, dangerous when deployed as a substitute for rigorous argument among adults.

(Image licensed from Getty Images for Unsplash+)