A.I. Yi Yi!

Image by Andy from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.  

 

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device

"With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon." Elon Musk  

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

For the record, this column has not been written by an artificial intelligence, I pinky swear. 

{Huh. How would they know?}

How would who know what?

{Your readers, how would they know? What's to prevent an artificial intelligence from lying, and claiming to be you?}

Just a sec', Dana, I'll be right back...

Okay, it looks like the existing complex web of national and international standard organizations is already working on this. Obviously, it's gonna take a minute, but they'll eventually hammer out a system for certifying whether or not a given something or other was created by an artificial or meat-based intelligence.

At least I hope so.  

They've got a lot of experience in this sort of thing which is why you don't get electrocuted when you plug in electronic devices manufactured all over the world. For example, at America's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), "Delivering the needed measurements, standards and other tools is a primary focus for NIST’s portfolio of AI efforts."

{Cool, but in the meantime? And what if...}

Funny you should ask. An article (AI Junk is Starting to Pollute the Internet) in the Wall Street Journal, Colonel Cranky's personal paper of record, caught my eye a while back and...

{I thought you were Captain Cranky?}

I've been promoted, Dana. You'll be receiving an invitation to the induction ceremony/party shortly.

Check out the article dear gentlereaders if you're interested in details. Far be it from me to steal content written by a fellow H. sapien, WSJ reporter Robert McMillan. 

{But what if "Robert McMillan" is actually an it and...}

However, I learned something from the article that in retrospect should've been obvious to me given how common a trope it is in science fiction, regardless of format, for a device controlled by an artificial intelligence — robots, computers, spaceships, etc — to choke to death on corrupted or deliberately deceptive input.

The article is primarily about how spammers, and other blackguards and ne'er-do-wells, are using A.I. to execute scams. But the thing that really interested me was reading that slowly but steadily more and more of "the cloud" consists of content that's created by A.I. 

From the article "...researchers worry that the language models will become less useful, a phenomenon known as 'model collapse.'”  

So what's model collapse? Artificial intelligence is based on tech called large language models. A.I. feeds on the content of "public data sets," that is to say, all the internet content theoretically already created by H. sapiens. But our fellow meat puppets, perhaps even you, are experimenting with A.I. for fun and/or profit to create content.  

A given artificial intelligence can eat data faster than Joey Chestnut can eat hotdogs and remember, and use, more data than that kid in Sister Mary McGillicuddy's class that made the rest of us look stupid and was the reason S'tr graded on a curve. 

Artificial intelligence software, like the currently famous ChatGPT for example, regurgitates content created by itself in response to commands/inquiries by H. sapiens. "Experts" predict that this is going to eventually result in the cyber equivalent of what happens when you make a copy of a copy that's a copy of a copy. 

{Oh yeah? Well just wait till, inevitably, some meat puppets start falling in love with his/her/their artificial companions...} 

It's already happening, just wait till they start self-identifying as software, or a robot, and start canceling people for being cyberphobes while waiting for the singularity. 

Anyways... That's model collapse. I hope to live long enough to discover if Pandora can close the box before artificial intelligences (intelligensi?) start killing us in our sleep, or if it turns out that A.I. is going to save the world. 

The law of unintended consequences is always in effect, which I find endlessly fascinating (except for when it negatively impacts me of course). 

Stuff happens...  So I would suggest that it's better to be safe than to be sorry, that a buyer should be wary, and that since life's just one darn thing after another, you should keep your fingers crossed and be careful because you never know what's comin' down the pike.

After all, It pays to pay attention.

A note on last week's column. The voters of Ohio voted down the attempt by the Republicans currently in control of the state to make it much harder for the little people to both get a referendum on the ballot and pass it if they do, a right they've been exercising remarkably responsibly since 1912. 

They were primarily motivated by wishing to make it harder for the people to pass a referendum that will be on the ballot in November, that's being promoted by the Democrats, that will enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. 

Rather than compromising on a law that would make abortion legal, but with restrictions similar to the ones that were included in the Roe v. Wade ruling, WHICH THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS OF ALL STRIPES FAVOR, we might wind up with a constitutional amendment that's so vague and poorly written that it might be struck down by some judge or other before or after the election. 

But it will save the members of the Ohio Legislature from having to craft and vote on a common-sense compromise.

{And yet you...}

Yes, and yet I still think the issue should be decided state by state given the sorry state of the Congress. It should've never been decided by nine unelected Supreme Court judges just because Congress will cross the street to avoid hammering out compromises that might keep a given member from getting reelected and having to get a job in the real world.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.   

   

 

    

Ohio

A Republican State?

 Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.  

 

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." -Unknown  

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

As my regular readers are aware, I live in a fortified lair, Casa de Chaos, in the mountains of Ohio. 

Ohio is a Republican stronghold these days although we do have a token Democrat, Senator Sherrod Brown, our Senior Senator (in more ways than one, he'll be 71 in November) who's been a politician for all but two years of his life since leaving college.

His brother, Charlie Brown, was the Attorney General of West (by God) Virginia from 1984 to 1989 when, according to Wikipedia,  "...he resigned...in exchange for an end to a grand jury investigation into allegations that he lied under oath and into his campaign financial records." And which resulted in a very brief Wikipedia entry.

{Charlie Brown? You're making that up!}

No I'm not, Dana, follow the link.

 

My current official position concerning America's two major political parties can be summed up by Mercutio's famous declaration in Romeo and Juliet, "A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms meat of me."

{Thou wouldst have us believe thou art a Shakespeare fanboy, gentle sir?} 

We studied a condensed version of Romy and Julie in high school and I saw the (in?)famous 1968 movie version that very briefly featured Romy's bum and Julie's boobs. 

The teenage actors, now in their 70s, were so scarred by the experience they sued Paramount — 55 years later — for half a billion bucks, although unsuccessfully. And I'm definitely a Mark Knopfler fanboy whose song Romeo and Juliet is a favorite of mine (but not the kinda dumb video).

But I'm drifting, Dana.

{As is your wont, gentle sir.}  

All things considered, I'd rather live in a state where the Republicans are in charge rather than one in which the Democrats are because California. California reveals everything you need to know about the current state of the Democratic Party.

Big BUT, Ohio, like California, demonstrates what can happen when one-party rule is in effect. 

There's going to be a special election this week, in feckin' AUGUST! (8/8/23) to gut an Ohio tradition that's been in effect since 1912. 

There are elections every year somewhere in Ohio. We not only have off-year elections we have off-off-year elections. This year there will be statewide elections in August and November. The one in August only has one issue (no humans) on the ballot to vote for or against. 

It will cost the good citizens of Ohio about $20,000,000. 

{It can't wait till November?}

Nope.

The powers that be are using the August election to change the rules in the middle of the game to help them defeat a ballot issue in the November election that will expand abortion rights — if the citizens of Ohio agree to do so. 

Currently, the carefully gerrymandered GOP supermajority has decreed that abortions are only permitted for the first six weeks of pregnancy and they don't want to take the chance that the voters might disagree. 

If next week's ballot initiative (initiated by the legislature) passes, come November it will take 60% of Ohio voters to expand abortion rights. Since 1911, ballot initiatives have only required 50% + 1 vote to pass. 

Going forward, not only will it take 60% to pass an initiative, the Rules&Regs for citizens seeking to get an initiative placed on the ballot will tighten dramatically. Bottom line: much harder to initiate, much harder to pass. 

Given how polarized Americans are just now, getting 60% of voters to agree on anything, anywhere, is obviously a tough sell. 

And by the way, since the old Rules&Regs will still be in effect on Tuesday, it will only take 50% + 1 voter to pass the new Rules&Regs, and the taxpayers are on the hook for the $20,000,000 regardless of the result.

Machiavelli smiles. 

A very long story short: At the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1912, Teddy Roosevelt spoke in favor of the creation of the current system. “I believe in the initiative and the referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative.”  

The referendum on referendums passed and it became possible for anybody to start a petition drive to amend the Ohio constitution, propose a new law, or overturn an existing one. Get enough signatures and the proposed statute or amendment will be on the ballot. 

If 50% of the voters, and that nut job from Newton Falls support it (+1), it passes. 

(Irony alert. The referendum that permitted initiatives and referendums passed with 57.5% of the vote. If the proposed new Rules&Regs had been in effect it wouldn't have passed.) 

 

Last January, the legislature passed HB 458, an election reform law. According to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose the bill, among other things, did away with "...August special elections – a costly, low-turnout, and unnecessary election for our county boards to administer – unless it involves a political subdivision or school district that is in a state of fiscal emergency."

(It's a tradition in Ohio for subdivisions and school districts to use August elections to get unpopular levies passed with the help of low voter turnout. F.Y.I., despite allegedly being a Republican state, Ohio has a sales tax, sin taxes, property taxes, local special levies, local income taxes, and a state income tax.) 

 

Last May, they decided that there would be at least one more special state-wide August election, hoping to bump 50% to 60% before the abortion vote this fall, hopefully while no one was paying attention. The good news is that a lot of ones were, and are, paying attention. The Democratic Party, among others, has made sure of that.

{Wait-wait-wait. Aren't you the one that's written about the wisdom of America's founding pasty patriarchs setting up a republic to counteract the downsides of democracy? Couldn't "initiatives and referendums" proposed by Wokies or Normies get ugly?} 

Potentially, sure. Another big BUT: since 1913, only 71 citizen-driven ballot initiatives made it to the ballot and just 19 were approved by voters. That's an average of once every six years or so.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.   

The Secret of Life (Updated)

Image by elizabethaferry from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"Show business is just like high school, except you get paid." -Martin Mull

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

So-called real life, at least in the countries that used to be proud to be identified as products of Western Civilization, is just high school with money (and smartphones), that's all you really need to know.

In fact, modern technology + modern prosperity = perpetual high school (mt + mp = phs).

{But some of the countries in the Eastern Hemisphere and the Global South are also...}  

Yes indeed, but the majority of them are products of radically different cultural traditions than ours which they aren't abandoning as rapidly and enthusiastically as we are. 

{Wait-wait-wait, you've revealed the secret of life, as alleged by you at least, several times over the last hundred years or so, old man. What gives?} 

I haven't written about the subject since my four-month sabbatical last year at a secret Taoist monastery in the Wudang mountains. Like its predecessors, this missive serves as an update to previous versions. 

If technology keeps advancing arm in arm with global prosperity, eventually the entire planet will consist of H. sapiens with psyches equivalent to that of an average American high school student (and many of their elders).

The good news is that with a bit of luck, this will cancel out the ChiCom's effort to destroy Western Civilization via their not-so-secret weapon, TikTok. By the way, I define ChiComs as the current emperor and his minions, not his serfs and slaves.     

{But there's no shortage of countries mired in poverty and primitive technology.}

Sure. But if you adopt a birds-eye view you'll discover that technology and prosperity are spreading at unprecedented rates. At least for now. 

{You're gonna' have to supply links to the data if you want me, the Stickies, or your gentlereaders for that matter, to believe that.}

Well, I'm not going to... but I would if I thought it worth the effort. 

Prosperity has made it possible for more people to access technology. Technology has enabled more people to access the worldwide web of all knowledge. 

But unfortunately, the web, particularly social media — as well as traditional media like TV, print, and radio — is chock-a-block with contradictory knowledge that constitutes the ultimate, international version of a classic debate format familiar to everyone:

Uh-huh! Nuh-uh!

{You've mentioned this uh-huh, nuh-uh thing before too. In fact...} 

I know, but it just keeps getting better and worse. Modern technology has made it possible for everyone to become a publisher, a broad/narrowcaster, a producer/director, a musician/record label, etc. Any moron can claim to be a columnist. Power to the people!  

But nowadays, all sides of any given argument are able to supply links to all sorts of websites and data top-heavy with links to all sorts of other websites and data top-heavy with links... ad infinitum. 

Flame-fanning by traditional media outlets more motivated by financial survival than the search for truth, makes it hard to tell genuine thoughtful, carefully reasoned disagreement from mere partisan infotainment, ideology, gossip, and propaganda.

{Well, that's a spiffy paragraph, but what's it got to do with your notion that real life is high school with money?}

It's an October morning in 1968 and a bunch of bleary-eyed teenagers are seated at a high school cafeteria table waiting for the homeroom bell. Being 1968, there was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air (HT: B. Dylan).

A vocal minority of Boomers a few years previously, had begun a cultural trend that has since gotten out of hand: all politics all the time. An argument has broken out at the table and an occasional, "It's a fact! You can look it up!" can be heard.  

{I still don't see...}

Well, now you can look it up, but most Uh-huhs! can be easily refuted by a Nun-uh!

Bottom line: All politics, all the time is spreading around the world at light speed. Filtered through social media and exploited by the outrage industrial complex, the result is a virtual version of an endless American high school civics class debate (or a cafeteria kerfuffle).

{Do they still teach civics in high school?}

Later that same day our typical American high school Boomers are eating lunch at their self-segregated cafeteria tables. At the cool girl's tables, top-heavy with salads, cans of diet soda pop, and little else, they're speculating about Debbie. Turns out her family didn't move. Debbie's been moved, to the Saint Mary McGilliddy home for mothers and babes.

At the jock tables, they're congratulating, Bob, a wrestler, as it turns out he won't be dropping out of school and getting married after all. Bob and several of the members of the wrestling team aren't eating, an important match is pending and they need to "make weight." 

When lunch is over a flurry of notes are exchanged that will be delivered by an ad hoc postal system once classes resume.

 

It's an October afternoon in 2022, and at a typical American high school Zoomers are eating lunch at their self-segregated tables. At the cool girl's tables, salads and bottled water are being consumed with one hand, information consumed and disseminated with the other. 

At the jock's tables, members of the wrestling team are working their smartphones with both hands. 

An endless stream of pics, selfies, videos, gossip, trolling, canceling, cyberbullying, tweets, and etcetereets is being generated.

A few girls are pregnant, but nowadays the whole world is becoming a small town wherein everyone can gossip and fret about every-thing that every-one is up to, and can do so anonymously.  

Marshall McCluhann achieved his 15 minutes of fame (H.T. Andy Warhol, fellow Yinzer) when he posited that "the medium is the message." I think that although the mediums keep changing, and do have an impact on the messages, the messages, like human nature, remain fundamentally the same  

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.