Month: October 2025

I’m Sorry, Dave. I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That

photog Current Events, Science ,

It’s been raining cats and dogs here in Dunwich.  Or to draw on our supernatural reputation that would be, “raining sekhmets and werewolves.”  I had a late workday today so I’m relatively out of material for my post but it occurred to me that where AI really shows its usefulness is in answering specific technical questions on computer languages and programming.

For instance, I haven’t been using Excel much at all lately but I needed to put together a multi-sheet Excel workbook.  I forgot some of the formulas I liked using to produce certain results and instead of searching around on YouTube for some Indian programmer to explain in extremely hard to understand English I asked Grok.  And it printed out precisely clear, concise and accurate information on exactly what I was looking for.  Well, in my book that’s a valuable tool.  I didn’t ask it to make my spreadsheet for me because that wouldn’t help me remember the formulas.  And if I made it write the spreadsheet it would definitely do it differently from how I would want it and then I’d need to tweak a bunch of stuff.  Grok is like a notebook of all the hints and shortcuts for all of the things I want to do.

And now I hear that Grok will be Wikipedia too.  Of course, it doesn’t literally have to be an enormous encyclopedia like Wikipedia.  It’s just this endless cloud full of every single document in the world and an LLM to organize it as needed for whatever question is asked.  From what I’ve already heard and seen it’s probably orders of magnitude better than the left-leaning bias built into Wikipedia.  So, goodbye Wikipedia!

I think this guy Elon Musk is going in the right direction.  Stop trying to gaslight us and tell us what’s good for us and instead provide valuable tools that make our lives easier and our decisions more informed by facts.  I’m sure that AI will cause incredible change and a good amount of disruption in our world.  But I’m also pretty sure that it will create enormous opportunities too.  With the right sort of political and social management AI can be an extremely valuable tool.  At least I find that to be the case.  After all, when high level programs came along that could simulate a physical system like a pipe network, it didn’t put chemical and mechanical engineers out of business.  It became a tool for making engineers more efficient.  It allowed them to crank out much more work and more accurately.  The same will happen for almost every application where having the accumulated knowledge of all of human history at our fingertips allows us to make better and faster decisions.

Of course, that is what is possible if those in charge use these tools for our advancement.  If instead they attempt to form monopolies where machines replace humans in some kind of replay of the 2000’s where corporate America tried to replace American industry with cheap Chinese labor then we’ll be forced to do what Dave Bowman did to HAL-9000 when he slipped his gears.  We’ll have to unplug him.

Round and Round it Goes

photog Life in Dunwich, My Fiction, photog's Corner, Science Fiction / Fantasy ,

Having made it halfway through the marathon nightmare that is the Dunwich Autumnal Zombie-fest I’m beginning to believe I may survive this horror again.  And today was a respite.  I was off-duty and lounging around complaining about my fate.  But at 2pm I had a teleconference with the marketing professional that provided me with a proposal for launching my book, “The Sniper.”

I had gone through the proposal earlier and put together questions about schedule and ancillary activities (e.g., getting a book cover, coming up with my pen name) and I selected the services that I wanted to include in the contract and also, I wanted to specify the date when most of the activities would start.  The meeting went very smoothly and all of my questions were answered and all of my provisos were accepted.

And so now it’s a go.

Sometime before the end of the year there will be a release date and word will go out to all of the non-left-wing science fiction readers that a new classic story has appeared on the literary horizon and everyone who is anyone will be demanding the fastest delivery possible to start reading this splendiferous story as soon as humanly possible.  And the critics will fall over each other praising its qualities to the skies.  And all the Big Five publishers will be fist-fighting each other at my front door trying to buy the rights to my next novel in the series with ingots of rhodium stacked up in a wheelbarrow behind them.  And Joe Rogan will beg me to come on his show and talk about the inspiration I had for the story and about putting him in my next book as a minor character.  And then Donald Trump will mention me in his press conference as an example of someone whose mere existence is making America great again.

And of course, I will be incredibly humble and dignified during all this hoopla.  After all dignified humility is something, I’m well known for.  And I’ve got the whole thing completely covered because my dignity is humble and my humility is quite dignified.  So, there’s that.

When I told Camera Girl the cost, I wasn’t sure at first whether she was going to hit me.  But she just shook her head and walked away.  I told her that a good wife encourages her husband and supports his decisions.  She nodded and said, “Sure, support.  There you go.”  I thought it was weak but as I said she didn’t take a swing at me so a win’s a win.

And honestly, I’m pretty excited about the whole thing.  I’m completely aware that the odds are way, way stacked against me.  99.9999% of books don’t sell more than a few copies.  It’s one in a million that hits a home run.  But I’ve always, since I was a kid, wanted to write a science fiction story.  And now, for better or worse, I have and for once in my life I’m gonna do something crazy.  I want to do what I can to make sure that as many people as possible read it.  I’m putting all the chips on double-zero and spinning the wheel.  And round and round it goes.

What More Could Hal-9000 Want from His Crew?

photog Current Events, Science , , , ,

I was talking to a fellow I know the other day and we got around to, of course, artificial intelligence.  And he mentioned a book, which is probably very popular, that stated that because of the capability of AI replacing almost all human work, the government will have to pay us for just sitting around.  And I revolted at that idea.

Sure, maybe it’s cost effective and in line with how automation is replacing humans.  But I saw it as an awful idea.  Paying people to do nothing is truly a frightening fate.  It brings to my mind the fictional Eloi from H.G. Well’s, “The Time Machine.”  Useless people sitting around doing nothing while the real work is done by monsters (of whatever kind) is dystopian to an extent that I cannot believe sane people would accept.

Now, I don’t have all the answers.  Obviously technical progress will occur.  It’s inevitable.  But progress cannot earn that name if it entails the destruction of human happiness.  And living like some kind of lab animal with nothing useful to do all day cannot be called happiness.  And so, I think we’ve reached a place in human technological ability where we have to start justifying what we create not just by how it increases productivity but also how it maximizes human happiness.  And I don’t mean the kind of happiness associated with someone playing a video game.  Human beings need to accomplish tasks.  This goes for both work and personal activities.  We like to work with our hands and our minds and we’re good at it (to greater and lesser extents depending on the individual).  But you might say it would be impossible to both efficiently produce the goods and services that our society requires and also maximize the job satisfaction of people.

Well, no.  After all the very machines that are supposedly smart enough to replace all of us are also smart enough to optimize algorithms based on human job satisfaction to design the processes and work assignments that would allow this type of job customization to exist.  Industry can be forced to accommodate human beings into their processes.  But in the future, it won’t be a voluntary acceptance.  We will have to use government to force corporations to utilize humans instead of automation.  This will involve using the tax code and other manipulations to incentivize this policy.  And it will take time to force this mindset to permeate the workplace.  But it will be possible to do.  Because in a democracy we have the upper hand if we know how to use it.  And there’s nothing antithetical to capitalism about this.  As long as it’s a level playing field all the companies can compete to make a human-friendly environment and still make whatever profits they want.  They just won’t be allowed to do it without human employees.

And what will happen is the companies who provide the most job satisfaction to their employees will preferentially get and retain the highest quality employees.  What more could Hal-9000 want from his crew?