Guest Contributor – ArthurinCali – 27FEB2026 – AI, Yes and No

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I’m no Luddite regarding technology advances, especially regarding AI. It definitely has a place in the 21st century and in society as a powerful tool and emergent technology that can help humanity progress. However, the almost childlike faith many exhibit on its ability to never be mistaken is a troublesome factor. Numerous examples have been pointed out where AI LLMs get historical facts incorrect, or outright repeat Progressive-Liberal dogma verbatim when asked to clarify a social issue. Not really a good development to polarize public opinion on a technology they are promising will revolutionize the world. Over 400 AI data centers are currently under construction with another 900+ scheduled in the US alone. With over 1500 expected to be in operation around 2030, these questions of authenticity and quality of information provided will become more salient to the viability of AI. As to the effects on entertainment, I believe that the AI slop will become popular to a segment of the public, but another effect of this will be that human crafted works of art; whether in cinema and literature will also become more valuable to many. It will be the difference between “store bought” and “homemade” so to speak.

I’m Sorry Dave, That Was a Lie – Part 1

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Can AI completely change the world?  I don’t mean like Skynet nuking all the cities.  I’m not talking about terminators slaughtering humans and rounding them up for extermination.  I mean will the routine use of AI radically change human society?

Some people will say it already has.  I spoke to a hiring manager who said that three of the four applicants for a job he was trying to fill used the same wording in their resume for how their experience was relevant for the position.  And I spoke to a teacher who said he routinely failed sixty percent of the homework he reviewed because it was obviously AI.

In a sense those who say it already has, are right.  The children have stopped using anything but their phones to interact with the world.  Wikipedia and Chat GPT are the ultimate authority and the only way to learn.  This is a real problem.  And the only way forward is to extract the electronic devices from these kids and make them use the knowledge or lack of knowledge to show what they know in a test.  In future, test rooms will be shielded from wi-fi and teachers will get those wands that airport security use to search for weapons.  Only in this case the weapons will be iPhones.  But what other changes are we in store for?

One thing I’ve heard a lot lately is that music, books and movies will be created by AI.  And in a sense that will be true.  AI is an accelerant.  It can take an idea that it is given and flesh it out into a big flowery pile of mush that no one would call good.  But that pile of mush probably can be pared and reshaped and cleaned up into something the author could use and do it faster than he could write that much story on his own.  Is that a better way to do it?  No, it’s worse.  But will it happen?  Unfortunately, I think it will.  In fact, from all I’ve read it’s already happening.  Some woman bragged on-line that she used AI to write hundreds of romance/porn novels under dozens of pseudonyms and made over a hundred thousand dollars by doing this.  That’s a pretty bleak reality brewing out there.

And it’s kind of a shame.  It seems to me what AI should be doing is using all this power to assist humans to make a superior product.  I could see a writer wanting an AI to use only a small subset of good fiction to help a writer explore the techniques that great authors have used to draw characters and craft plots that appeal to intelligent readers and entertain them.  That’s a lot better than loading up a trough with slop.

Outside of entertainment and education I think AI will be enormously powerful.  It’s ability to research topics is amazing.  The problem is the lack of transparency about how AI makes mistakes.  Currently, the AI claims to be infallible and does not admit when some “fact” is actually false.  What is going to be needed is a testing procedure to give users of AI a way of finding dangerous errors in the information they’re being given.  That’s the world we will be living in.

SOTU Speech 2026

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SOTU Speech 2026

Trump had his State of the Union address.  I heard it was very long so I fast forwarded through the cheering and rigamarole.  What I heard was very good.  Trump highlighted the improvements to border security that have shut down illegal immigration and has curtailed the trade in fentanyl.  He talked about the fraud that was going on up in Minnesota with the fake daycare centers.  He talked about bringing down inflation and increasing foreign investment in the United States and then he had a bunch of feel-good stories like the US Men’s Olympic hockey team and he had stories of victims of crime caused by illegal aliens.  And he mocked Ilhan Omar and her cronies for their lack of patriotism and he criticized the Democrats for stalling his legislation and refusing to fund the government.  And he placed the blame for the problems that he is fixing squarely at the feet of Joe Biden and the Democrats.

I think he checked off all the right boxes and he spoke well and with humor.  I saw a report on CNN that showed that his speech was well-received by Americans and that after listening to his speech they thought that the country was on the right track by two to one.  Good.

I guess comparing this to Biden’s awful speeches and even Trump’s first term this was a very good effort.  It may have been a little long and there may have been a few too many guests but many of these people were worthy of having their stories told.  And Trump did a good job of portraying the humanity of these individuals who deserved to be acclaimed.

So now he has a little less than three years to make a difference in how this country runs.  And he only has until November when he’s guaranteed a Republican congressional majority.  It is my opinion that he needs to craft a real legislative agenda that will allow him to use those three years to the fullest.  I think he should push the Senate to abolish the filibuster and pass a republican platform including an actual budget for the first time in decades.

Many people object that if the filibuster is eliminated that the Democrats will ride roughshod over our country the next time, they get control of the White House and Congress.  I don’t think it matters.  They’ve done so much damage already that we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t give ourselves the tools to start fixing things now.  This is the opportunity to make things happen.  Three years of the White House in control of an agenda that the Republican Congress should enact will be plenty enough to fix a lot of the damage that has been done to this country.

Well, now I’ve said what I’d like to see happen.  Instead, we’ll get to see what really happens.  But give Trump his due.  He put on a very nice show and he tooted his horn justifiably and now he will have to pull a bunch of rabbits out of his hat to keep the Republicans in charge of the Congress.

Sometimes There is No Winning

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I mentioned the other day that we were getting a foot of snow.  And in the current political environment, that means the state is shut down.  Even First Selectman Cthulhu shut down the Dunwich government and spent the day eating the road salt that the state provides for town road clearance.  He really likes salt even though it’s bad for his blood pressure.  His doctor told him to keep it below 10,000 atmospheres over 6,000.  But what can you do?  He loves him some salt.

Now I decided not to start clearing the snow until today (Tuesday) because they said the snow could continue until 7am.  And even though that turned out to be incorrect (it was a cloudless sky this morning) I was undismayed.  I had nowhere to go today (everything is closed) so I had all day to blow the snow off the top driveway.  I had a leisurely breakfast at 7am and by 9:30 am I sauntered out and started up the snowblower.  And it turned over like a champ and I put it in gear and moved it to where I wanted to start the clearing.  Then I turned the chute in the direction I wanted it and squeezed the trigger to start the auger.  And horrible noises proceeded from this possessed contraption.

Long story short; my snowblower is on the sidelines.  And so, what started as a leisurely day of snow removal became the Bataan Death March.  A foot of snow is kind of a lot when you have as much area as my driveways and other areas add up to.  In the words of every action hero that reaches that golden age, “I’m getting too old for this crap.”  I performed a mental triage of what did and didn’t have to be cleared to allow us to get out on Wednesday morning.  I cleared the area in front of the garage.  I cleared a path from Camera Girl’s car to the upper driveway and I cleared the whole upper driveway including the thirty inches of compacted snow and ice that the plough trucks sealed my driveway in with.  That last part was rough.  I abandoned the lower driveway altogether.  I left snow sitting close to the front door and I didn’t even clear the area around the shed (other than a path to get in and out of it).  And even with these omissions I didn’t get finished until an hour after sunset.

And now I ache in every joint and every muscle.  The piles of snow have gotten so high that I had to pitch each shovelful with all the force I could generate by rotating the shovel in a long arc.  If there were an Olympic event in snow tossing, I might have broken the world record.  So, I got in and there was a very nice dinner waiting for the “conquering hero.”  But then Camera Girl mentioned that the forecast had changed and now they’re talking about snow in the morning.  And more snow on Thursday.

Sometimes there is no winning.