So, as I was saying yesterday, the kids and the grandkids came over.\u00a0 And Camera Girl killed the fatted calf, cooked it and then afterward served cake and ice cream to the stuffed survivors.\u00a0 I skipped all the meatballs and sauce and made my self three sandwiches; a Reuben, a roast beef, provolone with mayo on \u201cpeasant bread\u201d and a free form that included mustard, corned beef, lettuce and sweet gherkins on French bread; all washed down with hot coffee.\u00a0 Suffice it to say I ate too much but have no regrets about it.\u00a0 Later on, I had way too much vanilla ice cream and pound cake.\u00a0 About that I do have regrets.\u00a0 But c\u2019est la guerre.<\/p>\n
Today I faced the new day feeling bilious and groggy.\u00a0 But all this warm weather of late inspired us to head for the state park for a long walk in the woods.\u00a0 Seriously, I really want to thank whatever climatic forces are responsible for this winter\u2019s mild weather.\u00a0 I hereby agree to whatever destruction of the planet occurs and with my blessings.\u00a0 Walking in the middle of February through this park without snowshoes is an innovation that is well worth finishing off those poor devils living at the Equator.\u00a0 And since our Lizard Overlords are bringing all those people here anyway, at least I can have the benefits of a warmer climate here in Dunwich without feeling bad about it.\u00a0 So, after the strengthening and revivifying effects of our hike I am restored to health and looking forward to enjoying the rest of this holiday weekend.<\/p>\n
During the festivities yesterday I was able to talk with my eldest grandson and he told me he managed to get on the Dean\u2019s List at the college where he is studying computer science.\u00a0 Apparently, that requires a 4.0 grade point average.\u00a0 I was impressed.\u00a0 He is a lot like me.\u00a0 Which means that studying for any subject in which he hasn\u2019t any interest, is very difficult.\u00a0 So that means he is displaying considerable discipline.\u00a0 I attribute this to his parents spending a lot of time stressing the need for conscientiousness.\u00a0 So, I am impressed with them too.<\/p>\n
We discussed the recent trends in computer science.\u00a0 We both got a laugh out of the recent vicissitudes of the \u201cmetaverse.\u201d\u00a0 The fact that the geniuses at Facebook didn\u2019t realize that people don\u2019t want to walk around wearing virtual reality headsets all the time is ridiculous.\u00a0 After all, it\u2019s one thing to wear a headset while flying an F-16.\u00a0 There it\u2019s a matter of life and death.\u00a0 But in almost any other instance real life is superior to virtual life.\u00a0 Think about it.\u00a0 I can go into a field and throw a real baseball around with my grandsons.\u00a0 Or we can all stand around wearing VR headsets and pretend to throw around a baseball.\u00a0 That is so lame as to even defy comparison to other lame things.<\/p>\n
Then we talked about artificial intelligence and of course ChatGPT.\u00a0 He was generally very excited, not about the present chatbots, but rather about the potential in the near future.\u00a0 Apparently, the level of sophistication is still growing quickly and whereas currently the behavior merely mimics human thought he was enthusiastic about it becoming closer to human creativity over time.\u00a0 I warned him that AI\u2019s ability to replace humans in the workforce might someday even allow it to replace computer scientists and he ruefully agreed the potential is there.<\/p>\n
It was a very interesting conversation.\u00a0 I still think of artificial intelligence as a tool.\u00a0 If I let a chatbot write an essay for me, I\u2019d use the output as a framework from which I\u2019d insert the creative ideas that I wanted to make.\u00a0 Facts and figures and even sententious musings aren\u2019t thinking.\u00a0 They\u2019re scenery.\u00a0 You have to have a point of view.\u00a0 Sure, you can tell a chatbot the point you\u2019re making but it still sounds like a Wikipedia entry.\u00a0 I defy a chatbot to rise to my level of outrage.\u00a0 And since my point of view is currently algorithmically forbidden to chatbots, by definition, I am immune from their competition.<\/p>\n
Afterward, Camera Girl joined with the kids going to a middle school theatrical performance and Princess Sack of Potatoes saw her first live play.\u00a0 And she was enthralled.\u00a0 Camera Girl just watched her reactions to the performance throughout and said it was amazing.<\/p>\n
And I thought, how is an algorithm going to mimic that?\u00a0 An intelligent and emotional child \u201clearning\u201d about theater; how will the computer scientists mimic that?\u00a0 The human brain only<\/strong> has about ninety billion neurons.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure supercomputers can multiply that number of memory slots almost infinitely.\u00a0 But can we even define what it means to be a human being.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure we currently can.\u00a0 I\u2019m not even sure we\u2019ll ever be able to.\u00a0 Lots of people are convinced that consciousness is just a level of complexity.\u00a0 Once we have umpty-ump petaflops of computing power HAL will wake up and take over the world.\u00a0 I\u2019m far from sure that\u2019s true.\u00a0 It\u2019s fun to use in science fiction stories but reality may not oblige us.\u00a0 How do you program the point of view of a four-year-old girl watching a live play for the first time?\u00a0 Where\u2019s the slider for enthralled?<\/p>\n So, despite living in the pall of the East Palestine mushroom cloud and the other outrages that the Biden dismantling of America subjects us to, I\u2019ve found fresh evidence that human life still contains transcendent beauty.\u00a0 We are much, much more than the sum of our neurons and other cellular components.\u00a0 We are capable of fascinating and remarkable behaviors.\u00a0 Maybe we\u2019re not quite obsolete yet.\u00a0 Sure, the Lizard Overlords may take away our modern conveniences like gas and oil and force us back into a pre-industrial lifestyle but it will still be as human beings and that is an amazing simulation to be a part of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, as I was saying yesterday, the kids and the grandkids came over.\u00a0 And Camera Girl killed the fatted calf, cooked it and then afterward<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2860,3545,4],"tags":[3894,3896,3895,2914],"class_list":["post-22380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-reclaiming-the-family","category-science","category-sff","tag-chatbot","tag-chatgpt","tag-humanity","tag-the-ultimate-computer"],"yoast_head":"\n