Question: Is media-generated fear of AI warranted?
For 25 years the technowizards at Goggle haven’t been able to tame the Spelchuck monster from scrambling real words into wrong words and / or imaginary ones. It takes more effort to proofread a sentence after Spullchck fixes it than if left to your own illiterate effortBEtTER?::cant prevent Spelchk from replacing real words with words that make no sense or not even exist?
Even if you don’t know what the previous paragraph says, I’m sure you understand.
But a problem no one seems to be addressing or maybe even thinking about is this: What will people who get displaced by the Ai-bots do when there’s nothing to do?
This presents an especially troubling future in Ukiah where roughly a third of the residents already have nothing to do, and aggressively pursue not doing it.
When Ai takes over all the intellectual work on the planet what will everyone be doing besides not going to work? And if they aren’t going to work where will they get the money to, you know, survive?
Although by that point if you aren’t going to work you will at least start saving money immediately by not having to buy clothing suitable for being employed, nor save enough to buy lunch five days a week or fill the tank of the car you don’t have with the gasoline you won’t need. I guess it might end up okay after all.
But dark shrouded fears gather in the imagination of me. I see storm clouds turning to thunder, lightning, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and meteors crashing into Ukiah’s fashionable west side.
Much turmoil will result if our fellow citizens, bored and useless, decide to spend their (endless, non-stop) hours writing poetry. It could happen. Gather a sufficient number of poorly educated college graduates with nothing to do but let their imaginations run loose, and a substantial percentage will imagine they are, of all things under the sun, poets.
And who among us will be surprised if Donald Trump, by then in his fifth term as King Hitler, demands compulsory attendance at all poetry readings and poetry festivals?
Assisted suicide might not come soon enough.
Vanquish The Vandals
Through the decades Ukiah has made determined, and successful, efforts to destroy its oldest and most handsome architectural features. Victorian houses. old lovely school buildings, courthouses (ahem) and pleasant landscapes have all fallen to city bulldozers.
Right now the oddly beautiful rock wall surrounding Todd Grove Park is being slowly but relentlessly destroyed. Maybe it’s a city-sponsored project but let’s hope not.
Walk around the park and take note of all the missing / broken / crushed rock remnants. Around the west side, nearest the golf course, the damage is most advanced. The wall is under steady siege.
Some elevated caps on the scores of pillars are gone, hammered to dust.
Is it one, two or a dozen determined vandals who go to work at night with hammers and crowbars? I don’t know.
Can the city install surveillance cameras to catch the cretins responsible for the damage? I think so.
Trigger Warning
Old blind cowboy comes staggering into a bar, finds a stool, asks for a beer and says “Say bartender, wanna hear a Blonde Joke?”
And the bartenders says “Listen here cowpoke, before you decide to tell that joke: I’m blonde, 6-3, I weigh 175, with a black belt in karate.
“Over there the bouncer is a blonde holding a billy club. On your left is a blonde weightlifter, and on your right is a blonde boxing champ. Behind you there’s a blonde Olympic wrestler.
“Now then cowpoke, you dead sure you want to tell a blonde joke?”
The old cowboy sighs and says “Well, I reckon maybe not. Not if I’m going to have to explain it five times.”
(Tom Hine was sitting in a bar one day when a horse walked through the door. “Hey!” shouted the bartender. “Sounds great!” said the horse. TWK was there too if you don’t believe me.)
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