Tag: artificial intelligence

Oliver Twist

Because of the numbering system I use to save photos for my blog, I know last week’s dish on ice cream (ha) was my four-hundredth WordPress post. I’m not one to track statistics but unexpectedly, reaching this milestone begs the question: Will I make it to #500? Mind you, it’s not about staying in the game. Topics worth my exploration are endless and creative writing is a welcome escape. No, today begs a much more relevant question: What about artificial intelligence (AI)?

If I could meet you readers face-to-face in the Amazon rain forest I’d whisper a secret password for all to hear.  Then when I use that password in a post, you’d know it’s actually me, Dave, the human, and not some updated version of HAL 9000 doing the typing.  Surely you wonder, as I do, when will AI get so good at authoring documents, so genuine, you won’t even realize you’re reading something untouched by human hands?

“Hello, Dave.”

Before we go any further, I think “AI” sounds awfully impersonal.  I suppose impersonal is appropriate for a silicone wafer and a pile of circuit boards.  I just think we need a friendlier word for it; something we humans can better identify with.  How about “Oliver”?  Oliver is the third most popular boy name of 2023.  Oliver Twist was one of Charles Dickens’ most beloved characters (and AI will certainly be a twist on the way we ask for and receive information moving forward).  Let’s nickname it (him?) Ollie.

Wikipedia’s article on artificial intelligence (yes, there’s already an article) says one of Ollie’s primary goals is problem-solving.  Okay, that digests well.  But then you see goals like reasoning, learning, perception, and social intelligence and your stomach flips a flop.  My reasoning and perception are tools I use for this blog.  If Ollie develops those same tools, it’s only a matter of time before Dave 1.0 (me) is replaced by Dave 2.0 (machine).

Let’s go back to ice cream for a second.  Let’s say you want to read an opinion piece on ice cream.  If you have AI at your disposal, you could say, “Hey Ollie, write me a post about ice cream, 600 words or so, with arguments in favor of plain old ice cream over sundaes, bars, and other frozen treats.  Reference a few commercial ice cream brands, a few local brands, and finish by talking about the most expensive ice cream in the world.  Oh, and speak the page back to me in James Earl Jones’s voice.”  Then you’d hit the ENTER button and who knows?  Your screen might light up with something remarkably similar to my last post in Life In A Word.

Also consider, Ollie will have his own opinions on what you read.  After you ask about ice cream, he may spam you with posts on healthy lifestyle.  He also may counsel you about spending your time on more important topics.  Like world peace.  Newsflash, Ollie.  We’re all trying to figure out world peace.  How about you put your circuit boards together and come up with a post on that?

Here’s my point.  If you have Ollie you don’t need me.  In fact, you don’t even need the WordPress platform.  You could simply slip on a VR headset and ask for a post with just the right topic, tone, reading level, length, and restrictions. It’s like placing an order at the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant.  Seconds later, what you asked for is right there in front of you (no paper bag necessary).  And if Ollie “reads” all four hundred of my posts, he’ll write it pretty much the same way I would. 

At the rate I’m posting, I’ll publish blog #500 in about two years.  Two years.  Considering all we’ve covered today, how advanced will Ollie be in two years?  Enough to put WordPress out of business?  Enough to where you can generate your own Life In A Word posts by simply entering a handful of carefully chosen criteria?  I hope not.  I’m having a good time with you people (especially those of you who also write blogs).  Maybe all of us should pick up and move to the rain forest.  Then we could pass our handwritten pages around and keep this artificial intelligent party going.  Someone make sure Ollie doesn’t get an invite.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Is It Live or Is It Memorex?

It’s the wood chipper for you, buddy.

New Year’s Day has come and gone (and a warm welcome to you, 2021), which means it’s time my wife and I take down the Christmas tree. For some, taking down the tree means disconnecting the branches from the trunk, the trunk from the base, and packing the whole thing into a cardboard box to be used again next year. For us, taking down the tree means lifting it off the stand, hauling it outside to the truck, driving it over to the drop-off lot, and donating $5 to fund the recycling. Yes, this year – as with all of my years – the Christmas tree is real, not artificial.

I’m not here today to debate real vs. artificial Christmas trees.  They both have pros and cons and your choice rests on where you live, your budget, and assorted other reasons.  For me, a real tree is simply a tradition I refuse to give up.  Picking out a tree with my family was a big deal when I was young.  There was something magical about living in sunny Los Angeles and watching dozens of pine-scented snow-dusted trees being unloaded from Canadian railcars.  Never mind we paid a little extra to have our tree “flocked” (adding a touch of spray-painted artificial snow).  It was still a real tree.

Memorex: Sound that “blows you away”.

Real vs. artificial goes way beyond Christmas trees.  When I consider one next to the other, I always think of Memorex.  In the 1970s and ’80s the Memorex Corporation produced audio cassettes, the precursor to the compact disc.  In their TV commercials Memorex included singer Ella Fitzgerald belting out a note powerful enough to shatter a wine glass.  Then they’d play a recording of Ella’s performance and the wine glass would still shatter, begging the question, “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”

Real vs. artificial also recalls Milli Vanilli, the R&B duo from the late ’80’s.  Milli Vanilli made it big with the album “Girl You Know It’s True”, then won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.  But years later the world would find out Milli Vanilli never sang anything.  Instead they lip-synced their way to fame; their albums the voices of studio performers.  Milli Vanilli returned the Best New Artist Grammy shortly after that.

Let’s visit real vs. artificial a little closer to home; say, the kitchen.  As much as my wife and I seek whole, organic, locally produced foods, we can’t help including a few outliers.  I just went through our pantry and came up with a few good examples:

  1. Aunt Jemima syrup.  This pancake topper – destined for rebranding in the name of racial equality – is nothing but high fructose corn syrup, water, and a whole lot of chemicals.  The “Natural Butter Flavor” variety blatantly advertises “contains no butter”.  You’ll find all the pure maple syrup you want in Vermont but you won’t find a drop in a bottle of Aunt Jemima.
  2. Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts.  A long time ago Pop-Tarts contained real ingredients (else my mother wouldn’t have put ’em on the pantry shelf as kid snacks).  Today’s Pop-Tarts are enriched flour and a bunch of scary-sounding ingredients developed in a lab.  It takes half the height of the box to list everything that goes into a Pop-Tart.
  3. Kraft Mac & Cheese.  Make a bowl of pasta, top it with melted cheddar, and Voila! you have macaroni & cheese in two ingredients.  Kraft Mac & Cheese needs twenty-one to accomplish the same dish.  But man, don’t it taste great?
  4. Ritz Crackers.  More enriched flour plus lab ingredients.  (Maybe every food can be made from enriched flour?)  The Ritz Crackers box includes a warning, “Contains wheat, soy”.  Ha, if only that was all it contained.
  5. “Real” Bacon Bits.  My mother-in-law left this bottle of horror behind when she brought a salad for Christmas dinner.  But guess what?  It really is made of bacon (okay, and chemicals).  I must’ve been thinking of other brands, where the bits are actually “flavored textured soy flour”.  Oh ick.

Back to our real Christmas tree.  After the gifts were passed around and opened, we discovered one more, looking a little embarrassed behind the branches.  It was a brightly colored basket, the kind all dressed up with a cute wooden box and Christmas bow, overflowing with food items and protected in plastic wrap.

But here’s the rub.  We opened the basket and found a whole lot of nothing.  Generic cookies, coffee, candy, and a couple of cheap Christmas mugs, arranged carefully so as to suggest the basket contained much more.  To add insult to injury, none of the food items were name-brand (except for a handful of Lindor truffles).  The cookies and candy were made with a ton of artificial ingredients.  The coffee was so generically packaged it had me wondering if it was even coffee.  The whole basket made me think “Memorex”.

This is where I jump to a discussion about artificial intelligence, but your real brain needs a rest so that’s a topic for another day.  Meanwhile, my wife and I will keep heading out every Christmas to tree lots (or the woods) to find the perfect one.  “Artificial” may sneak into other parts of our lives now and again but at Christmas, we’ll always be keeping it real.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.