Haven’t blogged for ages, but thought I’d get back on the horse. Thinking a lot about AI lately, so here’s a quick thought:

Is AI is simply the next progression in computing, which everyone, everyone, knew was coming It is certainly fair to say that it is a “game changer”, a “quantum leap”, etc. sure, but is it truly a paradigm shift? Depends on what happens next.

Isn’t it essentially the same paradigm?: We can create things that can “out-think” humans, solve problems that we can’t figure out with our own brains. We could go back to the abacus for a prime example of this: The human moves the levers and the abacus provides the solution. A simple pocket calculator proves in an instant that computers can crush human cognitive powers.

So, albeit a rather large increment, the change brought by AI is incremental. Significant, but not a revolutionary change in our understanding of how things work and what is possible to accomplish through electronics, coding, and vast server farms.

And so with AI as with the internet, DNA research, and nuclear physics: the real question is not what we discover, but what we do with what we discover. Ah, there’s the rub.

Turing Test

We are quick to apply the “Turing Test” from computer science — that something  could be created so brilliantly complex that, without a strand of DNA, it could pass for human. We  jump to the conclusion that it’s plausible to attribute conscious to electronic things with simulated skin— the sci-fi trope that such a thing could emulate sexuality, perhaps even the full range of human feelings.

Many find this a frightening prospect…which is why it works so well as a plot device.

But matter does not become conscious on account of its complexity. We don’t consider a cuckoo clock with intricate gears to be more conscious than a sundial. Moving from mechanical to electronic changes nothing. We don’t think our digital clock knows what time it is, even if the clock is infinitely more complicated than, say, a phone charger. No amount of complexity, no skill at mimicking make a conscious being.

A perfectly decent person who is an actor can convincingly play a vicious murderer.

This sci-fi trope can be unnerving because it seems there’s nothing that separates a being that exists and feels from one that only simulates experiencing. 

It’s perhaps another indicator of the fragility of our sense of our humanity that can feel so tenuous in this tremulous time.

…don’t be deceived by fear mongers or by confidence that everything will be okay because of over-confidence. VOTE!  It’s more crucial now than ever!

Stop the assault on democracy: VOTE!

The pandemic, as the word is meant to connote, affects everyone. It is universal, but is not even. It affects the poor, the imprisoned, the aged in nursing homes, pregnant women, and on and on, very different from those who are, relatively speaking, insulated: by class, by race, by where they are in the world at this moment.

Some things have happened for those fortunate enough not to be crushed by the disease or the fallout from it, that are actually new and worth thinking about.

Art in particular changes. The museums,  galleries and theaters of all sizes are closed in most of the world.  There is an evenness that I think nearly all artists feel: We need each other. Art is a relationship between creator and audience, despite the way artists may try to separate themselves from the their audience, thumb their noses, say “I don’t care what you think.”

Yet without the audience the artist creates in a vacuum and communicates to a vacuum.

So we find novel ways . Our need to communicate our creative spirit finds new routes of expression, new avenues to sharing.

There was a group that used to get together just to laugh. One person started laughing and soon everyone did. What if we all laugh together at 5PM EVERY WEDNESDAY?

Maybe the contagion of laughter could break through our contagion of isolation and dread!

After the first shock of what has already happened around the world and what is too soon going to happen nearer and nearer to ourselves and friends and family dear to us, there is the realization that this is going to be a long haul.

It quickly became a cliché the 9-11 “changed everything,” and indeed in was a truism that proved to be true and now no one can doubt that this pandemic changes everything.

As a person deeply involved in local theater – running the Hooker-Dunham and planning a big Bloomsday event scheduled for June 16  – I feel the rug pulled from under me.

I know how much worse it is for so many people, so it’s hard to let oneself feel the pain of one’s own  loss, but it is a loss all the same.

So while the losses are worse for some than others, for all of us, are deeply personal.  The sense of suspended animation,  of life-interrupted is with all of us now.

Is humanity’s existence, human civilization’s existence always precarious?

We – humans – have survived for quite a long time despite our remarkable ability to not learn from our own species’ experience. Or learn too late, which amounts to the same thing.

Now everything is upside down. All the plans and expectations are topsy-turvy.

I’ve always steered away from actually blogging — meaning blogging where I’m not editing before posting. But now, with the world in what is obviously only the beginning of a transformation on the order of science fiction, I might as well just put it out there.

I’ve heard friends who’ve started writing journals. Same thing really. We are all crying, we say, too ourselves, for  ourselves, and it is true.

The earth is shuddering.

We are all at the epicenter.

We, meaning people who would generally consider things like compassion and empathy more important than power and privilege, need to talk more to each other, and talk more fully, not limiting our conversations to chunks of 140 characters and pleas donations and signing petitions.  Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with any mode we choose, but just that they shouldn’t be limits, that the conversation must go much deeper.

Words, words, words, what’s the matter with words? We need more of words, many more words.  Ah, but who will read them?