I know I’m a little late to this, but I have a fridge death story. I can’t say it was an untimely death, due to its avocado hue. Anyway, I was already irritated, having been stung by a bee during my morning workout. When I got back inside, already swearing, I discovered the aftermath of a bloody massacre in the kitchen. The fridge had died and thawed out raspberries and God knows what else covered the linoleum. It took some time to clean up the mess, so I got into work late, seething and ready to tell everybody what a crappy day I was happening. But my boss said I could be especially busy that day because a couple of planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. Oh. Never mind.
I was not in fact really all that busy, Congress having already hauled ass to an outsider undisclosed location. And couldn’t get back to cleaning up the fridge mess for quite a while.
Next time, call a plumber. Better yet, call my plumber (my husband). Our fridge died after living in our house for two years and right after I had purchased a ton of food that needed it. My husband ordered a new one, picked it up, removed the door, and hooked it to the water source - all in about three hours. He then pulled the fridge into his truck, figured out what was wrong, repaired it, and gave it to my mother to replace her ailing, moaning fridge.
When he delivered our old refurbished fridge to her, he pulled out her fridge and repaired it, as well. We told her we would be back in two weeks to remove her old fridge to donate it to Community Forklift or Habitat Restore, but, of course, my mother wanted instant action, so she paid a guy to haul it away to the dump (three miles away - $100), rather than have us haul it away for free to a new home. You live and learn.
No "ignorance" about it Gary. You've come upon another of those largely spurned neglected positives and related words, which as you probably know (at least in the back of your mind, along with many others) --- are primarily used in their negative or alternate form. For example, "maculate." The Catholic Church loves the negative of this word (Immaculate Conception churches and hospital abound), and we have no trouble describing a room or a white dress as immaculate. But its positive, "maculate," is rarely used. A famous literary example of the phenomenon appears in P.G. Wodehouse’s "The Code of the Woosters:" “I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled”. And surely "requited" love is the best kind but we only ever hear about the un-requited variety --- just as we only hear about contra-ception, at the expense of pro-ception. They're out there for-lornly waiting to be used again.
feeling that you have the right to do or have what you want without having to work for it or deserve it, just because of who you are: These kids are spoiled, entitled, self-absorbed, and apathetic.
Most of us muddle through these events and can share "lessons learned." One missing point is that some units can "freeze up" and jut need to thaw to go back to good working order. But how can we know about this and what to do to fix it?
Don't quite understand the knock on, or concern with, machine-learning generated artistic or literary efforts, especially those (as indicated in the poll) which would be enjoyed. Is it the content itself or the fact that it was generated by a "machine ?" There are certainly critical social considerations about the use of AI in art and lit but the thing to keep in mind, of course, is that the output is based on human endeavor, lots of it. Whether that endeavor is entire oeuvres of an author or authors, or the previous works of Beethoven which found their way into a complete 10th symphony from his fragmentary sketches for its first movement, thanks to the work of music historians, musicologists, composers and AI experts. Is it "Beethoven ?" To my ear, not quite, but nevertheless entertaining as "Beethoven-like" which I, for one, find satisfying since we are not likely to get more from the composer himself, unless the manuscript for a new work is discovered in a dusty corner or behind some wall in Bonn or Vienna. To a Jane Austen aficionado, would a "new" AI-generated Austen, be as sweet ? Is it the "Austen" or THE Austen that makes her work engaging ?
Because any work generated by AI is derivative, the people who have produced the corpus of work that AI uses to generate its output should receive copyright royalties. If patent & trademark lawyers aren't already all over this issue, they soon will be.
Like the 'self check out' in the grocery store, AI is another way to remove people and their jobs to save the corporations money. Faceless corporations want to save on one of their major expenses - salaries - and the way they are doing it is by automating. I was in a Walmart a few weeks ago where there were no cashiers. All well and good until I got to the heavy stuff that someone had helped me put into the cart; how do I scan that? No one here to ask - the one employee they had watching the self check out was doing something else and I couldn't find her. And when things rang up for the wrong price, I had to again flag her down. She must have had to stop what she was doing (lining things up on a shelf 30 feet away) six times because she had to begrudgingly trod over, inspect the item, run a different scanner over it, and tell me it was mismarked, before taking the item off for me. Perhaps I should have done what the lady beside me was doing - scanning the same $2 item over and over again, and putting a different, more expensive item, into the bag.
Why hire an actor when you can generate an image? All you need is a bunch of computers and you can save millions on actors. There is an actors' strike in part because actors are seeing this as the boulder coming down from above to destroy them and their profession. Isn't it bad enough that there are so many actors who are unemployed without making it harder for them to find good work?
Take any other profession and ask the learned professionals in that field how they feel about Lawyer Bots, Doctor Bots, Judge Bots, Locksmith Bots, Plumber Bots, Carpenter Bots, etc. When I first graduated college, I worked as a toll collector, a job that has been made extinct by EZPass. But we did so much more than collect tolls - we gave directions to the hospital to people whose GPS kept them running in circles, we advised people who were under stress (I once had a frantic man in his PJs who forgot to even grab his wallet drive to my lane on his way to the hospital because his son's school called to tell him his son was injured and they needed his permission to operate. I paid his toll and loaned him $10 for parking; he paid me back the next day), we assisted stranded motorists, we called the cops when we saw someone was impaired while driving, we changed tires, we talked to people, sometimes the only human connection those people had all day. I know there are still more devices that can suit those purposes, but sometimes the human contact we need and crave is undervalued for the sake of saving a buck.
I wonder - now that we are actively eliminating the starter jobs with machines, who will be making purchases of goods? I understand AI is saving corporations money, but it sure isn't spending it, either. Walmart having one guy in a booth watching people steal and one on the floor watching customers be unpaid cashiers doesn't create customers who work then shop before going home. Brick and mortar is killing itself by taking the very thing away that causes us to shop them in the first place - human interaction. And with everyone replaced by a very smart machine, where will the money come from to purchase goods? The kid you used to hire to stock shelves is replaced by a machine, so the kid has no money to spend on video games. His lawyer dad is now a relic since AI can do his job, so he has no money to buy the kid a video game. "It is freeing up people to pursue other interests" is the marching song of the AI conglomerates. Freeing them up to do what? Follow their dream as a writer (nope, a machine is doing that), an actor (nope, Princess Leia may be dead, but she'll be in moves for generations to come because of AI), and with all this free time we now have, how will we earn a living? The free market economy isn't free - we still need to pay our rent, our electric bills, our food bills. Where will that money come from if we are all replaced by machnes?
You should be concerned. And so are many of the pioneers and present leading lights in the field, but let's not automatically make assumptions based on the hyperbolic rhetoric from both sides. Yes, regulation is necessary. Even the infamous 19th c. Luddites, despite the popular misunderstanding, weren't against machines; they were for the proper use of them and for due consideration of their impact on workers. Few, if any, would argue against being able to identify a tumor in its earliest stages that present. widely used imaging technology misses, greatly improving the accuracy of local weather forecasting (and thus providing critical improved warning times) or, being able to accelerate beneficial drug development, to name just a few significant benefits of machine-learning. The digital revolution of the '80s, as did the industrial revolution before it, raised similar issues --- all advances in technology do. If anyone is the "enemy," as that wise 'possum of the Okefenokee put it (in another context), it is largely us. We must continually ask ourselves questions like whether, for example, cheaper goods/services and convenience are worth the tradeoffs that come with them. So it will be as AI inevitably and obviously continues to enter everyday life. We humans have shown an extraordinary ability to adapt ourselves, if not always happily of course. The ultimate benefit of AI may, in fact, lie in forcing us to discard hidebound customs and procedures for the commonweal. Surely many job roles will change as they did with the embrace of digital technology, but there likewise will be new opportunities. It is a matter of proper oversight by the powers-that-be --- and us.
I'm not suggesting quelling all advances, but what I am seeing so far has me concerned. If you don't need actors, acting as a craft (and, by necessity, all the associated trades) will end. Corporations don't care if the actor is outsourced - they just want a bottom line that looks better because of it.
The cashier is necessary. The customer service rep is necessary. But these jobs have given way to a frustrating machine that makes me not want to purchase anything. You can advance technology to enhance the customer experience or you can slap together something to save a buck. The manager's choice is usually the latter. If your chatbot has only certain tasks entered into its databanks, it is a useless tool. If you get no human input, you end up losing customers.
But I don't see how replacing actors (and with them costumers, make up artists, props managers, sound techs, electricians, etc) can equate to enhanced lifesaving technology. Yes, the MRI is amazing, but without a technician to use it, it may as well be an armrest. The toll road where I worked is always crowded with people who need change for a ten, who don't have a working EZPass, who want to get to the hospital....but someone higher up, someone looking to save a buck, makes the decisions and the toll booths are bereft of life. I just think we should actually weigh the benefits of our decisions better than we do and allow people who actually DO the job to have a say in what their future holds. Someone who wants to control us substitutes the unskilled workers with a machine and soon unemployment is soaring with no end in sight - sure, we'd all love to think the cashier can suddenly change careers and become a rocket scientist, but in the real world that doesn't happen.
You are falling victim to the "either/or" hype. And using it yourself doesn't advance your argument. A cashier can be offered another, perhaps better paying job, helping customers directly with the technology and other customer service issues, without having to become a rocket scientist. An actor will almost certainly require compensation for the use of their digital image and quite possibly on a residual basis for the times it is used. That is an essential demand by the strikers. These considerations are part of the required oversight of AI. If sufficient segments of the marketplace decide it doesn't want to have to deal with automation in one enterprise, it will go elsewhere and that enterprise will soon notice. And vice versa. If the driving public didn't like the convenience of the EZ Pass system (which continues to be adopted), it wouldn't be used, whatever the desires of the bureaucrats. It's been a while since I used the system myself but, I would hazard a guess that there are still very few, if any, exclusive EZ Pass toll plazas. The people that do the jobs are very often victims of a broken system, our healthcare system, as a prime example. The transition will not, and has never happened, overnight. Just as will be the transition to non-fossil fuel. Will there be fewer people doing repetitive jobs ? Almost certainly. Does that mean there will be vast numbers of unemployed by the time AI takes hold generally. Certainly not.
Dale, the problem with your argument is that your argument lives in the future tense when the problems are in the present tense. Currently, artists ARE NOT being compensated when their work is used by AI as the basis for the production of an artifact.
Regarding your argument of the marketplace creating a solution for the issues Lori has raised, I have an economics term that you may wish to look up in your old edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. That term is "Externality."
Not sure what point(s) you think you're making ? The problems have existed for decades. Sometimes lessened, but have never disappeared (and will never entirely do so). The issue is whether AI is a change in kind or of degree from other technological advances. It is likely a change of kind because of its very nature. The issue is how we deal with this significant opportunity and challenge in social terms as it evolves. If work is to change because of AI, we must account for the changes, the same as we will have to account for a transition eventually from fossil fuels (even if not a complete one) and that impact on its workforce. This will not happen overnight and neither will the inevitable changes brought by machine-learning. And despite the often overwrought rhetoric from the "Chicken Little" crowd --- it will never be an "either/or" situation. The issues around the use of intellectual property have likewise always been with us and have only been exacerbated by the advent of the internet and digital technology. Moreover, the original discussion was specifically about the impact of AI and the use of digital images by movie producers as a point of contention by strikers. The matter of the art or similar work products used in AI datasets is being actively discussed and while I would expect there to be continuing litigation on the subject, the issues of compensation and credit, for example, will almost certainly be worked out much as copyright and the royalty procedures for music were. "Externality" has little to nothing to do with my point about the marketplace determining the usage habits or buying patterns of consumers. If they have too few or no incentives to shop at a place they won't. It's as simple as that. If the prices at the largely automated shop where they have to make most of the effort in finding, buying and packaging their products are at least not competitive with others less automated (or have some other added value such as variety or heightened customer service) many will go there --- if an almost fully self-service set-up is not worth having to face the potential issues this may present with no tangible return. Short of the shop in question being the only one in town or anywhere close, market competition will be the determining factor.
The cashiers I worked with weren't getting offers - everyone was looking for another job and one person was hired (then fired) from Amazon (apparently for being too slow - they reward the people you see zooming in and out of traffic). I have a masters degree, one of my co-workers worked for the federal government for 20 years before joining the grocery store and neither of us had much luck securing these even better jobs. I know some lesser known actors whose images are used in stock photographs that were lifted off their websites and Facebook pages - they get zip for those images.
Working at a grocery store taught me that the corporation sees one thing - salary costs. Never mind that having fewer employees means it is easier to steal from you; as long as they don't have to pay out $13 an hour for an employee, they don't mind losing $1000 worth of merchandise - the two people in charge of each of those things don't talk to each other, so they don't know that for $50 an hour, they could not lose $1000 because those things come from different piles of money. The corporate learns nothing - people hate self service and they yell at and threaten the employees, maybe even write to corporate - they still have self services as their main operation.
The Harry Nice Bridge - no toll booths; if you don't have an EZPass, they double the cost and fine you. You get a bill in the mail and every month you ignore it, the cost increases until they take you to court. By the end of the 2020s, the Port Authorities of New York and New Jersey hope to have all of the humans out of the trade completely.
I can tell you that the people who currently hold these low paying positions are not always willing or able to aspire to even better jobs, for whatever reason. We seem to view the American Dream in different ways - everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get a better job if they just try; but people who can't read or have another disability, who only know the one thing they know, those people aren't going to succeed elsewhere. I don't think it is too much to ask to have jobs for them.
Lots of Frank Herbert work after his death. But not much is all that good. I would like some more Heinlein. However, I dread what AI might write in his name. He was one to say "Yes, but ..". to give something to think about. AI may be much more parody.
Re proselytizers. I come from a long line of “free thinkers,” as they were known. My grandfather always enjoyed having discussions at the door with those trying to convert him. On one occasion, he ended up walking down the garden path with a young lady who was saying “You will see the light!” as he was saying “You’ll get over it.”
I actually submitted the Nickelback about long baseball games, and yes, I was at that 18-inning playoff game, too. I guess being prepared for a long game is an important consideration. That game was on Yom Kippur, with one of those weird playoff early start times, but the forecast was for temps to plummet, so those who froze had only themselves to blame. A sizable group of us who'd been fasting planned a mid-5th inning break fast. We brought and shared all the usual things such as bagels and spreads and babka and rugelach, and divided up the spoils and returned to our seats. As the game went into the night and fans were starving and pillaging the Team Store for sweatshirts, we were in our gloves and coats and knit hats, curled under our blankets and snacking on chocolate babka between innings. Terrible outcome but a great memory.
Several years ago, a coworker of mine found a jar of jam in the back of his cabinet. It bore an expiration date of, if I'm remembering this correctly, 2004. The thing is that said coworker had moved around 2017, which means that this jar of already expired jam had moved with him.
He said it tasted fine, but this is also a guy whom I once saw absent-mindedly clean a paintbrush in his coffee mug and keep drinking the coffee.
The rapid advancement of AI is not scary so much because of researchers finding that large language models like ChatGPT are displaying "emergent abilities" or, displaying skills they weren't trained to develop or, a genuine understanding (in human terms) of what they learned. What is cause for concern (IMO) is the lack of transparency about the models primarily because of heated competition which is greatly hindering a critical understanding of the social impacts of this rabidly advancing technology.
Sometimes there are too many factors for good prediction. Who knew a new Ford would lead to more babies born? Just do like I play chess. Move and see what happens.
Stable is spelled uncomfortably close to Sta-Bil fuel stabilizer. which no one should drink, because it's poison. For something that is not poisonous that no one should drink, there is Ratzeputz.
Interesting that. Originally meant what it now means in English --- something given. Then, over the centuries took on more of the meaning of a "dose" (something obviously also "given.") and from there, it was a relatively easy transition to "poison." There are still vestiges of the original meaning in the corners of German. For example, die "Mitgift," or "dowry" in English.
After WWII all food package to Germany from the USA (by law) had to have "GIFT" written on them. And that was a problem for some. I studied German in College, but this is new and interesting to me. Thanks!
The freezer motor can be replaced-- my repair person's visit cost about $240, all in.
Self help, preventative maint: pull the front grille off the bottom of your fridge and vacuum the visible lint from the condenser cage beneath the unit. You may need a flashlight to see: the cage collects dust like a dryer's lint screen and the poor airflow makes your fridge work harder and hotter.
More unsolicited freezer advice: ditch your icemaker when it breaks; It's likely to break again. Buy some fun- or practical- shaped silicon ice-cube molds that fit your beverage containers of choice. Cleaner (bottled or filtered) water makes clearer cubes, too. Icemakers are easily removed from freezer-top models (but don't forget to shut off the water valve).
Re Presidential Primaries. I thought a round-Robin approach by region makes the most sense. Say in Year A you did New England; then three weeks alter West Coast; then three weeks later Southest; etc. By region candidates could be in an area for several days and get to know the region. Then in year B, West Coast first, followed by Southeast … finally New England. Break the nation into sever or eight pieces; start about January 1, and be done in time for summer conventions. Every group gets a chance to go first and it really mixes things up.
re: you AI art polls, you didn't have my answer in the first one. I selected "disconcerted / disoriented" as the closest available. But really my answer would have to exist somewhere on the fear/terror spectrum. And the second answer would be that when AI can create long form complex art, such as a book or a movie, that is not identifiable as such then we're going to be in trouble.
I know I’m a little late to this, but I have a fridge death story. I can’t say it was an untimely death, due to its avocado hue. Anyway, I was already irritated, having been stung by a bee during my morning workout. When I got back inside, already swearing, I discovered the aftermath of a bloody massacre in the kitchen. The fridge had died and thawed out raspberries and God knows what else covered the linoleum. It took some time to clean up the mess, so I got into work late, seething and ready to tell everybody what a crappy day I was happening. But my boss said I could be especially busy that day because a couple of planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. Oh. Never mind.
I was not in fact really all that busy, Congress having already hauled ass to an outsider undisclosed location. And couldn’t get back to cleaning up the fridge mess for quite a while.
Next time, call a plumber. Better yet, call my plumber (my husband). Our fridge died after living in our house for two years and right after I had purchased a ton of food that needed it. My husband ordered a new one, picked it up, removed the door, and hooked it to the water source - all in about three hours. He then pulled the fridge into his truck, figured out what was wrong, repaired it, and gave it to my mother to replace her ailing, moaning fridge.
When he delivered our old refurbished fridge to her, he pulled out her fridge and repaired it, as well. We told her we would be back in two weeks to remove her old fridge to donate it to Community Forklift or Habitat Restore, but, of course, my mother wanted instant action, so she paid a guy to haul it away to the dump (three miles away - $100), rather than have us haul it away for free to a new home. You live and learn.
We can "refurbish" at will, but I never see any work to "furbish." However, this is just my ignorance showing.
"What does the verb furbish mean?
1. : to make lustrous : polish. 2. : to give a new look to : renovate. often used with up.
Furbish Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster"
No "ignorance" about it Gary. You've come upon another of those largely spurned neglected positives and related words, which as you probably know (at least in the back of your mind, along with many others) --- are primarily used in their negative or alternate form. For example, "maculate." The Catholic Church loves the negative of this word (Immaculate Conception churches and hospital abound), and we have no trouble describing a room or a white dress as immaculate. But its positive, "maculate," is rarely used. A famous literary example of the phenomenon appears in P.G. Wodehouse’s "The Code of the Woosters:" “I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled”. And surely "requited" love is the best kind but we only ever hear about the un-requited variety --- just as we only hear about contra-ception, at the expense of pro-ception. They're out there for-lornly waiting to be used again.
Totally fascinating. I will pass this on to my wife. Thanks!
What does it mean to be entitled?
have the right to do
Meaning of entitled in English
feeling that you have the right to do or have what you want without having to work for it or deserve it, just because of who you are: These kids are spoiled, entitled, self-absorbed, and apathetic.
ENTITLED | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
cambridge.org
https://dictionary.cambridge.org › dictionary › entitled
This looks like a contradiction to me. Either we have a right or we do not have it and presume it. Both, anyone?
Re: Dead refrigerator. You are not the smartest Pulitzer Prize recipient out there.
Most of us muddle through these events and can share "lessons learned." One missing point is that some units can "freeze up" and jut need to thaw to go back to good working order. But how can we know about this and what to do to fix it?
Don't quite understand the knock on, or concern with, machine-learning generated artistic or literary efforts, especially those (as indicated in the poll) which would be enjoyed. Is it the content itself or the fact that it was generated by a "machine ?" There are certainly critical social considerations about the use of AI in art and lit but the thing to keep in mind, of course, is that the output is based on human endeavor, lots of it. Whether that endeavor is entire oeuvres of an author or authors, or the previous works of Beethoven which found their way into a complete 10th symphony from his fragmentary sketches for its first movement, thanks to the work of music historians, musicologists, composers and AI experts. Is it "Beethoven ?" To my ear, not quite, but nevertheless entertaining as "Beethoven-like" which I, for one, find satisfying since we are not likely to get more from the composer himself, unless the manuscript for a new work is discovered in a dusty corner or behind some wall in Bonn or Vienna. To a Jane Austen aficionado, would a "new" AI-generated Austen, be as sweet ? Is it the "Austen" or THE Austen that makes her work engaging ?
Because any work generated by AI is derivative, the people who have produced the corpus of work that AI uses to generate its output should receive copyright royalties. If patent & trademark lawyers aren't already all over this issue, they soon will be.
Like the 'self check out' in the grocery store, AI is another way to remove people and their jobs to save the corporations money. Faceless corporations want to save on one of their major expenses - salaries - and the way they are doing it is by automating. I was in a Walmart a few weeks ago where there were no cashiers. All well and good until I got to the heavy stuff that someone had helped me put into the cart; how do I scan that? No one here to ask - the one employee they had watching the self check out was doing something else and I couldn't find her. And when things rang up for the wrong price, I had to again flag her down. She must have had to stop what she was doing (lining things up on a shelf 30 feet away) six times because she had to begrudgingly trod over, inspect the item, run a different scanner over it, and tell me it was mismarked, before taking the item off for me. Perhaps I should have done what the lady beside me was doing - scanning the same $2 item over and over again, and putting a different, more expensive item, into the bag.
Why hire an actor when you can generate an image? All you need is a bunch of computers and you can save millions on actors. There is an actors' strike in part because actors are seeing this as the boulder coming down from above to destroy them and their profession. Isn't it bad enough that there are so many actors who are unemployed without making it harder for them to find good work?
Take any other profession and ask the learned professionals in that field how they feel about Lawyer Bots, Doctor Bots, Judge Bots, Locksmith Bots, Plumber Bots, Carpenter Bots, etc. When I first graduated college, I worked as a toll collector, a job that has been made extinct by EZPass. But we did so much more than collect tolls - we gave directions to the hospital to people whose GPS kept them running in circles, we advised people who were under stress (I once had a frantic man in his PJs who forgot to even grab his wallet drive to my lane on his way to the hospital because his son's school called to tell him his son was injured and they needed his permission to operate. I paid his toll and loaned him $10 for parking; he paid me back the next day), we assisted stranded motorists, we called the cops when we saw someone was impaired while driving, we changed tires, we talked to people, sometimes the only human connection those people had all day. I know there are still more devices that can suit those purposes, but sometimes the human contact we need and crave is undervalued for the sake of saving a buck.
I wonder - now that we are actively eliminating the starter jobs with machines, who will be making purchases of goods? I understand AI is saving corporations money, but it sure isn't spending it, either. Walmart having one guy in a booth watching people steal and one on the floor watching customers be unpaid cashiers doesn't create customers who work then shop before going home. Brick and mortar is killing itself by taking the very thing away that causes us to shop them in the first place - human interaction. And with everyone replaced by a very smart machine, where will the money come from to purchase goods? The kid you used to hire to stock shelves is replaced by a machine, so the kid has no money to spend on video games. His lawyer dad is now a relic since AI can do his job, so he has no money to buy the kid a video game. "It is freeing up people to pursue other interests" is the marching song of the AI conglomerates. Freeing them up to do what? Follow their dream as a writer (nope, a machine is doing that), an actor (nope, Princess Leia may be dead, but she'll be in moves for generations to come because of AI), and with all this free time we now have, how will we earn a living? The free market economy isn't free - we still need to pay our rent, our electric bills, our food bills. Where will that money come from if we are all replaced by machnes?
You should be concerned. And so are many of the pioneers and present leading lights in the field, but let's not automatically make assumptions based on the hyperbolic rhetoric from both sides. Yes, regulation is necessary. Even the infamous 19th c. Luddites, despite the popular misunderstanding, weren't against machines; they were for the proper use of them and for due consideration of their impact on workers. Few, if any, would argue against being able to identify a tumor in its earliest stages that present. widely used imaging technology misses, greatly improving the accuracy of local weather forecasting (and thus providing critical improved warning times) or, being able to accelerate beneficial drug development, to name just a few significant benefits of machine-learning. The digital revolution of the '80s, as did the industrial revolution before it, raised similar issues --- all advances in technology do. If anyone is the "enemy," as that wise 'possum of the Okefenokee put it (in another context), it is largely us. We must continually ask ourselves questions like whether, for example, cheaper goods/services and convenience are worth the tradeoffs that come with them. So it will be as AI inevitably and obviously continues to enter everyday life. We humans have shown an extraordinary ability to adapt ourselves, if not always happily of course. The ultimate benefit of AI may, in fact, lie in forcing us to discard hidebound customs and procedures for the commonweal. Surely many job roles will change as they did with the embrace of digital technology, but there likewise will be new opportunities. It is a matter of proper oversight by the powers-that-be --- and us.
I'm not suggesting quelling all advances, but what I am seeing so far has me concerned. If you don't need actors, acting as a craft (and, by necessity, all the associated trades) will end. Corporations don't care if the actor is outsourced - they just want a bottom line that looks better because of it.
The cashier is necessary. The customer service rep is necessary. But these jobs have given way to a frustrating machine that makes me not want to purchase anything. You can advance technology to enhance the customer experience or you can slap together something to save a buck. The manager's choice is usually the latter. If your chatbot has only certain tasks entered into its databanks, it is a useless tool. If you get no human input, you end up losing customers.
But I don't see how replacing actors (and with them costumers, make up artists, props managers, sound techs, electricians, etc) can equate to enhanced lifesaving technology. Yes, the MRI is amazing, but without a technician to use it, it may as well be an armrest. The toll road where I worked is always crowded with people who need change for a ten, who don't have a working EZPass, who want to get to the hospital....but someone higher up, someone looking to save a buck, makes the decisions and the toll booths are bereft of life. I just think we should actually weigh the benefits of our decisions better than we do and allow people who actually DO the job to have a say in what their future holds. Someone who wants to control us substitutes the unskilled workers with a machine and soon unemployment is soaring with no end in sight - sure, we'd all love to think the cashier can suddenly change careers and become a rocket scientist, but in the real world that doesn't happen.
You are falling victim to the "either/or" hype. And using it yourself doesn't advance your argument. A cashier can be offered another, perhaps better paying job, helping customers directly with the technology and other customer service issues, without having to become a rocket scientist. An actor will almost certainly require compensation for the use of their digital image and quite possibly on a residual basis for the times it is used. That is an essential demand by the strikers. These considerations are part of the required oversight of AI. If sufficient segments of the marketplace decide it doesn't want to have to deal with automation in one enterprise, it will go elsewhere and that enterprise will soon notice. And vice versa. If the driving public didn't like the convenience of the EZ Pass system (which continues to be adopted), it wouldn't be used, whatever the desires of the bureaucrats. It's been a while since I used the system myself but, I would hazard a guess that there are still very few, if any, exclusive EZ Pass toll plazas. The people that do the jobs are very often victims of a broken system, our healthcare system, as a prime example. The transition will not, and has never happened, overnight. Just as will be the transition to non-fossil fuel. Will there be fewer people doing repetitive jobs ? Almost certainly. Does that mean there will be vast numbers of unemployed by the time AI takes hold generally. Certainly not.
Dale, the problem with your argument is that your argument lives in the future tense when the problems are in the present tense. Currently, artists ARE NOT being compensated when their work is used by AI as the basis for the production of an artifact.
Regarding your argument of the marketplace creating a solution for the issues Lori has raised, I have an economics term that you may wish to look up in your old edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. That term is "Externality."
Not sure what point(s) you think you're making ? The problems have existed for decades. Sometimes lessened, but have never disappeared (and will never entirely do so). The issue is whether AI is a change in kind or of degree from other technological advances. It is likely a change of kind because of its very nature. The issue is how we deal with this significant opportunity and challenge in social terms as it evolves. If work is to change because of AI, we must account for the changes, the same as we will have to account for a transition eventually from fossil fuels (even if not a complete one) and that impact on its workforce. This will not happen overnight and neither will the inevitable changes brought by machine-learning. And despite the often overwrought rhetoric from the "Chicken Little" crowd --- it will never be an "either/or" situation. The issues around the use of intellectual property have likewise always been with us and have only been exacerbated by the advent of the internet and digital technology. Moreover, the original discussion was specifically about the impact of AI and the use of digital images by movie producers as a point of contention by strikers. The matter of the art or similar work products used in AI datasets is being actively discussed and while I would expect there to be continuing litigation on the subject, the issues of compensation and credit, for example, will almost certainly be worked out much as copyright and the royalty procedures for music were. "Externality" has little to nothing to do with my point about the marketplace determining the usage habits or buying patterns of consumers. If they have too few or no incentives to shop at a place they won't. It's as simple as that. If the prices at the largely automated shop where they have to make most of the effort in finding, buying and packaging their products are at least not competitive with others less automated (or have some other added value such as variety or heightened customer service) many will go there --- if an almost fully self-service set-up is not worth having to face the potential issues this may present with no tangible return. Short of the shop in question being the only one in town or anywhere close, market competition will be the determining factor.
The cashiers I worked with weren't getting offers - everyone was looking for another job and one person was hired (then fired) from Amazon (apparently for being too slow - they reward the people you see zooming in and out of traffic). I have a masters degree, one of my co-workers worked for the federal government for 20 years before joining the grocery store and neither of us had much luck securing these even better jobs. I know some lesser known actors whose images are used in stock photographs that were lifted off their websites and Facebook pages - they get zip for those images.
Working at a grocery store taught me that the corporation sees one thing - salary costs. Never mind that having fewer employees means it is easier to steal from you; as long as they don't have to pay out $13 an hour for an employee, they don't mind losing $1000 worth of merchandise - the two people in charge of each of those things don't talk to each other, so they don't know that for $50 an hour, they could not lose $1000 because those things come from different piles of money. The corporate learns nothing - people hate self service and they yell at and threaten the employees, maybe even write to corporate - they still have self services as their main operation.
The Harry Nice Bridge - no toll booths; if you don't have an EZPass, they double the cost and fine you. You get a bill in the mail and every month you ignore it, the cost increases until they take you to court. By the end of the 2020s, the Port Authorities of New York and New Jersey hope to have all of the humans out of the trade completely.
I can tell you that the people who currently hold these low paying positions are not always willing or able to aspire to even better jobs, for whatever reason. We seem to view the American Dream in different ways - everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get a better job if they just try; but people who can't read or have another disability, who only know the one thing they know, those people aren't going to succeed elsewhere. I don't think it is too much to ask to have jobs for them.
Lots of Frank Herbert work after his death. But not much is all that good. I would like some more Heinlein. However, I dread what AI might write in his name. He was one to say "Yes, but ..". to give something to think about. AI may be much more parody.
Re proselytizers. I come from a long line of “free thinkers,” as they were known. My grandfather always enjoyed having discussions at the door with those trying to convert him. On one occasion, he ended up walking down the garden path with a young lady who was saying “You will see the light!” as he was saying “You’ll get over it.”
I actually submitted the Nickelback about long baseball games, and yes, I was at that 18-inning playoff game, too. I guess being prepared for a long game is an important consideration. That game was on Yom Kippur, with one of those weird playoff early start times, but the forecast was for temps to plummet, so those who froze had only themselves to blame. A sizable group of us who'd been fasting planned a mid-5th inning break fast. We brought and shared all the usual things such as bagels and spreads and babka and rugelach, and divided up the spoils and returned to our seats. As the game went into the night and fans were starving and pillaging the Team Store for sweatshirts, we were in our gloves and coats and knit hats, curled under our blankets and snacking on chocolate babka between innings. Terrible outcome but a great memory.
What happened to the edit function ? Ah, see it now as part of a "kebab menu" to the far right of a comment.
Regarding food going bad:
Several years ago, a coworker of mine found a jar of jam in the back of his cabinet. It bore an expiration date of, if I'm remembering this correctly, 2004. The thing is that said coworker had moved around 2017, which means that this jar of already expired jam had moved with him.
He said it tasted fine, but this is also a guy whom I once saw absent-mindedly clean a paintbrush in his coffee mug and keep drinking the coffee.
The rapid advancement of AI is not scary so much because of researchers finding that large language models like ChatGPT are displaying "emergent abilities" or, displaying skills they weren't trained to develop or, a genuine understanding (in human terms) of what they learned. What is cause for concern (IMO) is the lack of transparency about the models primarily because of heated competition which is greatly hindering a critical understanding of the social impacts of this rabidly advancing technology.
Sometimes there are too many factors for good prediction. Who knew a new Ford would lead to more babies born? Just do like I play chess. Move and see what happens.
Stable is spelled uncomfortably close to Sta-Bil fuel stabilizer. which no one should drink, because it's poison. For something that is not poisonous that no one should drink, there is Ratzeputz.
And "gift" in Germany is "poison."
Interesting that. Originally meant what it now means in English --- something given. Then, over the centuries took on more of the meaning of a "dose" (something obviously also "given.") and from there, it was a relatively easy transition to "poison." There are still vestiges of the original meaning in the corners of German. For example, die "Mitgift," or "dowry" in English.
After WWII all food package to Germany from the USA (by law) had to have "GIFT" written on them. And that was a problem for some. I studied German in College, but this is new and interesting to me. Thanks!
"Ratzeputz" sounds less like a liqueur than like a Yiddish insult.
The freezer motor can be replaced-- my repair person's visit cost about $240, all in.
Self help, preventative maint: pull the front grille off the bottom of your fridge and vacuum the visible lint from the condenser cage beneath the unit. You may need a flashlight to see: the cage collects dust like a dryer's lint screen and the poor airflow makes your fridge work harder and hotter.
More unsolicited freezer advice: ditch your icemaker when it breaks; It's likely to break again. Buy some fun- or practical- shaped silicon ice-cube molds that fit your beverage containers of choice. Cleaner (bottled or filtered) water makes clearer cubes, too. Icemakers are easily removed from freezer-top models (but don't forget to shut off the water valve).
VPL, poop jokes, & stick shifts, y'all.
Re Presidential Primaries. I thought a round-Robin approach by region makes the most sense. Say in Year A you did New England; then three weeks alter West Coast; then three weeks later Southest; etc. By region candidates could be in an area for several days and get to know the region. Then in year B, West Coast first, followed by Southeast … finally New England. Break the nation into sever or eight pieces; start about January 1, and be done in time for summer conventions. Every group gets a chance to go first and it really mixes things up.
I like this!
Which of the 11 American nations do you live in?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/08/which-of-the-11-american-nations-do-you-live-in/
Midlands (most of Maryland) and happy here.
I'm in the Midlands too.
re: you AI art polls, you didn't have my answer in the first one. I selected "disconcerted / disoriented" as the closest available. But really my answer would have to exist somewhere on the fear/terror spectrum. And the second answer would be that when AI can create long form complex art, such as a book or a movie, that is not identifiable as such then we're going to be in trouble.
RE: the AI book
I'd be more than fine. I'd be impressed, and then intrigued to figure out what my reaction says about me.