Tags: artificial intelligence

Mass-producing intimacy

All of us need to open a new folder on our desktops called “AI”.

Or “Eh-eye?” if we’re still not sure that artificial intelligence will overwhelm our 2,500-year-old ideas of reading and writing and creativity.

Into this folder, we should drop any article or video that catches our interest about the future of AI. We should fill it up once a week at least, no matter how despairing the prediction about AI is. Ever since ChatGTP made us aware that climate change is not our only existential crisis, I’ve been avoiding those who say we will soon be enslaved by our technology, and avidly reading those who say AI will be our salvation.

But at what other time in history have humans (at least those of us who can read and write) been able to not only be bystanders at the revolution, but players in it. Indeed, our participation is compulsory. We’ve all been drafted. So best that we at least learn what the rules will be, and how they’ll change because they’ll change faster than any other revolution in history. And for those of us who crave a ring-side seat to history, here’s your chance.

Meanwhile…

What happened then?

It seems that Whites will become a minority of Americans by 2045. This demographic reality is fueling the Great Replacement Theory that’s behind rising racial violence in the US.

I also learned that 32,000 Americans are imprisoned because of cannabis offences.

These two unrelated facts are connected in an odd and vital way to Canada and Toronto.

First, Whites became a minority of Toronto’s population in 2015.

What happened then?

Nothing. Even today, when 58% of Torontonians are not White, and when one in two Torontonians is born outside Canada, “nothing” is “happening”.

On October 17, 2018, cannabis was legalized across our country. What happened on that day and beyond?

Nothing. Young men, whacked up on grass, didn’t roam the streets terrorizing the population. Stoned-driving cases didn’t uptick. Even now, nearly five years later, the wisdom of decriminalizing cannabis isn’t polarizing our society. Frankly, not many of us give it a second thought.

I, for one, am happy to live in a place where nothing happens.

Meanwhile…

How many existential crises can one world take?

Last year, global warming shifted from a distant thunder to a run-for-your-lives house fire. Alberta readers take note. This year, AI shifted from a semi-literate teen to the predator next door, coming for our jobs, our kids and our brains.

But there is an upside to the end of the world. It will take some time for oblivion to arrive, and before it does, we can bliss out on a third existential event: the coming together of robotic technology and artificial intelligence.

I’d like you to meet my new friend Ameca. She’s…well, see for yourself. She may sound a little fey today. But give her and her fellow humanoid robots a few months and they’ll have advanced the way global warming and AI did, with us barely paying attention and then suddenly they’re moving in to the spare bedroom.

Meanwhile…

Slightly-cynical singles seek later-life love.

When my wife Jean was doing family medicine, many of her patients were smart, accomplished, kind and financially-secure women over 50 who had given up finding a mate because none existed.

“Have you tried dating online?” Jean would ask. Their eyes would roll and they would practically spit: “I would never do that. It’s so demeaning.”

Many of these women have turned out the lights on this issue. There are no men out there, so why waste your time looking? Just create a rich life where you don’t need them. Didn’t Gloria Steinem say a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle? Or you can select men for different uses, the way you would a spice from the kitchen cupboard.

Meanwhile…

Whither the weather?

A friend of mine who spent a year in Leavenworth said: “You can get used to anything.” But getting used to summer sunshine in March one day, followed by a brutal snowstorm the next, will take some getting used to. I get that our punishment for overwarming the earth is extreme weather. But I can see a huge uptick in the sale of suitcases, for example, so that we can put our summer duds in one and our winter ones in another when we go to Montreal for the weekend. Or when we pack our bathing suit in the trunk, to think: “Where’s my toque?” No wonder North Americans consume well over two-thirds of the world’s production of antidepressant drugs. It’s the weather.

Meanwhile…

Turn every page.

You’ll get much more from the original sources of a story than even the deepest in-depth article. From this month…

A landmark privacy ruling: The Supreme Court of Great Britain ruled that a group of luxury condo owners in London could close the Tate Modern’s viewing platform that’s let “hundreds of thousands” of people gaze into their homes and lives.

Billionaire blow-up. Gautam Adani used to be worth $120 billion. Today, he’s worth $61 billion. The difference is from a scathing report by Wall Street’s Hindenburg Research whose title says it all: “Adani Group: How the world’s 3rd richest man is pulling the largest con in corporate history.”

Meanwhile…

I have seen the enemy and it is…

Words. An odd thought from someone who lives for them and earns a livelihood from them.

But while we’re all still fighting over fake news and free speech and truth and consequences, less than two months ago on November 22nd the San Francisco company Open AI released its latest generation writing bot called Chat GPT. It is to the revolution of thought what wheels were to roads.

Given the initial media response, ChatGPT will either shutter universities, vaporize teachers and homework, and eliminate rational debate, or usher in a new age of enlightenment. But as with many new technologies and bad drugs, the early days ChatGPT is fun and often magic. You ask it a question; it gives you a lengthy, thoughtful, nuanced, and often chummy reply. From 50 words to 5,000. Kul!

Meanwhile…

Fear and loathing…and awe.

We all knew the day would inevitably come. But so soon?

It seems artificial intelligence can now write almost as well as humans. Last week, OpenAI released their new ChatGPT chatbot for public testing, and the raves are pouring in. Try it now: it’s free. Just log in and ask it a question or assign it a task. But remember, it doesn’t search the internet; it ‘thinks’. For example, here’s what it comes back with when you ask: “What are the ethics
of creating test-tube babies?” and “Why did the chicken cross the road?”, and on a whole other level of thought: “Write a rhyming couplet poem about playing hockey in Canada.”

Given the pace of AI not just imitating language, but thinking in original ways, I’m relieved I’m an old writer and not a young one. Then again, new technologies always create jobs that didn’t exist before. But buckle up; real creativity is about to become a lot harder, as is ethics.

Meanwhile…

Complicit

Victory may have a thousand hand-maidens, but so does complicity.

This podcast tells how to avoid turning your gaze when others’ bad behaviour comes into view. But while a big part of complicity is often silence – “Nothing to see here, folks” – explicit badness can never seem to shut up and sit down. See FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s “meandering” one-hour take-down of Western countries for daring to criticize World Cup host-nation Qatar; and Donald Trump’s “rambling” one-hour speech announcing his run for President in 2024.

But the best examples of this growing art form are the filmed tributes to mendacity on a national scale, like this with David Beckham as part of his £150 million sponsorship deal touting Qatar.

Meanwhile, here is this week’s Omnium-Gatherum…

5th Wave, 4th Vaccine?

Here I was, so proud of my three jabs, and going out to a concert, and dining with friends, and getting on a plane and not feeling it was a flight into danger, and looking forward to Christmas. Very looking forward to that part.

Maybe they were right when they said the virus will always be with us, ever-mutating, one step ahead of science, faith and hope.

Oh well, at least we can still read at home on weekends.

Summer is a Season Again

Last summer didn’t count. We couldn’t go anywhere, do anything, see anyone. Already, this summer is making up for lost time. We’re going everywhere, doing

By the Dawn’s Early Light

I want to go to America. So do you. I know we live in a beautiful land. But like everyone else on earth, crossing a

RamsayWrites

Subscribe to my Free Weekly Omnium-Gatherum Blog:

  • Every Saturday the Omnium-Gatherum blog is delivered straight to your InBox
  • Full archive
  • Posting comments and joining the community
  • First to hear about other Ramsay events and activities

Get posts directly to your inbox

Name(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Sign Up for Updates!

Get news from Ramsay Inc. in your inbox.

Name(Required)
Email Lists
Email Lists(Required)