Politics / Tech / The Future0 Comments

Hail to the Computerized Chief

How the US election shows us that AI will inevitably rule us all.

If you believe the pundits, the fate of the world depends on who wins the upcoming US election. Both sides of the media machine are working overtime, cranking out dire predictions as if chocolate from an assembly line – just in time for six o’clock when a hungry audience awaits. And like Lucy and Ethel, as eager as we might be to scoff them down, we can hardly keep up. And since you are what you eat, how can we ever truly be unbiased? And if this is true, how can we possibly break from our respective camps and meet in an open field of respect and understanding?

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Tech / The Future0 Comments

AI Through the Dog’s Eye

Why artificial intelligence will be intelligent but never truly conscious

Dog owners will instantly relate to the experience that I’m about to share. It’s golden hour, sunlight streams through your window and cloaks your dog in a majestic warm glow. She looks up at you in your chair, the warm tingle of your glass of wine chases away the little gremlins that attract your attention, and you’re sitting in silence, staring at each other and you get the distinct feeling that you’ve known her before in some ancient time. There’s a wisdom and presence in her eyes that you cannot explain but you nonetheless deeply understand, and the moment you see it, you realize how little you know about the universe and more so, that you know absolutely nothing about the very thing that connects you two – consciousness. But you don’t feel too bad, for you know that science is at a loss to explain what happened moments ago, but it tries to anyway, and in a game of theoretical chicanery, offers up a physical answer to a metaphysical question.
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Politics / The Future / World0 Comments

Take an Inch

My wife is brilliant. She is able to get me to do just about anything she wants. Just the other day, she points to some trim above the fireplace and says, ‘Can you take that ugly stuff down?’ I look up, grave, trying like hell to form some justification to keep it there, but I can’t. She’s right. It’s ugly. I look down at the dog for a second opinion but her big eyes stare back as if to say – c’mon, who you kidding? And with great reluctance, I go up the ladder and pry the wood down. Afterward, we both admire the trimless alcove, no longer ugly, but now terribly incomplete. I say, ‘We need to do something about that.’ My wife nods as if it was truly my own idea. And so, it goes, I calculate, cut, screw, fit, drywall, plaster, sand and paint, and if the measure of my work was a foot – then it all started with an inch, artfully suggested, and unknowingly agreed too.

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Health / Politics / The Future / World0 Comments

An Eye for the Little Things

Corona virus

Two words that have launched a billion conversations, seemingly at the same time, and the cacophony makes it hard to distinguish what is being said and more so, what does it truly mean for humanity? The mainstream press has its own slants, the politicians their own skews and both look to the scientific community – not so much for wisdom – but to heighten the hype or justify their actions (or lack thereof). And we’re caught in the middle, not knowing what to make of it all. But I wonder if we’re ok with that on some level? Like there’s a slight contentedness with the state of confusion, because with it, we can out-task the responsibility to do something about it elsewhere.

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