Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for July 27, 2023

AI, Absence of Intelligence

Sadly, I’m not surprised this is happening.

Maybe the SAG memers will be so vocal about AI, that it will be stopped or at least reduced.

My problem with Amazon books is they started downloading EVERY book I ever bought, EVERY book I might buy and it’s a bit*h finding the book I want to read in all the garbage. I stopped using it. I used to love it.

A dark glimpse of AI.

How about a book from Van Gogh titled Never The Twain Shall Meet.

.. or a painting from Clements titled The Starry Frogs of Calaveras County?

It’s starting. They’ve stopped teaching cursive and the library censorship is is getting out of hand. Moat schools don’t teach Ancient History either.

I wish they’d stop calling it Artificial Intelligence. A more accurate name would be Imitation Intelligence. There’s no actual intelligence behind it, just mimicry.

Not concerned still. I’ve seen what AI writing articles, stories, and the like have done. My 3 year old nephew can do a better job at it. As for AI art? It’s just slap’n’stick done by other artists off the net.

This reminds me of the “Requiem for Methuselah” episode from the original Star Trek where Kirk and Spock encounter a man named Flint who has new works by people like Leonardo da Vinci and Brahms.

I once read a science fiction story about a great concert pianist who obtained an advanced robot and, on a whim, taught it to play the piano. The robot then played a piece so beautifully that it brought the pianist to tears, but the robot then told him that it would never play the piano again. As best I can remember, the story finished with this exchange: “But why?” the pianist asked, “you played that piece better than I have ever heard a human play it before!” “That is why,” the robot answered. “It was easy … and it should not be easy!”

There was a study recently that showed the part of our brains that process’ spatial directions, our ability to find our way around, is actually dying. We used to navigate our way all over the place with just an address and a map. Got confused sometimes, but also found off-the-beaten-path places while confused. The map also lets you see alternatives that might be more appealing than the same route the app gives everyone else. Heck, we’ve had tourists get lost hiking and call for a rescue when they lose cell signal and can’t follow the trail they’re standing on without an app. Map for the bulk of the trip, navigation for the last 10 miles.

How does AI created “art” lead to a loss of skills?

That’s not a loss of skill though, that’s just common or garden variety chicanery.

I don’t know, it might be very interesting to read something “new” by a favorite author who is no more.

I fear for our future

Would you like to own original art by a real artist? Something fine to look at that makes you proud to have it in your home? Would you like this without the hyper-inflated price of an old master or a nineteenth century “modernist”?

Look around at the living, working artists in your community. When you find one whose work calls out to you, buy it. In a hundred years that artist may be famous and your heirs may be wealthy. Or the artist may be forgotten but you have still enjoyed something of beauty.

“Manufacturing” is close, but stealing is more accurate.

The problem with trying to stall progress is that it leads to stagnation, both technologically and mentally. There is a middle ground, but in order to tread it both side must work together…and that ain’t happening.

The loss of skills started long before AI came meandering along. How many people can drive a vehicle with a standard transmission or write cursive?

Search engines are all about what companies are being paid to advertise, NOT what the customer is looking for. Add terms to narrow the results and they expand the responses.

After scrolling through Instagram I find it hard to believe the people exhibiting their paintings there are going to give up because of AI.

AI… Forging Ahead for Fun and Profit.

you can down load an ebook or take the other option and purchase the book. I have been known to do both depending on the author.

This pairs well with today’s Speed Bump comic!

I will get Amazon reccomendations, and then get the book from the Public Library

Point very well made, Wiley.

It’s not good, more laziness will make the obesity epidemic worse

Next, new Non Sequitur by AI.

It is an old truism, that still applies today, especially with AI:

Data Is

AI has this nailed. It can produce a flood of data, not all of it useful mind you.

Knowledge is Data in Context

110 F, now we know this is a temperature. AI with suitable direction and refinement can produce lots of knowledge.

Wisdom is Knowledge Experienced

Since we have experienced 110F temperatures we know how uncomfortable this is and that there are a host of associations that go with this

temperature. For now, this seems to be beyond the capability of AI. It has never experienced 110F, it has no idea what “Uncomfortable” really

means, all it can do is throw more knowledge at 110F. It has no Wisdom.

Hmmm…that may explain how Karl Marx keeps getting rehashed…or it may just be as I thought — Bernie Sander’s needle is stuck…

Mark Twain, despite some difficulties with modern sensiblities in the accurately rendered dialects of “Huck Finn”, was the first American author to write in the modern vernacular. His “Innocents Abroad”, describing a fictionalized version of the first “cruise ship” excursion, has innumberable “laugh out loud” moments. We still recognize, after all these years, the same human foibles that he lampooned in his day.

If you get anA1 to rewrite an Ayn Rand book, will it come out as something that makes sense?

Mark Twain’s autobiography came out belatedly right when I purchased a Kindle. I bought the book, but only read a few chapters before I gave up. It wasn’t going anywhere.

This might seem to be funny, but I’m scared …

AI-generated garbage, be it paintings, drawings or novels, will be indistinguishable from those created by human beings to humans who think and talk like machines. It’s happening already.