They say AI is going to take over. Maybe it already has. Reality is getting more difficult to determine. It is certain that many of us are on our way to being relegated to useless eaters. Then what? AI, with the help of robots, can do many of our jobs and will soon be able to do all of them flawlessly. Doctors, lawyers, machinists, artists of all kinds, coders, even fry cooks and janitors have all seen this machine advance in its ability to do their jobs. What will become of us?
Luckily, we have predictive movies that have guided our perceptions over the years to show us what kind of trouble we’ll get ourselves into when AI and the bots take over. One of the most frightening is The Terminator, where mankind goes to war with robots controlled by AI. The robots lose but keep going back in time to change things, so we must have several sequels to explain it all. In the process there is much death and destruction and many dollars made by the industry. (Hey Arnold! Who really won?) I am partial to 2001, a Space Odyssey, because I get a kick out of hearing Hal the computer say, “I’m sorry Dave. I can’t do that.” Scary stuff!
Still scary, but nowhere near as violent is the movie, Wall-E where the earth is uninhabitable due to the large amount of garbage covering it. People live in luxury on space stations that circle the earth. This is a love story about robot love, but the people in the story take my breath away. Imagine sitting around a pool all day in a special chair designed to hold 450-500 lbs., drinking umbrella drinks, eating whatever you like, and watching a screen that showed you what you wanted at the moment. “Oopsie! Just had a BM. Robot, come and wipe my butt.”
This highlights the current educational crisis which has deteriorated into a steaming pile of manure. For example, ever since the introduction of the calculator into the classroom, people have been losing the ability to do simple math in their heads. Will AI be used by students to write their term papers as well? Another part of the brain that won’t get developed…
AI, as it is now, will plan your garden and plant it, provide your photo, write your book, and a plethora of other tasks that require the mind to work, if done by a human. Your brain is much like your body in that parts of it that are not used will shrivel up. The depiction of people in the far distant future has been rife with beings who have big heads and big brains. Phooey! Phooey! Horse patooey! Under this scenario, it’s more likely that we will develop little pin heads with just the minimum requirement of brains inside to keep the heart and lungs operating. I see humanity already sliding bare assed down that muddy slope when I consider the choices people are making. But that’s just my opinion.
One myth we are told is that AI will protect us. One of the ways it will do that is predictive programs. These are programs that predict what is going to happen in the future. The obvious use for them is to predict criminals’ crimes giving law enforcement the opportunity to arrest the criminal before the crime is committed. If this tool is used for other than serious crime, you might wake up one morning with an officer at your door handing you a ticket for littering you are going to be guilty of later on. What a way to start the day!
At first there would be a time limit on predicting crimes and you would only be able to jail those who are charged with a future crime a month or so in advance. However, we have enough knuckleheads such as _______ and ______ (I left these blank because with the number of idiots in government these days, I couldn’t decide which ones to call out). These cretins would run for office on the platform, “Nip crime in the bud.” Once elected you could expect the SWAT team to be in the delivery room ready to cuff the baby when it popped out of its mom. I’m sure this would make us all feel safer. From past experience, I know how dangerous babies can be. Using a SWAT team to control babies seems logical to me, but only after I’ve finished off a six pack and just took a couple of shots of Wild Turkey.
There are even more crazy things they are planning on AI being able to do. The one on my mind right now is reading your thoughts. Now this might seem impossible, but when you think, your brain lights up with electrical signals. If those signals can be intercepted and decoded, what you are thinking will be revealed. I’m not sure how far they’ve gone in this direction, but I have a true story to tell you about something that happened to me lately.
My dogs kept jumping up and barking at night when we were having our quiet time. They would run around the room acting crazy like they do when a car drives up to the church across the street. I would look out the window and check around the room for the source of this disturbance. Nothing.
I was beginning to doubt their sanity when it occurred to me that there might be a mouse in the house. For the next week or so after this thought, my feed was filled with ads for ways to rid your house of mice. I laughed because I’ve lived here for 4 years and never seen sign of a mouse. I talked to my daughter about it, and she gave me some spiffy newfangled mouse traps which I set and caught the first mouse in just 15 minutes. The ads on my feeds suddenly disappeared. The mice did not. I caught 4 more in the following week. The traps have been idle for a while. Maybe they are all gone. Maybe they are now wise to the traps. However, I find this odd, and AI came to mind right off to explain it. That’s how I chose this week’s topic. It just goes to show you that we all need to watch not only what we say, but also what we think. That’s it for this rant. See you next time. In the meantime, I’m thinking about getting rid of my Roomba. I think it’s spying on me.
Please come back in the next week or so before Christmas as I have a special story, a true story, to share with you about a family Christmas that is not a rant. This story will melt you like a chocolate Santa left by the fireplace. Thank you for reading my Rants in the Pants. Be sure to give me the gift of love and share my work on other platforms.