Tag: artificial intelligence

When HAL runs HR

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
“I know you still have the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. But. …”

I’m rarely gobsmacked by journalism lately. Familiarity, contempt … you know.

But damme if this piece from Josh Tyrangiel at The Atlantic ain’t a sure-’nough stem-winder.

The question is “What will A.I. do to jobs?” And the answers come from right, left and center, from tech CEOs to academic economists to Steve Fucking Bannon — yes, that Steve Fucking Bannon.

It’s smartly reported and cleverly written and the accompanying graphics from Stephan Dybus are top notch.

You will probably not find the story comforting, as it considers the irksome human factor’s effects, if any, upon the Rise of the Machines. The long and the short of it is that where job security in Meatworld is considered, A.I. will either be just ducky or something like a pickleball dustup in Florida.

12 Days of ’Toonsmas: Day 9

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

Susan Calvin was off when these two rolled off the line at U.S. Robots.
From the September 2019 issue of BRAIN.

E-bikes present both opportunity and challenge for the IBD.

One more bike to sell to the base — the old white guy who already has 15 two-wheelers in the garage but may be slowing down a bit due to age or infirmity, and wants a little assist.

One more bike to lure new customers, who may have found old-fashioned cycling too difficult, or who have decided to replace a car with something greener.

One more bike to service, because the future requires more maintenance than the past.

Our heroes at BRAIN’s bike shop acquired an e-assistant to work on e-bikes, which raises another issue, one familiar to anyone who ever read Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.”

Artificial intelligence will not come to us from U.S. Robots, complete with a full installation of Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics and overseen by Susan Calvin, Greg Powell and Mike Donovan. It will come from Allied Mastercomputer via Ellison Wonderland, it will have ideas all its own, and it will not be our friend.

“They’re a cleaner better breed than we are,” Calvin said in an interview with The Interplanetary Press. Maybe so. in Asimov’s novels, anyway. But in real life our e-assistants will be made by us, in our image. Frightening.

You’ll want to keep them locked up at night, and not for fear of thieves.

Oh, good

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

Q: You know why editors die earlier than reporters?

A: Because they want to.
Photos 1981 by Tom Warren, Corvallis Gazette-Times

From Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:

Here’s a guess: the first serious use of AI in the newsroom will be to replace editors, not writers. Roughly speaking, AI will take reporters’ notes or rough copy—or even what we humans laughingly call finished copy—and turn it into great prose. We’ll still need someone around to nag us about issues of substance, but the robots will compose sentences and paragraphs better than us. What’s more, they’ll be able to churn out multiple versions of our writing instantly: the magazine version, the 6th-grade version, the TV script version, the Spanish version, the PowerPoint deck, etc. Just tell it what you need and you’ll get it.

Reporters will last a little longer, but just a little. I’m giving editors until, oh, 2035. I think that’s generous. Reporters will be out of business by 2040. Better get ready.

I’m totally ready. By 2035 I’ll be 81, which in O’Grady years is stone cold dead.