3 February 2024
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood with temperatures in the high 60’s. As we say in South Florida, “It’s a Chamber of Commerce day.”
I feel marginally better than yesterday which was a pretty rough day. I managed to get the linen changed on the bed, a wash on, and complete a set of exercises the physical therapist wants me to do. She wants me to do them twice a day but I’m not sure that is gonna happen.
John is bringing a BOGO from Honey Baked around noon. I didn’t know if I would be up for it until I got moving this morning. I’ll appreciate the company as much as the sandwich. I’m a pretty boring person and I even get bored with myself so it’ll be good to talk with him.
Talk about good neighbors! I was struggling with cleaning the pool filter yesterday (and I do mean struggling) when I heard what sounded like a garbage bin being rolled up to the fence. Stacey, a neighbor three houses down, saw me one day last week and she wanted to do something for me. She suggested when my bins were out, she would be happy to move them up to the fence to save me some effort. Everyone has offered help in every way possible and I do appreciate it. I have good neighbors and good friends. It’s pretty humbling.
After the laundry is done, I plan to take it easy for a while and not overdo it. The only real pressing thing is to pick up a prescription at Walgreens and on Monday, take my pool cleaner in to Pools ‘n More. Right now, when the pump is on it stays in one place. There’s some part that needs replacing and Pools ‘n More is pretty good about repairing it, even with used parts to help keep the cost down.
Cleaning house is going to take a back seat. I’m slowly but surely learning to clean a little bit each day and not try to do everything on one day. I’m slow but I eventually get there.
I listened to an episode of Diane Rehm on Artificial Intelligence and how pervasive it is and how it has the potential to be very beneficial as well as very destructive. AI has been with us a while. When I begin to type either a text or a document, AI anticipates the word or words and makes the suggestion which you can accept or reject. Amazon makes shopping suggestions based on your browsing habits.
I viewed a vlog last night where on the new iMacs, you can run an app on the Mac that allows you to read out loud various sentences provided. It then takes your pronunciations and allows you to type a text that will send your voice reading the text via phone or whatever medium you wish. It sounds exactly like you to the point that the person listening to it doesn’t know it is AI talking to you.
The “expert” on the Diane Rhem show was explaining how AI allows people to make a view of Joe Biden saying something he didn’t say. Right now, the expert says certain words you have to either pucker your lips to pronounce or certain positions of the mouth when pronouncing, allows him to determine if the video is a real one or one generated by AI. Then he gave an example of a student of his giving him a video and asking him to determine if it was generated using AI. He failed the test.
AI also allows politicians who don’t speak a language to make a political statement in whatever language they desire. The expert’s opinion is this is OK as long as it is prefaced by saying that the person speaking really doesn’t speak the language.
At the closing of the show, Diane always asks her guests if they have anything to add. He said there needs to be better legislation governing AI, that companies that generate AI media need to do a better job of policing themselves but most importantly, we as consumers of media need to educate ourselves to the possibilities. He advocates not using social media for any news source and that we need to use various forms of media, as in newspapers and news programs, to form our opinions.
It’s kind of like when I told my students you had to be careful when using the internet as a source. Every a**hole has an opinion and the internet allows them to broadcast it. It doesn’t mean it is a valid opinion. I tried to teach them to use reputable web sites like Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet, Scientific American, and others.
I don’t believe anything I see on social media – conservative or liberal opinions, texts, or videos. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the posts, it simply means I don’t accept it as fact.
I read several newspapers a day online: The New York Times, Washington Post, The Clarion Ledger, and online scientific and news journals. I do read conservative op-eds and liberal op-eds and realize that the “op” stands for opinion. We all need to be more educated consumers of media.
Enough of the soap box. Stay tuned!