Lately that most familiar of technological marvels, the telephone, has been making me crazy and my life miserable almost daily because of abuse, misuse, and overuse.
Let me count the ways, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning would say:
1. I just saw an allegedly hilarious TV add about “multi-processing” showing people walking into poles, tripping over obstacles and falling into trash cans while walking in public while either staring at a smart phone screen or chatting away using the speaker. I don’t even recall the product (Effective ad there, guys!), but it did tick me off. it’s not a funny phenomenon. Just yesterday, and asshole walking along staring at his phone nearly collided with me and Spuds, startling both of us, and I had to fling all of my weight against the leash from keeping my protective dog from biting the asshole’s face off—which he deserved, but my dog would be the one blamed. One woman nearly did the same thing a few weeks ago jogging while looking at her phone. People who do this are inconsiderate, reckless and self-absorbed fools, and dangerous as well. Yet such conduct is rapidly becoming a social norm. Last week, also while walking Spuds, I noted that eight straight pedestrians I encountered including three dog-walkers, one mother pushing a toddler in a stroller and three teens were all proceeding while staring at a phone screen or talking into a phone held in front of them. They are effectively cutting off the world while they are in the world, furthering the isolation of humanity, and increasing the alienation of American from each other. It is uncivil—rude—as well. When ethics fails law takes over (and usually makes a mess of things), so I am not advocating a law, but social disapproval, beginning with parents telling their kids not to do this would be a nice start.
2. I recently had to call the D.C. Office of Corporate Registration (or whatever it’s called) to eliminate my still-born law firm, BernsteinMarshall, PLLC. Screwed up beyond belief like everything else in the District, the “convenient website” had no link for ending a company, so I had to call the office. The pert, friendly, chatterbox of a recording went on for ten minutes telling me all the things the office could do for me, then spent another five telling me about all the options (“which may have changed”), then after I pushed one button, started down another list of topics while I screamed, “SHUT UP!!!!!” like Michael Palin in the Monty Python Torremolinos” travel agent skit.
I find it interesting to watch the neighborhood walkers and dog walkers that are oblivious to the world around them, talking on their phone using earbuds, and they talk using their hands and arms, it looks like they have an uncontrollable outbreak of Tourette Syndrome.
For one of our anniversaries we spent a few days at Disney World in Florida. I couldn’t help but notice how many parents had their faces buried in phone screens when they should have been reveling in their children’s excitement and joy. To be fair, the Resort is using apps for reservations, queuing, maps, food orders, purchases, and these days to open your hotel room door. But I wasn’t seeing quick app usage – parents were ignoring their children in favor of a screen at the second happiest place on Earth.
I see the phone zombies all the time so I just avoid them so they don’t walk into me. That is one advantage of staying situationally aware.
With respect to AI. Why has no one asked the doomsayer’s like Bill Gates who claimed AI is expected to cause a billion deaths how he arrived at that number or how it would do so instead of just taking him at his word that on that arbitrary. If you can envision an outcome then you can envision a means to avoid it long beforehand.
I believe that if someone tells me that something awful will occur by adopting a new technology or policy then they should be damn ready to explain how they arrived at their conclusion.
It is a case of follow the money. These executives who predict doom and gloom, by sheer coincidence, advocate for ‘safety measures’ that concentrate the industry on existing players, creating huge regulatory burdens on new competitors entering the field. They ‘believe’ a treating AI as a natural monolopy is the only way to keep us ‘safe’. Any extra money they keep because they don’t have to lower there prices in response to innovative newcomers is a happy accident.
It also generates buzz. ‘Bad’ publicity is still publicity.
I learned just the other day to view any industry calling for safety controls as actually calling on government to protect that industry from competition.
I’m guessing nearly everyone has a funny – or not so funny – story regarding people recklessly tied to their phones. This is mine:
Several years ago, we were driving on the downtown freeway in Des Moines. I passed a young black woman going about 50 (below latent speed) with her head down, though I could actually see the top of her phone. I told my wife I was going to pull in front of her and gradually start slowing down. Despite my wife’s protests about highway shenanigans and getting rear-ended, I did it anyway.
I was so sick of encountering people propelling large chunks of engine-powered metal down the road while paying only passing attention to what they’re doing – I once passed an individual while driving to Phoenix who was reading a book (a hardback) – that I just couldn’t NOT do something.
I began slowing down gradually, and got to just below 45mph when she pulled around to pass. The glare she gave me was great!…and I mouthed to her, “GET OFF YOUR PHONE!” Message sent and message received…I hope.
Now it’s illegal to even have your phone in your hand while driving on an Iowa road. I hate silly laws, but this falls under the “should-be-silly-but-is-necessary” category.
Far too many people aren’t smart enough any more to read, to write, to talk in complete meaningful sentences, to have a coherent knowledge of anything historical, or to calculate correct change for a five-dollar bill. But oh my, they are smart enough to get hit by a car as they walk past a red light with a “don’t walk” warning into an intersection while texting a friend.
Cornelius_Gotchberg and I both still have flip phones I believe. I seldom carry mine.
I do a lot of walking and people are on their smart phones backing out of the driveway. They can’t put these devices down for a moment it seems. I heard some people have phone anxiety if they discover they have left without their smart phone, but, I doubt that happens often now as they hardly put the things down.
Plus, I just finished serving two days on a jury in Chemung County NY. I was the only one with a flip phone. It got some chuckles. Even before we went into deliberation I tried to have a conversation with a few of the other jurors during breaks and lunch and they were all too busy on their smart phones. Of course, we had to put all our smart devices in a box just before deliberations – I put my flip phone in the box and said, “Not sure this is a smart device.” and got some chuckles.
“Cornelius_Gotchberg and I both still have flip phones I believe. I seldom carry mine.”
Correct, and same here.
“I do a lot of walking and people are on their smart phones backing out of the driveway.”
Recall the YouTube HQ Terrorist Attack? Every employee being led out during the evacuation had the same thing in one (1) of their raised hands; guess what it was?
That was 8 1/2 years ago: Has it gotten better, stayed the same, or gotten worse?
PWS
With regard to the AI apocalypse, I think I’ve begun to notice a pattern, again. That pattern is that most, certainly not all, of the people proclaiming an AI apocalypse are left leaning individuals. Since President Trump has publicly proclaimed that this AI apocalypse prediction to be a hoax there has been one lefty after another climbing on board the AI apocalypse train to oppose and smear President Trump. I vividly remember what happened with the global warming and COVID apocalypse trains, do you? Remember the plethora of propaganda rhetoric and how hysteria grew? As far as I can tell at this point in time, the same kind of apocalyptic hysteria propaganda pattern is emerging.
My opinion about AI is; as AI begins to infiltrate deeply into K-12 education, higher education, and industry, it will begin to drain the core knowledge base of humans. Lazy humans could easily start to become dependent upon AI to do their work and solve their problems, and knowledge based critically thinking and logic (that’s already on the slippery slope to oblivion) will go the way of the DoDo. Like a hammer, AI is a tool, and every tool needs a knowledgeable, critically thinking, reasonably logical human being in control making the decisions when, where, and how to use the tool. Humans shouldn’t relinquish control of AI any more than they should relinquish control of a hammer. AI shouldn’t be given the power to do anything without being under control of a human beings, period.
Is it possible for AI to kill a billion people; maybe far into the future if humanity is ignorant and lazy enough to become 100% dependent upon AI to control everything without any critically thinking control from intelligent knowledgeable human beings wielding the tool. Is it likely that AI will devise a plan to execute a billion people on its own, no.
I worry far more about insane, hateful, power hungry, terrorists, and social anarchists infiltrating an AI tool for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc upon culture and society both regionally and globally. If AI is given the choice and gullibility to be manipulated with a simple question like, “Want to play a game?”, we’re in trouble because that’s the kind of simple trigger that terrorists and social anarchists will be looking for.
Also remember this observed pattern; if Donald Trump is for it, the political left is most certainly against it, and if Donald Trump is against it, the political left is most certainly for it. What we’re seeing is the process of the political left building another hysterical political platform upon absurd future predictions to generate anti-Trump, anti-Conservative hysteria and I’m not buying into it.
If you’ve seen ‘I, Robot’ and ‘T2’ a number of times you are more likely to view SI as a potential threat. The humans who create and code will define whether the outcome is beneficial or destructive, good or evil. Perhaps we should be trying to ensure that ideology is not coded into the SI system, and that conservatives have a place at the programming table.