The post The Fairness Party appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>With the recent open distribution of ChatGPT, a new chatbot from OpenAI, all kinds of predictions as to the imminent death of the world as we know it have come forward and run rampant. This is the end of the college essay; The College Essay is Dead, the Atlantic. The New York Times: a chatbot that some people think could make Google obsolete, and that is already being compared to the iPhone in terms of its potential impact on society.
And what do you know. AI is just getting started.
The ChatGPT recently let loose to the world is still in training. Its more advanced replacements are already lined up.
Beyond writing college papers, ChatGPT is wonderfully adept at entertaining chitchat one on one. What’s a great name for a restaurant that’s never been used before? I asked.
Lickety split, the language model (it sometimes calls itself that) came back with:
The Flavor Forge
The Whisking Kitchen
The Mouthwatering Menagerie
The Delicious Dining Hall
The Pickled Parrot
The Mouthwatering Menagerie? I don’t think so. The Pickled Parrot sounds like something on Sanibel circa 1983.
Something in my request triggered names beginning with the. So, I tried to rectify that with a new request.
Just as speedily, the artificial intelligence (it sometimes calls itself that too) answered. Among my favorites were:
Feast of Fools
Feastivus
Gourmet Guild Hall
Epicurean Exchange Market
Flavor Fortress Bistro
Feastivus is more than interesting.
How about a good slogan for AI?
No problem.
AI: proceed with caution
AI: a tool, not a threat
AI: use it ethically
AI: use it for good
Not bad at all.
ChatGPT is kind of fun. Deep down, it wants to please. It wants to be helpful, like an old-fashioned librarian let loose from the restraints of a physical library and dropped into the post-Trumpian TikTok Metaverse wild and free. It knows everything we have ever entrusted to the web (up until 2021). Its successors already know so much more.
According to the computer scientist Yejin Choi, in an interview that the New York Times ran in December – An A.I. Pioneer on What We Should Really Fear, this is where we are at:
“The truth is, what’s easy for machines can be hard for humans and vice versa. You’d be surprised how A.I. struggles with basic common sense. “
What do you know. Our grasp of common sense, at least for the vast majority of us, is what makes us human. AI doesn’t get it, and is having a hard time learning it.
Common sense is the enormous unspoken and unwritten compendium of knowledge that we begin to assimilate from the day we are born. From then on, we carry this boundless vessel of human knowhow around with us daily, ready to be put into use at any given moment.
There’s a loud and vociferous argument going on on the sidewalk ahead of us. It sounds out of control. Perhaps we take out our cell phone and call the police. Perhaps we cross the street. Perhaps we turn and walk back the way we came from. We’re using our common sense.
How many times have we screamed at the screen, Get out of there, now! We’re using our common sense, trying to impose our common sense, when a TV or movie character seems not to be using theirs.
Yejin Choi puts it this way:
“A way of describing it is that common sense is the dark matter of intelligence. Normal matter is what we see, what we can interact with. We thought for a long time that that’s what was there in the physical world — and just that. It turns out that’s only 5 percent of the universe. Ninety-five percent is dark matter and dark energy, but it’s invisible and not directly measurable. We know it exists, because if it doesn’t, then the normal matter doesn’t make sense. So we know it’s there, and we know there’s a lot of it. We’re coming to that realization with common sense. It’s the unspoken, implicit knowledge that you and I have.”
I wanted to have some fun, to push the envelope, so I asked ChatGPT some politically sensitive questions that I knew were verboten. The chat bot is wired to fend off politically charged inquiries.
“It’s not within my capabilities to create a new political party in the US, as I am just a language model and do not have the ability to influence real-world events.”
Okay, Well said.
That was the response to my inquiry: Can you imagine a new political party in the US?
But ChatGPT went on, unexpectedly, surprising me:
However, I can certainly help brainstorm some ideas for the name and platform of a hypothetical new political party.
Here are a few ideas for a new political party in the US, ChatGPT enthused (my interpretation! No, ChatGPT doesn’t have emotions. Not yet!):
“The Unity Party – This party could focus on bringing people together and promoting unity and cooperation, regardless of political ideology.
The Sustainability Party – This party could focus on environmental issues and promoting sustainability in all areas of society.
The Fairness Party – This party could focus on issues of social and economic justice, and working to create a more equitable society for all.
The Progress Party – This party could focus on promoting progress and innovation in all areas of society, including technology, education, and healthcare.
Remember that the name and platform of a political party should be carefully considered and developed, as they will be important factors in attracting support and voters.”
What do you know!
All the chatbot’s suggestions sounded pretty commonsensible to me.
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]]>The post Trump’s “beautiful wall” vs. America’s ugly infrastructure appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>America’s infrastructure is a mess. Whether you live in a city, a suburb, a small town, a village, or a rural area, you don’t need to go far to see the neglect and deterioration of our shared public spaces. Roads and bridges are crumbling. The country’s railroad system is lagging decades behind the technological modernization that’s been underway for years across Europe and Asia. The power grid is all too susceptible to winds, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, flooding, and thunderstorms. The terrifying effects of climate change are real and present. Planning for sea-rise flooding in coastal cities and communities is more than four decades behind where it could have been had the fossil-fuel companies not engaged in a successful, multi-million-dollar campaign to hoodwink the American public about the reality of the connection between global warming and fossil fuels.
With all of the dire infrastructure needs and climate-change effects threatening the future of the planet and the country’s national security, what is the current priority for large-scale projects our taxpayer dollars will be paying for in the near future? We all know the answer. Look no further than the glint in Donald Trump’s eyes when he pontificates about his “beautiful” wall. Tragically, the building of the wall is becoming more than just a vanity project. The Trump administration recently announced its intention to divert an additional $7.2 billion from the military budget to build Trump’s wall at the southern border. Add that $7.2 billion to the $3.6 billion already diverted, and you come up with an eye-bulging price tag of $10.8 billion that might be used to build a fence or steel slats or a wall—or some unknown combination that’s being kicked around in the White House on any given day.
Set aside for a moment doubts about the necessity for America’s bloated and often wasteful military budget, because, according to Military Times, of the $7.2 billion, $3.7 billion had been designated for sorely needed infrastructure improvements to outdated facilities on military bases, like training centers and schools. The balance, another $3.5 billion, had been earmarked to increase counter-drug operations. Would anyone doubt that that’s a worthy investment when you consider the number of drug-related deaths due in large part to illegally produced fentanyl? In 2019 alone, there were more than 70,000 Americans who died from drug-related causes and overdoses. That’s not a delusion of desperate families and refugees taking over America. That’s a real crisis.
To put the cost of building the border barrier in perspective, consider what the cost per mile might be. In January of 2019, the Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to Congress outlining that $5.7 billion could pay for about 234 miles of a new steel barrier along the 2,000-mile southern border. That means that in 2019 dollars, the cost of the construction of a steel-slatted barrier (not a concrete wall) would be $24.4 million per mile. And that number doesn’t even take into account typical construction-cost overruns, earth moving, or short- and long-term maintenance costs.
Here’s the question. To what better use could the cost of just one mile of border barrier that’s being touted as a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist be spent for a problem that does? Here’s an example of how our taxpayer dollars might be used more effectively to address a real crisis—the necessity to create sustainable energy on a large scale in order to prevent the most dire effects of a warming planet.
Here are the facts. Installing solar panels on a residential building in the U.S. costs, on average, $15,000 per home after tax rebates. That means that for the cost of one mile of border barrier, 1,626 buildings—or all of the buildings in the two contiguous villages where I reside in Columbia County, New York, plus every farm in the county could be solarized. Imagine for a moment the volume of electricity that could be fed back into the grid from solar panels on 1,626 buildings. And take another moment to reflect on what it could mean in long-term cost savings for individuals, families, businesses, farmers, and municipalities in just one county to become energy self-reliant. Now zoom out and reflect on how the total cost of construction of a 234-mile barrier (which, by the way, leaves approximately 1,800 miles of unprotected border) could solarize 700,020 homes—or all of the homes in the Upstate New York cities of Albany, Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo.
Border barrier versus a future of sustainable energy—which one would get your vote?
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]]>The post Smarter roads for the future appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>Twenty million miles of road snake across the surface of the earth. That’s enough pavement to wrap around the equator 833 times—or enough road to get you more than halfway to Mars. Most of those roads are made from asphalt concrete, a composite of bitumen and mineral aggregate. Environmentalists hate it, and state, county and city public works departments struggle with its lack of durability and constant need for costly maintenance.
Can roads be better, more economical to build and repair, and more ecologically sound? Good question. To which the answer appears to be, “Yes.” Here’s a list of possibilities for the road of the future, compiled from a wide variety of sources by a the British company known as CarLoans 4 U. (I don’t know who they are, either, or what motivated them to put this together, but I’m intrigued by the list, so here it is, with hyperlinks I’ve added for your convenience.)
New surface materials
Currently, asphalt-based roads are being replaced by environmentally friends, organic resin-based materials such as Eco-Pave. Many road surface manufacturers are investigating the possibility of using recycled plastics in road construction.
Dynamic paint
Specially formulated paints used for symbols on the road surface could indicate whether the temperature is hot enough or cold enough to affect driving conditions. This innovation is being tested in the Netherlands.
Glow in the dark road markings
Netherlands crews are also testing road markings painted with glow-in-the-dark paint, so that they can been seen without the need for lights.
Anti-icing roads
Under study in Wisconsin are road surfaces containing naturally reactive de-icer [such as a product known as Safe Lane) that prevent ice from forming on roads.
Interactive wind-powered lights
These lights, powered by the wind, would turn on only when a car is present.
Wireless electric vehicle charging
Using “inductive power transfer” (the same method by which electric toothbrushes are charged), electric cars could be charged wirelessly as they travel along the road, removing the need to stop and refuel.
Solar energy roads
Cars would drive on specially toughened and durable solar panels, which would help provide and alternative means of power generation.
Piezoelectric energy roads
Piezoelectric crystals can generate energy from the vibrations that vehicles generate as they drive along the road.
Intelligent highways
Roadside listening stations would link up with GPS receivers in cars to monitor traffic patterns and accidents. Information would then be passed back to navigation systems in cars to help drivers avoid congested areas and accidents.
So, while drivers don’t appear to be getting more intelligent, cars are, and, apparently, so can highways. Fortunately, while these new technologies are just plain fun to imagine, they’re not just sci-fi dreams inspired by “The Jetsons.” Many of them are currently being tested on a small scale. If proven, they could go a long way toward transforming pavement—which isn’t going away—into a more sustainable substance, while improving the driving experience. How to pay for these developments on a large scale will be a subject for much debate and another post for this blog.
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