Tag: Writing

Should We Accept/Reject AI?

by James Wallace Harris, 3/30/26

This morning, I listened to “The Hunt for Deepfakes” by Sarah Treleaven on Apple News+, from Maclean’s Magazine. Treleaven reported on a Toronto-area pharmacist who ran a deep fake porn site called MrDeepFakes. Don’t go looking for it; it’s been taken down. This site served up mostly AI-generated videos of famous movie stars having computer-generated sex, or ordinary women being degraded in AI-generated pornographic videos created for misogynistic revenge. This is just one example of AI being used for horrible reasons. My initial reaction was that we should ban all AI-generated content.

But last night I was admiring Reels on Facebook produced by Vintage Memories 66 that lovingly recreated videos of classic movie stars from the 1930s and 1940s. Because these actors and actresses are best known from black-and-white films, seeing their images in high-definition color is rewarding on various levels. The videos showed these long-dead people reincarnated. Is this a legitimate creative tool of AI that we should accept? It’s another kind of deep fake. I haven’t seen AI-generated porn, but if it’s as realistic as these videos, it could be psychologically disturbing.

I just finished reading and discussing If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. The book makes a great case that we should stop all work on AI now. If you don’t want to read the book, watch the video that makes the same case, also quite convincingly.

Even if AI doesn’t intentionally wipe out the human race, it will transform society in ways we can’t yet imagine. It’s already changed us significantly. Watch the film above; it dramatically illustrates how fast it could happen. Do we really want to be that changed, that transformed?

I love watching YouTube videos. I’m old, and I mostly stay home nowadays, so YouTube videos let me see the world. For example, I’m watching a woman who calls herself Itchy Boots ride a motorcycle across Mongolia. I admire creative people who come up with different ways to educate their viewers. The possibilities are endless.

Yet, a lot of content I see is AI slop. I don’t feel like I’m learning about reality when I see AI-generated content. I feel cheated. Then there are good documentaries about real history recreated with AI-generated visuals. I enjoyed learning from narration, but I’m offended by the visuals they show me that don’t match the words.

On their YouTube page, they inform us, “Written, produced, and edited by one person with the help of AI tools under KNOW MEDIA.” It is impressive that one person can compete with Ken Burns. I see that as a tremendous creative opportunity for people. They don’t say who this one person is, but it’s published under the Tech Now channel. I assume Know Media is this site, which appears to house many content creators.

AI is empowering such wannabe filmmakers. However, often their content annoys, insults, or repulses me. I hate artificial presenters. I hate artificial voices. I hate AI-generated images and videos that do not match what’s being described. I especially hate videos with obvious flaws, such as claiming to show China but obviously showing a Western country, misspelling words on the screen that the narrator is saying, showing people that obviously aren’t real people, etc. The list goes on and on.

If the AI video that went with the John Atanasoff documentary had looked real and accurate, I would have gladly accepted it. In other words, maybe I’m not protesting AI but bad AI.

We have to face the fact that AI will enhance the Seven Deadly Sins in all of us. But AI could supercharge the Seven Heavenly Virtues we should be pursuing. The trouble is, AI is too powerful. It’s like letting everyone own an atomic bomb. Are you willing to trust everyone?

I’ve been using AI to create header images for this blog. That’s because I have no artistic skills on my own. I used to just snag something from the internet, but I decided that wasn’t honest. But I’m not happy with the AI-generated headers either. I didn’t create them. Even when I like them and feel they’re creative, I’m leery of using those images. I’m trying to decide just how much I should use AI.

Sometimes I think I should reject AI completely. But doing searches on Google and Bing now returns AI content first. And it’s more useful than all those sites at the top of search returns that paid to be there. Do I want to return to libraries, card catalogs, and The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature?

In Dune, Frank Herbert had humanity reject AI. Could we do that? In many science fiction novels from the 1950s, writers imagined post-apocalyptic societies rejecting science and technology because people blamed the apocalypse on them. Do we have to wait until the apocalypse to make that decision?

Aren’t computer programs produced by Donald Knuth more creative than computer programs produced by Claude?

Notice that all the videos I presented used AI to a degree. This blog is probably published by varying levels of AI-assisted programming. Many people who read this post might have found it because of AI tracking of their reading habits. Rejecting AI could mean returning to technology that existed before the year 2000. What level of technology should we set that would make us the most human? I could make a case that people seemed nicer before the graphical interface.

Fueling my formative years in the 1960s and 1970s by reading science fiction, I was anxious for the future to arrive. I wanted to live in a world of intelligent robots, artificial intelligence, and space colonies. Now, I kind of wish I were back in the 1960s and 1970s.

JWH

Ever Wonder Why Web Pages Keep Reloading on Your Phone? Or How Advertisers Know What You Are Thinking About Buying?

by James Wallace Harris, 3/20/26

I’ve practically stopped reading web pages on my phone because I can’t get to the end of an article without it reloading several times. That irritates the crap out of me. Yesterday, my friend Mike sent me a blog post that explains why web pages do this: “The 49MB Web Page.”

Shubham Bose realized while reading a page at the New York Times that it involved “422 network requests and 49 megabytes of data.” Bose is a software engineer and decided to deconstruct how and why. I highly recommend reading his explanation of what happens when you load a webpage. He also explains the hidden machinery that tracks our personal data.

My friend Anne and I joke that we can talk in person about something we’re interested in, and the next time we get on our computers, the algorithm is sending us information about what we talked about privately. Bose does not explain that apparent bit of mind-reading by our AI overload, but if we’re being observed in 422 ways each time we read a page, it can probably predict what we will think about soon.

Bose is an engineer interested in the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX), and recommends programming techniques that could make me like reading on my phone again.

Is that the real solution? Make our experience better so we don’t notice all the activity behind our reading?

Personally, I’m slowly returning to magazine reading. It’s hard to give up the convenience of the internet, but the UI and UX of print magazines are more enjoyable.

Magazines cost a lot of money and people naturally prefer free. But that’s another philosophical issue over technology. The internet provides endless free content, but is it really free? There’s a reason why free comes with 422 network calls and 49MB of spying programs.

My friend Linda and I are reading If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. The book is about how we should worry that AI will wipe us out. The authors present many scenarios in which AIs could drive us to extinction. Most of them sound like science fiction, but there are mundane hints we should ponder.

This morning, I read “The Laid-off Scientists and Lawyers Training AI to Steal Their Careers” by Josh Dzieza about several companies that hire laid-off experts to train AIs to make fewer mistakes. Online systems entice desperate humans to work in digital sweatshops to train AIs to put other humans out of work. The same kind of monitoring used to sell us shit is used to track their work. The system traps them in a cycle of working for less and less money because they know these people are desperate to put food on the table and pay rent.

Is artificial intelligence doing this to us, or is it our own greed? At some point, we need to decide. There are many stories like this YouTube video, which suggest that AI can’t take our jobs.

It might be dangerous to get too comfortable with that idea. Because I also watched another video that shows how fast AIs are learning.

We have to decide, although our greed might not let us. One article and one video claim the solution is to develop a symbiotic relationship. But what happens when the AI gets smarter than us? If they don’t need us, will they want us around?

Many claim the internet brings out the worst in people, and it makes us overall dumber. There’s that old saying, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” Isn’t AI and the internet teaching us how not to fish?

JWH

I Need To Shut Up About Getting Old

by James Wallace Harris, 3/16/26

I find getting old fascinating. And I enjoy writing about aging. I know I’m not saying anything original, but each new observation feels new to me. But I’m starting to see that other people don’t see getting old as a rewarding philosophical experience. Even though I’m amused by my mental and physical failings, talking and writing about them is bumming out some family and friends.

My newest observation, which I should have made much sooner, is that folks don’t see me by my view of aging, but theirs. They see the aged as depressing, frail, weak, useless, and something to either avoid or not think about.

Decades ago, I noticed that famous people in their late seventies and eighties were disappearing. Then, when their obits showed up, people would say, “I thought they were dead years ago.” Is that the proper etiquette – to hide away when old?

I think some people want to grow old like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards – to publicly rock out through their eighties, (and maybe nineties?). But most people, when they get wrinkly, prefer to hide from view. I don’t want to hide, but is that what young people expect? I’ve overheard young people criticizing people in their fifties, claiming they should not be seen.

Everyone loves to see centenarians who are still working full-time at amazing jobs. Or oldsters that still define cool.

I now assume the unwritten law is that we don’t want to see people who act old. If you’re old and act young, you’re good, but not if you act your age. But I’ve often seen young people making fun of old people acting young.

That means I need to act young, but only to my friends my age. I’ve started paying attention to other old people. Most are either quiet about aging or good at acting young (younger?).

And I’ve discovered a second good reason to shut up about life on the right side of the bell curve of aging. My recent social media feeds have been getting strange. The algorithm has noticed what I’ve been saying. At first, it sent me inspirational suggestions about being positive in my seventies. Then it sent me warnings about not offending young people. After that, it sent me info on which surgeries to get and which to avoid. Then last week, things started getting even stranger. Videos about assisted living and nursing home care started showing up.

Finally, and eeriest yet, are the videos about hospice care.

Yes, I need to shut up about aging. I want my feed to go back to home repair how-tos, wild animals being friends with other wild animals, and questionable young women asking me to visit their sites. (At least the digital con artists were under the illusion I’m still young enough to want young women, or willing to pretend that I think I am.)

Since I don’t want my friends and family to feel sorry for me, I need to write about topics that don’t age me. Also, I need to be careful what I say so my feeds don’t scare me.

I wonder how the feeds will react to this post?

JWH

Finding Purpose in Retirement

by James Wallace Harris, 3/11/26

Now that I’ve been retired for over a dozen years, I can begin to generalize about this phase of life. I had a good job, one that gave me satisfaction. I was never a big success, nor ambitious, but I thought my work was useful. I felt I helped people. I spent thirty-five years working at a university, and most of that time in the College of Education.

Because we prepared teachers and counselors, I thought I was indirectly helping the world by supporting faculty, staff, and students with their computers and computer labs. I also programmed the database to track students seeking licensure, and collected statistics for the college, university, state, federal government, and several accreditation agencies. I even helped a campus Kindergarten and Elementary School with their computers. All of that gave me a sense of purpose.

I didn’t think I’d miss work when I retired, and I didn’t for many years. But after a while, I realized that I wasn’t doing anything useful. During my work years, I never worried about having a purpose. Looking back, I realized I did have one, and it was fulfilling. 

At this point, I need to confess. By the time I retired at 62, I was worn out. I just had a stent put in my heart. I had very low vitality. Even more than physically worn out, I was mentally exhausted. I came to the CoE in the 1980s, when the colleges could hire their own computer guys, but just before retirement, the university decided that all computer techs of any kind had to be part of IT. The IT department wanted all programs written in their designated language using their designated framework. Plus, they wanted me to give up my file and database servers.

Mentally, I couldn’t learn a new language. For years, I had been trying to upgrade my Classic .asp programs to ASP.NET. In my late fifties, I couldn’t make the jump from procedural programming to object-oriented programming. Programming and system administration became only a part-time job for me. Programming required long hours of focused programming. However, frequent interruptions from faculty, staff, and students for computer support kept me from programming. The college hired two guys to help me, but they could never keep up. It was actually a good thing that the IT department was taking over.

That frustration of not being able to devote myself to programming and not being able to grasp new programming concepts was a psychological revelation. I knew mentally I couldn’t adapt. When I trained the young woman from IT to take over the programming part of my job, she understood what I was teaching her as fast as I could talk. It was amazing. I realized then I was old. Her young mind worked many times faster than my old brain.

In other words, there was a reason to retire. However, waiting around to die isn’t particularly fulfilling. I thought retirement would give me all the time in the world to pursue several big dream projects. I thought about getting an M.S. in computer science. I wanted to prove I could catch up. I also wanted to write that science fiction novel I always fantasized about writing.

As the years passed, those ambitions faded away. I want to blame aging, but I don’t know if that’s true. I turned my aim to smaller goals. I thought maybe I could learn Python, an easy language, and write short stories. Those things didn’t happen either. I missed having a purpose.

Recently, I’ve discovered something else important about life. In old age, people with children are very different than people without children. Having children also gives people a purpose. Susan and I never had children. Our parents and all our aunts and uncles are long dead. Over half of my cousins are dead. And we seldom see our nieces and nephews. 

Susan and I now depend completely on friends. That’s very rewarding. However, I see friends with children and grandchildren slowly moving away. And that’s understandable. 

Among our retired friends, there’s a distinct difference between those with children and grandchildren and those without. Old folks with descendants have an inherent purpose.

I could volunteer, but I never found that satisfying, the few times I’ve tried. And now, in my mid-seventies, I don’t have the energy.

Ultimately, I found purpose in small pursuits. Doing housework and keeping up the yard keeps me busy, and it’s somewhat fulfilling. Writing blogs gives a sense of purpose. I try to help friends when I can. I’m still a computer guy.

It’s funny, though, but since I turned seventy, whenever I offer to help women friends with things they can’t physically handle, they tell me no. They worry I’m too old and might hurt my back. That reminds me of an old George Carlin routine where he talks about turning 70. He joked that he only had to reach toward something heavy and people would rush over and pick it up for him. I still feel like I can do physical things, but other people see me as being weak. I don’t like that. Several times I’ve been to Ikea or Home Depot and was loading my pickup when young people rushed over to help me. Twice, young women even got out of their cars to offer their help.

It’s tough when everyone expects you to be weak, which might explain why my lady friends stop wanting my help. Maybe getting old makes everyone more fussy about doing things for themselves.

For the first decade of my retirement, my hobbies helped give me purpose. But something is changing. I’m slowly letting my hobbies go. I think it’s because of dwindling energy, but aging might be eroding interest, too.

It’s funny how little things become more important. Susan loves to watch old TV shows while doing needlepoint. I bought a NAS, and I’m ripping DVDs of her favorite shows. It’s given me something to do for a few months, and that has been rewarding. Around me, the world is falling to pieces, but ripping DVDs provides a little bit of purpose. That’s insignificant to the bigger world, but weirdly valid in my diminishing world.

Nowadays, I go from one little project to the next. Currently, that project is setting up a post for Susan’s bird feeder with a video camera. No matter how small the project, they always end up setting me with challenges to overcome. For example, the 4×4 post I bought to fit into an existing 4×4 concrete hole in the backyard is just so slightly too big. The previous post had been planed down some. I don’t have a wood planing machine. I considered buying a hand plane, but my AI recommended a wood rasp, which I’ve ordered. After I’ve planed down the lower 18 inches, I’ve got to put on wood sealer and then paint it. This little project will keep me busy for days.

That’s where I find purpose now, with little projects. And as I get older, I expect those projects to get ever smaller. I’m reminded of a short story by R. A. Lafferty, called “Nine Hundred Grandmothers.” A human explorer visiting an alien planet discovers an intelligent species that never dies. They just get older and smaller. He tracks down the most ancient ones in a cave, where they line a shelf on the wall, always getting smaller. That’s how I picture myself getting older, pursuing smaller and smaller projects.

JWH

Are We Alone?

by James Wallace Harris, 2/19/26

There are two ways we can examine the question: Are We Alone? The first is personal. As individuals, are we by ourselves? I’ve often heard people say they feel alone even in a crowded room. The other way is to wonder if humanity is alone in the universe. Lately, I’ve been meditating on both.

With all the mysteries that the James Webb Space Telescope is discovering, and all the speculation about our universe being part of a multiverse, it’s easy to assume reality is infinite. Which would make people infinitely small. Does it matter if we’re alone in the universe when we’re so insignificant?

Of course, if we assume reality is infinite, it also means there are infinite possibilities for other beings to exist. But is this similar to that person at a big party still feeling alone? If we’re not talking, then we still feel alone.

Even though I have always had lots of friends and can be social, I’m a loner. I’ve always been a bookworm who prefers being social 20% of the time, and by myself 80%. I think I was at my most social when I was young, but after retiring, I became more social again.

However, I’m noticing something lately. As my friends move into their middle seventies, they are withdrawing into themselves. I’m trying to resist that trend, but it’s getting harder because my aging friends want to stay home. I have to admit, I want to stay home but get my friends to come over.

I felt like I had regular conversations with 40-50 people when I worked. But now that’s down to about a dozen. And two of them have been ghosting me. I think when we get old, the stress of everything makes us withdraw into ourselves. I’m both fighting that and embracing it.

Part of the problem is energy. As we age, we run out of energy, and thus it gets harder and harder to make any effort – for friends, for hobbies, for staying healthy, for keeping the house clean, etc. The other obvious problem is health. We’re just slowly breaking down.

But I wonder if there’s another factor. Are we just getting tired of explaining ourselves? Let’s face it, words fail us. Could we ever adequately express what we wanted, what we felt, what we meant? Since the advent of the Internet, people have certainly tried. But what a mess. Just imagine how well we’d do communicating with beings living on other planets orbiting distant stars?

I haven’t given up. But I think we need to explore new ways of communicating.

Yes, we’re alone, living in our heads, while existing in a fantastic reality. I’ve decided we have many problems to conquer. Two of the biggest obstacles we need to overcome are the narrative fallacy and the confirmation bias.

They work together. Basically, we embrace beliefs that have no relation to reality, and second, we only see what will confirm those fantasies. We tune out people who undermine our beliefs and embrace those who do. But other beliefs will splinter those bonds.

That shell of delusion keeps us from communicating with other people. In the long run, we’re either forced to be alone or choose to.

Maybe reality never cared about evolving beings that communicate. Maybe intelligence, self-awareness, and language are failed evolutionary experiments. Or maybe we need to try harder.

JWH