Tag Archives: Artificial Intelligence

Satur-deja Vu

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Let’s talk about the flat earth. When I was in high school, there were probably a few thousand people left in the whole world that believed the earth was flat. I had one grandmother that did not believe the earth rotates and another that did not believe in the moon landing because she had been through the western states, seen craters, and was pretty sure she knew where the moon pictures were taken. But these were older ladies, well up into their 70’s, with no formal education. One of them I know was married at age 14 and only finished the 8th grade. Unless you were going to college or planned to become to a school teacher, that’s as far as farmers’ kids went back then; at least in the rural South. The idea of a flat earth was vanishing as older generations that you could not tell anything were dying out.

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Satur-deja Vu

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Pictured above in a late 60’s Martin N-20. Martin is best known for their Dreadnought line of guitars, a term borrowed from ship building which denotes the full size, such as the D-28 or D-35. The N-20 is a classical guitar made for nylon strings. There is no pick guard as the strings are nylon and meant for finger picking. The N-20 was never a big seller with Martin producing less than 300 per year at the height of its popularity. The line ended production in 1992. So why would anyone even care?

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Satur-deja Vu

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It has not been a good year for Francis Scott Key. At top is the Key Bridge, part of which collapsed in March after being struck by a container ship. The harbor is open again but it will be a while before the bridge is repaired. Ingrid Andress was widely planned for what many have called the worst rendition of the Star Spangled Banner ever at Monday night’s Home Run Derby. Andress has confessed to being drunk during the performance and checked herself into rehab the next day. I expected her to double down and tell all of her critics where they could go but she has admitted to having a problem and is doing something about that instead. It is only right that we wish her well.

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Satur-deja Vu

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Artificial Intelligence? In Terminator 2: Judgement Day the T-101 model has a telephone conversation with the T-1000, both of them pretending to be someone else. Arnold does a spot on John Conner impression and outwits the more advanced T-1000 who doesn’t know the name of the family pet. Artificial Intelligence in the Terminator franchise, like The Matrix and I, Robot, has advanced to a level that threatens the existence of humanity. Most of the AI we see today is used to make creepy near-photo realistic pictures that are given away by the fact it doesn’t know how many fingers human beings have on each hand. Have you had AI offer to write for you? AI makes claims that it can boost productivity by creating blog posts and even generate social media buzz by posting to social media on your behalf. The same software that thinks people have between 8 and 12 fingers on one hand wants to write my blog posts. If you read the story above you probably recognize Hulk Hogan in both pictures. Those are real images featuring a fan that met Hogan twice, once as a kid and then recreated the photo years later as an adult. That’s not his son, he is not a computer geek as far as we know, and Hogan’s real first name is Terry. The AI simply made up a fake story but had no idea Hulk Hogan is a celebrity that the vast majority of Americans would recognize whether fans of wrestling or not. It can write words and sentences but just like the images there is always a tell. Maybe AI is not as dangerous as dystopian sci-fi movies led us to believe.

Or maybe that’s what the AI wants us to think.

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Satur-deja Vu

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Might have to read it twice – maybe three times. In the last series before the All Star break the Atlanta Braves with a record of 59-27 scored 2 runs while Tampa Bay, with a record of 57-34, scored 1. Not sure about ACLS but someone was obviously very excited (and maybe a little inebriated).

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