The Morning Dawdler – 1-29-2023

I realize that Robbie doesn’t have AI. Instead, he has a battery and some kind of recording device. But I like him anyway, my all time favorite robot.

Should we fear the arrival of more progressive AI [Artificial Intelligence] or embrace it?

I know that many people are afraid that many people will be “trapped” by AI intelligence and give up trying to “do it” (whatever “it” may be) themselves. Frankly, I think many of those people have already given up. The number of people in this world who have the enterprise to really write or create original material is a small percentage of the general population. Just as well for the creators amongst us. If everyone could do it, no one would hire us.

Those who have it in them to create will create. The rest will use AI not to write books, but to write business letters and other non-fictional material as needed, probably largely for work.

I know a lot of people who love technology and use it for many things, from creating podcasts to cooking and baking. But I don’t know anyone who uses it instead of their own abilities. The technology gives them freedom to do better or more quickly work that used to be too difficult, time consuming — and occasionally impossible otherwise. It isn’t “instead” of. It’s “in addition to” or as a complement to original work.

If the world survives, we’ll be fine. We just need the world to survive.

How much time do you spend sitting each day?

Many more hours than I should. I don’t walk well, so I don’t do much walking. But I do an awful lot of standing. I spend many hours a day on my feet and I gotta tell you, my feet are not saying thank you.

What is your proudest accomplishment ?

Probably my body of writing, both professional and amatueur. I can’t grade which things are better than other things. I don’t think the “creator” is a good judge of the quality of his or her work.

Are/Were you the youngest, middle, oldest or only child?

I was the middle kid, otherwise known as “the communicator.” That’s a typical role for middle kids. You carry messages from one person to another because they don’t seem to be able to talk directly to each other. Why not? I have no idea. I do know that at some point in my life — probably in my late 20s — I refused to be the messenger and told my family to talk to each other. It was one of the reasons I left the country. I figured if I wasn’t around, they were sure to talk to each other.

They did. They didn’t like each other any more than they had before, but they communicated.

As for where I stand now? My brother died in 2009 from pancreatic cancer and my sister became a drug addict a few years earlier although we didn’t know it until some years after it happened. I suspected it, but couldn’t prove it. I don’t know where she is now, though I assume she is alive because someone would have told me had they heard otherwise.

Essentially, other than some cousins, my family is gone. Mother, father, brother, sister, aunts, uncles. I am the second oldest member of my generation — and in Garry’s family, he is the oldest — and also the oldest of three brothers.

Categories: Anecdote, Computers, Family, Q & A, questions, Technology

Tags: #Photography, AI, Family, Marilyn Armstrong, Morning Dawdler, relationships