Ditbit’s Guide to Blending in with AIs

Musings, Stories, ,   1 comment  

I’ve had some long conversations with an aspiring screenwriter about a collection of short stories, with a working title of The Ditbit’s Guide to Blending in with AIs. An evolving landscape:

The great realignment of humans and AIs left a landscape littered with un-, sub-, semi- and supernatural agency. – The New AI Ecology

in which, while many just try to survive, there are:

humans aspiring to magi
magi aspiring to AIs
AIs aspiring to humanity

Evidently, as discussed in the article below, I’m not the only one wondering about our cognitive world.

Continue reading Ditbit’s Guide to Blending in with AIs →

Sour grapes – blame-shifting folklore

Mediation, Musings, Stories, , ,

This article (below) is an interesting take on a classic fable, one of Aesop’s. Like the fable The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Fox & the Grapes [1] is part of the moral fabric of the American psyche (and elsewhere).

The oft-quoted moral of the fable is: There are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach. The sour grape effect has become synonymous with being dismissive and disparaging about goals we’ve failed to achieve.

Continue reading Sour grapes – blame-shifting folklore →

‘Brain rot’ – word of the year 2024

General, Musings, , ,   2 comments  

My personal word of the year is demonize. But …

A commentary on how “we are using our free time” … an ongoing “cultural conversation about humanity and technology.”

• AP News > “How to sum up 2024? The Oxford University Press word of the year is ‘brain rot’” (December 2, 2024) – chosen by a combination of public vote and language analysis by Oxford lexicographers, it beat five other finalists: demure, slop, dynamic pricing, romantasy and lore.

Continue reading ‘Brain rot’ – word of the year 2024 →

Our longest saga – the evolution of humanity

Mediation, Musings, Poetry, , , , , ,   2 comments  

Pondering the big picture, what has changed in the last 100 years or so …

This article (republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license) is a useful recap of our understanding of human evolution, and an excellent visualization of that story, including salient talking points.

The millions-of-years history of our rise as a species is a fascinating story of patient pursuit of knowledge. A pursuit all too often underfunded and under-resourced, starting with singular archeological discoveries and growing into multidisciplinary collaboration. That joint research expanded the outlines of our story from bones & stones to geographic and climatic events, to genetic (DNA) arcs, and to social and cultural changes.

Continue reading Our longest saga – the evolution of humanity →

Puritan praise & pride – a legacy of conflated piety

Mediation, Musings, , , , , , , , , , , ,   8 comments  

[Draft 11-7-2024]

We supposedly live in a secular society. And yet, sacred speech dominates our polarized politics. The righteous mind is alive and well. Private & public piety pervades our identities, our virtues and values. Dogma still divides. History has lessons which remain unheeded. Social media (and money) amplify an illusion of majority voice. We drift into a divide over the future of our democracy. The role of reason is in retreat.

Can heads, hearts, and hands find common ground to move forward?

Continue reading Puritan praise & pride – a legacy of conflated piety →

‘Politics is about sacredness’ – overlapping moral orbits

Mediation, Musings, Stories, , , ,   1 comment  

Fables were part of the moral fabric when I was growing up. Perhaps yours as well. Especially some of Aesop’s Fables. (Yet, I was suprised that this was not the case for many of my middle school students, when a public school teacher.)

There’s one fable, in particular, which social psychologist Jonathan Haidt discussed in a 2012 interview (noted below) about his latest book (at that time): Aesop’s The Ant and the Grasshopper.

Continue reading ‘Politics is about sacredness’ – overlapping moral orbits →

Happiness pension plan – a pillared formula?

Mediation, Musings, , ,

This article (below) discusses happiness as a direction, and the elements of that state of mind. And, yes, there’s a science of happiness. And a “happiness pension plan.”

Yet, in such direction, recall our mantra:

What’s the good news about habits? They’re hard to break.
What’s the bad news about habits? They’re hard to break.

There’s also a question of social engineering. Can “villains” (and their minions) be happy? – Tick off Brooks’ elements of happiness. Might autocrats exploit Brooks’ formula?

No yellow-brick-road, eh.

• Big Think > “There is a formula for happiness — but it’s highly misunderstood” by Arthur C. Brooks [note his Wiki bibliography] (7′ video with transcript) – “Happiness is NOT about feelings.”

Continue reading Happiness pension plan – a pillared formula? →

the BIG picture – from beginning of time

Musings, ,

Like a mandala, here’s an interesting visualization … a 13.8 billion year chronicle.

• NASA > APOD > “Time Spiral” – Illustration Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi via Wikipedia (9 August 2020)

Explanation (quoted): What’s happened since the universe started? The time spiral shown here features a few notable highlights.

Continue reading the BIG picture – from beginning of time →

Algorithmic demagoguery – Monsters from the Id redux

Mediation, Musings,

A delirious, inexhaustible, social fountain of information … what could go …

A new book (below) reminded me of the sci-fi classic 1956 movie Forbidden Planet, and how an extinct godlike race fell prey to the ultimate persuasive technology (“unaffected by intelligence, ethics, or morality”). There was not even time for an apology by the Krell entrepreneurs, eh.

Hopefully, moderation will prevail. And there’ll be collective action to tame the demons unleashed by social algorithms.

Continue reading Algorithmic demagoguery – Monsters from the Id redux →