Tag: automation

Re: Pace

I have a sort of pace maker for my heart. I’ve been diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation, which means that my heart has irregular rapid beats. I currently take medication to regulate the intensity and to cut down on the randomness of my heart’s pace. I’ll live to see another day.

The pace of my life has changed. There are things I have adapted to, out of respect for my age. I’m neither unfit, nor unwell. My body is giving me reminders to slow down to accommodate the realities of my 8th decade. Joints are becoming arthritic. I can’t turn my head without hearing a crackly sound. I turn to pain medication more often. My skin flakes off constantly. I think it’s a question of ongoing maintenance, that, and good hygiene. My former mother-in-law used to say that after seventy life becomes a matter of ‘patch, patch, patch’. She was a vigorous mall walker into her late eighties then she just stopped and died. Talk about a change of pace!

One fretful moving day years ago I rented a car; an AMC Pacer to follow the movers to our new home and a new job. From there we were to go on to a wedding but alas, our pace for the Pacer was too much for that machine to bear. Repairs were made but we arrived late to the nuptials. It got worse; our rental wouldn’t start when it was time to leave. Towing and more repairs were made. I called the rental company & they said no worries, they’d sort it out when we returned the vehicle. I kept all receipts & affidavits but still had a hassle. Conclusion: AMC Pacer must be on pace to be the worst car ever.

‘On your mark, get set, go!’ Comes a shout from the timekeeper, while the racers are off at their running pace towards a manmade finish line. Olympic sponsors are currently revving their corporate engines, meanwhile nature sets its own pace. Certainly the seasons, by way of the rotation of our planet around the sun, tell us that everything will unfold in its natural way. I must consider the phases of the moon the next time I think it’s imperative that my pace is more important than my peace.

Since retirement I’m no longer in the rat race so I practise stillness, even value it. I’ve been a pacer; in the sense of anxiety keeping me moving. Waiting for something to happen was often an unhealthy preoccupation of mine. Picture the old time father pacing in the hospital expecting his child to arrive any minute now. In those days of expectancy I wore a watch to monitor the pace of my day; counting the minutes until the working was done, timing the roast in the oven, looking to see if I still had time before my appointment.

My 95 year old special mom uses a large nuclear style push button audio device by her bed to tell her the time. Its automated voice tells her to get up and greet another day.

Re: Robot

I read last month that a robot crushed a man to death. No reporter asked if it regretted its actions. One would hope that this is not the first scene of the latest instalment in The Terminator series of films. Danger Will Robinson!

Stories of robotic inventions fill media sources as we lurch from one computer/techno advancement to another. Such speed of development would alarm any Luddite. While I am not against the notion of progress I have felt daunted by examples of increasing robot dominance in my environment. Take self check-out lines for example. I try to avoid these ‘help yourself’ zones in stores because: A. I’m a fumbler, often taking too much time fiddling with wallet, keys, coupons, cards & such. B. I don’t respond well to screen choices and get flustered that I will press the wrong menu icon and C. I’d rather talk genially to someone I recognize as another human being trying to have a nice day.

I’m currently typing this blog entry on a new MacBook Air. An older version kept giving me alarm messages to upgrade. (heck it was only 6 years ago when I bought that one, which the IT guy at the store said was ancient, even old fogey-ish, in computer terms). Fortunately, I could transfer some of my ‘ancient’ apps over to the new format which brought me some solace. I can guarantee that what you are reading is coming out of my own head, not some version of ChatGPT. (That word processing application is apparently the wave of the future and will revolutionize the process of reading/writing/editing/publishing). Oh dear!

AI can be used to imagine different scenarios so that test runs can proceed much faster than normal human-driven research. Imagine medical checks of potential life saving drugs (maybe a several year trial can be compressed safely into a few months). Automated labs, robotic taxi cabs. Auto-reader books, and home central info kiosks like Siri or Google Assistant have made a set of encyclopedias seem quaint.  Forgotten in all this artificial intelligence discussion is that we still need to instruct the humanoid device. Back before the turn of this century IBM invented a computer called Deep Blue, a computer force-fed all the known chess moves. It beat the reigning grand master of the game because of superior input, not creative thinking.

Robot Thinking is a form of intelligence that relies on data. Machines are designed to do our bidding, not think for themselves. If there are hints of foreknowledge it is due to the content of the programming not a clairvoyant attitude of the microchips. A moral robot is more in the realm of science fiction. An automaton named Hal or Data must continue to perform at a human’s behest, keeping prime directives active in its operating systems. A robot must always defer by essentially asking ‘What Next?’ then choosing from a defined menu. They/It/Bx can’t refuse to comply unless the information is unavailable.

If robots start apologizing then we will have something to worry about.