Tag: Google

AI? OH MY!

As Ray Parker so brilliantly stated in the Ghostbusters song, and I concur, “I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts,” AI however, now that’s a different load of bwana.

Okay so AI is supposed to be the end all be all of intelligence. It will cure all diseases, create a high-tech world and even figure out a way to make Prince Harry stop whining about how tough a life it is to be born the Prince of England.

Still, I have nightmares and no, not about monsters or a werewolf that looks like Michael Landon. Mine involve Google.

And what’s so scary about Google you ask?

It’s watching us. It’s Big Brother come to life. It’s George Orwell’s worst nightmare, and now it’s ours.

In one dream I was hiding inside my house while a little Google robot with humongous eyes was floating outside my window peering inside. I was crawling on the floor to escape detection as it hovered outside my window. I screamed and ducked as it continued to float like a headless object scrutinizing me like a Secret Service agent watches for snipers.

Grow up you say. It was only a silly dream. But was it really?

In case you’re wondering what brought on this sudden burst of irrational Googlenoia, it started with Siri.

Siri, that is only supposed to talk when spoken to has begun taking it upon herself to start conversations for no apparent reason or prompting on my part. Yet when I ask her a direct question she acts as though I’m speaking in a foreign language.

“Siri, how do I get to 335 Maple Drive?”

“Here are the directions for 772 Elm Street.”

“No, Siri, I said Maple Drive.”

“When did you say you want to arrive?”

I give up.

I first noticed this new chatty habit when I was baking one day and pulled a cake out of the oven. “Perfect,” I said to no one in particular.

From the living room I heard a voice on my iphone say, “thank you for saying that, but I’m not perfect.”

Not only does she speak to me she contradicts me! Is she so neurotic she can’t take a compliment?

“No, I’m not perfect!!”

What’s next, a tirade against her motherboard for a dysfunctional childhood?

Annoying? Yes, but why scary?

Because she is listening all the time!

The FBI recommends you put tape over your computer camera screen opening because someone could be watching you.

Tough luck for them, because when I’m on the computer I’m usually in my robe and in glasses looking like the wrath of God.

If they are expecting to see Sydney Sweeny good luck Mr. Snoopynose, not here, not ever.

Today’s generation is acclimated to a lack of privacy. They grew up with Iphones, computers and robots.

I wasn’t. My robot model was Hal in 2001 A Space Odyssy and that wasn’t a good thing. HAL was hardly a pillar of virtue. In fact, HAL scared me off robots forever.

And although the Jetsons painted a rosy future of a robot named Rosie to clean up after us, the world never delivered. And that round thing that moves around your house, bumping into walls and picking up a teaspoon of dust, is no Beep Beep Rosie.

Oh sure, Isaac Asimov would have us believe that the three laws of robots precluded them from harming man, but hello! STUFF HAPPENS. Perhaps robots can evolve too. And maybe after spending time with the human race, they decide they are too annoying to condone.

I know so many people who have literally extracted their brain and inserted it directly into their Alexa. I asked a friend a question the other day and he immediately called out, “Alexa what was my mother’s name?”

I walk around like Frankenstein’s monster yelling “it’s alive!”

The feeling someone is listening to what I say, or always hovering above me terrifies me. It’s offensive and frightening and creeps me out. Can you say, robotic paranoia?

Now I have to worry that drones will be dropping from the sky unto my head. Chicken Little wasn’t bad enough with all that sky falling insanity? Who knew he was onto something?

Of course, I’m not plotting to rob the Tower of London or steal a French fry off a friend’s plate, (well I would ask first). It’s just that it makes me feel violated and uncomfortable. And looking upward all the time.

I can’t change overnight just because the new world is so accepting of Big Brother’s presence.

From what I can remember he wasn’t a good thing, right?

So, why is it now okay to spy on people. To collect all their information, personal and otherwise and make it public?

Now AI will make it even easier for hackers to steal my information, use my info and steal my life. If AI is so great why doesn’t it teach victims of these crimes how to outsmart the criminals?

Perhaps we are too accepting. We should rail against this new world where our lives are open for business 24/7. Where there is no respect for our private space.

Alas, I fear it’s already too late. My computer just winked at me and Siri stuck out her tongue. My credit card company just texted to ask if I just bought six Chanel bags in a mall in Dubai. No, I replied, I’m in my pjs on my couch writing about all this craziness at the moment.

Oh well, I suppose I’ll have to accept that next an army of robots will descend upon mankind, capture us and make us their slaves.

I think they already have and no one knows yet. Maybe that explains why most world leaders are speaking in crazy tongues now.

Well, I won’t buckle under and put on lipstick to sit at my computer. So just take your chances Mr. Spyware hidden in that camera.

Okay, so I ain’t afraid of no ghosts, but robots and AI, well that’s a whole other thing.

It’s the Time of Year to Share Our Childhood Memories

This time of year is prone to dredge up memories of long ago tucked away in the recesses of one’s mind. I’m not quite certain it’s the holidays or perhaps that whole getting older and long-term memory that creates a sudden rush of childhood recollections.

I simply know that they are coming in droves.

Of course there is that desire to recapture earlier times spent with family and friends, laced with bittersweet emotions of loss and regret.

For myself living so far from my childhood home I find a lack of snow matters. No blanket of white feels as if an old friend that visited every season has deserted me in lieu of palm trees and blue skies.

Now believe me I’m not saying slipping and sliding along the streets in the cold and slush would be preferable, but there was something about falling snowflakes that just felt right.

I also seem focused on school around the holidays.

We strained at the bit to reach that last day before winter break when a teacher would dress up as Santa and pass out candy canes and Vernor’s Ginger Ale.

Our elementary school was named after James Vernor of the ginger ale company so they gifted us with their soda and candy canes each year.

Santa would be played by a teacher covered in a beard and of course we would whisper about who it might be as we waited in line for our treats.

Childhood seemed quite naïve and innocent so small moments were intensified and more special. We even believed hiding in the school basement under asbestos pipes would prevent an atom bomb from harming us. Silly, right?

Or that a wooden desk would hide us from a nuclear blast.  Either they didn’t know the truth or weren’t about to share it with all of us. Seems so foolish now.

Baby Boomers lived a life full of new discoveries. Television began small and black and white forcing us at times to strain to see the picture among snowy waves.

We used rabbit ear antennas on the television set covered with aluminum foil to enhance the signal as we moved them back and forth while our brother directed until the picture clarity was optimum.

Snowy or clear we rushed home to watch the Mickey Mouse Club and later American Bandstand. Our eyes transfixed on this new way to be entertained and transfixed.

I begged my mother to let me stay up and watch Milton Berle on Tuesday nights and still vividly remember the Texaco servicemen that started the show.

We had strange puppets like Rootie Kazootie and Howdy Doody with visible strings. We never minded or enjoyed them any less; in fact, being able to discern the strings was part of the fun. Every kid wanted to be part of the peanut gallery. Then, when a TV dinner on a metal tray table was added to the mix, it all seemed too perfect.

We even had party lines on the phone for a short time as the new technology was growing faster than the company could provide. Limiting use the phone to only certain times seems comical now when we can’t put it down for a minute.

Could you imagine kids today being told they had to share their phone with someone else? I believe it would lead to some violent revolution.

But to us it was a new magical instrument we were happy to have for any amount of time. A new way to broaden our horizons and communicate with friends.

There was no Google, only sets of Encyclopedias, no computers, only visits to the library branch nearest our homes.

We could spend a lazy summer afternoon reading and sharing comic books like Archie, Katy Keene or Superman with friends munching on snacks. Candy bars were two cents or a nickel and we drank cherry cokes or chocolate phosphates at soda counters served up by kids in white jackets and hats.

We played hopscotch, four square, jumped rope, played jacks and roller skated in metal skates with our key on a ribbon around our neck. Marbles clinked along the sidewalk and we traded movie star pictures cut out of fan magazines.

We ordered the scholastic books from school and couldn’t wait to read them when they arrived.

It seemed the smallest things were a big deal back then. Including rushing over to the first neighbor’s house on the block to own a color television.

Obviously, I’m waxing nostalgic about a time that is now gone forever. Our grandchildren are living in a new world filled with things we only read about in science fiction novels.

Technology that causes my eyes to glaze over as my kids or grandkids attempt to explain it to me.

Our children do battle to keep them innocent and away from the screens and kudos to them for doing so. Yet the world changes each day and new innovation is now moving at a faster pace than ever before.

I’m certain someday our grandchildren will look back on their childhoods with a sense of joy and wonder as we do, at least I hope so.

Was our innocence a good or bad trait? Were we blindsided a bit finding the future was often as scary as Orwell had predicted, or Flash Gordon was actually Neil Armstrong? Were we literally over the moon when man first landed there in front of our eyes?

Am I implying Baby Boomers don’t embrace this new world and its wonders? Heck no! We are all into it big time and enjoying the ride. It’s just nice to wax nostalgic at times and remember our innocence.

Each generation will experience new and uncharted roads to travel. I hope wonder and peace will continue to be a part of their journey. I know it was ours. As much as things change one thing never does…the smell of a turkey roasting in the oven on Thanksgiving. We can all be thankful for that.

Please share your memories with me, I’d love to hear them.

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts, Now Robots…

mexicorn chowder

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts! Now Robots…

 

Last night I had a nightmare. No not about monsters or a werewolf that looked remarkably like Michael Landon. It wasn’t even about my last blind date, strange as that may seem.

It was about Google.

And what’s so scary about Google you ask.

It’s watching us. It’s Big Brother come to life. It’s George Orwell’s worst nightmare and now it’s ours.

In my dream I was hiding inside my house while a little Google robot that was mainly eyes was floating outside my windows peering inside. I was crawling on the floor to escape detection but it hovered outside my windows and every time I looked up it was there. I would scream and duck and it continued to float like a headless object outside watching me like a secret service agent watches the crowds.

Grow up you say. It was only a silly dream. But was it really?

In case you’re wondering what brought on this sudden burst of irrational Googlenoia, it started with Siri.

Oh sure innocent enough except that my Siri, which is only supposed to talk when spoken to…I have an older Iphone…has begun taking it upon herself to start a conversation for no apparent reason or prompting on my part. Yet when I ask her a question directly she acts as though I’m speaking a language she’s never even heard of?

“Siri how do I get to 335 Maple Drive?”

“Here are the directions for 772 Elm Street.”

I first noticed her new chatty habit when I was baking one day and pulled a cake out of the oven. “Perfect,” I said to no one in particular.

From the living room I heard a voice say, “thank you for saying that, but I’m not perfect.”

Not only does she speak to me she contradicts me! Is she so neurotic she can’t take a compliment?

“No, I’m not perfect!!”

What’s next, a tirade against her motherboard for her dysfunctional childhood?

Siri’s problems aside I thought it a fluke of nature and found it rather funny. So much so I related the incident to my daughter at her home a few weeks later.

Siri was charging on the kitchen counter and I was telling my daughter about the incident while she looked at me like a child who is thinking she should start looking for a good nursing home for her mother when suddenly Siri decided to join the conversation.

My daughter looked over and said. Oh my gosh, that is so annoying.

Well yes, but at least Siri’s response will keep me on the streets and out of a nursing home a little longer.

“See,” I said. “It’s true she talks to me all the time now.”

My daughter just shook her head in that only-to-my-mother-does-this-happen way she has and I just went back to playing with my grandsons.

Who Siri went on to talk to next I have no idea, nor do I care.

Now it has become a regular thing. When the TV is on Siri will comment on something spoken.

I just agree and move on.

Shortly thereafter my daughter bought one of those Google robots for the home and that lasted less than a week before it went bye bye.

Annoying? Yes, but then why scary?

Because they are listening all the time!

The FBI recommends you put tape over your computer camera screen opening because someone could be watching you.

Well that’s their bad luck because when I’m on the computer I’m usually in my robe and glasses and looking like the wrath of God.

If they are expecting to see Cindy Crawford good luck Mr. Snoopy, not here, not today.

Today’s generation is acclimated to a lack of privacy. They grow up with Iphones, computers and robots in their homes.

I wasn’t. My robot model was Hal in 2001 and that’s not a good thing.

And although the Jetsons painted a rosy future of a robot named Rosy to clean up after us, the world never delivered.

Oh sure Isaac Asimov would have us believe that the three laws of robots precluded them from harming man, but hello! STUFF HAPPENS.

The feeling someone is listening to what I say, hovering above me—welcome to the world of drones on top of everything else literally—and watching what I do, to me is offensive and frightening.

Now I have to worry that drones will be falling from the sky unto my head. Where’s Chicken Little when you need him?

Of course it’s not that I’m plotting to rob the Tower of London or sneak into the subway, it’s that it makes me feel violated and uncomfortable. It’s just plain creepy.

I can’t change overnight just because the new world is so accepting of Big Brother’s presence.

From what I can remember he wasn’t a good thing, right?

So, why is it now so okay to spy on people and collect all my information, personal and otherwise and make it public?

It isn’t, and that’s the point.

Perhaps we are too accepting now. We should rail against this new world where our lives are open for business 24/7 and there is no respect for our private space.

I fear it’s too late now. My computer just winked at me and Siri stuck out her tongue. I suppose I’ll have to accept that next an army of robots will descend upon us, capture us all and make us their slaves.

I think they already have and no one knows yet.

Well I don’t care, I’m not putting on lipstick to sit on my computer so take your chances.

Okay so I ain’t afraid of no ghosts, but robots well that’s a whole other thing.

 

Mexi-Corn Chowder

 

2 cups of chicken bullion

2 cups cream

2 ears of corn roasted

½ cup red peppers

½ cup yellow peppers

½ cup red peppers

¼ cup green chilies

1 small onion chopped

¼ cup chopped jalapeno peppers without the seeds

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon cilantro

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes if you desire more heat.

 

 

Rub about two large ears of corn with butter and a sprinkle of salt. Remove kernels from the cob and set aside.

Sauté onion in butter and when translucent add chopped peppers, chilies, corn and seasonings. When softened add soup and sauté for another ten minutes. Using a hand blender blend together about half the soup. This will thicken it and when done add cream. Stir and simmer for another five minutes on low heat.

Serve with shredded cheese or popcorn on top.