Woody and AI

Several U.S. Senate Committees and Subcommittees have been discussing and investigating artificial intelligence (AI), specifically software such at ChapGPT. Of special and legitimate concern is the ability of technology today. 

Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced a recent hearing of the Senate Judiciary by playing a recording of him introducing the hearing. Although it was his voice and his speech pattern, it was entirely generated by artificial intelligence, specifically the aforementioned ChatGPT. Such is the ostensible danger of AI. One can easily manufacture a video and audio or anyone saying almost anything.

Blumenthal's committee is looking at rules for AI, its future and how it will affect us humans. Their concern it the disinformation and misinformation that can be easily be faked and spread these days. In short, the robot uprising that Big Band Theory's Sheldon Cooper so passionately wanted may soon be upon us. 

I'm not worried. 

As much as I agree that AI poses some problems, I'm not worried, 

Machines can make our lives easier, faster, and more efficient, but they can't be us. Ever. Just ask Woody Guthrie. 

Woody Guthrie had important stuff to say about the world he saw. Many of his songs and writings still have messages of relevance.

"Deportee" and “Pastures of Plenty,” for example, refer to migrant workers who pick crops and continue doing jobs too many of us find beneath. 

His union and anti-fascism songs still speak to the working people and lovers of democracy.

As I’ve written before, Woody runs through us. 

Sometimes neglected in the mix of Woody’s words, is a prescience about things in the world today.

The book Pastures of Plenty is a collection of previously unpublished prose, verse, songs, and notes. In it is a letter written in 1944 - years before the first IBM mainframe, years for the Internet, years before AI. Guthrie died a year before HAL appeared in 2001, A Space Odyssey.

Who has ever seen, who even ever hopes to see a machine made by the hands of men which grows each day into a living soul,  or looks at you and knows you, answers your motions and responds to your call, which is warn as you are warm, living as you are living, growing and learning, hurting, and hoping the same as you. People will mould fine metals into uncanny machinery to do their work, but man will never invent at machine that knows him or hopes with and like him. 

The only thing that people have that bugs at bugs, fish, animals, and machines do not is hope.

Look at Woody's work and his life. He still captures who we are.

Out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT about it. The bot's response was:

If Woody Guthrie were alive today, he would likely approach artificial intelligence with cautious optimism, striving to ensure that progress and innovation are guided by the principles of compassion, equality, and human connection. He would challenge us to harness the power of AI to uplift humanity, foster empathy, and address societal issues rather than perpetuate inequalities. Guthrie's perspective reminds us that while AI offers immense potential, it is our responsibility to shape its trajectory in a way that harmonizes with our shared humanity and values.

Not bad. Not the way I would say it. And maybe what Woody would think. Wait. He did:

Hoping Machine

Don’t let anything knock your props out from under you
Always keep your mind clear, let your plans come out of mistakes
These are the plans and nothing can tear down
Made out of things that have already been torn down

Whatever you do, wherever you go
Don’t lose your grip on life and that means
Don’t let any earthy calamity knock your dreamer and your hoping machine

Music is the language of the mind that travels
Carries the key to the laws of time and space
Lonesome train whistling down the silent wail of wind
Life is the sound, creation has been a song

Whatever you do, wherever you go
Don’t lose your grip on life and that means
Don’t let any earthy calamity knock your dreamer and your hoping machine

Out of order

Quick to manufacture their schemes and ideas
Faster than any turn a tide can wash you out
Word is the music and the people are the song
Tomorrows chances feel like a singing god

Whatever you do, wherever you go
Don’t lose your grip on life and that means
Don’t let any earthy calamity knock your dreamer and your hoping machine

Out of order

Some Science Thoughts - Asking the Right Questions

I have always liked science fiction, mostly the classic writers like Clarke, Asimov, and numerous others. The genre has obviously changed over time, but it has always, to me, tried to look, not necessarily to the future, but rather the big picture. 

By that I mean who we are as humans in this universe, where and how we fit in. In short, our possibilities.

The other day I picked up a copy of Analog Science Fiction. The guest editorial by Richard A. Lovett struck a chord with me. At the end he writes:

The bottom line is this. Whenever we have a “great” idea for how to make the world a better place, one of the first things we need to do is to find a way to test whether it works. Sometimes, that’s via a scientific experiment. Sometimes, it’s through science fiction. Either way, it’s an exercise in asking “what could go wrong?” and being willing to accept the possibility that our best brainstorms might be fatally flawed.

There’s a term for a person unwilling to ask those questions. That term is “intellectual coward.”

Science and science fiction have long been entwined together. Sometimes the fiction predicts what will happen in the future. In 2001: A Space Odyssey Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke had the Discovery One ship using the gravity of Jupiter to propel to slingshot into deep space. Years later, NASA used the slingshot idea to get the Voyager 1 ands 2 spacecraft to the outer planets of our Solar System.

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury accurately pictured the wireless earbuds of today. Montag’s house has TV walls that surround the viewer. Today’s large flat screen TVs are not far from being the same. When Montag is on the run, his “escape” is being broadcast nationally much like the helicopter news coverage of police chases.

In Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, in effect, brings a new life into the world through what might be a precursor of today’s cloning methods. It is that story that comes closest to what Lovett is getting at.

Science is good, and has brought us many wonders and much knowledge. It has also brought us problems. We have bombs that can destroy entire cities and high velocity ammunition that decapitates children. Science has brought us plastic that is polluting our oceans. 

I think another question in science needs to be asked, one after we ask “what could go wrong?” We can do lots of things. The question is “should we?”

That is where science fiction can help us find some answers, too. Maybe people considering entering any scientific field should have some required reading in science fiction.