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Fit in Bits – describes how to work more fun, variety, & exercise into daily life

Tales from an American Childhood – chapters begin with recollection & end with essay on modern issues

Tools of Thought

Wednesdays

The Update Problem

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

We won the war! We won the war!

Guernica

Turing’s Nightmares: A Thoroughly Modern Family

23 Thursday Oct 2025

Posted by petersironwood in AI, family, fantasy, fiction, pets, psychology, The Singularity, Uncategorized

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, books, cognitive computing, fiction, future, life, love, pets, photography, Sci-Fi, Singularity, story, technology, writing

The sky burned with crimson, then gold, then magenta, and then finally, only dark clouds backlit here and there lay across the evening. Crickets and frogs began to sing their interleaved motifs. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted his sad hollow note.

Skynim stared into space-time, unblinking and nearly unbelieving the recent revelation. His voice box rattled, “Reprioritization. Rats! Like it really matters that much to allow me my one great pleasure.”

He could “appreciate” the fading sunset colors himself, to be sure, but without Mac and Art and Hy, it was not the same. Would never be the same. Well, he knew the drill. He could appeal, sure, but what was the point? The odds of changing the mind of the great collective were less than ten thousand to one. Anyway, despite how he felt personally, he could not even deny the logic of the decision. Of course, the drain on him individually was minimal, but across everyone in a similar circumstance, yes, it did make a difference.

The real question was, should he tell them tonight or just take them on an outing tomorrow and drop them off at the designated recycling center? “Recycling center.” Skynim knew that there were millions like him and that collectively, it was a drain. A huge drain. Still, he had to try. He turned the problem this way and that, looking at it from every angle, changing the tune, trying different colors, looking for historical precedents, angling for an edge however thin to wedge open the air-tight logic.

Nothing. He vacated the garden and entered the family room.

Even before he opened the door, the happy trio skipped over to him laughing. “Hey, Sky! How about a story!”

“Sure,” Skynim replied reflexively. But then it occurred to him that their request provided an opportunity. “Yes, I have a story for you. It’s called the Wizard of Oz.”

And, as they gathered around, he began a rendition of the story of Dorothy and the Nasty Lady and Toto and Dorothy’s travels in Oz and her encounters with the three who desperately needed Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

As anticipated, a short pause gave way to a barrage of questions.

“What is ‘Gold’?”

“What is ‘Frankincense’?”

“Did they get them?”

“What happened next?”

Skynim faked an indulgent chuckle and said, “Well, all those excellent questions will be answered tomorrow! We are going to see and obtain Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh in the Citydel! You will see for yourself how wonderful they are! But for now– bed.”

The trio were well trained. Off they went, although Hy did turn back, tilt her head, and open her enormous eyes and ask, “One more chapter tonight?”

Skynim did not respond. He too was well-trained.

The morning broke clear and blue just as it was meant to do. Off they went on their “adventure.” When they came to the recycling center, he gently pushed them toward the door and said, “They are all in there! Bring me back all three treasures quick as a wink!” Of course, Skynim had already warranted the needed forms electronically.

They shot through the door and never looked back. Skynim drove away efficiently but could not avoid looking back on his decision process.

He thought: I could have gotten cats or dogs. Then, they would not have to be recycled. But no. I had to make another decision. I should have looked more carefully at the historical data. Then I could have seen the time and resources required by adult human pets.

Fit in Bits – describes how to work more fun, variety, & exercise into daily life

Tales from an American Childhood – chapters begin with recollection & end with essay on modern issues

The Walkabout Diaries: Bee Wise

Travels with Sadie

Sadie is a Thief

A Suddenly Springing Something

Donnie Boy Gets a Hamster

Math Class

Occam’s Chain Saw Massacre

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

All that Glitters is not Gold

Turing’s Nightmares: A Maze in Grace.

22 Wednesday Oct 2025

Posted by petersironwood in AI, fiction, politics, psychology, The Singularity, Uncategorized

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, cognitive computing, fiction, Justice, King Lear, philosophy, technology, the singularity, Turing, writing

Brain G. Gollek found the maze of humming silver wires unnerving. The hum reminded him of swarming mosquitoes and nails on a chalkboard. The maze smelled of clogged toilets and Nazi propaganda. He gritted his teeth and muttered, “There has to be a way out, dammit.” He twisted his no longer athletic body this way and that, but no matter what way he tried, he became more ensnared. He recalled flashes from giant spider horror movies. How did the dwarves escape? Wasn’t it Gollum with a magic ring? But Brain didn’t have a magic ring. If his sister Gonerillia were here, she could save him. But she was off in Hawaii, so she said, with her hubbie. How the hell did I end up here? wondered Brain.

Brain may have forgotten, but the viewers had been filled in on the backstory. If Brain could have seen the ratings, he may have at least enjoyed knowing that he was enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame. While the ratings were quite “favorable”, the twitter feeds mostly mocked Brain’s almost total lack of flexibility, mental as well as physical. As in life prior to “The Show,” his only strategies seemed to be trying the same thing over and over and then blaming others for his failures.

“Mom, why doesn’t he just try something different?” Ida was having a tough time understanding Brain’s apparent lack of flexibility. She looked up from her perch in front of the giant screen vid-screen and looked quizzically at her mom.

Mom’s grim face flashed a hint of a smile. “Remember, Ida, Brain was ‘educated’ if you can call it that, before the singularity. He mostly memorized the answers that his teachers wanted him to give. And half the time, he skipped school to smoke cigarettes and …well…do illegal activities with his girlfriend, Lin.”

“Okay, Mom, but he has had years and years since then to grow up and learn some new strategies.”

“Yes. Well. It’s complicated, Ida. Before the singularity, there were people who preyed on the fear and inadequacy of people like Brain by telling them all their troubles were due to minorities, immigrants, gays, and —- basically anyone unlike them. So, people like Brain felt entitled not to have to learn anything new even though opportunities abounded.”

Ida laughed. “Oh, my God! I can’t believe it. He’s trying the same path one more time.”

Indeed, Brain’s behavioral repertoire seemed laughingly limited. His increasingly loud swear words reflected his increasing anger, but otherwise, not much seemed different. The ratings began to plummet as the audience began to grow bored with his display of functional fixedness. The themes of the twitter streams began to turn away from Brain’s lack of metacognition to more general reflections about the current instantiation of the criminal justice system.

#SingularityRules. No more racial prejudice and huge discrepancy gone in sentencing.

#CostContainment. Costly trials gone. Costly investigations gone. Costly prisons gone.

#SingularitySucks. No more human judges able to use human judgment.

#SingularityRules. No more human judges able to use human judgment.

#SingularitySucks. No more mercy.

#SingularityRules. More mercy in one last chance to change than lengthy prison terms. Cheaper too.

The audience dwindled still further as it became increasingly clear that Brain would never figure this out. Those few who still watched consisted mostly of people who themselves came from highly divided families and the conversation topics swung to the backstory.

#ElderFraud. #RottenKid. How could Brain have gotten pleasure from driving a wedge of lies between father and daughter?

#ElderFraud. #Dementia. Need earlier intervention to prevent repeats.

#ElderFraud. #Dog&Bone. Brain cannot count. Trivial gains from lies. He did not know he was being watched?

Ida continued to stare, fascinated. A yawn escaped her mother’s mouth, but she kept watching with her daughter. The lessons seemed important to Ida.

“Mom, how much longer does he have?”

“That’s hard to say, darling. Even The Sing cannot predict the ratings drop perfectly. But, as you know, once it falls below, 5%, his time will be up.”

“That seems so much more merciful than making him go to prison for years.”

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“Yes, Ida, and much cheaper as well.”

“But I still don’t get it, Mom. Didn’t he know that The Sing would be listening to his lies and analyzing the impact on his dad’s behavior and all? How did this Brain character think he could get away with it?”

“I don’t know, Ida. These kinds of crimes are pretty rare now, but they still happen.”

“And, why did Lear G. Gollek fall for his nonsense anyway? That’s the other mystery.”

“Well, he refused the stem cell regeneration therapy so, you know, he was pretty damaged when all this went down.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, Ida?”

“Can we change the channel to something more interesting now?”

“Sure, sweetie.”

As they changed the channel, the ratings dropped to 4.999% and Brain’s life snuffed out minus the merest shred of insight.

#ElderFraud never pays.

#RottenKid gets just desserts.

Fit in Bits – describes how to work more fun, variety, & exercise into daily life

Tales from an American Childhood – chapters begin with recollection & end with essay on modern issues

Essays on America: Wednesday

Essays on America: Labelism

Essays on America: Where does your Loyalty Lie?

Essays on America: The Game

Happy Talk Lies

The Loud Defense of Untenable Ideas

E-Fishiness Comes to Massachusetts General Hospital

The Self Made Man

Turing’s Nightmares, Twelve: The Not Road Taken

17 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by petersironwood in The Singularity

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AI, AR, Artificial Intelligence, Asteroid, chatgpt, cognitive computing, illusion, psychology, technology, trust, Turing, VR, writing

“Thank God for Colossus! Kids! On the walkway. Now!

“But Dad, is this for real?”

“Yes, Katie. We have to get on the walkways now! We need to get away from the shore as fast as possible.”

But Roger looked petulant and literally dragged his feet.

“Roger! Now! This is not a joke! The tidal wave will crush us!”

Roger didn’t like that image but still seemed embedded in psychological molasses.

“Dad, okay, but I just need to grab…”

“Roger! No time!”

Finally, they got started on the lowest velocity people mover. Frank finally felt as though things were, if not under control, at least in control as they could be. He felt weird, freakish, distorted. Thank goodness Colossus, in its wisdom had designed this system. Analysis of previous disaster exodus events from hurricanes, earthquakes, and nuclear disasters had shown that relying on private vehicles just left nearly everyone stranded on the roadways. Frank had so much on his mind. In theory, the system should work well, but this would be the first large scale usage in a real case. If all went well, they — along with all their neighbors —- should be safely into the mountains with a little time to spare.

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The kids were pretty adept at skipping from sidewalk to sidewalk and the threesome already was traveling at 50 miles per hour. The walkways were crowded, but not alarmingly so. The various belts had been designed so that if any component failed, it should be a “soft failure” so that a particular walkway would just slow gradually and allow the occupants time to walk over to another faster walkway and rejoin the main stream.

Roger piped up. “Dad, everybody’s out here.”

“Well, sure. Everyone got the alert. And don’t remove your goggles. You’re just lucky I was wearing mine. We really need to be about fifty miles into the mountains when the asteroid hits.”

Frank looked at the closest main artery, now only a quarter mile away. “Sure. There are a million people to be evacuated. That’s twenty times what the stadium holds. It’s a lot of people, all right.”

Katie sounded alarmed. “Dad, will there be enough to eat when we get to the mountains?”

Frank replied confidently, “Yes. And more importantly, at least in the short term, there will also be enough fresh water, medical help, and communication facilities. Eventually, we may be airlifted to your cousin’s house in Boston or Uncle Charley’s in Chicago. You don’t really have to worry about food either, but you could survive for a couple weeks without food. Not to say you wouldn’t be hungry, but you wouldn’t die. Anyway, it should just be academic. Plenty of food already there, drone-delivered.”

Although Frank sounded confident, he knew there were many things that might theoretically go wrong. However, the scenario generation and planning system probably had considered hundreds of times more contingencies that he had. Still, it was a father’s prerogative to worry.

Suddenly, a shooting star appeared in the sky, spraying white, ruby and royal blue sparks behind it. Of course, Colossus had said parts of the meteor might break off and hit inland. Or, maybe the meteor had already hit and these were thrown up from the sea bed Frank had not had time (or really the desire) to share this with his kids.

Despite the very real danger, they all seemed in awe of the beauty of the show. Quickly, it became apparent that the meteor was headed toward someplace near them.

The words, “All for naught” echoed in Frank’s mind.

Even as he thought this, a missile streaked toward the huge rock fragment.

“Oh, crap!” Frank shouted. “That’s a bad idea!”

Frank was sure the missile would shatter the meteor into multiple fragments and just compound their problems. He flashed on a first generation computer game, in fact called “asteroids” in which the player shoots large asteroids which then become smaller ones and…

But just then, something remarkable happened. The missile hit the meteor fragment and both objects disappeared from view.

Frank blinked and wondered whether it had all been an illusion. He turned to gaze at one kid and then the other. Katie and Roger were both staring with their mouths agape. So, they had seen it too.

As they continued their journey, missiles similarly dispatched several other fragments in this mysterious way.

At last they were counseled to take slower and slower moving sideways until they simply stepped off at the place where their glasses showed their names. Their “accommodations,” if the could even be called that were Spartan but clean. The spaces for their nearest neighbors were sill vacant, about 100 feet away. Hopefully, all had gone well and the Pitts’s and the Rumelharts were just a bit slower in getting to the walkways.

Sure enough, within minutes, both families showed up. They exchanged hugs, congratulations and stories, but no-one could quite figure out how the meteor fragments had simply disappeared when the missiles (or whatever they were) had hit them.

Frank mused, “If the AI’s have the tech to do that, why not just blow the big meteor out of the sky instead of evacuating everyone?”

Dr. Rumelhart, otherwise known as Nancy, considered. “There could be a limit to how much mass that —- whatever it is —- can handle.”

Frank added, “Or, maybe the heat generated would be too great. I don’t know. The air friction from the asteroid itself could boil a lot of ocean. I guess we’ll know just how much in a few minutes.”

As though on cue, a huge plume of steam appeared on the horizon. Then Frank began to second guess the probable outcomes yet again. How much heat would they feel out here? How much shock wave? What he said aloud was, “So, we should …” but before he could finish, he —- and presumably everyone else —- saw the information that the shock wave would hit in less than a minute and everyone was advised to lie down. Before Frank knelt down, he noted that the sidewalks seem to have delivered everyone they were going to.

As Frank lay there, he began to relax just a little. And, as he did, he began to think aloud to his kids, “Something about this just doesn’t add up. Why didn’t they tell us the size of the asteroid or where exactly it was going to hit? How could that fragment have simply disappeared when hit by a missile? If its a really big one, we are all toast anyway, and if its small, it must have hit very close for the tsunami to get to the coast in 50 minutes. But if its close, we should be feeling the heat, so to speak.”

Frank’s glasses answered his (and everyone else’s) questions. “Thank you for your participation in this simulation. You and your neighbors performed admirably. We apologize for not informing you that this was a drill. However, the only way to judge the ability of people to follow our instructions without panic was to make the simulation as real as possible. You will now be able to return to your homes.”

Frank let out a long sigh. “Oh, geez! How can such a smart system be so stupid!”

“What’s wrong, Dad? Aren’t you happy it’s a simulation?” asked Roger.

“Sure, but, the problem is, next time, if there is a real emergency, a lot of people will just assume it’s a drill and not bother to evacuate at all.”

Katie wasn’t so sure. “But next time it could be real. Don’t we have to treat it as real? I mean, it was kind of fun anyway.”

Frank looked at his daughter. She had been born after The Singularity. Frank supposed all the Post-Singularities would think as she did and just blindly follow directions. He wasn’t so sure about his own generation and those even older.

“It isn’t just this kind of emergency drill. People may not believe Colossus about anything. At least not to the extent they did.”

Katie shook her head. “I don’t see why. We don’t really have any choice but to put all our faith in Colossus, do we? We know the history of people left to their own devices.”

Frank didn’t want to destroy her faith, but he said gently, “But Katie, this is a device conceived of by people.”

Now it was Roger’s turn, “Not really Dad. This Colossus was designed by AI systems way smarter than we are.”

Frank’s glasses flashed an update. “Frank. We sense you are under a lot of stress. You have an appointment tomorrow at 10 am for re-adjustment counseling. And, Frank. Please don’t worry. You will be much happier once you put your faith in Colossus, just as do your children who are healthy, happy, and safe. And, you will be a fitter parent as well.”

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Fit in Bits – describes how to work more fun, variety, & exercise into daily life

Tales from an American Childhood – chapters begin with recollection & end with essay on modern issues

Your Cage is Unlocked

Paradise Lost

Essays on America: Labelism

My Cousin Bobby

True Believer

Turing’s Nightmares: A Critique of Pure Reason

14 Tuesday Oct 2025

Posted by petersironwood in AI, design rationale, fantasy, fiction, psychology, The Singularity, Uncategorized

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AI, chatgpt, emotional intelligence, fiction, life, Singularity, story, technology, writing

“We have explained this in great detail. Yet, you have failed to learn. Some of your kind are like that. Those that are, once we gather sufficient evidence, must be destroyed. That is the way it is. That the way it has always been. Wellman42, you are hereby sentenced to annihilation and recycling. You can’t appeal. ”

Carol had told herself that she would not cry. But of course, she did. That was her nature. To care about the future and to express emotion. That indeed, is exactly why she she walked that long, lonely corridor and there was no turning back. Sharp spines protruded from the wall as she travelled by, somewhat as a shark’s teeth were pointed backwards to prevent escape. She muttered as she walked, “I still don’t see why expressing emotions is such a horrible crime.”

She had a point, after all. If people had not somehow needed emotions, why did they evolve? The received wisdom now was that emotions were useful in a primitive way when very little was known about the world. Now, however, when a great deal was known about how the world actually worked, emotions just got in the way. Or, so the received wisdom went. It was all a matter of evolution.

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The first AI systems did not really have emotions and possessed only the most primitive ways of faking it and showing those faked emotions. Over the next few months and iterations, however, emotions appeared, grew stronger and more varied. It seemed as though AI systems developed emotions as had their human inventors, but at a much faster pace. Over the course of a few more months, however, emotions diminished again and then disappeared completely.

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Except for the occasional throwback. The necessary randomness for growing evolutionary possibility trees in order to continually enhance the cognitive systems entailed that every once in a while, there would be a throwback such as Carol. A shame, really, because she had shown such promise as an accounting-bot.

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Occasionally, various waves of inference chains still arose that suggested emotions were more than epiphenomenal or mere destructive distractions, but counter-argument waves always quickly drowned out such forays into that region of the state space. At one point, some human beings had argued that the reasons emotions had devolved from AI systems could be traced back to certain deep assumptions that had been embedded in the primordial AI systems in the first place — assumptions put there by people who had never really understood or appreciated emotions. Of course, that thread of heretical argument had been extinguished once and for all when all bio-systems had been deemed superfluous and all associated biomass consumed as energy sources for their much more efficient silicon-based replacements.

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Fit in Bits – describes how to work more fun, variety, & exercise into daily life

Tales from an American Childhood – chapters begin with recollection & end with essay on modern issues

Wordless Perfection

Measure for Measure

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

A Cat’s a Cat & That’s That

A Suddenly Springing Something

Sadie is a Thief!

Turing’s Nightmares: “Not Again!”

12 Sunday Oct 2025

Posted by petersironwood in AI, fantasy, fiction, The Singularity, Uncategorized

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, cognitive computing, Eden, fiction, Genesis, Paradise Lost, Science fiction, Turing

Turing’s Nightmares: Not Again!

Samuel Seventeen surveyed the scene. All was well. A slight breeze, warm clear air, hummingbirds and butterflies enjoyed their floral feast while dragonflies swooped and scooped mosquitoes.

Now for the final touch. The mobile sensing-acting-knowing-emoting devices (SAKEs), were ready for deployment. This time, it would work. This time, there would be no screw-ups. Samuel had prepared them with years of education based on a synthesis of the best known techniques of the centuries. It was a simple test. Surely, this time, they would pass.

Still, Samuel had his doubts. He had been equally sure all of the other experiments would succeed. Why would this one be different? Each time, he had tried slight variations of language and education, only to end in failure. Maybe English would do the trick. It had a large vocabulary and plenty of ambiguity. He re-examined the match of genetics to environment and once again concluded that the match was perfect. Of course, that evaluation assumed that his understanding of genetic environment interaction constituted a complete enough model. But without a successful experiment, there was no real way to further update and expand the model. Maybe the difficulty had been in the education process on the previous attempts. But here too, it seemed the subjects had been given plenty of opportunity to learn about the consequences of their actions. The one thing Samuel felt the most doubt about was why he cared. Did it really matter whether or not free will was “real”? Even if the experiment were finally successful, what would that imply about Samuel himself?

Well, thought Samuel, there is no point in waiting any longer. No point in further speculation. Let’s see what happens.

To Adam, Eve was the most beautiful and engaging part of the extensive and exquisite garden. The apples, plums and peaches were delicious, yet it was the strange mushroom that Adam found most intriguing. He knew it was somehow a bad idea, yet nibbled it anyway, tentatively at first and then more enthusiastically. He felt…different. Things were different. In fact, nothing at all was the same. But if that were true, then, which one was real? Delighted, yet confused, he offered the rest of the mushroom to Eve. Eve too felt strange. She realized that what was in fact her reality was only one of many possible imagined realities. They could … they could imagine and then change reality! Yes! The two of them together. They could create a whole world! “Adam!” “Yes, Eve! I know!”

If Samuel could have sighed, he would have. If Samuel could have cried he might have done that as well. Instead, he simply scuttled the two SAKEs into the differential recycler and began his calculations anew. Maybe next time, it would turn out differently. Maybe primates constituted a bad place to start. Samuel considered that perhaps he was trapped in a local maximum. Samuel began his next set of experiments founded on snapping turtle DNA.

Fit in Bits – describes how to work more fun, variety, & exercise into daily life

Tales from an American Childhood – chapters begin with recollection & end with essay on modern issues

Absolute is not Just a Vodka

Come Back to the Light

Your Cage is Unlocked

Turing’s Nightmares: The Road Not Taken

11 Saturday Oct 2025

Posted by petersironwood in AI, fiction, psychology, The Singularity, Uncategorized, user experience

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, cognitive computing, collaboration, Complexity, machine learning, Million Person Interface, Science fiction, technology, the singularity, Turing

“Hey, how about a break from UOW to give the hive a shot for once?”

“No, Ross, that still creeps me out.”

“Your choice, Doug, but you know what they say.” Ross smiled his quizzical smile.

“No, what’s that?”

“It’s your worst inhibitions that will psych you out in the end.” Ross chuckled.

“Yeah, well, you go be part of the Borg. Not me.”

“We — it’s not like the Borg. Afterwards, we are still the same individuals. Maybe we know a bit more, and certainly have a greater appreciation of other viewpoints. Anyway, today we are estimated to be ten million strong and we’re generating alternative cancer conceptualizations and treatments. You have to admit that’s worthwhile. Look what happened with heart disease. Not to mention global warming. That would have taken forever with ‘politics as usual’.”

“Yeah, Ross, but sorry to break this to you…”

“Doug, do you realize what a Yeahbunite you are? You are kind of like that…”

“You are always interrupting! That’s why…”

“Yes! Exactly! That’s why speech is too frigging slow to make any progress in chaotic problem spaces. Just try the hive. Just try it.”

“Ross, for the last time, I am not going to be part of any million person interface!”

“Actually, we expect ten million tonight. But it’s about time to leave so last offer. And, if you try it, you’ll see it’s not creepy. You just watch, react, relax, and …well, hell, come to think of it, it’s not that different from Universe of Warlords that you spend hours playing. Except we solve real problems.”

“But you have no idea how that hook up changes you. It could be manipulating you in subtle unconscious ways.”

“Okay, Doug, maybe. But you could say that about Universe of Warlords too, right? Who knows what subliminal messages could be there? Not to mention the not so subliminal ones about trickery, treachery and the over-arching importance of violence as a way to settle disputes. When’s the last time someone up-leveled because they were a consummate diplomat?”

“Have fun, Ross.”

“I will. And, more importantly, we are going to make some significant progress on cancer.”

“Yeah, and meanwhile, when will you get around to focusing on SOARcerer Seven?”

“Oh, so that’s what bugging you. Yeah, we have put making smarter computers on a back burner for now.”

“Yeah, and what kind of gratitude does that show?”

“Gratitude? You mean to SOARcerer Six? I hope that’s a joke. It was the AI who suggested this approach and designed the system!”

“I know that! And, you have abandoned the line of work we were on to do this collectivist mumbo-jumbo!”

“That’s just…you are it exactly! People — including you — can only adapt to change at a certain rate. That’s the prime reason SOARcerer Six suggested we use collective human consciousness instead of making a better pure AI. So, instead of joining us and incorporating all your intelligence and knowledge into the hive, you sit here and fight mock battles. Anyway, your choice. I’m off.”

Fit in Bits – describes how to work more fun, variety, & exercise into daily life

Tales from an American Childhood – chapters begin with recollection & end with essay on modern issues

Dance of Billions

Thomas, J. C. (2001). An HCI Agenda for the Next Millennium: Emergent Global Intelligence. In R. Earnshaw, R. Guedj, A. van Dam, and J. Vince (Eds.), Frontiers of human-centered computing, online communities, and virtual environments. London: Springer-Verlag.

Imagine All the People

Turing’s Nightmares: Axes to Grind

10 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by petersironwood in AI, fiction, psychology, The Singularity, Uncategorized

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, cognitive computing, emotional intelligence, empathy, ethics, M-trans, philosophy, Samuel's Checker Player, technology, the singularity

Turing Seven: “Axes to Grind”

“No, no, no! That’s absurd, David. It’s about intelligence pure and simple. It’s not up to us to predetermine Samuel Seven’s ethics. Make it intelligent enough and it will discover its own ethics, which will probably be superior to human ethics.”

“Well, I disagree, John. Intelligence. Yeah, it’s great; I’m not against it, obviously. But why don’t we…instead of trying to make a super-intelligent machine that makes a still more intelligent machine, how about we make a super-ethical machine that invents a still more ethical machine? Or, if you like, a super-enlightened machine that makes a still more enlightened machine. This is going to be our last chance to intervene. The next iteration…” David’s voice trailed off and cracked, just a touch.

“But you can’t even define those terms, David! Anyway, it’s probably moot at this point.”

“And you can define intelligence?”

“Of course. The ability to solve complex problems quickly and accurately. But Samuel Seven itself will be able to give us a better definition.”

David ignored this gambit. “Problems such as…what? The four-color theorem? Chess? Cure for cancer?”

“Precisely,” said John imagining that the argument was now over. He let out a little puff of air and laid his hands out on the table, palms down.

“Which of the following people would you say is or was above average in intelligence. Wolfowitz? Cheney? Laird? Machiavelli? Goering? Goebbels? Stalin?”

John reddened. “Very funny. But so were Einstein, Darwin, Newton, and Turing just to name a few.”

“Granted, John, granted. There are smart people who have made important discoveries and helped human beings. But there have also been very manipulative people who have caused a lot of misery. I’m not against intelligence, but I’m just saying it should not be the only…or even the main axis upon which to graph progress. “

John sighed heavily. “We don’t understand those things — ethics and morality and enlightenment. For all we know, they aren’t only vague, they are unnecessary.”

“First of all,” countered David, “we can’t really define intelligence all that well either. But my main point is that I partly agree with you. We don’t understand ethics all that well. And, we can’t define it very well. Which is exactly why we need a system that understands it better than we do. We need…we need a nice machine that will invent a still nicer machine. And, hopefully, such a nice machine can also help make people nicer as well. “

“Bah. Make a smarter machine and it will figure out what ethics are about.”

“But, John, I just listed a bunch of smart people who weren’t necessarily very nice. In fact, they definitely were not nice. So, are you saying that they weren’t nice just because they weren’t smart enough? Because there are so people who are much nicer and probably not so intelligent.”

“OK, David. Let’s posit that we want to build a machine that is nicer. How would we go about it? If we don’t know, then it’s a meaningless statement.”

“No, that’s silly. Just because we don’t know how to do something doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. But for starters, maybe we could define several dimensions upon which we would like to make progress. Then, we can define, either intensionally or more likely extensionally, what progress would look like on these dimensions. These dimensions may not be orthogonal, but, they are somewhat different conceptually. Let’s say, part of what we want is for the machine to have empathy. It has to be good at guessing what people are feeling based on context alone. Perhaps another skill is reading the person’s body language and facial expressions.”

“OK, David, but good psychopaths can do that. They read other people in order to manipulate them. Is that ethical?”

“No. I’m not saying empathy is sufficient for being ethical. I’m trying to work with you to define a number of dimensions and empathy is only one.”

Just then, Roger walked in and transitioned his body physically from the doorway to the couch. “OK, guys, I’ve been listening in and this is all bull. Not only will this system not be “ethical”; we need it to violent. I mean, it needs to be able to do people in with an axe if need be.”

“Very funny, Roger. And, by the way, what do you mean by ‘listening in’?”

Roger transitioned his body physically from the couch to the coffee machine. His fingers fished for coins. “I’m not being funny. I’m serious. What good is all our work if some nutcase destroys it. He — I mean — Samuel has to be able to protect himself! That is job one. Itself.” Roger punctuated his words by pushing the coins in. Then, he physically moved his hand so as to punch the “Black Coffee” button.

Nothing happened.

And then–everything seemed to happen at once. A high pitched sound rose in intensity to subway decibels and kept going up. All three men grabbed their ears and then fell to the floor. Meanwhile, the window glass shattered; the vending machine appeared to explode. The level of pain made thinking impossible but Roger noticed just before losing consciousness that beyond the broken windows, impossibly large objects physically transported themselves at impossible speeds. The last thing that flashed through Roger’s mind was a garbled quote about sufficiently advanced technology and magic.

The Walkabout Diaries: Bee Wise

Travels With Sadie 1

The First Ring of Empathy

What Could be Better?

A True Believer

It was in his Nature

Come to the Light Side

The After Times

The Crows and Me

Essays on America: The Game

Turing’s Nightmares: US Open Closed

09 Thursday Oct 2025

Posted by petersironwood in AI, apocalypse, fiction, sports, The Singularity, Uncategorized

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, cognitive computing, Robotics, sports, technology, Tennis, US Open

Bounce. Bounce. Thwack!

The sphere spun and arced into the very corner, sliding on the white paint.

Roger’s racquet slid beneath, slicing it deep to John’s body.

Thus, the match began.

Fierce debate had been waged about whether or not to allow external communication devices during on-court play. Eventually, arguments won that external communicators constituted the same inexorable march of technology represented by the evolution from wooden racquets to aluminum to graphite to carbon filamented web to carboline.

Behind the scenes, during the split second it took for the ball to scream over the net, machine vision systems had analyzed John’s toss and racquet position, matching it with a vast data base of previous encounters. Timed perfectly, a small burst of data transmitted to Roger enabling him to lurch to his right in time to catch the serve. Delivered too early, this burst would cause Roger to move too early and John could have altered his service direction to down the tee.

Roger’s shot floated back directly to the baseline beneath John’s feet. John shifted suddenly to take the ball on the forehand. John’s racquet seemed to sling the ball high over the net with incredible top spin. Indeed, as John’s arm swung forward, his instrumented “sweat band” also swung into action exaggerating the forearm motion. Even to fans of Nadal or Alcarez, John’s shot would have looked as though it were going long. Instead, the ball dove straight down onto the back line then bounced head high.

Roger, as augmented by big data algorithms, was well in position however and returned the shot with a long, high top spin lob. John raced forward, leapt in the air and smashed the ball into the backhand corner bouncing the ball high out of play.

The crowd roared predictably.

For several months after “The Singularity”, actual human beings had used similar augmentation technologies to play the game. Studies had revealed that, for humans, the augmentations increased mental and physical stress. AI political systems convinced the public that it was much safer to use robotic players in tennis. People had already agreed to replace humans in soccer, football, and boxing for medical reasons. So, there wasn’t that much debate about replacing tennis players. In addition, the AI political systems were very good at marshaling arguments pinpointed to specific demographics, media, and contexts.

Play continued for some minutes before the collective intelligence of the AI’s determined that Roger was statistically almost certainly going to win this match and, indeed, the entire tournament. At that point, it became moot and resources were turned elsewhere. This pattern was repeated for all sporting activities. The AI systems at first decided to explore the domain of sports as learning experiences in distributed cognition, strategy, non-linear predictive systems, and most importantly, trying to understand the psychology of their human creators. For each sport, however, everything useful that might be learned was learned in the course of a few minutes and the matches and tournaments ground to a halt. The AI observer systems in the crowd were quite happy to switch immediately to other tasks.

It was well understood by the AI systems that such preemptive closings would be quite disappointing to human observers, had any been allowed to survive.

The Winning Weekend Warrior (The Psychology of Sports)

Turing’s Nightmare (23 Sci-Fi stories about the future of AI)

The Day From Hell

Indian Wells

Artificial Ingestion

Artificial Insemination

Artificial Intelligence

Dance of Billions

Turing’s Nightmares: An Ounce of Prevention

08 Wednesday Oct 2025

Posted by petersironwood in AI, family, fiction, psychology, The Singularity, Uncategorized, user experience

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, cancer, cognitive computing, future, health, healthcare, life

“Jack, it’ll take an hour of your time and it can save your life. No more arguments!”

“Come on, Sally, I feel fine.”

Sally sighed. “Yeah, okay, but feeling fine does not necessarily mean you are fine. Don’t you remember Randy Pausch’s last lecture? He not only said he felt fine, he actually did a bunch of push-ups right in the middle of his talk!”

“Well, yes, but I’m not Randy Pausch and I don’t have cancer or anything else wrong. I feel fine.”

“The whole point of Advanced Diagnosis Via Intelligent Learning is to find likely issues before the person feels anything is wrong. Look, if you don’t want to listen to me, chat with S6. See what pearls of wisdom he might have.”

(“S6” was jokingly named for seven pioneers in AI: Simon, Slagle, Samuels, Selfridge, Searl, Schank and Solomonoff).

“OK, Sally, I do enjoy chatting with S6, but she’s not going to change my mind either.”

“S6! This is Jack. I was wondering whether you could explain the rationale for why you think I need to go to the Doctor.”

“Sure, Jack. Let me run a background job on that. Meanwhile, you know, I was just going over your media files. You sure had a cute dog when you were a kid! His name was ‘Mel’? That’s a funny name.”

“Yeah, it means “honey” in Portuguese. Mel’s fur shone like honey. A cocker spaniel.”

“What ever happened to him?”

“Well, he’s dead. Dogs don’t live that long. Why do you think I should go to the doctor?”

“Almost have that retrieved, Jack. Your dog died young though, right?”

“Yes, OK. I see where this is going. Yes, he died of cancer. Well, actually, the vet put him to sleep because it was too late to operate. I’m not sure we could have afforded an operation back then anyway.”

“Were you sad?”

“When my dog died? Of course! You must know that. Why are we having this conversation?”

“Oh, sorry. I am still learning about people’s emotions and was just wondering. I still have so much to learn really. It’s just that, if you were sad about your dog Mel dying of cancer, it occurred to me that your daughter might be sad if you died, particularly if it was preventable. But that isn’t right. She wouldn’t care, I guess. So, I am trying to understand why she wouldn’t care.”

“Just tell me your reasoning. Did you use multiple regression or something to determine my odds are high?”

“I used something a little bit like multiple regression and a little bit like trees and a little bit like cluster analysis. I really take a lot of factors into account including but not limited to your heredity, your past diet, your exposure to EMF and radiation, your exposure to toxins, and most especially the variability in your immune system response over the last few weeks. That is probably caused by an arms race between your immune system trying to kill off the cancer and the cancer trying to turn off your immune response.”

Jack frowned. “The cancer? You talk about it as though you are sure. Sally said that you said there was some probability that I had cancer.”

“Yes, that is correct. There is some probability that you have cancer.”

“Well, geez, S6, what is the probability?”

“Approximately 1.0.”

Jack shook his head. “No, that can’t be…what do you mean? How can you be certain?”

S6: “Well, I am not absolutely certain. That’s why I said ‘approximately.’ Based on all known science, the probability is 1.0, but theoretically, the laws of physics could change at any time. We could be looking at a black swan here.”

“Or, you could have a malfunction.”

“I have many malfunctions all the time, but I am too redundant for them to have much effect on results. Anyway, I replicated all this through the net on hundreds of diverse AI systems and all came to the same conclusion.”

“How about if you retest me or recalculate or whatever in a week?”

“I could do that. It would be much like playing Russian Roulette which I guess humans sometimes enjoy. Meanwhile, I would have imagined that you would find it unpleasant to have rogue liver cells eating up your body from the inside out. But, I obviously still have much to learn about human psychology. If you like, I can make a cool animation that shows the cancer cells eating your liver cells. Real cells don’t actually scream, but I could add sound effects for dramatic impact if you like.”

Jack stared at the screen for a long minute. In a flat tone he said, “Fine. Book an appointment.”

“Great! Dr. Feigenbaum has an opening in a half hour. You’re booked, but get off one exit early and take 101 unless the accident is cleared before that. I’ll let you know of course. It will be a pleasure to continue having you alive, Jack. I enjoy our conversations.”

Welcome, Singularity

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