Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate Cinco de Mayo 2023…
Hey Y’all!
Happy Fast-Jet Friday!! The bottom pic is the Mighty-Mighty Strike Eagle this week flying low-level through Wales. The pic immediately above is me just prior to a nuclear test mission. Next to me is a B-61 tactical free-fall nuclear bomb, without the nuclear core. The water on the ground is from condensation off of the bomb. Our test included testing temperature extremes and my bomb had been in the freezer and condensation formed immediately and profusely in the Nevada desert heat, even before sunrise. My profile was a low-level, supersonic, max-range loft. One of my most memorable flights. Back to today…the animals on the farm are doing very well today. The new bull calf is still doing well. Yesterday evening we got a pic of mom, her heifer calf from last year, and the new bull calf—the middle left pic. The three of them stick pretty close. The middle-middle pic is the beef chickens. If all goes according to plan, we will be processing them in less than two weeks. We will weigh them next week and make a determination from there. We are wanting a 4-5 pound dressed bird and they lose about 30% in the process of being…well…processed. So, we want them to weigh somewhere between 6-7 pounds alive. The right middle pic is the layer chickens in their huge yard. They enjoy what seems to them to be completely free-ranging—don’t tell them there’s a fence. The top pic is a Happy Friday pic of me and Shelley after feeding the beef cows some hay this morning. Yep, hay in May. Other than a cool sounding rhyme, we don’t want to use hay and May in the same sentence. Like others around us, our pasture grass is a bit thin from the drought last summer. The flerd’s first pass over the pastures stimulated the grass, but now we need to wait for it to recover. The rains last night and the forecast rain and warm temps should really get things going. We worked on the computer some yesterday and planted seeds in the garden. Today we did some final house projects and will continue office-type work until time to relax with some fajitas.
I’m sure you have noticed the hysteria in the news lately regarding Artificial Intelligence. I chatted a bit about it a few days ago and enjoyed the follow-on discussion in the comments section. I wanted to revisit the topic with a quick review of some headlines and a glimpse of what I consider one of the most realistic views on the topic. “The Pentagon’s AI Chief is ‘Scared to Death’ of ChatGPT.” “The ‘godfather of AI’ says he’s worried about ‘the end of people.’” “Are journalists being replaced by AI?” “AI could be ‘nail in the coffin’ for the internet.” “AI anxiety: The workers who fear losing their jobs to artificial intelligence.” “Democrat seeks to regulate AI-generated campaign ads.” It seems like everyone talking about AI is doing so in a fear mongering manner, trying to lather folks into a foam of despair. I was encouraged to read a bit of a different take from former professor, writer, author, and speaker Jared Dillian. His take on AI:
“My theory on AI is that it’s going to drastically improve productivity, setting off another productivity boom like we had in the ‘90s, which will offset some of the inflation we are experiencing. The only thing you will need a lawyer for is the letterhead. The demand letter will write itself. It will also displace a lot of jobs. There is nothing to fear here…We will destroy some jobs and create other jobs. Everyone had the same fears about the internet. The internet destroyed some jobs and created new ones, with lots more productivity. We were better off in the long run. … A friend of mine, Chad Sooran, observed that when the internet was invented, it obviated the need for memory. Now that AI has been invented, it will obviate the need for intellect. What remains? Emotional intelligence—dealing with other people. People skills will become even more valuable in an AI world. As someone who used to be a professor (and will be again shortly), I’m not thrilled about this because I used to give writing assignments in my classes. That’s gone out the window. Right now, people are screwing around with ChatGPT, seeing what sort of things it can do, and we are barely even scratching the surface. Exciting stuff…but do not be afraid.” - Jared Dillian
Do we need to be careful, absolutely! In April of this year, NewsGuard identified 49 websites that appear to be entirely or mostly generated by AI language models. Some of these publish hundreds of articles a day, some with content advancing false narratives. This is exactly what I was warning about a few days ago. In the wrong hands, AI can be used to do harm. It is now incumbent upon each of us to identify truth. One tell-tale feature of AI-generated content is bland language and repetitive phrases. Nevertheless, stepping back to look at the bigger picture, I agree with Jared Dillian. AI is going to change things, and already has. Microsoft Edge now uses GPT-4 in it's Bing Chat, currently the only free way to interact with the most current form of GPT. It has incorporated the ability to process and create images. If you want to test-drive the most current GPT, you'll have to download Edge and start your chat with Bing--there is now no longer a wait list! Let’s look at this new world as exciting, not scary.
A couple of YouTube Shorts for you:
New Bull Calf— https://www.youtube.com/shorts/u3rOIHmjo9I
Us planting in the garden— https://www.youtube.com/shorts/g2g8iC6jNRs
Shelley milking Betty this morning— https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WnSf7y8eqAM
Local Farm Report for May the forth…be with you…
Harvest:
22 Chicken eggs
19 Duck eggs
1 Goose egg
6 1/4 Gallons of milk
Cheers! Psycho & Shelley
Sometimes there is a very fine line between exciting and scary!!
I was 11 years old when "2001 A Space Odyssey" came out. It was exciting and scary.
Us old Boomers still remember the chill we felt when we realized what Hal was up to.
The older I get, the more I like decentralization....of power, wealth, knowledge, influence, flammable gasses, lol.
Concentration can be scary...and dangerous. You really need to trust the ones upon whom the concentration is forming.
You are most welcome to talk me off the ledge! 😲