OMG - I Just Met Google AI

It's my first time, and I'm looking around for a way to escape

I’m putting together a cookbook of Democratic Party volunteers’ recipes. It will be available for donations of any amount to the party, at events and at the local party headquarters. In these times of grim news and giddy protests, it’s nice to do something together that’s relaxing and fun. Cooking is wonderful. You can share what you make. It celebrates life.

I’ve invited volunteers to add personal notes to their recipes. The book should have color, too, not just black and white, especially on the introduction page where a friend has designed a beautiful way to tie Democracy to the many traditional recipes that cooks bring to tables everywhere.

So, this morning when I spoke to the print team at UPS, it was sobering to learn that the cost of color printing is nearly four times as much as black and white. Also, it would cost $5.50 per book to add a spiral binding.

That’s when I googled “unique cookbook bindings homemade”. Immediately, at the top of the results, unfamiliar wispy blue horizontal lines started pulsing. They went on for a few seconds — it was thinking! Then they materialized into “AI Overview”, a list of ways to hand bind a book. I felt there was was something a little “off” about it, which I hesitated to analyze.

At the bottom of the list, in tiny gray letters, it whispered,

AI responses may include mistakes.

I’ve known about AI’s invasion of your psyche for a long time, but I never ran into it up close like this. It took me off guard.

“Help, I’m a prisoner of AI!”

Shocked, I did what anyone my age would do (I’m just on the far side of Baby Boomers). I emailed two of our Gen-Xers for sympathy, and perhaps for help in understanding what had just hit me. One of them gently welcomed me to the real world; the other thoughtfully questioned the computer’s independence of mind. This helped me.

Two thoughts -

As early as 1956 a computer named MANIAC played a chess-like match with a human. With simplified rules, it beat the human in 23 moves.

Forty years later, IBM’s supercomputer, Deep Blue, played chess with Garry Kasparov, the world champion. Kasparov won the first match, 4-2. The next year Deep Blue won the rematch, 3½ to 2½.

I wonder if these two humans, in 1956 and 1997, recorded their feelings about playing a game with a non-human. Did they feel any psychic confusion? Maybe it was just another game to them.

Garry Kasparov, left, plays Deep Blue for the second time in 1997. On the right, note that Deep Blue relies on the human to move the chess pieces.

Second thought —

In 1942, Isaac Asimov laid a moral foundation for us with the Three Laws of Robotics, in his short story, “Runaround”.

The Three Laws from the fictional Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D.":

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

• A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Asimov may not have thought about the impact of programmers in somewhat lawless times like ours today. But I’m still happy for his ideal.

In the 1999 movie that is closely based on Isaac Asimov’s novelette, Bicentennial Man, Sam Neill plays a man who buys a robot for his family. The robot begins to feel emotions and creativity, and aspires to be human.

They say you can’t tell an AI expression from the real thing now. For me, there’s an odd human feeling that goes along with this kind of uncertainty. For example, suppose you were to see,

Thank you for reading my post. Enjoy your day,

Deda (she/her/it)

Creature from the Black Lagoon comic book cover was altered by Deda Edney

Human vs. computer chess matches

Garry Kasparov’s rematch with Deep Blue, 1997

Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics

Photo of Robot and Sam Neill from the movie Bicentennial Man