THREE MAINFRAME COMPUTERS WALK INTO A BARCODE…
By Duane Scott Cerny
Sperm may not be “people,” but every happy ending certainly is a crowd!
Isn’t it ironic that Artificial Intelligence has arrived in our world at a time when very little real intelligence can be found? Like, anywhere.
In politics we presently have one presidential candidate whose vocabulary consists only of P.T. Barnum’s favorite 200 braggadocios words… and another who can turn a two-sentence answer into a draft of his memoir, Gone with the Long-Winded.
In social issues, we have men deciding every aspect of a woman’s reproductive rights while still having little to no knowledge of how a vagina (and parts inward) function. It’s like having a mechanic who wants to drive your car but has no idea where the engine is, how it works, or even where he’s going. It’s the Midas “Don’t Touch This” touch.
Further, consider that corporations are people, eggs are now people, or at least embryos. New laws are flooding states with this egg-tastic notion, but where are the laws about sperm? From horny adolescence on, men certainly seem a bit willy-nilly when it comes to where their sperm travels. Yet once they’ve arrived at their destination and the deed is done, where is the man’s responsibility? Sperm may not be “people”, but every happy ending certainly is a crowd!
An impregnated woman, by virtue of sperm alone, loses the biological rights she had mere hours before. Imagine being hit by a horny/drunk driver who, upon proof of the collision, now gets to decide what responsibility, if any, is his. Suddenly men are the penny-pinching insurance company and women are “claim denied.” Nationwide may be on your side, just don’t roll over!
Human intelligence is sorely lacking in these examples and so many others. Artificial intelligence (AI, AI, Oh!) though human-inspired, will assuredly evolve into something very different, perhaps something nonhuman-like, or even inhuman. In the end, it’s all zeros and ones, but who amongst us wants to be zero against a future, God-like one.
“Artificial” most everything has a less-than-glowing resume of accomplishments (and some rather sad letters of recommendation from Astroturf.) However, we’re at day one in this mad scientist’s global experiment; so close to the birth of the future that we cannot clearly see what is to come. Or, more likely, it’s the fast-advancing light at the end of a tunnel we didn’t even know we had dug.
Let’s review what AI has recently wrought and where it may be headed…
Facial Recognition
A quick scan through most airports will determine if you’re a terrorist or if you’re behind on your rent, mortgage, or income tax. (Sorry, that’s next month’s upgrade.) I understand the “recognition” here but not so much the facial. Where’s my skin cancer screening? Or glaucoma review? Or new eyewear prescription? It seems like a lost opportunity for intelligence when efficiency was so optimistically promised. You know, like Medicare, Part B.
Navigation
Somewhere along the way, we went missing. On a map, an inch equals a foot (see: “male mind”), but Siri takes her directions from a higher AI power. You can change Siri’s accent; you can even change Siri’s sex (see: “they/them”). But you can’t get them to change their mind. Perhaps in the future 7when Siri says, “Turn right,” they will no longer mean at the corner; Siri may mean politically. No more left turns for you liberals. It’s their way or the highway, buttercup!
Editing/Writing
Whether you’re using ChatGPT or Claude, AI is like a recent employee hire who thinks they know everything. Often, they are correct, though not always. And if you’re looking for imagination, creativity, and emotion, then keep writing, mere human. AI has all the personality of your forty-year-old cousin who lives above his parent’s garage and obsesses about retired Beanie Babies. He may be brilliant, but his head is full of dull, unimaginative stuffing. Emotionless and numbingly bland.
Or, as I most recently posited to a less-than-cooperative AI: “If I cannot Roe, may I Wade?”
Duane Scott Cerny takes the blame for most everything in his monthly satirical column “It’s All My Fault.” Bestselling author of Selling Dead People’s Things, he is the co-owner of Chicago’s Broadway Antiques Market and reluctantly appears most Sunday nights on AmberLive.TV. E-ThanklessGreetings@yahoo.com
