Tracy and I were watching the Monday Jen Psaki show on MSNBC tonight when a new ad appeared. Usually, the ads at that hour – 8 p.m. – have something to do with getting old. People have fallen, and they can’t get up; they can remember stuff like what they had for breakfast this morning because of a new miracle pill that enhances their memory; their feet feel better and they can walk the dog longer distances because of the new insoles they’ve begun using in their shoes.
It’s a weird world but hell we were only borrowing it till the kids take over. Those commercials suck though (somehow delighted my grandsons go to opinion these days it “well that sucks”). I like to be insulted to my face, after all, not by an implication on a commercial.
The thing you and I would agree on is that those things we experienced, the lives we lived, the places we know, frequented, did great or stupid things in, isn’t up for grabs by the kids. Even if I could I wouldn’t be young now if I had to relinquish even the memories of the music, the people, the places we came up through.
I think this is the "Youth is wasted on the young" thread, maybe yes, maybe no - would it have applied to the speaker, to us, too? But - I know what you mean!
The younger cohorts also face environmental challenges on a scale not seen for thousands of years, even millions, how freakin' daunting and at the same time, desperately invigorating is that?
Hell my challenge today, NOW or in minutes at least, is to get this very Roku TV used as a monitor, the mini-PC, internet router, the mouse, keyboard, little speakers packed away for temp relocation while they renovate an apartment in a building built in 1976-77 and showing its age, too! Evohe, Patris!
youth is definitely wasted on the young in the most important senses. and youth has tendency to test limits appropriate only to a youthful body. now, I have no such tendencies. and THAT's good.
last night, my best friend of now almost 60 1/2 years was over and we compared our preoccupations with mortality. I allowed that the old generation is ALWAYS complaining about how much better things were when they were kids but still maintain that life really was better back then. I've said this before, but if you lived in NYC and had arcane or specialized tastes in what interested you, you could educate yourself in that thing pretty competently, and it would have cost you next to nothing. now?
Excellent point. In the Midwest you would need to be IN one of the major cities and THEN have connections to both urban and rural college campuses (or non-affiliated learning centers for all sorts of music and arts) AND probably at least visit both the NE and possibly the Bay Area. NYC was the one -stop shop! And maybe no charge except time and effort and some luck.
There were thriving music, theater and arts scenes in Minneapolis-St. Paul too, just not on the same scale, and always looking for excellent old and new bands to play tour dates.
If only AI had been set up under impartial controls and monitoring to protect all parties, but the genie was released too soon from the bottle, and I worry about what that will mean for those of us who depend on facts and truth to make informed decisions at a time when there already is so much mis-and disinformation to counter.
Agree. I read those I trust. I just became a paid member here. I read a lot. I'm happy to have found all these great, intelligent, honest writers to help me understand politics and people, though I'm not sure I'll ever really understand why, when given a choice, people go with the worst person possible. Blinded by bull...
Jan 23·edited Jan 23Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Yes and no with the trust, Mim.. We're blessed to have Lucian and some other trustworthy writers on Substack. But as an epublisher without editors, Substack willingly publishes anyone who signs up, nationally known experts, ambitious liars, or—as been well-publicized lately—committed nazis. Substack doesn't care. Substack policies have driven out a few highly engaging writers, so far most notably to me Elizabeth Spier. LKTIV's paid-subscribers-only rule protects this forum from the—yes—vermin who infect many forums the RW hates, but if the service allows loony Substacks you can be sure loony followers are lurking. That does not exclude the kind of bots that infested, e g, Maggie Haberman's twitter comments.
Remember “is it me or is it Memorex?” It was so benign. Then the IT guys went crazy. They tried to invent something with social skills; something with empathy; something with feeling; something we might relate to. Sheesh. Let’s replace House and Senate Republicans with AI. We know it would be far smarter than the human version. Too bad they can’t replace Orange Foolious so we could DELETE him from the hard drive.
All I can see right now is AI is really just another way to lower customer service payroll for the big corporations that deal with the public. First, all the call centers were in America. To save payroll the big guys moved that to India, Ireland, the Philippines. When I had a question for my credit union the other day they had me answering so many robotic questions that I forgot what my problem was. I hung up. What the hell. It was nearly cocktail time, anyway.
I agree an AI can't actually be a freelancer. It's a tool. That's like saying a power saw is an expert at taking down a tree. Someone has designed or refined it for it's use, someone is selling use of the tool as a product, someone gets the money. That AI isn't the least interested in money. The cure will be carefully thought out and worded laws protecting intellectual property, protecting people's privacy, and specifying what claims can legitimately be made, along with a few term definition. Plus, education, education, education. Few of us understand as much as we probably should about the subject of AI.
I heard today that someone had a "deepfake" Biden voice copy making calls to urge voters not to vote in their primary. Public figures have elevated exposure, but if you made a copy of an actress and had her doing lewd things you would get sued. If you copy someone's voice - objectively provable by looking at the training material for the AI - and have them say things that are against their beliefs you should be sued.
Ah, those wonderful freelance days of yore. Had some of my greatest magazine reporting trips ever, from anti-Castro training camps in the Everglades to Christian Identity militia outposts in western NC to Talabani Pakistan to coke havens in the Caribbean. A world that no longer exists. Thank God Substack came along.
In the legal profession, at least, AI is not taking off so fast. In fact, lawyers have been sanctioned for submitting AI generated briefs that cited made-up case law, without their checking the accuracy of what was being submitted! Of course as the technology improves the quality of AI legal analysis will likely improve, but it can never approach the level of human analysis of legal precedent and complex fact patterns. Part of that analysis includes the human emotional element that filters in, an element that no machine can truly replicate. If and when that happens, then the human race is over.
The ultimate freelancer is the casual day laborer, the migrant agriculural fruitpicker. It's my long gone private law practice.
It's never a good job for someone with obligations, family, financial, or both.
To be a good free-lancer, you need to be a scarce commodity, someone in demand who can command a level of compensation commensurate with the experience and insight worth the money you're asking to be paid. Otherwise, you're a guy who acts as a stringer to some distant news outlet, and get paid a pittance for your efforts.
The Internet killed off free-lancing as a viable lifestyle. In recent years, Trump-era personal memoires proliferate like bugs at a picnic. A lot of work for a few sparks of revelation, followed by consignment to the remainder market.
Monetizing the bleeding edge of life is like being an infantryman in some memorable and historically significant military campaign. You need to survive in order to record your memoires, with actual publication to await perhaps decades before they are unearthed from all that stuff that gets collected along the way. It's also a way of recalling past events as they occurred. I have a cache of letters that wrote home from Germany sixty yeas ago when I was spending a year abroad. I haven't looked at them in years. Much of that time I was not writing anything because I didn't think much of what I was doing was worthwhile to commit to paper. I could not imagine an audience who mihht be interested in whatever I was experiencing in the moment. Some people are inveterate diariests, apparently because they were encouraged as young men and women to cherish those routine experiences as events worth memorializing. Now in my declining years, I see things a bit differently.
It’s a weird world but hell we were only borrowing it till the kids take over. Those commercials suck though (somehow delighted my grandsons go to opinion these days it “well that sucks”). I like to be insulted to my face, after all, not by an implication on a commercial.
The thing you and I would agree on is that those things we experienced, the lives we lived, the places we know, frequented, did great or stupid things in, isn’t up for grabs by the kids. Even if I could I wouldn’t be young now if I had to relinquish even the memories of the music, the people, the places we came up through.
Patris, as Maurice Chevalier sang in Gigi, "I'm glad I'm not young any more" :)
https://youtu.be/cN-49qYHMGY
Ya, but when we were young, we kicked some fascist a$$ and it felt so good!
yeah, but....
I hear ya! I loved growing up through 50’s & 60’s! I’m 78 now.
I think this is the "Youth is wasted on the young" thread, maybe yes, maybe no - would it have applied to the speaker, to us, too? But - I know what you mean!
The younger cohorts also face environmental challenges on a scale not seen for thousands of years, even millions, how freakin' daunting and at the same time, desperately invigorating is that?
Hell my challenge today, NOW or in minutes at least, is to get this very Roku TV used as a monitor, the mini-PC, internet router, the mouse, keyboard, little speakers packed away for temp relocation while they renovate an apartment in a building built in 1976-77 and showing its age, too! Evohe, Patris!
youth is definitely wasted on the young in the most important senses. and youth has tendency to test limits appropriate only to a youthful body. now, I have no such tendencies. and THAT's good.
last night, my best friend of now almost 60 1/2 years was over and we compared our preoccupations with mortality. I allowed that the old generation is ALWAYS complaining about how much better things were when they were kids but still maintain that life really was better back then. I've said this before, but if you lived in NYC and had arcane or specialized tastes in what interested you, you could educate yourself in that thing pretty competently, and it would have cost you next to nothing. now?
Excellent point. In the Midwest you would need to be IN one of the major cities and THEN have connections to both urban and rural college campuses (or non-affiliated learning centers for all sorts of music and arts) AND probably at least visit both the NE and possibly the Bay Area. NYC was the one -stop shop! And maybe no charge except time and effort and some luck.
There were thriving music, theater and arts scenes in Minneapolis-St. Paul too, just not on the same scale, and always looking for excellent old and new bands to play tour dates.
We never lack challenges do we? And your enthusiasm matches anyone’s as always, Richard!
Making real change is always left to the young.
Agreed
Same here.
If only AI had been set up under impartial controls and monitoring to protect all parties, but the genie was released too soon from the bottle, and I worry about what that will mean for those of us who depend on facts and truth to make informed decisions at a time when there already is so much mis-and disinformation to counter.
Finding facts and truth is becoming more and more difficult.
Fortunately, Substack has become an important resource for reading articles by people we trust.
Agree. I read those I trust. I just became a paid member here. I read a lot. I'm happy to have found all these great, intelligent, honest writers to help me understand politics and people, though I'm not sure I'll ever really understand why, when given a choice, people go with the worst person possible. Blinded by bull...
Yes and no with the trust, Mim.. We're blessed to have Lucian and some other trustworthy writers on Substack. But as an epublisher without editors, Substack willingly publishes anyone who signs up, nationally known experts, ambitious liars, or—as been well-publicized lately—committed nazis. Substack doesn't care. Substack policies have driven out a few highly engaging writers, so far most notably to me Elizabeth Spier. LKTIV's paid-subscribers-only rule protects this forum from the—yes—vermin who infect many forums the RW hates, but if the service allows loony Substacks you can be sure loony followers are lurking. That does not exclude the kind of bots that infested, e g, Maggie Haberman's twitter comments.
The only safe space is within our own ability to discern.
difny, my name is Mim.
I know that Substack publishes anyone who signs up, but I read only the people whom I trust.
In the musician community, friends of mine have asked for AI generated musical instruments. Some of them are very.... interesting.
Images or actual instruments via 3D printing?
Images. There are some wild ones.
Remember “is it me or is it Memorex?” It was so benign. Then the IT guys went crazy. They tried to invent something with social skills; something with empathy; something with feeling; something we might relate to. Sheesh. Let’s replace House and Senate Republicans with AI. We know it would be far smarter than the human version. Too bad they can’t replace Orange Foolious so we could DELETE him from the hard drive.
Love that one - Orange Foolious! Another good one.
Thank you Janice. I must be honest, it’s “borrowed.” I don’t remember from whom. It may have been one of the brilliant readers here!
Hahaha. Love it
All I can see right now is AI is really just another way to lower customer service payroll for the big corporations that deal with the public. First, all the call centers were in America. To save payroll the big guys moved that to India, Ireland, the Philippines. When I had a question for my credit union the other day they had me answering so many robotic questions that I forgot what my problem was. I hung up. What the hell. It was nearly cocktail time, anyway.
Online chats are also AI.
Yes--and they are even worse!
If I could I would hunt them down and kill them with buckets of water. No AR-15 required.
I agree an AI can't actually be a freelancer. It's a tool. That's like saying a power saw is an expert at taking down a tree. Someone has designed or refined it for it's use, someone is selling use of the tool as a product, someone gets the money. That AI isn't the least interested in money. The cure will be carefully thought out and worded laws protecting intellectual property, protecting people's privacy, and specifying what claims can legitimately be made, along with a few term definition. Plus, education, education, education. Few of us understand as much as we probably should about the subject of AI.
I heard today that someone had a "deepfake" Biden voice copy making calls to urge voters not to vote in their primary. Public figures have elevated exposure, but if you made a copy of an actress and had her doing lewd things you would get sued. If you copy someone's voice - objectively provable by looking at the training material for the AI - and have them say things that are against their beliefs you should be sued.
A once noble descriptor and career appropriated, like so much else.
Ah, those wonderful freelance days of yore. Had some of my greatest magazine reporting trips ever, from anti-Castro training camps in the Everglades to Christian Identity militia outposts in western NC to Talabani Pakistan to coke havens in the Caribbean. A world that no longer exists. Thank God Substack came along.
In the legal profession, at least, AI is not taking off so fast. In fact, lawyers have been sanctioned for submitting AI generated briefs that cited made-up case law, without their checking the accuracy of what was being submitted! Of course as the technology improves the quality of AI legal analysis will likely improve, but it can never approach the level of human analysis of legal precedent and complex fact patterns. Part of that analysis includes the human emotional element that filters in, an element that no machine can truly replicate. If and when that happens, then the human race is over.
I would argue the opposite. AI is coming and it will far surpass anything human. I'm guessing we'll figure out how to survive it but who knows...
Oh, it is definitely coming - the question is how fast and how far integrated into all aspects of daily life.
"Rise of the Machines"
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINES! Futile?
If you’re asking if it is, it is.
Looks like AI took Webster’s dictionary and misconstrued “freelance”. This is where AI is really kind of dangerous, don’t you think?
The lance is only free if you don't poke someone with it.
We're doomed....
Sometimes it is a relief to be old.
I got hung up on “stay away from the brown acid, man.”
An AI tv ad generated a dive into a freelance writer’s international ping pong lifestyle.
Delightful.
Maybe I ought not mute commercials.
I miss "dictated, but not read."
The ultimate freelancer is the casual day laborer, the migrant agriculural fruitpicker. It's my long gone private law practice.
It's never a good job for someone with obligations, family, financial, or both.
To be a good free-lancer, you need to be a scarce commodity, someone in demand who can command a level of compensation commensurate with the experience and insight worth the money you're asking to be paid. Otherwise, you're a guy who acts as a stringer to some distant news outlet, and get paid a pittance for your efforts.
The Internet killed off free-lancing as a viable lifestyle. In recent years, Trump-era personal memoires proliferate like bugs at a picnic. A lot of work for a few sparks of revelation, followed by consignment to the remainder market.
Monetizing the bleeding edge of life is like being an infantryman in some memorable and historically significant military campaign. You need to survive in order to record your memoires, with actual publication to await perhaps decades before they are unearthed from all that stuff that gets collected along the way. It's also a way of recalling past events as they occurred. I have a cache of letters that wrote home from Germany sixty yeas ago when I was spending a year abroad. I haven't looked at them in years. Much of that time I was not writing anything because I didn't think much of what I was doing was worthwhile to commit to paper. I could not imagine an audience who mihht be interested in whatever I was experiencing in the moment. Some people are inveterate diariests, apparently because they were encouraged as young men and women to cherish those routine experiences as events worth memorializing. Now in my declining years, I see things a bit differently.
I keep reading “AI” as the man’s name—Al Capone, or Al Gore, or your Uncle Al.