Tuesday, January 27, 2026

AI - 0.02 - intro - why

AI - 0.02 - intro - why

Computers run our lives.  Even if you don't know about them, and even if you don't use them, computers run our lives.  You can, if you make extensive efforts, deliberately take yourself off the grid, and refuse to have any interaction with them.  But if you do that, you probably don't have any interaction with most of the rest of the human population.  So, while it's up to you, it's not really very realistic to try and avoid them all together.

Artificial intelligence doesn't run our lives; at least not quite yet.  As a matter of fact, I strongly suspect that artificial intelligence doesn't really run much of anything, at least not quite yet.  But, increasingly, artificial intelligence is going to have a significant effect and influence on you.  A lot of very large businesses, and most of the large giant tech businesses that increasingly *do* run our lives, are very, very keen on this idea of artificial intelligence.  They are promoting it, and governments are promoting it, and a lot of the world economies are promoting it, because a number of extremely expensive companies have been, very quickly, built to enormous levels of capital investment, on the basis of the idea and hope of artificial intelligence.

And, at this point, I have to make, rather earlier than I wanted to, the point that artificial intelligence is not a thing.  At least, artificial intelligence is not *one* thing.  Artificial intelligence is many things.  The term artificial intelligence covers a whole range of approaches to the idea of getting machines that will help us do our thinking.  The latest of these is what is more properly known as generative artificial intelligence (or genAI, for short) as produced by the large language model approach.  This is the technology behind a number of chatbots that are available to most people, even though most people, given the choice, are surprisingly afraid of interacting with them.  It is also part of the technology, and a large part of the technology, behind the systems producing visual graphics, and even videos, with very little effort on the part of those who are requesting them.  But I don't want to get too deeply into what this technology is, and how it works, and how it different differs from the other approaches to artificial intelligence, at least not quite yet.  I just want to make the point that there is a difference, and that it really isn't completely correct to call these new technologies simply artificial intelligence.

However, since the media, and the general public, and pretty much everybody is just simply referring to artificial intelligence, when what they really mean is generative artificial intelligence, I'm not going to fight that battle here.  I will, in this series, primarily be talking about generative artificial intelligence, and I will, frequently, just say artificial intelligence, or even just AI, when I'm talking about it, because everyone else does.

From my perspective, and I will get into the details of why somewhat later, generative artificial intelligence is, currently, a solution in search of a problem.  I know that many claims are being made for the wonders of what artificial intelligence can do.  But when you look at the reality of what they actually *do* do, particularly the chatbots and the image creators that generative artificial intelligence is currently supporting, you'll find that the results are, while sometimes quite surprising, not all that useful.  When you try and get an artificial intelligence system to produce a business plan for you, or create an app for you, or produce an advertising graphic for you, very often you have to put as much work into getting the system to produce something for you as you would to produce what it is that you want yourself.

But, while I think that generative artificial intelligence has a long way to go before they really get to the point of fulfilling an awful lot of the promises that are being made about them, the fact that an awful lot of people believe in the promises is having an impact on you.  It means that the companies running the technology that runs your lives are, increasingly, integrating generative artificial intelligence tools in every possible process and product that they run or provide.  This means that, even if you, yourself, don't want to interact with artificial intelligence, and don't want your products to rely on artificial intelligence, and don't really want to be involved in artificial intelligence in any way, you have less and less choice in the matter.  The big guys with the big money are buying into artificial intelligence as fast as they can, and this is bound to have an effect on you.

One of the effects could be financial.  So much money is being invested in artificial intelligence companies, and research, and products, that it is affecting stock markets and corporate capitalization.  If the promise of generative artificial intelligence isn't fulfilled, soon, that effect on the stock market, which is currently financially positive, is going to burst.  This is known as a stock market bubble, and bubbles burst.  It may be that generative artificial intelligence can improve fast enough that the stock markets will accept the growth, regardless of how slow it is, and keep on supporting the capitalization of these companies.  But bubbles are unstable.  And, if they burst, with the current capitalization of these artificial intelligence related companies, and the pressures on financial the negative pressures on financial markets then exists from a variety of other factors in our world, it could have a very significant impact on your finances.  Possibly on your job, possibly on your retirement plan, if the plan has invested heavily in artificial intelligence companies.  This isn't a guarantee, of course: absolutely nothing in the stock market is ever guaranteed.  But it is something to think about and pay attention to.

As with anything to do with the global economy, the effects are complex and the outcomes uncertain.  Possibly the massive overinvestment in AI companies is diverting money better spent elsewhere.  Possibly the massive investment if propping up stock markets in a situation where other pressures might be making it tank.  And possibly the research into genAI will actually result in valuable discoveries in other fields.  But dangers are there as well.

There are other effects of the current frenzy for artificial intelligence.  As I say, artificial intelligence tools are being Incorporated in all kinds of computer processes, and computers, as I said right at the beginning, run your world.  This is why I am writing this series of postings and articles.  I am trying to ensure that those of you who do take an interest, can get some information about what generative artificial intelligence really is, and isn't, what it can do for you, and what dangers it holds for you, as well.

There is a meme going around the Internet that shows a still frame from the now very old movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey."  The meme notes that the movie is very prescient, given that it shows people, eating prepared and reheated meals, sitting at tables, but, even though they are sitting next to each other, not interacting with each other, but rather working, or interacting with conversations on flat rectangular portable screens.  The meme also goes on to say that, shortly after this scene takes place, the artificially intelligent computer goes crazy, and kills everyone.

That isn't the only danger with artificial intelligence, and it's not even the most likely danger involving artificial intelligence.  But there are dangers, real dangers, that come with using artificial intelligence.  It's a good idea to know what artificial intelligence is, how it works, and what the dangers are, if you are going to use artificial intelligence in the best way, and avoid the worst problems.


AI topic and series
Next: TBA
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Monday, January 26, 2026

Sermon 69 - Ruth 4

Sermon 69 - Ruth 4


Whenever I am at a party, or an event, or any large gathering involving multiple rooms, I always wonder why human beings are so attracted to doorways.  We always stand in the doorway.  Maybe it's because of our FOMO: fear of missing out.  We can't decide which room we want to be in, so we stand in the doorway, so that we can look this way, or that, and see whether something more interesting is happening in the other room.

Okay, you say, interesting, but what does this have to do with Ruth?  Well, Boaz, as was indicated in the last sermon, immediately sets out to ensure that Ruth is married, and that it is done properly.  So he goes to the city gate.  Apparently, we are just as enamored of gateways, as we are with doorways.  So, if you want to find the important people of the city, you go to the city gate.  There the important people of the city are sitting around, wondering when somebody is going to get around to inventing coffee.

Boaz finds the guy who has the better claim than he does in the guardian redeemer scheme of things.  He also finds ten of the leading citizens of the city.  For some reason, even this early, Jews have decided to do things by tens.  You have ten people for a jury, you have ten people to make an important decision, you have ten people on the city council, for all we know.  And for an important issue such as property rights, you have to have ten witnesses.

It's interesting the different emphasis, or importance, that different cultures place on witnesses.  In our society, we tend to say that a witness is pretty important.  In court, witness testimony is supposedly the most important testimony of all the other types of evidence.  From studies both in law and in psychology I can tell you that witness testimony is really shaky.  But, we seem to assert that witnesses are important.

Actually, we don't.  Not, that is, in comparison to other cultures.  The Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation, or language group, that is prevalent here in Port Alberni, have a very high regard for witnesses.  In any important event, or meeting, the First Nation will actually hire (possibly for a token payment, but hire), witnesses to the event.  They have the responsibility for remembering, and possibly later reporting, on what happened.  If there are no witnesses, it didn't happen.

The Jewish culture of 1500 BC was definitely similar.  We see this even in the language.  There is the commandment that we tend to read as, don't lie.  But the actual meaning is much closer to the King James version: thou shalt not bear false witness.  This refers to witness testimony in court.  You are not to give incorrect witness testimony.  It has a much more legalistic, and much stronger, emphasis then we tend to think of it as.

So, Boaz gets witnesses.  This makes things official.  This makes things real.

And he lays it all out to the other guardian redeemer.  You have the right to buy the plot of land that belonged to our relative, Elimelek.  Do you want to buy it?  If you don't buy it, says Boaz, I will.  The other guardian redeemer says that he will.  Boaz brings up the point that, as soon as he buys that plot of land, he has to marry Ruth, so as to perpetuate the family line of the relative, Elimelek.  The other guardian redeemer changes his mind.  Given that he is perpetuating Elimelek's family line, that might jeopardize his own legacy.  You do it, he says.  And Boaz does.  He legalizes it, in the presence of witnesses, making everybody sure of what he has done, what he intends, and that this is all right and proper.

I really feel for Boaz, at this point.  Boaz is getting married late in life. I married Gloria rather late in life.  Boaz does not know what he is getting into.  He thinks he knows, but he really doesn't.  I know this, because I thought I knew what I was getting into when I got married, and I very definitely didn't.  Marriage is hard work.  Your life changes, a lot.  In a sense, there is a kind of grieving that goes on, when you get married, that is oddly similar to the kind of grieving that you go through when your spouse dies.  Now, an awful lot of the changes that go on, when you get married, are good.  As a matter of fact, fantastically good.  And no, I'm not just talking about the obvious.  I would never have published, all the books that I published, if I had not married Gloria.  When I married Gloria, I had no idea that this would be one of the results.  So, I know, for an absolute fact, that Boaz has no idea how his life is going to change.

For one thing, his mother-in-law is moving in with them.  I'm pretty certain that that's how it worked in this culture.  We really aren't told too much about what happens at this point, other than that a child is born, and that, eventually, Boaz and Ruth become David's great-grandparents.  I would really love to believe that they all lived happily ever after.  There isn't any thing to say that that didn't happen, but there isn't anything specific to say that it did.  I hope it did.  I see this as a terrific love story, and I'd really hate to think that it wasn't.  After all, we know that Boaz is a really decent guy, and we know that Ruth was terrifically committed to her mother-in-law.  They are both really good people, and so, it pretty much stands to reason that they will have a good marriage.  Possibly even a great marriage.  Everybody seems to see this as a good thing, particularly around the birth of the son, Obed.  Everybody showers blessings on them, and even Tamar (remember Tamar?) gets a mention, again.


Ruth series


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Saturday, January 24, 2026

AI - 0.00 - intro - table of contents

AI - 0.00 - intro - table of contents

Following up on some random conversations about generative artificial intelligence (or genAI, the current hot topic in the *much* wider field of artificial intelligence or AI) over the years, a friend recently noted that not only are the tech giant corporations doing their best to force us into participating in genAI, whether we want to or not, but that the government, which should be keeping an eye on this development with a view to protecting us from possible dangers, is, rather, jumping wholeheartedly on the genAI bandwagon, and desperately promoting any and all genAI businesses that pop up.

And asked a deceptively simple question: What can *we* do about AI?

As a teacher and a researcher, my immediate response is, of course, education.  Learn about it.  Teach yourself about it.  Get some free accounts on various generative artificial intelligence systems.  Play with them.  (Carefully.)  Ask them questions.  Judge the responses.

(Of course, the tech giants are trying to sneak genAI at you any way they can, and you have to watch out for that, but I'm working on it.)

He also noted that we should advocate for "the right to opt out."  This is probably the big one.  This is what you should be advocating for, and bringing up, every chance you get, in any conversation, so that people know that this is something that they should be paying attention to and striving towards.  But, of course, to be effective in this, and not just be dismissed as a crank, you also have to educate yourself.

So, as a teacher and a researcher, and one who has decades of experience in the field of information technology, and at least knows that AI is not *one* thing, but many, I probably have a bit of responsibility here.  I have written about genAI in recent years, and probably need to do more.

So, as a first step, I have gone back over some of my writings and postings over the past few years to try and identify, collect, and organize some of what I've *already* written about AI.  And this is a kind of table of contents (similar to that for grief topics), pulling together and semi-organizing what exists.

Then I can get on with filling in some of the blanks ...

Series:
https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/01/ai-000-intro-table-of-contents.html  (this)


Related:

Any friend that can be replaced by GPT-4 ...

ChatClauDeepGemGrokMeta
Initial (brief) overall review of various chatbots

LLM AI Bios
Deeper review of the ability of genAI to do bios

genAI sermon test

A few genAI chatbots you can test out with free accounts
https://x.com/i/grok (be *very* careful with this one)

Maturity Models and genAI

Meta-Bible

Sermon 38 - Truth, Rhetoric, and Generative Artificial Intelligence

Sermon 55 - genAI and Rhetoric
We have taught genAI rhetoric, but not metaphysics, epistemology, logic, or ethics.

Griefbots

No, I *don't* want Gemini to run my life, thanks all the same.
How to avoid getting trapped into being fed AI all the time

Magical "Singularity?"
(The "Singularity" is one of the "conspiracy theory" fears about AI, but it does have a small chance of being true.)

ELIZA: Why simplistic "listenbots" are so attractive

Sermon 29 - Marry a Trans-AI MAiD

Will genAI stifle *all* creativity?

Creativity is allowing genAI to make mistakes
(genAI "art" has some room to improve)

Connections, tools, research, writing, and AI contamination

Your Newly Nascent Hallucinating AI Overlords

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Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Stay safe ...

When we are at McDonalds on a break, if there are kids there, we generally hand out pedestrian reflectors.

However, on occasion, I must admit that we are sometimes forced to consider: do I *really* want to aid in perpetuating this particular gene strain? ...
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Sermon 68 - Ruth 3

Sermon 68 - Ruth 3


Ruth 3:1-4

One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, "My daughter, I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for.  Now Boaz, with whose women you have worked, is a relative of ours.  Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor.  Wash, put on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes.  Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.  When he lies down, note the place where he is lying.  Then go and uncover his feet and lie down.  He will tell you what to do."


And now we come to the really problematic part of the book and series.  Here, in chapter three, we have Naomi counseling Ruth to seduce Boaz, in order to trap him into a marriage.

Okay, maybe that's overstating it a bit, but that's certainly the way that it looks.  But let's break it down a bit.

First of all, Ruth has been very kind to, and supportive of, Naomi.  How on earth can Naomi repay any of this?  Well, she can take some thought to Ruth's future.  And Ruth's future is pretty bleak.  The Israelites are possibly not noted for their hospitality to foreigners, even though God keeps telling them to be kind to foreigners, because at one time they *were* foreigners.  So the Israelites are even commanded not to get too close to the foreigners.  Not to intermarry with them.  So Ruth, in a patriarchal society where there really is no place for the women, except as wives, may be in for a world of hurt when Naomi dies.  When Naomi dies, Ruth has basically no claim on the Israelite community at all.

So Naomi is probably correct in terms of thinking that getting Ruth married is possibly the most important thing that she, Naomi, can do for Ruth.  And we've already got a candidate.  Here is Boaz.  He is wealthy, and, from all indications, he's a pretty good guy.  He has treated Ruth more kindly than he needed to during the period of the harvest.  It seems to have a relation to one of the main themes of "Pride and Prejudice," by Jane Austen: when you have responsibility for daughters, what is more important than getting husbands for them?

We might question Naomi's plan, but, really, can you come up with a better one?

Naomi explains to Ruth about the harvest.  At the end of the harvest, when you have harvested, dried, and threshed all the grain, you have this enormous pile of the grain that is going to keep you over the next year.  It is the harvest festival.  It is the time of thanksgiving.  This is the time of gratitude for the fact that God has provided for you for the next year.  There is going to be a party.  Probably all the harvesters are going to be there.  I'm not sure about the women who are helping to clean up after the harvest.  Obviously there's going to be feasting.  And, as Naomi mentions, there's going to be an awful lot of drinking.  And as the party winds down, the people involved in the harvest, and particularly Boaz, are going to be sleeping there, turning in for the night, and sleeping beside this huge pile of grain which represents their security for the next year.  And they're probably going to be plastered.

It's pretty clear, from the instructions that Naomi gives Ruth, what she intends to happen.  Ruth is to wash and make herself up, wear perfume, and put on nice clothes.  She is not to participate in the party: she probably isn't invited.  But, as the party is winding down, she is to take note of where Boaz beds himself down beside the pile of grain.  And when he's asleep, she is to go and snuggle into bed with him.  I mean, this wording about uncovering his feet is pretty strange, but it's pretty clear what the implication is here.

Naomi is pretty sure that Boaz is going to wake up, be physically intimate with Ruth, and then, the next morning, feel guilty enough about it that he's going to have to marry her.  And then Ruth will be married and secure.

Well, Ruth goes along with this plan.  But, apparently, Boaz doesn't.  He wakes up in the middle of the night, and there's Ruth, basically in bed with him.  But he doesn't proceed in the way that Naomi seems to have foreseen.  Or, then again, maybe Naomi *did* foresee this.

Anyway, he realizes what is happening.  He realizes that Ruth is making a play for him.  And, as a matter of fact, he's pretty grateful for it.  Like I said, one of the reasons that we know that Boaz is older, is because he tells us so.  He says that he is grateful that Ruth has not gone after a younger man, in her search for husband.

He also doesn't sleep with her.  As a matter of fact, he takes great care with Ruth's reputation.  He gets up, before it's light, and makes sure that she is on the way home before anybody realizes that she has even been there.  But first he tells her that he will make sure that she is married.  He knows that he has the right of redemption of the property, and he also knows that along with the right of redemption comes the responsibility to marry Ruth.  He also knows that there is one person who has a closer claim than he does.  So he tells Ruth this, and tells her that he will make sure that this is addressed.

So, Ruth is off home, and reports all this to Naomi.  And Naomi seems to know Boaz pretty well.  She tells Ruth not to worry: the situation is going to be resolved, and resolved quickly.  Boaz will not rest until he puts things right, and does it the right way.

Boaz is going to do it by the book.  He isn't going to sleep with Ruth on the threshing floor, and then have a hurry-up marriage to cover things up.  As a matter of fact, he's not even going to get engaged to Ruth at all, at least, not right away.  There is somebody else who has a greater claim, and Boaz, as much as he may want to, and there are indications that he wants to, is not going to jump the line.  He is going to do it properly.  He is going to do the right thing, but he's also going to do the right thing in the right way.


Ruth series


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Job 30:20-23

Job 30:20-23

I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer;
    I stand up, but you merely look at me.
You turn on me ruthlessly;
    with the might of your hand you attack me.
You snatch me up and drive me before the wind;
    you toss me about in the storm.
I know you will bring me down to death,
    to the place appointed for all the living.
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Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Gboard, recidivus

As I have mentioned before, I hate soft keyboards on phones, and I tend to use Gboard for dictating to my phone when creating pretty much anything.

Gboard is not perfect. Today, however, it seems to be particularly glitchy, and is creating messes out of the simplest text that I dictate into it.
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