Tech Break: Run, It’s AI!

K, last year, it was easier to point and laugh at AI. ChatGPT was hallucinating and DALL-E was cranking out crazy images. But once the New Year hit, it’s like AI decided to shape up and get mad fit. Now Google’s incorporating AI into searches. Microsoft is sprinkling AI into Office, Studio, and Azure. Even my Word Press theme is all like “Hey, want me to auto-generate this post for you?” We seem so close to Genuine People Personalities. It’s like every company is shouting for AI to be in “EVERYTHING!“.

Now folks are laughing less and worrying more about AI’s pervasiveness and potential to squeeze out the efforts of humans. There might be a bit of cyclical technology panic at play with these concerns. Folks seem to freak out from time-to-time when new tech is introduced into society. That’s how we get plays like The Adding Machine and goofy Star Trek villains like Nomad.

An author at a recent library event expressed similar anxieties in a candid moment after someone brought up the specter of AI-created ebooks. I could understand the author’s fears, but the geek in me could also see the more benevolent outcome to the story. What if AI becomes more Jarvis than Ultron; more Holly and less HAL? What if we apply AI as more of a tool like the Enterprise computer without it evolving into the unrestrained Skynet?

Along those hopeful lines, here’s some links to real-life news where AI supplements our brains without supplanting them. Beyond that, there’s also some books about intelligent machines.

Lastly, in case you wonder what’s up with that Community reference, here’s the original for kicks. And if you want more DALL-Es, here’s some bonus pics. As always, Explore and Enjoy!

Useful News

Stories

No.	Desc.	Store
1.	The Caves of Steel (The Robot Series Book 1) by Isaac Asimov Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer. The relationship between Life and his Spacer superiors, who distrusted all Earthmen, was strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel Olivaw. Worst of all was that the “R” stood for robot—and his positronic partner was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!	9.99
2.	The Wounded Sky by Diane Duane An alien scientist invents the Intergalactic Inversion Drive, an engine system that transcends warp drive—and the U.S.S Enterprise will be the first to test it! The Klingons attempt to thwart the test, but a greater danger looms when strange symptoms surface among the crew—and time becomes meaningless. Now Captain Kirk and his friends face their greatest challenge—to repair the fabric of the Universe before time is lost forever! Included in this list because the Enterprise computer acquires a sentient personality thanks to an upgrade applied by Herb Tanzer, the Chief Recreation Officer.	1.99
3.	The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams The celebrated series by Douglas Adams collected into one volume. Included in this list because of the iconic and clinically depressed android Marvin, the Heart of Gold ship's AI, and all of the other ancillary AI systems on the ship supplied by the Syrius Cybernetic Corporation, a company of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.	13.99
4.	Red Dwarf Omnibus: Red Dwarf And Better Than Life by Grant Naylor Two-novel collection encapsulating the first four seasons of the cult series Red Dwarf plus the first draft of the original TV pilot script. The main Character, Dave Lister, is celebrating his twenty-fourth birthday on a Monopoly board pub crawl round London, and somehow ends up three million years from Earth, marooned in the wrong dimension of the wrong reality, and down to his last two cigarettes. Together with a dead man, a senile computer, a deranged sanitation mechanoid with an overactive guilt chip and the best-dressed entity in all six known universes, the last remaining member of the human race begins his epic journey home.	23.16
5.	All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells A fast, fun read! On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.	4.99
6.	A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers Book 2) by Becky Chambers The sequel to the acclaimed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. This second book in the Wayfarers series takes a deep-dive into what had been the Wayfarer ship's systems AI. Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in a new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who’s determined to help her learn and grow.	11.99
7.	A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.	11.99