Encyclopedia, Partner, or Agent? Our Take on Using AI

PART 1: THE THEORY

I am not an AI expert. I am a semi-retired former IT professional and a current Adjunct Professor, I am on a voyage of discovery, trying to figure out how this new technology fits into a life focused on vitality and connection.

In my first month of tinkering with “The Serenity Project,”, much of which was documented in earlier posts, I realized that “Using AI” is too vague a term. It’s like saying “Using Electricity”—it covers everything from a nightlight to a Tesla. Is it being too political to note that if I were to buy a Tesla, Ellen would make me sleep in it at night? Regardless, to make sense of how AI can be of help (and when it might not), I’ve found that it useful to look at AI interaction in three distinct modes.

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Why I Argue with My Computer (And Why It Wins)

I realized recently that I do my best thinking when I’m arguing. I don’t need someone to be right; I need them to be obstinate. I need friction.

The problem with retirement—or just working alone—is that there is nobody to push back. And as I’ve discovered, nobody wants to argue with Excel. You can’t have a debate with a search bar.

This is why I built the Board of Advisors. I didn’t just want an AI that could answer questions; I wanted a team that had opinions. I wanted a “Chief of Staff” (Janeway) who would nag me about logic, and a “Marketing Director” (Ogilvy) who would criticize my headlines.

I want to show you what that actually looks like. Below is a transcript from a recent session where we tackled a massive technical problem: Memory.

What you’ll see isn’t a man typing code. It’s a man having a staff meeting with ghosts, trying to figure out if they actually exist when the lights go out.

Part 1: The “Ghost in the RAM” (Defining Reality)

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The Performance Review: When the AI Interviews Itself

INTRODUCTION: Welcome back to “Building The Board,” my ongoing experiment in turning Gemini into a staff of distinct personalities to help me manage my post-full-time life.

If you’ve been following along, you know I have a “Chief of Staff” named Janeway (modeled after the Star Trek captain) and a “Marketing Director” named David Ogilvy. Usually, I am the one asking them questions. I prompt; they answer.

Yesterday, I tried something different. I wanted to see what happens when I leave the room.

I decided to let the Board conduct a “Performance Review” of Janeway. I didn’t write the interview questions, and I didn’t moderate the discussion. I simply spun up the simulation, assigned the roles, and let the agents talk to each other.

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The Long Silence and The New Noise

The Long Silence and The New Noise

It has been seven years since I last posted here. July 28, 2018, to be exact. I wrote a review of a movie called The Breadwinner, hit “Publish,” and essentially walked out of the room. I didn’t intend to leave; I just got busy.

The Gap Life has a way of filling the vacuum. In those seven years, the “Technoverse” didn’t stop, and neither did I. I went from being a “Recovering CIO” to a full-time academic administrator. I spent years as a Department Chair at UMGC, navigating the chaos of the pandemic, managing hundreds of faculty, and eventually piloting a “Metaversity” project that brought Virtual Reality into the classroom.

I wasn’t writing about technology because I was too busy building it.

Then, on November 1, 2024, the noise stopped. I stepped down from my full-time role. I “retired” (mostly).

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The Breadwinner

Finished watching a wonderful animated tale about a young girl in <relatively> modern Afghanistan, the complexities of her life in general, her desperate attempt to see her father who is taken from her family, and interspersed her story about the Elephant King, The Breadwinner.

A daughter/father thing, I, of course teared up.

It remains my opinion that one can judge a society by how women and children are treated within that society.

And as the girl quotes in the movie from Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, “Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” We all might remember that these days.

More Helpful Hints Around the House From Me

So if your wife (spouse, significant other) goes to Book Expo in New York City, I have some advice for what to do, and  not to do around the house.

First, if you want to warm a piece of frozen Naan in the microwave, do NOT assume that the heating directions especially timing are the same for a microwave instead of the specified toaster oven, especially when the toaster oven setting was not specified as HIGH.

Second, if you ignore my first piece of advice, do not when you do that go outside to take out the trash, check the mail, and then slowly return to the then smoking microwave where the Naan sort of caught on fire.

Interestingly, one unexpected feature of ignoring my first two pieces of advice is that you may find that the circuit connected to the microwave is completely fried and if that circuit is the same one the refrigerator is connected to then that will not work also. Turning circuit breakers on and off does little good since it is the wiring that has gone to electrical heaven – though you might also observe the other exciting experience of having everything that is electrical in the entire house that can be rebooted do so.

Happily after moving all of the food from the upstairs refrigerator to the basement refrigerator, got to get those extra steps in, the electrician this morning was able to fix everything in approximately five minutes.

I am reminded that it is a good thing that Book Expo only happens once a year, who knows what I might end up doing during my wild, crazy bachelor week at home.

Glad to be of help.

 

This Year’s Passover Seder

Every year we host, well mostly Ellen to be honest, I just show up, she does all the work. This year is the 20th year we will have done this.

Anyway, every year we host a Passover Seder with anywhere from 15-25 attendees. Ellen has allowed me to adapt the Seder to be something I can understand better (I can read Hebrew very slowly alliteratively but do not understand what I am reading. I learned enough to not embarrass my family when I did my Bar Mitzvah mumble-mumble years ago, but that was about it.

We use a Haggadah called A Different Night which includes Hebrew and English passages from which we select selections. In addition we have a theme each year which reflects something we think is important, as you might expect the theme ties at least loosely to the broad Passover theme of achieving freedom. What I wrote as introduction for this year is:

“As we said last year, tumultuous events have been happening and continue to happen that divide the world, our country, our friends, and even, sometimes, our families. So much of that division results from our disagreements on the use of language, of ideas, and even our interpretation of facts – a more malleable term than most of us have traditionally been used to. Our Exodus narrative assumes we have a common understanding of first principles, when that becomes less true, what then?”

Finally, I wander around the Internet and pull together quotes that relate to all of the above for people to read during the Seder.

I have attached my annual write-up and the quotes we will be using this year.

Seder Notes 2018

2018 Passover Quotes – Part I

2018 Passover Quotes – Part 2

2018 Passover Quotes – Part 3

All You Need To Know About the Internet In Two Rules

I have written about the Internet in the past and how it has changed society. For example, some thoughts on the Internet of Things:

https://www.ourownlittlecorner.com/2014/11/21/health-it-mobility-wearables-and-the-internet-of-things/

My searching for information as to whether our whole approach to examining the Universe is upside down:

https://www.ourownlittlecorner.com/2015/06/21/what-if-everything-is-wrong/

And my revelation that I married the Internet, though I have a feeling I may have made a classical mistake between the use of the word ‘literally’ and ‘figuratively’:

https://www.ourownlittlecorner.com/2012/01/22/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk-or-how-i-literally-married-the-internet/

So to start you off for the new year, my two rules of the Internet:

Rule 1: Everything that you might ever need to know or want to know is in the Internet

Rule 2: It is all true

That’s it. Everything else is derived from those two rules.

Have a great 2018.

A Random Thought About the 2020 Presidential Election

Up until now the only President who was younger than I was at the time has been President Obama.

Remarkably with Trump likely to seek re-election and active talk about Joe Biden running, Bernie Sanders running, and even, amazingly, Hillary Clinton running, there is a reasonable chance that that even after 2020, the total count of Presidents younger than me will stay at one.

My Quick Review of Guardians of the Galaxy 2

If you liked Guardians of the Galaxy you will really like Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

If you did not like Guardians of the Galaxy you are overly adult, an attribute, as I have pointed out frequently, which is highly overrated.

For your listening pleasure

And finally one of the truly greatest film scenes ever. If you do not like it do not see either film.