More artificial intelligence, less human intelligence

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

While not officially a mechanic, my father is fairly well-versed in the workings of the combustible engine, its accompanying components and other such machines.

'You can leave your brain at reception. It's not needed here.'

In the rural Ireland of his youth, the sight of a car was a memorable event. Thus, being more technical than academic — the latter wasn't really open to him in any case — he was drawn to discover how these mesmerising motors operated. From what I've witnessed, many of his peers from similar backgrounds did likewise.

In this earlier phase in the rise of the machines, it seems the desire to understand the transformative technology was widespread.

That the rate of change was slower and physically more in one's face, so to put it, this inclination to educate oneself about the new developments made much sense. Even Luddites had a decent grasp of what they were opposing.

AI kills the radio and video stars

Today's more rapid change, occurring in what is a largely intangible ethersphere, even for netizens, has left many of us in the dark about the workings of the digital devices driving our daily interactions.

When problems arise, as they invariably do, one is unlikely to have a DIY solution, outside of a reboot or the more drastic factory reset. And, as most will know only too well, many digital difficulties, online obstacles, require a fix far more convoluted than an unassisted system restart.

In my November 2022 piece, The digital dystopia, I wrote about some of these tech troubleshooting travesties.

'Large language models aren't quite at the stage where they can churn out Churchillian-style rhetoric but, by all accounts, they can come up with bread-and-butter prose satisfactorily.'

Now, with the inexorable advance of artificial intelligence (AI), not only are many of us ignorant about the nuts and bolts that put it together, but its raison d'être is to do the majority of thinking for us.

Rather than go through the hassle of doing strenuous study, racking your brain, AI will rake the internet for you and come up with a satisfying solution almost instantly.

So on the artificial face of it, life will be less arduous.

In my line of work — if I can be said to have one — the need for human editors and proofreaders will greatly diminish, nay already is diminishing.

Grammarly and the like have been aiding writers for the last number of years. Such grammar software is far from perfect but it's improving rapidly. (As Grammarly currently is, I wager that it's better than the average native English speaker at spotting grammatical errors.)

If Grammarly is taking the place of the real-life editor or, worse still, the need for one to grasp basic grammar, ChatGPT and its competitors are doing away with the need to be able to write in the first instance. Again, these large language models (LLMs) aren't quite at the stage where they can churn out Churchillian-style rhetoric — who amongst us can? — but, by all accounts, they can come up with bread-and-butter prose satisfactorily.

I imagine that LLMs will do — perhaps already are doing — a lot of the heavy lifting in compiling TV/radio news bulletins and suchlike. Heck, this might even tempt me back to the newsroom! (Refer to my piece Making the bell toll for us while we still can for more on my previous newsroom nightmares. The DJ-3000 from The Simpsons episode Bart Gets an Elephant, first aired on 31 March 1994, also comes to mind here!)

As for learning a foreign language, this could become obsolete save for those who have a special interest in it. Surely, in the very near future, Google Translate will be viewed as a caveman-like tool for communicating in a non-native tongue. 'What, back in the early 2020s you still largely tried to speak a foreign language?'

Active intelligence

With all of these AI tools, one can try to be an active, inquisitive user. I mean active here in the sense of not merely accepting uncritically the AI answers. For example, coming back to grammar, if it suggests a correction, one should at least know why it's doing so.

In this way, one can also learn. The rise of AI doesn't have to signal Armageddon for humans — or at least Armageddon for the use of one's critical faculties.

While engines and motors rendered certain lines of employment redundant, it can be argued that they paved the way for today's health and fitness industry. Work for many of us may be more sedentary now compared to previous generations, yet we still seek physical stimulation — be that simulation or real. And machines have certainly helped bring about mass tourism, problematic as that has become all the same.

Similarly, AI comes with opportunities and challenges. Some academics and experts fear it has far more of the latter. For sure, it is set to be more intimately disruptive in the lives of every one of us compared to previous technological advancements.

With that in mind, should refusing to engage with AI become next to impossible, trying to ensure that we remain in control of it rather than it controlling us, is key.

Keeping well informed and as much in the know as possible is a start. The overall direction of travel, though, suggests we're entering an AI Bright Age, with a new Dark Age for human intelligence.
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Warning! Being true to yourself causes harm

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

'If you ever meet a woman ... Just be yourself, Dougal. Be yourself, make them feel at ease and, the golden rule, always let them have their way. It's easiest in the long run.'

That was the advice proffered by Father Ted in an episode of the eponymous Irish-made, British-produced 1990s sitcom to his dimwit understudy Father Dougal.

Father Ted (c) & Father Dougal with the radical feminist Niamh Connolly (image from YouTube).

Self-harm

Acting on that advice later when left on his own in their parochial house, Dougal hands over the residence free of charge to a radical feminist singer — a character unquestionably based on Sinead O'Connor.

When Ted returns he is, unsurprisingly, aghast at what's happened. How could it have transpired?

Dougal tells him that he was just following his advice to 'be yourself'. Ted clarifies: 'Be yourself is just something people say. Never be yourself with women. Never, never, never!'

As for the golden rule mentioned previously, Ted downgrades that to the silver rule. The golden rule is, he says, 'if anyone is ever talking to you again, think about what you're saying and then don't say it. And then just run away somewhere.'

Comedy gold and, if I do say so myself, it has aged like a fine wine.

Of course, the idea of finding and being yourself, your true self, is one that has been parroted by the finest of philosophers and self-help gurus through the ages.

'In today's cancel-culture world dominated by those who perniciously call themselves liberals, many influential individuals appear more prepared to toe the line than to raise what should be considered as reasonable objections.'

Like many philosophical mantras, it sounds quite wonderful in theory yet its practical application can be rather troublesome — vide Father Dougal.

Public puppets

In the powerful, interconnected spheres of media and politics, where it could be said that being true to oneself would be beneficial not just personally but for society at large, we generally get anything but that.

It's more a case of, 'What can I do and say that matches the dominant narrative, that will keep me onside with those who shout the loudest?' This is what tends to drive public discourse and action, not any real conviction.

In my topsy-turvy, on-off 15-year media career, I've lost count of the times when I've spoken to interviewees or fellow colleagues off the record about certain topics only for them to say at the end, 'but we can't say that on-air.' There's a certain image that has to be maintained. In other words, 'I can't really be true to myself because I fear some people won't like it.'

The argument can be made that shooting from the hip — or from the fingertips, à la a certain Donald Trump — isn't very becoming of those in positions of power, that it often causes more harm than good. That's not the point. 

One can still display decorum yet speak one's mind. (I'm not, to refer to another comedy classic, calling for a be-like-the-boy approach from The Simpsons episode Bart's Inner Child, which resulted in a descent into chaos. I'm on about mature discussion.)

Yet, in today's cancel-culture world dominated by those who perniciously call themselves liberals, many influential individuals appear more prepared to toe the line than to raise what should be considered as reasonable objections.

Wisdom paradox

From gender issues and white privilege to climate change and coronavirus-containment measures, there is much we still don't know. Thus, those who aggressively proclaim, like religious zealots, that their path is the right one should not be given a free pass.

Going against our true selves out of fear or for career prospects or suchlike will only lead to frustration and even misery. 

Yes, there's every chance one may be wrong or burning bridges in pursuing a certain course but if one fundamentally believes in it, then it's best to stick with it.

This isn't to say that a person's opinions can't change when and if the circumstances dictate or irrefutable data suggest otherwise. 

Again, the idea of being true to yourself isn't about being right or wrong in the exact moment, it's more about congruence with the fundamentals of your character. In other words, don't try to be somebody else.

Many, however, for the mistaken belief that it will lead to a less stressful, easier life, often follow Father Ted's revised golden rule. They don't say anything. They let others do their thinking for them.

Indeed, the Catholic Church built its vast power on such indoctrination. That institution's force has been on the wane for decades. 

Yet, there are many, arguably more insidious types, stepping into the breach. Beware of those radicals, Dougal.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

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Colombia, not up to the Covid test

In a classic episode of The Simpsons — in its heyday — a temporarily housebound Bart suspects that do-gooder neighbour Ned Flanders is about to murder his wife. 

He frantically calls the police and gets through to a ridiculous pre-record of options. In haste, he chooses regicide, whereupon the pre-record goes on to ask him, 'If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press one.'

So some people are getting tests, but who exactly? (Image from Facebook.)

Cartoon comedy at its best, but, of course, it would never happen like that in real life.

Honestly, it wouldn't. In fact, in Colombia — or Bogotá at least — when it comes to tackling what we've been told is the biggest peril of our time, Covid-19 (all other life-threatening conditions are now irrelevant), that Simpsons episode is actually an improvement.

I know of a handful of cases where people either suspect, with good reason, that they have the infection or they've been in close contact with someone who has tested positive. When they prudently go looking for a test they have to wait hours for their call to be answered — there's not even a pre-record of options to amuse oneself for a time.

Being on hold for ages might be OK for those with an unlimited-calls plan, but I certainly wouldn't have the patience or money to burn to wait for more than 10 minutes in such a scenario.

You give me fever

If and when one does get through to the health provider — the curate's egg that is the EPS system — there is an initial over-the-phone diagnosis. The guiding principle for being considered for a test appears to be the presence or not of a fever.

If you're fever-free, be about your business. If not, 'we'll get back to you to arrange a test.' For one acquaintance, two weeks have passed and still no word. Remember, we're talking about what effectively is the only health concern in town these days and this is how it's been dealt with.

'One reason being mooted for what is at best a tardiness, at worst an unwillingness to test, is that the system has collapsed. The more likely explanation is that they simply don't want to do it due to the cost.'

What about other potentially fatal conditions? Say your prayers and hope for the best it would seem. Sure you can beat cancer with no more than a positive attitude didn't you know? Think away that heart attack.

It must be said that for those who have been in the company of an infected person, as one friend has, there is some willingness to test. Again, though, all in its own good time. And don't be in a panic for the result, either.

One reason being mooted for what is at best a tardiness, at worst an unwillingness to test, is that the system has collapsed. The health providers are overwhelmed. They'd love to be able to test but they simply can't.

There might be a modicum of truth to that. However, the more likely scenario — considering past form of avoiding procedures on your typical José Bloggs who's not a big contributor to the system in the hope that he'll either go away and/or die — is that the EPSs don't want to shoulder the costs.

If you go privately and have, as one Bogotá hospital charges, 280,000 pesos to hand over, no problem. But if you're on basic health insurance, to the back of the queue with you, a queue that is not being attended to at that.

Immune to good governance

So while city and state authorities are imposing lockdowns to their hearts' content, without the intelligent practices of testing and contact tracing, they're effectively playing whack-a-virus blindfolded. Do also remember, the initial point of the lockdowns was to buy time for the health services to prepare for the inevitable peak.

Well, we're now entering that stage and what groundwork have they put in? Not an awful lot it seems, apart from scaremongering with case figures without any context.

What's more, considering the irrational stigma surrounding Covid-19 amongst the masses, something the government and media have played a significant role in generating (see previous sentence), properly planned wholesale testing could help to counteract this. What we have instead are people frightened to even just look for tests and a health system doing its best to avoid administering them.

Now the jury is still out on lasting immunity to coronavirus. Yet, should it turn out that those who contract it do indeed build up defences, coupled with those who don't suffer from it at all, Colombia might just stumble into "safer" territory in a few months, albeit faced with a raft of other long-term problems.

This will have been, for the most part, despite the measures and actions taken by those in charge, not because of them. As we've seen oft-times before here, authorities have (on occasions) talked a good game but when it comes to playing it, they're found badly wanting.

We'll get over coronavirus and the associated hysteria at some stage. The maladministration, that's a far deeper issue, one that is arguably even deadlier than Covid-19. We've no immunity to it. Nor do we have a vaccine to combat it.

There is always that helpline to call. 'We'll get back to you tomorrow, sir.' The thing is, tomorrow never comes.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz". 

Cracking the (Colombian) Spanish code

'When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done.' It's very difficult to argue against that one. As a species, we're good at talking a good talk, but we don't always follow it up with the appropriate action if and when required.

You could just leave it at EU, lads ... (Image from elgranporque.com)

Alongside 'said' in the opening saying, we can add 'written' (yes, this coming from a blogger and all). The legal world is quite adept at that. The old adage of 'less is more' seems anathema to it. It likes to make things that should be pretty straightforward to comprehend – and act upon – come across as if they were written by somebody not of this world.

Yet, some languages – specifically Spanish (Colombian Spanish, anyway) in this case – are more culpable than others in this regard, and it's not exclusive to the legal sphere.

A common observation among those who translate Spanish to English here in Colombia is that the former is overly and unnecessarily wordy. 

Indeed, it can be quite the head-scratcher to figure out what's being said. This tends to be worse if someone has made a literal translation of his/her Spanish into English and asks you to proofread.

Of course, it's not always best practice to directly translate from one language to another, each one has its peculiarities, but what we're getting at here is what seems to be the same thing said a number of times, just in different ways. Plus, a lot of the time it's written in ridiculously long sentences devoid of punctuation.

In reference to the revised peace agreement between the Colombian government and Farc guerrillas, Britain's Guardian newspaper, inadvertently perhaps, touched on this: "Although the text of the new agreement was not immediately published, the president, Juan Manuel Santos, laid out certain changes in a televised speech. Some are little more than clarifications of the often-vague language of the text. Other modifications are more substantial."

For those who have had to work with Spanish texts before, that 'often-vague language' is something that will resonate. 

In legal and political contexts, as happens with other languages, it might be deliberate: leave things open to as many interpretations as possible. A reason, perhaps, why the Colombian constitution is quite lengthy. However, Spanish seems to bring this verbose approach to every sphere.

On a more trivial note, take abbreviations, where there is a doubling up on letters in some cases. For example, the United States (US), ' Estados Unidos' in Spanish, is written 'EEUU' in the abbreviated form. 'Fuerzas Militares' (literally 'Military Forces') abbreviates as 'FFMM'. (It's to do with plural terms, although it's not done in all cases.) Think about ink costs when printing these things out, guys!

Going slightly off-topic, football commentators in these parts are masters at making an uneventful football match seem as if it's the most exciting thing ever, spluttering out a thousand words a minute. The Simpsons did a good take on this years ago (back when The Simpsons was enjoyable).

There are a lot of things to like about the (Colombian) Spanish language and culture. It just seems that at times it could do with a bit of streamlining. 

There might be more than one way to write the same thing, but you don't need to put them all down at the same time.
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Giving just a little bit 'extra'

Colombia. For those unfamiliar with the place, the country conjures up images of cocaine, violent crime, prostitution and other such ‘ghastly’ affairs. 

For others, especially those who have spent some time here, they generally come away with a far more positive image of the land – relatively friendly, helpful people, fantastic scenery together with a wonderfully diverse natural environment. 

One thing, though, that the average person would not instantly think of when they hear the word Colombia is the ‘glamorous’ world of TV extras work. It’s not something that sprang to our mind anyway. 

Yet, as we’ve slowly been discovering, if you’re an extranjero/foreigner here, there seems to be a strange demand for your acting ‘talents’ – or at least your ability to stand around as an additional body while there’s a camera rolling.

In demand - getting 'made-up' for 'Colombia Tiene Talento'.

Of course, this strong demand for non-natives may just simply be seasonal – so in one sense we should ride the wave while it’s in full flow. We are, after all, getting a chance to see inside a quite surreal world that in our home country getting access to might not be as easy. 

In theory, it’s a great gig. Getting paid – eventually, that is – reasonably well for doing very little. Getting fed – eventually, that is – for free while on-set. 

For some, the chance to rub shoulders with semi-famous actors/actresses is also appealing. Plus, there’s the chance that you might get lucky and land a brief speaking part – an opportunity that presented itself to us here recently. 

There’s much more to ‘Wrong Way’s’ acting talents than being just a silent body you know – or a flag waver (see http://bit.ly/KT00gx from 2’ 30’’ onwards). 

We won’t let the fact that the speaking role is in one of the numerous, remarkably cheesy dramas – or ‘telenovelas’ to give them their proper title – that somehow are quite popular here. These ‘gems’ make Ireland’s Fair City look half decent.

So, in this Colombian extras world, if your face fits the bill – or the powers that be feel you might be able to fill a gap for them – you become very important. 

In the back of almost every extras mind, especially those who are relying on the work to survive, is the hope that they’ll become an indispensable part of a production, thereby guaranteeing somewhat steady employment for a time – evolving into a super extra, if you will. 

It could be said they’re looking for their Bart Simpson 'I didn’t do it’ moment', in a sense (see The Simpsons episode 512 – ‘Bart Gets Famous’).

Super extra: 'Your papers, please.'

Now, as exciting as all this may sound, once the novelty factor wanes, as it undoubtedly does, prostituting yourself out to various productions becomes tiring, to say the least. 

At the same speed you can be picked from obscurity to become a super extra, you are just as rapidly cast aside when you’re not wanted anymore. If that happens to be your fate, when you’re quite literally just making up the numbers, then that apparently gives the production team the right to treat you like a dog. 

Well, actually a little bit worse. At a recent shooting, where dogs were required, we discovered that the canine thespians were getting paid more than the average extra. 

What’s more, they didn’t have to hang around all day like council workers – once their scene was shot, off they went, with their tales very firmly wagging in the air.

Then there’s the food – or the waiting for it to be more specific. They do say that the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. We tend to go along with that. 

So if you make us wait unnecessarily long for some grub, then you can expect a backlash. OK, fair enough, they feed you – I suppose they don’t have to. But it’s the blatant inequality of it all that irks us. 

On one side you have the ‘important’ people, dining in comfort and at will. Then you have the extras. As soon as the break for lunch is called the rush of these nobodies to the dining area is like a herd of buffalo on the charge. 

Lord help you if you’re one of the last to the queue – a long, long wait is in store while you watch the ‘stars’ and production team dine in relative splendour. 

There’s also the strong possibility that by the time you do get served, the food is either cold or there’s hardly any left.

'Save some for me, por favor!'

So, you may ask, if your lot is just a run-of-the-mill extra, why continue with it all? 

Well, as ever, money talks, so if you happen to be free when you get ‘that’ call from an agency saying your services are required, it can be hard to turn down. The aggravating, depressing aspects from the last time usually subside. 

There’s also that dream, that hope, that you may just get your big break this time around – your Bart Simpson ‘I didn’t do it’ moment in the spotlight. If you’re not in, you can’t win and all that. 

But like most things in these parts, as regular readers will be aware by now, the best advice is as follows: Don’t whatsoever rely on it but if you have to, then do not, in any case, take it seriously.