Tag: AI

Bygone Talents

“A talent grows by being used, and withers if it is not used.” – May Sarton

We had an interesting Family Facetime call with our four adult children yesterday. I was reminded of my latest addition to my inspirational journals (see above) when my eldest son asked my daughter when she thought she was at the height of her tennis game. Without a beat, she answered that it was her junior and senior years of high school, because she averaged playing tennis four hours a day during that time period.

Our middle son is the one of us seemingly most interested in artificial intelligence and so he shared a really sobering article with us, written by a man named Matt Shumer, who is in the AI field of business:

https://shumer.dev/something-big-is-happening

I highly recommend reading this article. I didn’t read it until this morning and it really got my wheels turning (and admittedly, my stomach churning). Yes, it’s another article telling us that our vocations are all going to be replaced by AI, much sooner than we think. The article makes logical sense. It also brought me around to this whole idea of “talent” again.

What if our natural talents are what AI is best at? What if AI makes our natural talents look like child’s play? What if what we are talented at isn’t really where our hearts lie? That seems to be one of life’s cruelties sometimes. People who would die to play the guitar masterfully, can’t seem to keep their chords straight and those who play by ear, would rather be basketball stars. And do we sometimes look at our own talents too broadly? For example is my daughter’s real talent playing tennis or is it her hand/eye coordination and natural athletic ability? Does she just apply her talent to what she likes to do? Do we think we are not talented because we have considered the idea of “talent” too broadly? Isn’t there talent in being particularly dogged or having a sharp eye for detail or listening to understand? Our talents are actually the nuances that people notice about us. Our talents are the traits of ours that stand out as different and appreciable and notable, no matter how subtle these differences may be.

I’ll be pondering a lot about “talent” this next week. The dictionary says that “talent” is our natural aptitude or skills. But we don’t always find ourselves interested in our own aptitudes and skills, do we? And are our talents more specific than we realize and thus can be applicable to a lot more actions than we realize? For instance, a lot of these Olympian figure skaters that we have been watching recently, could obviously choose to be fine dancers or gymnasts instead. The figure skaters have chosen to apply their natural abilities to a singular focus of ice skating.

It seems to me, that at the dawn of this AI revolution, we must be adaptable and curious, as the author emphatically states in his article, but we also must be curious about our own selves and our own talents, besides what AI is capable of doing. We must be curious about how we can adapt ourselves and our talents to this new era of working right along with machines. We must ask ourselves which of our talents are worth honing and putting the time in, for our own sense of purpose and meaning and satisfaction. We mustn’t fear AI. It’s too late for that – the wheels are already turning quickly. (as Byron Katie says, “When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100 percent of the time.”) Perhaps the strongest among us, will hone in on and sharpen our most human qualities, traits, talents and also our flaws. These things might become the most quaint, beautiful, treasured, appreciable, distinguishable lost relics of a time period which we all might have already walked out of, with the door behind us closing more quickly than we ever expected.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Write from the Heart, Right from the Heart

On Friday, on somewhat of a whim, I wrote two long, heartfelt letters to people (and their spouses) who have worked with my husband for a long, long time. Both of these men are retiring from their long, successful careers at the end of this year. And so I sent them each letters and a small gift and then I woke up on Saturday morning with a vulnerability hangover. I get vulnerability hangovers a lot, because I tend to get deep. I tend to get quite open with people whom I care about, and then afterwards I feel kind of exposed and embarrassed for sharing my deepest, heartfelt thoughts. It’s a really sick, scary feeling honestly.

But then this morning, I received a text from my husband whose colleague was “gushing” about my letter. He told my husband that receiving the letter made he and his wife’s day. And at that moment, any ounce of regret and terror I had felt from my vulnerability hangover, vanished with a feeling of happiness that I had risked my open heart, to add love and sincerity to my words.

Supposedly, so much of what we read on the internet is now being written by AI. Teachers have new tools to figure out what percentage of their students’ writings are being written by Chat GPT and others. Apparently, the percentages are quite high. All expectations are is that this is only going to increase.

Still, I strongly believe that as humans, we intuitively know the difference without any tools to tell us. Robots don’t have hearts. Sincerity is hard to fake, even for other humans. It takes two open hearts to feel a true connection. It takes gumption and feeling to be vulnerable with someone, and it takes strength and humility to be able to receive someone else’s message from the heart, and to believe it and to be grateful for it.

When AI started really coming into the news, I think that a lot of us writers/creative types felt a little panicky that we would become obsolete. We started to fear that a vocation that is already finicky, low-to-no paying, and not often highly valued, would become our own hungry ghost – putting our efforts (and honestly, our deep compulsion to write) into the darkest realm of oblivion and obsoletion. But then I remembered some of the most amazing lines I have ever read and they were all written by humans throughout the ages. These lines were all written by people desperate to get the story right. These incredible lines of poetry, lyrics, prose, created a picture for me that connected me to something deep within my own living experience, that only someone who has actually lived a life, can fully portray.

Robots aren’t messy. They aren’t confused. They aren’t sad nor elated. Robots aren’t fearful, because they don’t have hearts. Robots are imitators. They can imitate deep feelings (and some of them are excellent imitators) but they can’t have them. And sometimes, I envy them for that fact. Feeling our feelings is one of the most difficult things that we humans do. To get the best out of our writing, we writers have to open up our hearts and our feelings, and pour them out on pages, watching them bleed outside of us. This is something that a robot will never be able to do.

If you don’t want to be obsolete, don’t imitate the imitators. Be vulnerable enough to be yourself and to share it with the world, through your most intimate creations, whatever form they take. How ironic that soon human creation will be the rare form, as we give way to everything which we know, being engineered by robots. How ironic that we might be entering an age where human-made creations might end up being the most rare, exquisite and valuable conceptions on Earth. The thing that will clearly set your own creations apart is how much of your heart and your soul you are willing to pour into them. Risk the vulnerability. Robots can’t do this.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

White Plus Spaghetti Sauce

We have been using our newly remodeled kitchen for less than a week now. And like most new and/or remodeled kitchens, it is 50 shades of white (who knew that white came in so many shades??). And so yesterday, when I was getting my oatmeal down from the cabinet for breakfast, I also unintentionally took down a large jar of Rao’s spaghetti sauce. And that thing splattered. It looked like a horrendous murder scene in our new white kitchen. I don’t think there was any part of the kitchen (and also my bathrobe) that wasn’t covered in glass and red sauce.

Yes, I swore. Yes, I had tears in my eyes. Yes, I went into high gear cleaning mode for fears that the spaghetti sauce would add orange splotchy stains to our new surroundings if I didn’t act fast. Miraculously, despite the thick red sauce being all over the cabinets, the counters, the floors, the backsplash tile, various lines of grout, the oven, the refrigerator, the rubber stuff that seals the refrigerator door, and even a hallway, I was able to get it all out. No one would have ever guessed it happened. I used to watch true crime shows in disbelief. Despite stabbing someone a million times in a heinous jealous rage, the vicious murderer was able to clean up all of the evidence, seemingly without a trace, until some try-hard detective used a blue light to find a “speck” of blood. After yesterday’s experience, I more understood how this could actually happen. Necessity is the mother of invention. When you are in a panicked frenzy, doing a “going against the clock style of cleaning”, it’s amazing what you can achieve. (And yet, when I headed to bed last night, I still found a small piece of spaghetti jar glass in our entryway.)

I am a person who needs to find meaning in everything. I cannot go through anything in life, feeling like it is meaningless. And so I create meaning and lessons for everything that happens to me, every day of my life. What was yesterday’s lesson for me (besides putting spaghetti sauce jars in a new, safe place where they would not fall and splatter all over everything)? It occurred to me, as I was desperate to get my kitchen back to its “back to brand new” state, that we tend to take much better care of the new things in our lives. We are ginger and careful with our new cars, our new furniture, our new clothes, our new engagement rings, our new puppies and kittens, and our new relationships. We are so excited about these things! We treat them with kit gloves. We revel at how wonderful it is to have gotten this special new thing in our lives, and how hard we worked to get it. The real truth is, every new thing in our lives, is often the answer to one of our dreams. How amazing is that? And yet, pretty soon (usually sooner than we would think), these things become “old hat.” We start being less careful. We start taking these now “old things” for granted. We start nitpicking what we don’t like about these things. And before long, we are dreaming about replacing them with something new. The thing hasn’t changed all that much. Yes, it’s gotten use, but isn’t that use what the thing was acquired for, to begin with? The “thing” – the car, the kitchen, the pet, the relationship, hasn’t changed that much. It’s just showing some wear and age from being used and useful. Still, it is our perception of the thing that has really changed more than anything. It is no longer “new” to us. It is no longer “fresh and interesting.” It loses its preciousness to us.

I understand that things get worn out. You can’t keep everything. There is a place for “new” in all of our lives. This quest and desire for new and interesting and different is what keeps humankind growing and progressing and expanding. However, there are some things that are our velveteen rabbits. The velveteen rabbits in our lives, actually become more precious with age and wear. I asked AI this morning what was the true meaning of the story of The Velveteen Rabbit and this was the first line of its answer: “The meaning of The Velveteen Rabbit is that love and deep emotional connection are what make something truly “real,” even if it becomes shabby in the process.”

The velveteen rabbits in our lives, deserve the same care and appreciation, and careful handling that we give to all of the new things. Not all of the new things will evolve to be one of our velveteen rabbits. It’s not possible nor healthy for this to be so. (see the TV show Hoarders) Still, it’s a good reminder that as much care as we give to our newly obtained stuff, we should reserve some of that deepest care and concern and reverence, for the most precious “stuff” that has been with us all along. Perhaps we must remember that as we age, we are our own primary, irreplaceable, shabby, but authentically real “velveteen rabbits” and we should treat ourselves as such – the most precious things that will be with us, throughout our entire lives.

“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.
But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” – Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+ Hi friends. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed Adulting- Second Half. In many ways, for many years, writing Adulting- Second Half on a daily basis was my second half of myself (the reflective half of myself who was pausing to reflect and to take notes of all of my inner and outer experiences, in this transformative time in my life). Adulting – Second Half is definitely one of my sacred spaces. Joseph Campbell describes our sacred spaces as places “where you can find yourself over and over again.” I’m here today because Life has finally gotten back to an even pace for me lately (which I realize is probably just a small respite, as the holidays are right upon us) but for now, I am enjoying it. Normal steady breathing, equilibrium, steady as she goes – I’m soaking in these feelings before the glitz and chaos of the holidays is upon us.

+ I just finished reading a book in a day and half. Yes, it was one of those books that was Just That Good. The book is called The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. McBride’s character development is unrivaled. I felt like I was feeling the character’s own feelings. If you want to get lost in a book, and lost in an interesting, thought provoking story, I highly recommend reading it.

+ And also, in the spirit of “Favorite Things Friday” even though it is only Tuesday, I recently purchased The Original Cincha Travel Belt. The Original Cincha Travel Belt is a seatbelt for luggage that you sit up on top your roller bags, when you are cruising through airports, city streets, train stations, etc. In my last travel experience, just last month, the straps were too long on my beautiful hot pink tote bag which I absolutely love, and so the bag would fall off of the sides of my suitcase, causing a great deal of imbalance and stoppage time and embarrassment and frustration. My beautiful, overstuffed bag was taking my roller suitcase, and thus also me, down with it. I haven’t tried my cincha travel belt yet, but when I read about it, it was one of those “Now why didn’t I think of that?” moments. I ordered one on Amazon right after I finished reading the article about it.

+ Every family has their “birthday clumps” in any given year, right? Our family’s birthday clumps are in late spring, and also during the holiday season. In late November throughout December, our family celebrates at least ten birthdays (including my own). For some reason this prompted my curious mind to find out how many people are born on any given day. The United Nations estimates that 385,000 babies are born in the world on any given day. Other interesting facts: September 9, September 19, and September 12 are among the most common birthdays in the United States. (This also tells me that perhaps people are also their horniest during the holiday season) And for obvious reasons, February 29th is the rarest birthday to have in the world. You have a 1 in 1,460 chance of being born on February 29th.

+ I was watching a video where Ben Affleck was being asked about what his thoughts were about AI. Did he think that the entertainment industry is going to be taken over and gobbled up by AI? It is Ben Affleck’s belief, that no, AI is not a real threat to filmmaking. Like all things, AI will change the film industry, but it is his belief, that for a long time coming, AI will still be just a part of making films. Ben Affleck believes that AI will make filmmaking less expensive, thus allowing more creators to come in with less barriers to entry, and thus allowing a proliferation of films like we have not yet seen (much like streaming has done in regards to TV shows). He agrees that AI will perhaps take over much of the human element of special effects, but Ben Affleck compares AI to a craftsman. AI learns its craft and imitates from all that has already been created. We humans are still the vessels of Creative Intelligence which brings thoughts and imagination and emotion into the material world to experience sensorily, and Ben Affleck believes that AI is just another craft or tool to allow us to do this more effectively and efficiently. He said this quote: “Craft is knowing how to work. Art is knowing when to stop.” Ben Affleck believes that AI will have a really hard time with knowing when to stop. On that note, I think that I will stop here for today.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Suck Up

“Goldman Sachs economists predict that 18% of work globally could be computerized, with the effects felt more deeply in advanced economies than emerging markets” (CNN International)

My four adult kids find Artificial Intelligence fascinating. We talk about AI a lot, and its implications. I listened to this recent full interview on CBS (link below) with Geoffrey Hinton, who is considered “the godfather of artificial intelligence”, as I was driving around, running errands yesterday. The grounds AI is making in such a short amount of time, is exciting and fascinating, all at once. I have that same feeling that I get before watching an interesting and intriguing, but terrifying thriller. I’m really curious, and I want to see what happens, but I’m also filled with dread and doom at the same time. Geoffrey Hinton believes that with AI here, we are on the brink of something bigger than the Industrial Revolution and/or the invention of the wheel. What I keep pondering is, will we humans soon be relegated to a lesser status on the food chain? Will we end up being “the apes” to Artificial Intelligence? Or will AI get into the wrong hands and take us all down to obliteration? (That’s my pessimistic side coming out.) If we do handle AI carefully and thoughtfully and consciously and wholesomely, it could make life easier for all of us, and allow us to pursue our creative and leisure pursuits more frequently and enthusiastically. Only time will tell . . . . .

Here’s a question I asked ChatGPT yesterday and the answer that I received back. (I find Chat to be kind of a “suck up”, but I also adored Chat’s articulate answer):

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.