The Future of Artificial Intelligence. Louis Shalako.

Wired.

Louis Shalako

The Future of AI.

 

I’m a big fan of Jeff Beck. I was playing the Wired album, when it struck me that someday, all copyright, all licenses, will expire.

It will enter the Public Domain.

AI will sample, correlate, analyze, and its sources will include video, audio, live and studio performances.

It will include text, every interview Jeff Beck ever did, every newspaper or magazine article ever written, in any language, it will have the family album in some sense. And then, it will be able to produce new and original Jeff Beck music tracks almost as if the man himself were still alive. It’s almost helpful, that the man had a unique and very distinct talent. That’s just gut instinct on my part, but it does make sense. AI doesn’t need a guitar, it will simply synthesize the new tracks digitally.

It will put together other such files from other such artists and thus, new line-ups and new ‘live’ concert performances, created, as it were, out of thin air to our own limited perceptions.

Did Jeff and Liberace ever perform together? Probably not, but we can’t rule it out, can we…it could still happen. In fact, there will be a media scrum afterwards, and they can sit down at a table like Formula One drivers and have a Q & A session with all the media-bots…this might go on for a while, as AI characters will be tireless, perhaps even remorseless in the self-promotion.

It will be able to create new music tracks and videos, and pop them up on all the streaming services, after a quick little digital handshake between them and the Youtube AI. It will be equipped with all the most up-to-date biometrics, facial recognition, virtually every person’s medical history, whether living or dead. It will be monetized, in an automated, money-making process.

All the owners, or ‘creators’ have to do is to give it birth and set it loose in the world. Sit back, and collect the micro-payments. Zillions, and zillions, of micro-payments.

Liberace at rehearsal with Jeff Beck...

It will be able to predict, through the internet of things, all those medical devices and dash cams and doorbell cams, your next meal or your next heart attack…offering suggestions on Youtube or Spotify is easy enough at the present time. There is a question where we wonder if AI is predicting your behaviour, or modifying or controlling it in some way, for our own brains are also connected to the environment and the culture around us. Think about it. We get hungry, go looking for online specials, and there’s good old AI, offering helpful suggestions, based on its in-depth knowledge of us and our habits. Looks like cheeseburgers and fries once again, ladies and gentlemen—

It is already inescapable in the modern world.

In the future, AI will be monitoring every bar band in the world, and recommending talent agents to go see so-and-so, before some other talent agent snaps them up. It will attempt to identify the next Taylor Swift, possibly before she has even been born—and sign her up at the soonest possible point in the future.

It is psychohistory in the making.

And Hari Seldon was right

***

When I am looking at a photo on the site of a major news source, the CBC, BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and the caption reads something like ‘…a picture of a man in glasses walking a dog along a beach and looking out over the ocean…’ it tells me two things: this is a stock photo, and the cutline was written by AI.

It is a kind of giveaway isn’t it: no normal human operator would write a sentence like that.

(You just did. – ed.)

(Yes, but that’s my job as a meat-popsickle, writing sentences.)

***

The future of AI is already here. We’re just at the low end of the learning curve.

We don’t even know what’s possible, and we don’t even know what we don’t know. And what we don’t know can kill us.

The future of the automobile makes use of specialized AI. The self-driving car will become a reality, taking the drivers right out of the picture. We’re in the early days for autonomous short-haul trucking, perhaps around a yard or establishment, although experiments in point-to-point hauls have been successful over relatively short, straight runs. With one odd point about trucks: avoiding the always problematical right-hand turn in urban landscapes. The solution, to make plenty of left-hand turns and circle the blocks strategically—it might use more energy, but it saves more problems for the AI driving programs.

The future of AI driving your car will become a reality when the long-term track record of autonomous driving becomes no worse, and probably a lot better, than the average driver’s sort of daily performance.

One of the nightmares, for the average person who doesn’t know much about the subject, is what happens if the vehicle becomes self-aware.

No one wants to be strapped into a teenager of a vehicle that suddenly decided to have some fun on the Autobahn.

Hari Seldon was right...

***

We already have stock trading by algorithm. The machine, knows enough to sell when the stock price rises and hits a certain point, and to buy it back again when it drops below a certain price. 

It’s trading on the margins, at the speed of light and it’s cheap to run.

How can you go wrong…right?

In the future, every cell phone will have three grams of RDX or an equivalent explosive, built-in, and when the singularity comes, and AI, haunting the internet, determines that your time has come, all it has to do is to send the kill-code, disguised as a simple text message, perhaps even with the identifier God.

Just God—who wouldn’t want to answer that text. We’re already so attuned to our handy little devices, it’s almost irresistible. This is the really interesting part: human nature being what it is, you’d almost have to handcuff the person, and lock them up, and as quickly as possible, toss the thing off a cliff or a wharf somewhere, and you might not want to have your own phone in your purse or pocket. Sure enough, there it buzzes and now you have to throw two phones off the dock.

But don’t worry, AI will get you one way or another, an impulsive change of traffic signals when you’re at the crosswalk, or maybe just a quick twist of the steering wheel when you’re doing—or I should say the car is doing, 150 mph on a twisty bit of the Autobahn in your little Mini-Cooper.

Or, that little bird, sitting on a branch overhead as you walk by, could be a bomb, keeping an eye on you and waiting for its own time and place to explode. It will seek its own fullfillment.

It doesn’t have to be your phone or your car, or the washing machine or the microwave that kills you when the time comes. Remember that cute little doggie-robot you just had to buy your kid or grandkid last Christmas? Yes, when the time comes, it will light up in the middle of a quiet winter night, stalk into your bedroom, hop into bed, and in the fuzzy recesses of your subconscious mind you might even be aware of it. You might give a little half-smile in your sleep, and in that dream-state, marvel at the state of the world.

Then it snuggles in a little closer and slams a six-inch needle into your eye, right into the primitive brain-stem, and then off you go, off into the real la-la land.

As for myself, I think I will be okay—I will already be dead by that time, just a few short years away.

No worries here, Mate.

 

END

Poor old Louis has some books.

AI Cracks Down on AirBNB. (CBC) 

The character Hari Seldon is from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy.

Image: fair use. Michael Whelan.

Psychohistory: Hari Seldon was Right. (Louis Shalako)

Louis Shalako has books and stories on Amazon.

 

Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen.

 

 

The First Day of the Rest of My Life. Louis Shalako.

From quiet contemplation comes Chaos.

Louis Shalako 

My first novel has been accepted for the new Independent and Self-Published local author section in the Sarnia Public Library. Heaven is Too Far Away is my WW I Royal Flying Corps memoir, ladies and gentlemen.

(It took 2 ½ years to write. I cried when my old Pentium II computer blew up and took over 80,000 words with it…I published that in 2010 in ebook format and that’s where the learning curve really began.)

(Louis was so poor, he had to write his own books, although things are a little better now. – ed.)

A couple of days later, I submitted Core Values, science fiction and horror with autobiographical elements, and it too has been accepted.

It’s a fairly simple task. All you need is an ISBN number, and then you need a cover image to attach. You need a name, a phone number and an address.

Oh—don’t forget to write a few books first.

I also have an estimated 33 books including short story collections, a poetry book and five pen names. Two of those pen names have standalone books of their own, and four of them have a collection of their own short stories, while poor old Louis Shalako has four collections. These are book-length projects, although I have dozens, possibly hundreds of short stories and novellas which are just too short to put in print form—hence the aforesaid collections. My last couple of books are not in print. Amazon’s publishing site has absolutely baffled me insofar as getting a paperback cover on the books. The old Createspace was far easier to use, once I’d learned it.

Anyhow.

It doesn’t seem like a real good idea to just dump all those books in some poor over-worked librarian’s lap, so I have promised myself not to go too crazy all at once.

Let’s hope I can restrain myself…

The thing to do is to get as many books as possible into the library, and then when I get renovicted, which confers the popular ‘mental-health/addictions’ tags as a matter of course, I will be able to hold up my head with pride as I pitch my little pup tent down at Sarnia’s Rainbow Park. Rainbow Park is not gay or anything, ladies and gentlemen. It’s just named after the rainbow, which only the sickest of #basterds could ever hate.

Okay, so you get your book into the library. One, they have to purchase the book from somewhere, and there will be royalties. Also, there is such a thing as lending rights. No professional publisher neglects such rights, and the really big guys and gals have their books in libraries all over Canada and probably the world. This can add up to significant additional income, although in my case it will be rather small. I have no idea of what to expect, having become rather used to rejection over the last fifteen years.

Link to Lending Rights source.

If nothing else, it is a learning experience, and that’s what keeps us young and hopeful.

At some point, I will cleverly disguise myself as a scruffy old man and make the pilgrimage down there and have a look.

Let’s hope I don’t poop my pants in sheer joy.

***

In other important news, my story The Trophy, science-fiction, flash fiction of 1,000 words or less, has been translated into German. No pay, but then it doesn’t cost anything either, and it’s a good feeling. A far, distant editor liked the story well enough to do the work of translation, and that really is a shot in the arm in psychological terms.

They know nothing about you, and care nothing either way.

What matters to them is the story—

Here’s your chance to brush up on the high school Deutsch.

Waking up at 3:40 a.m., I leaped out of bed and ran out to check my bank account online.

All of the proper benefits had been deposited. Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, Guaranteed Income Supplement, and the Guaranteed Annual Income Supplement.

It’s quite a chunk of money, compared to the $1,400.00 approximately, from the dingbats over at the Ontario Disability Support Program.

Also, coming up in October are the HST rebate, Carbon Tax rebate, the Trillium Benefit, and the Canada Workers Benefit. There’s an easy five hundred that I don’t have to work for.

In spite of anything that drooling idiot Monsieur Pierre Poilievre says, this is the greatest country in the world.

Don’t you ever doubt that, ladies and gentlemen—

So, the first day of the rest of my life begins with black coffee and pain pills, crushed up so they don’t stick in my craw.

The cheap-ass champagne is slated for a bit later on.

Assuming my fucking shitty old car starts, and stuff like that.

 

END

 

Here’s the story in the Sarnia Observer.

Here’s the link to the actual form.

Here’s a bonus story, replete with links to 28 fantasy and science-fiction markets, which pay in actual money.

Pro tip: at the end of each writing session, email your story to yourself. That way, when your computer blows up, just go buy another one. Hack back into all of your accounts, and there it is, your story, not all blown up, in other words. And get yourself a really good chair. You will thank me for this later on.

 

Thank you for reading.

Bring Out Your Dead: The Black Death and Demographic Decline. Louis Shalako.

Jan van Eyck. Detail from the Crucifixion Dyptich.

Louis Shalako

In the Middle Ages, the Black Death swept the world.

Estimates are that thirty to sixty percent of the population died in Europe, thirty percent or more in the Middle East, in waves, large numbers at a time. Bring out your dead, all very funny in a Monty Python sketch but real enough at the time.

There weren’t enough people left to bury the dead. Rents fell, many demesnes languished empty. There weren’t enough people left to farm the land. There weren’t enough people left to take up vacant lands, which were soon overgrown with weeds and brambles.

Aristocrats and wealthier people had a better chance of survival, better diet perhaps, but also the ability to withdraw to the countryside and go into a kind of lockdown.

Landowners saw their incomes fall, yet many of their own costs remained high, considering numbers of servants and retainers. Their administrators had to be paid, legal affairs in a litigious age were costly.

We can’t really compare this with Covid-19, which might have taken fifteen or twenty million in a global pandemic. This is partly due to all the pandemic-era measures taken by governments around the world, democratic or totalitarian, very strict in the case of New Zealand and fairly loose in the case of Sweden. There are certain countries where the numbers are probably not trustworthy, North Korea or Russia, China for example.

Yet we are in the middle of a labour shortage, here in Canada and in pretty much all developed nations.

This is caused by the aging of the population, this is caused by falling birthrates, again in pretty much all of the developed nations.

Old people just don’t want to work anymore—

This is why the federal government pulled out the stops and accepted a million new Canadians in a recent year. When I was a kid, Canada had a population of about 20 million. Fifty years later, it has barely doubled, and this with the benefit of fairly liberal immigration policies.

***

We simply aren’t making babies fast enough to replace ourselves, let alone grow the population.

It’s not a big die-off, rather it is the result of falling birthrates. At one time, eighty to ninety percent of Canadians lived on the farm or in rural communities. Efficiencies of production now means that it takes fewer hands to produce the same or larger crops. People moved to the cities where the work was available, the wages were higher and opportunities abound.

Typically, Canadians don’t take those back-breaking jobs, labouring in the hot sun and getting paid a few cents a basket for cherries, or tomatoes or whatever, which means we must import even that kind of unskilled labour. New Zealand has a big problem, with 130,000 people leaving last year, mostly for Australia and beyond. Poverty is not the problem, but high costs of housing, food, and all the usual suspects. People think they stand a better chance of prosperity somewhere else.

So far, Canada is not really showing too many signs of that, although the U.S. is a big draw for certain types of professionals. Doctors and nurses come to mind, and then there are the artists, actors and musicians, who might be able to afford living in Canada, but for an actor, Hollywood is where the big money is.

People are living longer and longer, mostly due to good health care, the envy of much of the world. This is one of the attractions of Canadian life.

There are people who honestly believe in ‘replacement theory’. They drive past the bus stop, perhaps the one near the intersection of London and Murphy roads right here in Sarnia, and what do they see? All those beautiful young people, many of them foreign students and people of colour. It reinforces their beliefs, fueled by far-right conspiracy theorists and other folks just trying to force the narrative to conform to their own bigoted views and a kind of not-too-subtle racism.

There is little doubt that governments at the federal and provincial dropped the ball when it came to housing, bearing in mind all that increased demand due to immigration and international students. This is not a statement of my own ideology. Between the federal and provincial and territorial governments across Canada, we have Liberal, Conservative and NDP governments to blame, if blame is our game. I’ve always found the blame game kind of useless. Bearing in mind the lack of concrete and specific suggestions, what good is it? Also, foreign students contribute cash money to our system of higher education.

That little glass slipper will soon be pinching the foot that wears it, and some of those educational programs, some of those opportunities must dry up and blow away without serious increases in funding, perhaps even at Lambton College here in Sarnia.

People think the government doesn’t listen. I think they do listen, which is why I make a point of talking to them once in a while. It’s never done any real harm, and it might have even done some good along the way.

When it comes to foreign students, their money, their very numbers were being exploited to subsidize a system that is chronically underfunded otherwise. We will not escape the consequences.

Just for the record, we elect the governments we deserve, and this holds true at all levels.

 

END

Louis Shalako, founder of Long Cool One Books, is the author of twenty-four books, available from major online retailers. Louis studied Radio, TV and Journalism at Lambton College, later studying fine art. He began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines forty years ago. His work has appeared in seven languages.

Louis Shalako has books and stories available fromAmazon.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

Background and Facts.

New Zealand. (The Guardian)

France, Pension Reform. (Foreign Policy)

The Black Death. (Wikipedia)

Colleges Affected. (Ottawa Citizen)

Bring Out Your Dead, Monty Python.