AI - My Toes in the Water

Over many months now, whenever I have had to check my writing and editing work, a very pleasant female robot voice reads it all back to me. My vision isn’t so good these days, so this process helps me catch a lot of mistakes.

Another robot answers questions. Mostly I ask her factual ones, like when something happened or who did what to whom in history. She has many other uses, for example, when some software I depend on changes something and I have to find out how to return it to its usual state. Instead of having to watch long how-to videos in which my issue may or may not be addressed, bot-girl instantly comes up with the fix. This also applies to problems with equipment like phones, computers, or TVs.

Then I discovered something else. To lay some groundwork here, I lived in another state 50 years ago and worked with a woman who became a good friend. Later, she moved away and then died unexpectedly at age 29. I had no pictures of her – in those days we all didn’t walk around with cameras in our pockets. Eventually, her mother sent me a very pixilated black-and-white photocopy of her daughter’s newspaper obituary, which included a badly washed-out headshot. Years passed and computer photo-editing tools became available, but even with those, t I could recover only about half of the picture. Then came AI, and I wondered if that might help. I gave it a try.

It worked – not instantly. I had to tell the robot things like, the eyebrows should be a little thicker, or the hair should come down to her chin on both sides. But after about half an hour at the most, I came up with a very passable version of my friend – not quite the same woman but pretty damn close. Then, I had to figure out how I felt about this, or SHOULD feel. Am I Dr. Frankenstein, or was it just an effort to revive a distant memory?

Then I started having other thoughts. Among the first was, somewhere, some giant data center is sucking water out of the ground and driving up someone’s utility bill so that I could do my thing.

This is how it all works now. We enjoy a new level of tech-based convenience. but at a cost we don’t see, because it’s not right in front of us. So -- can I use AI and be a data-center protester too? I want to say, stop it, do I REALLY have to deal with all these heavy moral questions right now?

Well, you know what I did next: I asked the AI lady, and she said my concerns were “understandable.” But what do YOU think? Any feedback would be welcome here, just as long as you’re human. Thank you!

 

Saint Dolly

 

Hold on a minute, I’m not being cynical about that. Following Dolly Parton’s passing, we have witnessed an incomparable outpouring of love, honor, and respect that most famous people are not afforded. Our daily concerns simply stopped, or at least took a back seat for a time, ranging from a few minutes to many hours, depending on our acquaintance with her life and career. It has reminded us of how few people have actually done that. Just think about someone who has brought an involuntary smile to your face when you hear their name. even in their death. For me, Robin Williams is another such name that comes to mind. You may have had similar feelings about him or others.

So, what was it about Dolly? To be completely honest, she was never my favorite country singer. I didn’t particularly like her voice. But hey, I have never sung one note to an audience  nor written a single bar of music. If you want to keep going with this, I have never created one job nor established a single charity - which gives you an idea of just how un-Dolly I am.

Now she was human and had quirks, foibles, and personal struggles, but she seemed to have attained an almost perfect balance of accomplishment, humility, and generosity, mixed with a somewhat self-deprecating sense of humor. While all performers must pay attention to their craft and how it impacts audiences, it seemed like she was always perfecting a gift to share from a pure heart. Clearly, she was a great businesswoman, providing much employment and boosting the economy in her part of Tennessee with the creation of the Dollywood theme park, and was about lifting up rather than tearing down. She was famously non-political but did stand up for what she felt was right when necessary.

You might conclude that I have fallen for an image. But she wasn’t really crafting one. Most of us probably didn’t know about the extent of her charitable giving until it came out this week in the media eulogies. By the way, you don’t have to be poor to be something of a saint.

Sometimes, it takes the death of someone like Dolly Parton not just to turn the spotlight on them but also to reacquaint us with people whose values we appreciate, again, almost involuntarily. We know them when we see them. And some stars shine especially brightly when the darkness outside is approaching its deepest.

 

Dinner Defense

Watching a popular cable news show during a lunch break, I saw a panel of journalists I usually respect bash the latest version of the White House Correspondents Association dinner. I disagreed with them, something that doesn’t happen a lot.

Their message was, the event has outlived its usefulness. Part of their concern is that while it honors the work of current White House reporters and presents scholarships to up-and-coming student journalists, it has turned into just another Oscar-model awards show, of which there are already too many. I get that.

But then, the panel went on about how the dinner involves a phony coziness between the White House journalists and the institution they are supposed to be covering, and how respected organizations like the New York Times stopped participating in it years ago. And after that, the panel seemed to criticize the attendees. Why didn’t the prominent jurnalists at least boo when President Trump hurled insults at them? Why did they shake hands with Trump or even smile at him when accepting their awards? Why did journalists attend at all?

The award and scholarship parts were inspiring, but those are not what made the WHCA dinner a national television event in the past. We all wanted to see the roast part, where a comedian makes fun of the current occupant of the White House, and then the President gets to respond in kind. The Presidential roastees were sometimes funnier than the roasters, which we see when they show the clips of past dinners.

The difference this time was, the roastee was doing the roasting, actually more like frying, of his journalist adversaries. He pretended to be joking, but he meant it. We heard faint laughing and sometimes clapping. So there were some supporters there.

The cable panel maintained the mainstream journalists  were there because their corporate bosses wanted them there, and they had to behave. But I don’t think that’s all of it. I think a shred of the old spirit of decorum and at least temporary camaraderie that was the hallmark of this event was still in evidence. If reporters had stormed out of the building, they might have made Trump more of the story than he already was, as what he said was expected anyway. And if they needed revenge, they could get it later simply by doing their jobs.

Traditions often seem logically useless, but they remain because of their connection to the past. The WHCA dinner we just saw was not representative of the ones we’re used to, during the glory days when a sense of humor was allowed. I hope that when the time is right again, the dinner’s future chefs, so to speak, will return to the old recipe that made us laugh.

 

coughswitch · Dinner Defense

coughswitch · A Harrowing Journey

A Harrowing Journey

 

A few days ago, I connected with a friend who is a distinguished scientific researcher at a top American university. She is an Iranian who has lived here for a long time. But recently, she did something incredibly brave: she traveled back to her embattled native country to help care for her mother and sister, who were both seriously ill. The timing couldn’t have been worse. She had to miss her teenage son’s birthday, dropping everything here because her family in Iran desperately needed her.

Shortly after this war started last winter, the Iranian leaders shut down internet access. For days at her home here in the US, all my friend could do was worry in the dark. By the time the connection was partly restored, her mother and sister were struggling so much that she felt she must make the trip to be with them.

She packed her bags and took a long, exhausting, and indirect journey, involving a third country, to reach her war-torn homeland – and later, remarkably, returned to America. I don’t know how she did it. But she has asked me for a favor: Be my voice, she said.

Now I need to tell you that when this woman writes about her science research, I have no idea what she’s writing about, and I can barely pronounce half the words. But when it comes to life issues, she is one of the most eloquent writers of English I know. I feel a little unqualified to fulfill her request but will try.

She told me that the trip taught her a huge lesson: ordinary Iranians still trust each other to find their way, despite great differences in their political views. As soon as she arrived in Iran, she saw firsthand how the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement and quiet, everyday acts of protest have changed the country. Both women and men are changing how they dress and live, simply trying to hold onto their dignity. She was amazed by their grit as they struggled to keep their spirits up.

But she also saw through their brave smiles to the deep worry underneath. As the bombs fall and the destruction and death toll rise, their hope is almost gone. They have seen Iran called the cradle of civilization in history books, but some in the modern world see Iranians as terrorists. Many of the country’s 92 million residents, my friend observes, feel caught between a harsh government at home and greedy superpowers abroad. And what breaks her heart the most is what she calls the quiet indifference of the rest of the world to the human suffering the war has caused.

And the war has produced way more than human casualties. Persia, Iran’s previous name, was once a great empire with a rich culture dating back thousands of years. How many of the remaining ancient symbols of it have been damaged or destroyed in just a few months’ time, and how many more will suffer the same fate?

My friend is reminded of a message from a famous poem written by Saadi Shirazi back in 13th-century Persia. Its truth, she says, is as real today as it was then: Human beings are like parts of one body. created from the same essence. When one part is hurt and in pain, the other parts cannot rest.

And, especially these days, should not.

Being Born Here Is the Easy Part

 

While the Constitution says we are American citizens if we were born here, a concept which the Supreme Court majority has now confirmed, that doesn’t make us better than other human beings. Luckier, yes, but we can’t take a single bit of credit for it.

I am fine with birthright citizenship, though. I am even fine with prospective parents from outside coming to this country to have children to make them legal citizens. Admittedly, we cannot take everyone in, there do have to be immigration rules – but we can take that parental desire as a compliment, at the very least.

All of that said, many of us grow up without knowing how this country works. It’s this lack of knowledge about checks and balances, knowing what government can legally do, how, and why, that contributes to spotty election results.

I’ve said it before: I think all who were born here and are legal citizens should still have to pass the same test that immigrants seeking citizenship face. It would be good if a civics test like that were made a condition of getting a high school diploma. I originally wanted to exempt Native Americans and the descendants of slaves – but now I think it should apply to everyone.

A somewhat related issue troubles me a bit, and it may sound a little contradictory for me to say it. But I think our Presidents should not necessarily have to have been born here. On the surface, that birth requirement sounds good, but in fact, there are many foreign-born people, including some who can legally occupy lower elected offices, who might make good candidates for President. They of course would have to be naturalized American citizens, and I would have no problem with a lengthy residency requirement, along with the current age rules. How many people of quality could be serving us but are disqualified because of this birthplace thing? If they can convince voters of their love of this country and their adherence to its values, that should be the prime qualification.

We may have been born here ourselves, but most of us can point to ancestors who were immigrants – yes, some brought here against their will, but still coming from someplace else.

The United States would not be here if it weren’t for immigrants, and it is more than just a place on a map, It’s an idea that draws many people here. Let’s be sure we can maintain that idea, hopefully for another 250 years.

 

Tarnish on a Gold Standard

 Not only is this week the end of the road for Stephen Colbert; it also marks the end for CBS Radio News, which would have been a century old next year. Who can forget Edward R. Murrow, one of the many voices who got audiences through World War II?

I had a small part in CBS Radio history when I signed on as a desk assistant, the radio equivalent of a newspaper copy boy, at WCBS Newsradio 88, which met its own demise a couple of years ago. It became the second all-news station in New York in 1967, and I started working there shortly thereafter. Our anchor staff at that time included a young Charles Osgood. Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes fame was then a reporter. I got a Christmas card from him that year. Anyway, I remember his covering an ongoing school controversy in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville section of Brooklyn. This involved a struggle between Black and Puerto Rican parents and the powerful teachers’ unions over community control of schools and had a critical impact on education policy in the city.

Another big story at the time centered on Francine Gottfried, a 20-year-old clerical worker at a bank in the financial district whose curvaceousness actually stopped traffic as she walked to work. She was called the Wall Street Sweater Girl, and it might sound frivolous, but as the crowds grew, it just had to be covered.

But I also saw how quickly a newsroom became a very serious place when Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to put down what was called the Prague Spring, in which Czech leaders tried to advance human rights, much to the Russians’ chagrin.

A simple electronic advancement led to a major union dispute. WCBS got new Norelco handheld cassette recorders for the reporters to use, but the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers argued it was their job to handle sound using big Nagra machines. I almost caused a strike myself when I worked with a studio tape recorder at 3:30 a.m. to practice reading news and the IBEW shop steward caught me.

One afternoon I answered the phone and a man identifying himself as Dr. Wood said, “Please tell the anchors that they are mispronouncing the name of that South American country’s new president.” Charles Osgood was on the air, and during a break I told him,” Some crackpot named Dr. Wood called to say you’re not pronouncing a name right.” Mr. Osgood did not laugh but found a note pad and asked me what I was told about how to say the name. Turned out Dr. Wood was a linguist at a major university contracted to ensure that foreign word pronunciations were uniform among all the anchors.

I learned a lot that summer. Some of us will miss CBS Radio News. I certainly hope so.