(Source: Reply.io)
I am using AI extensively. Just put AI into the search box and you will get all the blogs that explicitly mention it. Every time that I use the technology, I specify the exact text that it puts out, and the question that I am having AI respond to. As will be clear from this blog, I am using AI not only for the blog, but also as a personal assistant. In all cases, I take full responsibility for the information that I use. I am using AI as a tool. A good example is a blog from two weeks ago (May 28th). The blog is centered on a Venn Diagram that shows the impacts of data centers on collective global trends, including energy and security. AI did the drawing based on my specific prompt, and I accepted it on the first trial. The pre-AI equivalent would have been giving the same instructions to a professional graphic designer who was paid to produce graphs. I have published a book and many articles over the years. With only a few exceptions, I never mentioned the designers in my publication; the full responsibility was mine and that of my co-authors. The picture that I am using at the top of this blog might as well be produced by AI. It was posted on the Internet, and I am linking to the site where I found it, but the responsibility that comes with showing it on this blog is mine.
When I speak about responsibility, my two main concerns are the following:
The most important condition – the ability to check the facts!
Second, the Scientific Method – the ability to refute! (See my blog from June 18, 2012. The excerpt below is repeated in the October 6, 2020 blog.)
We Are Not Prophets
The Popperian scientific method is based on refutability. We develop a hypothesis and/or theory based on everything that we know, and we should be able to test the theory based on predictions for observations that we haven’t yet made. If the tests fail, we change the theory. This amounts to prediction of future results. Since we are part of the system, failure might mean closing the window that allows us to survive. The science we’re talking about here is more like medicine – we have to make a rational diagnosis about the changes that take place in the physical world, but if our predictions might result in a harmful impact, we will need to act. On this scale, actions to restore equilibrium must become part of the science that we practice.
On that note, AI continues to get even more powerful:
Now Microsoft is launching Scout, a new AI assistant meant to bring the power and flexibility of Open Claw into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Built on the Open Claw framework, Scout is an always-on agentic assistant, designed to work alongside the user with a persistent identity and style. Users name their own Scout instance — in my demo, it was named Sebastian — and are meant to give it ongoing feedback on tasks they want automated.
Systems from OpenAI, Anthropic and other companies can generate, test and edit computer code, letting experienced programmers automate many tasks they once performed on their own. Agents can also spend minutes or even days researching specific topics via the wider internet, including finance, health care, the law and practically anything else.
Some of these tasks overlap with what a chatbot can do. But the main difference with an agent is that it can use other software apps on behalf of users, including spreadsheets, calendars and email programs.
“An agent can access the internet, search the web, create files and even access other A.I. models to complete its work,” said Arena’s chief executive, Anastasios Angelopoulos, a co-founder of the start-up.
The much larger issues with AI are using it to predict the future based on probabilities and teaching it how to refute such predictions.
Selling your house
This is not from personal experience (not yet anyway). This is an article in the NYT by Stuart A. Thomson, a NYT technology journalist who tried to sell his house because his wife was expecting a baby and they needed a larger place. Below is how this article starts:
I was sitting in my car when I got a phone call that was potentially worth more than half a million dollars. It was a real estate agent whose client was considering making an offer on my house. She wanted to clarify a few details, including: Had I really handled the whole listing privately? She couldn’t quite believe that I was an amateur. “So — you’re not a realtor?” she asked. “No,” I said. “It’s the first house I’ve ever sold.” “I’ve been in this job for, well, more than a day, and I was sure you were a realtor,” she said. “Everything — the language you used, the organization, the emails.” But none of that was me. It was all A.I.
He proceeded with all the details and ended with the following concluding statement:
When our deal was nearly closed, I turned to the final phase of our relocation. I logged into the chatbot and posed another question. “I need to buy a house and I’m doing it without an agent,” I wrote. “Where do I start?”
Personal AI Use
Fixing the dishwasher – I am a retired old guy (November 21, 2023 blog). My dishwasher stopped working. It was stuck on a button labelled “Delay,” with a window showing “Cycle Status 4:12” and “Add Rinse Aid.” This is an old Bosch dishwasher and I lost the manual, so I went online to get it. The company’s website was not helpful, but I have access to two AI sources: Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. (In all the examples in this blog post, I used Gemini). I gave Gemini the output of the dishwasher and got an explanation of what it meant and feedback on what to do to fix it. After three exchanges with the AI, the dishwasher was like new.
Translating a piece into Polish or English – My mother’s writing about our Holocaust experiences has been covered throughout the blog (see July 5, 2016). Recently, I was in contact with a Polish publisher about a new Polish edition. He asked me to write an introduction. I told him that although I was born in Poland, I never went to school there and I cannot write in Polish. He told me not to worry—to write in English and they would translate it into Polish. A few days later, I had it ready, and a month later the book came out. I wanted to find out how they did with the translation. I fed their Polish translation to AI and got back the English to compare it with my original writing. It was fine.
I could have done it differently. I could have written the introduction in English and had AI translate it into Polish to be sent to the publisher for editing. However, this might have given me a not-so-great reputation in Poland.
Editing written material – I have not been editing these blogs with AI because Sonya Landau is a great editor, but I am using AI with everything else!
Presents – A family member recently graduated from school. I asked AI to suggest a present. After few chats, it gave me a great suggestion.
Digital twins – A friend of mine is the director of a high-tech company. A few months ago, while we were chatting on the topic, he mentioned that his group has access to an AI that mimics him. I let it rest. However, before starting this blog, I asked AI to tell me what it would take to create an AI that mimics me. It gave me the descriptive title of a “digital twin,” along with a detailed description of how to make one. I didn’t try it because I have no need for one. I contacted my friend to ask him to write a guest blog describing his experience and that of his team. We are still talking about the possibility.
In any case, a few future blogs will expand on AI uses for collective settings including businesses, government work, and quantitative predictions of the future. The need to use “digital twins” in such settings gives rise to interesting possibilities. One example that might be useful to federal employees in the US, is consulting with a “digital twin” of President Trump, which might be able to predict or explain some of his decisions. I am not sure if it already exists, or if it does, how good it is, but it’s a safe bet that people are already working on this. Stay tuned.