movies – The Books are Taking Over…

AI in America – A Critique

As someone who has worked in IT for… well, almost 30 years now, I have generally embraced new technology as it arrives. Certainly there have been trends in the industry that I have not been enthusiastic about at all, such as the domination of the software market by subscription models which require you to pay a monthly or a yearly fee. That trend has also led to software makers not selling software on a CD anymore, and that led to computer makers not putting CD-ROM drives in computers anymore. I am not a fan. I also dislike the trend that makes devices smaller and thinner at the cost of said devices not having 3.5 mm headphone jacks or ethernet ports or even many ports at all. It means that to connect things that used to be quite standard (like a printer, or a network cable) you now have to buy an adapter or a dock of some sort (unless it’s Bluetooth or wireless). And that’s annoying to me.

But the hands-down worst thing (in my opinion) that the technology industry has embraced in recent years is AI, or as the orange moron in the White House and his sycophants like to call it, SI [I don’t particularly care what he calls it and so I will continue to call it AI and risk the ire of Trump and MAGA everywhere]. There are a lot of reasons I dislike AI: it has been vastly oversold to the public in terms of what it can actually do accurately; it is costing a truly gigantic amount of money and so far has not shown much return-on-investment (in fact it seems to have all the makings of a big financial bubble); the technology is supposed to put a lot of people out of work, and many companies are already using AI as an excuse to trim their workforce; far too many people in the industry are pushing uses of the technology out without thinking of the constitutional, ethical, and legal implications of what it does (not to mention them not having any real plans to deal with the rapidly mounting instances of misuse of the technology); and finally, the tech CEOs and billionaires pushing all this absolutely DO NOT have the best intentions towards democratic societies, civilization, and the overwhelming majority of the human race. They are out for themselves and don’t care about democracy. They want to accumulate as much money and power as possible before everything falls apart. So no wonder they have embraced Trump so quickly. The speed at which data centers and AI-based surveillance technology is being pushed out in the United States should absolutely be cause for alarm, and not just because they cause a host of environmental problems as well as consume obscene amounts of electricity and fresh water. They also play a huge role in the domination of cultural and societal narratives on media and social media. That’s why some people freaked out so much when Ukraine destroyed Russian data centers. The attacks showed that much of the traffic on social media (and probably millions of Elon’s followers, for example) are actually bots. Traffic and number of followers determine things like ad revenue for social media platforms. The guy who used to go on and on about how he wanted to get rid of all the bots on the social media platform he wanted to buy actually benefits from millions of bot accounts on his platform because they pay monthly subscription fees to get blue checkmarks and as long as he gets paid and they drive the messages that he agrees with (and they most certainly do) he won’t do anything about them.

Also, AI has become such a huge part of surveillance technology that the cameras that use AI to help identify license plates (known as ALPR or ANPR cameras generally) have inspired a whole new social movement that is very anti-surveillance state: websites (such as deflock.org) dedicated to showing you exactly where the cameras are located; helpful instructions on how to fight the companies trying to put up the cameras in your community; some folks are just cutting all the cameras in their community down; some people are using expandable foam insulation to disable the cameras without even having to remove them; some people make signs with very long poles to block the cameras. It’s fascinating to see the creativity as well as the fact that people are all across the ideological spectrum in their opposition to the cameras.

But despite this encouraging collective effort against AI surveillance, some of the kids are not alright. There seems to be a growing trend in which young people are using AI for virtually anything and everything. And their parents, for the most part, have no idea what their kids are doing with AI. Kelly and I personally overheard a conversation in our little Vermont town between a parent and their tween-aged kid in which the kid insisted that AI was their friend. Kids, at least broadly, do not have the ability to determine the difference between real emotions and the emotions simulated by a chatbot. They don’t have the experience and judgment to question the answers AI gives them. And they certainly don’t realize that chatbots are basically intended to agree with you all the time because the designers made them that way to encourage more use. So AI will tell you that you are right even when it comes to encouraging destructive or suicidal behavior. Even AI bots specifically designed for mental health purposes have failed when dealing with suicidal users. Parents of tweens and teenagers who become emotionally dependent on AI bots, as well as those with younger kids should try to be wary and informed when it comes to AI and their kids’ interactions with it.

So if you want to use AI to do your homework for you, or if you want to hand your creative impulses over to it and let it do all your writing and thinking for you, be my guest, but don’t expect me to support you by enthusiastically embracing the technology and the slop that it generates as “literature” or “art” or anything of the sort. I think it’s crap. And I think that techbro billionaires would LOVE to not have to worry about paying salaries and benefits to human beings if they could just buy robots or AI tokens to do all the work instead. But I will keep insisting that my books and music and movies be made by people, and I hope society will ultimately agree with me.

-Geoff

Today in Civil War History – the burial of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and his soldiers

Yesterday, July 18th, was the 156th anniversary of the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, where the famous 54th Massachusetts Infantry (Colored) made its spectacular but tragic charge and cemented its place in history. The story of the 54th is kinda-sorta told in the movie Glory, which came out thirty years ago and is still one of my favorite movies of all time.

Imagine, if you will, a little boy whose family was from Massachusetts, who read a book about the Civil War and learned about a brave unit, also from Massachusetts, that suffered some 44% casualties in its first major battle. The accompanying artwork was something that has stayed in my memory ever since.

08ab8f30 — Tom Lovell’s painting of Colonel Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts that appeared in Robert Paul Jordan’s book on the Civil War. Note that it also shows Sergeant William Carney holding the regiment’s national colors. SGT Carney, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, would be the first African-American soldier to earn the Medal of Honor.

So you can imagine my excitement when they actually made a movie about the 54th. The movie is far from perfect, both from a historian’s perspective and from a moviemaker’s perspective, but still, it is just a superb film and I love it. And the fact that they show how Colonel Shaw and his men were buried just makes the ending so powerful. The Confederates reported that they buried some 800 dead bodies in front of Fort Wagner that day, July 19th, 1863. They had intended to disrespect Colonel Shaw by burying him with his soldiers. But his parents, when asked if they wanted to try to recover his body, said that they could imagine no better place for him to be buried than with the men of his regiment.

The exact location of the grave site is not known, but so far some 118 acres of the battlefield have been preserved. Colonel Shaw’s sword that he carried into the battle was recovered in 1865 and then rediscovered a couple of years ago in the attic of a descendant of one of his siblings.

~Geoff

The Road to Gettysburg, as my Civil War ancestor saw it

Today is the 156th anniversary of the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

For the 11th Massachusetts Infantry, the pursuit of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during its invasion of the North began on June 11th, 1863. The regiment had been making plans to celebrate the anniversary of its muster into Federal service on June 13th. Early in the afternoon a large group of the 11th’s officers were playing a baseball game against the officers of the 26th Pennsylvania, one of the other regiments in the brigade, when marching orders were received. By 1:30 the regiment was assembled with knapsacks and began marching. The weather was already brutally hot.

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Today in History – the Battle of Little Bighorn

June 25th is one of those days that is permanently in my memory because of a historical event. Today, it is the 143rd anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn, the battle during the Great Sioux War of 1876 in which Civil War hero George Armstrong Custer and five companies of the 7th Cavalry Regiment under his command were wiped out by a much larger force of Native Americans. Since my teenage years, my view of the battle has been largely shaped by a (somewhat) obscure book called Son of the Morning Star, by Evan S. Connell.

That book would eventually inspire a made-for-television movie of the same name, a movie that I really liked, despite its flaws and its general commercial failure. Connell’s book was adapted into a screenplay by Melissa Mathison, who took Connell’s book and adapted it into a tale told by two women with very different perspectives: Libbie Custer (played by Rosanna Arquette) and Kate Bighead (voiced by Buffy Sainte-Marie and played by Demina Becker as a girl and Kimberly Guerrero as an adult).

Elizabeth_Bacon_Custer_-_Brady-Handy — Elizabeth “Libbie” Bacon Custer, probably circa 1865

It is largely because of Libbie Custer that her husband’s reputation and his memory in general did not suffer as much, at least for the first century or so after his death. And frankly, it probably should have suffered. Custer was brash, egotistical, vain, stubborn, and reckless with the lives of those who he led. There is a reason he graduated dead last in his West Point class of 1861. He was a controversial figure while he was alive, much less afterward. It is largely because of Libby Custer that the view of Custer as a tragic hero perpetuated for so long (see the movie They Died With Their Boots On, with Custer portrayed by Errol Flynn).

But what actually happened at Little Bighorn is much more complex than what was portrayed in popular culture for so long. And Son of the Morning Star (the book AND the movie) does a much better job than anything before or since in portraying the battle and what happened. That’s my opinion, for whatever it’s worth. Here’s a clip of the opening titles and scene, where the column under General Alfred Terry (played by Terry O’Quinn!) arrives on the battlefield to see they have missed the fight. Note also Captain Frederick Benteen played by David Strathairn. Also note that the story is largely narrated by the two women.

I don’t know if this film will ever find its way to DVD, much less Blu-Ray, but it should.

~Geoff

On not giving a damn

Disclaimer: Geoff loathes this movie and book upon which it is based. That’s not why I am posting it here. That’s just a bonus. (Love you, sweetie.)

The scene above is important for one really major reason. For all of their ups and downs and crazy drama, Rhett no longer cares for Scarlett. At all. He doesn’t love her, he doesn’t hate her, he just doesn’t care.

This is probably where I should warn you that this post is about unpleasant things. Trauma, PTSD, abuse – a lot of stuff. Turn back here should you need to. Likewise, for a variety of reasons, what I’m going to write may be a bit opaque with oblique references. This is necessary. I apologize for the confusion.

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Should we be worried?

Around the same time our “Stable Genius” leader was tweeting about the size of his “nuclear button” like he was a high school freshman, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that they are going to hold a session on January 16th about teaching federal, state, and local first responders how to “prepare for a nuclear detonation”. Both Guam and Hawaii have been more focused on nuclear threats in recent weeks and months, as both places are likely within the range of ballistic missiles from North Korea.

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The Trumpization of Civil War history

As a general rule, I am not a fan of the term “history buff”. Whenever I see someone referred to as a “history buff”, I tend to become a little irritated. In my mind, history buffs collect the Civil War Chess Set and Stonewall Jackson beer steins. Historians do research and then usually present their findings in one way or another. Just because you read history doesn’t mean you are a historian, just as the fact you can speak English does not mean you could be an English teacher, you know?

So when I read about Paul LePage, Governor of Maine (and living example of how the combination of poor anger management and eating too much poutine is really bad for you), making the (to me) astounding claim that 7,600 men from Maine fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, I nearly coughed Coke Zero through my nose. Continue reading “The Trumpization of Civil War history”

Today, April 12, is one of those days when so much happened

Today’s date is a day on which so many things happened, I doubt I can even remember them all.

Of course, it is the day that in 1861 the Civil War started with an artillery bombardment of the Union garrison in Fort Sumter, in the middle of Charleston Harbor. That’s a gimme for a Civil War historian like me.

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The science and history of rogue waves, part two

While searching for some videos on YouTube that might do a better job of explaining the phenomenon of rogue waves than I can, I actually found some really, really good material. First, one of my absolute favorite people on the Intertubes, Hank Green, who is also half of the awesome duo that is the vlog brothers. Here, Hank talks about rogue waves on his SciShow channel.

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The science and history of rogue waves, part one

In what could prove to be a huge step forward in predicting how rogue waves are formed, and thus a tool for saving lives at sea, researchers at MIT have found a way to give 2 to 3 minutes warning of an incoming rogue wave.

I know it probably sounds stupid, but it’s hard for me to explain how excited I am about this research. So much so that I am tempted to go speak with the researchers sometime (living in Cambridge does have its advantages). But to understand why I am geeking out about this, it might help for me to go into some detail about what we know about rogue waves, and how they have affected ships at sea, as well as oil rigs, lighthouses, and coastlines. This is one of those times that my love of history (especially maritime history) and my love of science come together.

Continue reading “The science and history of rogue waves, part one”