Artificial Intellegence
By John Sica?
A lot of people in Rockaway know me. If you ask them about me, they will tell you John Sica is smart, intelligent. What I really am is a good actor and bull*&$# artist. Because I can tell you, what I possess is artificial intelligence. If you look up synonyms for artificial you will find the words “feigned, false, pretended.” My pretended intelligence has gotten me through life though. At the age of 66, I pretty much did it on my own, without the use of Chat GPT or AI or “artificial Intelligence.” My intelligence was naturally artificial.
When I was in college, there was no internet. If I needed to copy some scholarly work, I’d have to go to a library and plagiarize someone smarter than me. I was good at fooling the professors though, whatever book I copied from I would not put it in my bibliography. Instead, I would make up fictitious books and use hockey players’ names that the professor wouldn’t know. For example, “A Nation Divided” by Ed Giacomin. Or “Greek Mythology Vol. IV” by Bobby Orr. To make it more authentic, my buddy, Hocko, who was in the same class, would use some of my book references in his bibliography as well, to make it look like they really existed. I would have loved to see my professor trying to find those books. Thank God there was no Google back then.
I wouldn’t want to be a college professor these days for many reasons, but let’s stick to the topic. With AI available now, a student can write a 10-page in-depth research paper in about one minute. Just tell AI what you need and let it do the work. If I had that when I was in college, I wouldn’t even bother to read my own report. Just cut, paste and hand it in. Of course, I would hope the professor didn’t ask me any questions about anything in my report. Now that I think of it, I probably would go into the report and misspell a few words to show my professor the human touch.
As helpful as AI is, it is going to put a lot of people out of work. It is already happening. Millions of people will be replaced in the legal profession, health care, banking, financial services, media, manufacturing, and all walks of life. Just walk into McDonalds and order from the kiosk. Or use the app and walk in for your awaiting order. Have you seen the security guard rolling around Stop and Shop? It may not need a health care plan or a coffee break, but an occasional oil change. No job is safe. Not even baseball umpires, their days of calling balls and strikes are numbered.
The day is coming when cars will drive themselves. Elon Musk announced that Tesla will unveil Robotaxi on August 8. Truck drivers will eventually be replaced. Will my grandkids ever need a driver’s license? I learned to drive a car with a manual transmission, a stick shift. As the years went by and cars weren’t made that way anymore, people didn’t learn to drive a stick. Now they won’t even learn to drive at all.
Even writers for The Rockaway Times can be replaced. If you don’t believe me, who do you think wrote this article? (I hope the editor left in those misspelled words.)
