Have you given this enough thought?

 

Do we know enough to do what we are doing?

Do you remember as a child hearing one of your parents saying to you "Do you think you have really
given this enough thought?"  Whether it was something simple, like spending your Birthday money on something questionable or declining a summer job offer to loaf by the pool, most of us remember parents or a good friend gently keeping us from a poor judgement by suggesting that it might deserve a second thought.

The generation in which I grew up moved more slowly, with more time to reflect and consider.  Younger people have grown up in a faster world, where answers are closer at hand.  Why look something up in the dictionary when the answer is right on your phone.  Why use a Thesaurus to find the best word for what you want to say when being precise isn't all that important.

Why reflect on future consequences when the things AI can do are amazing.  As Bill Gates states it, AI is like a "copilot, that handles administrative tasks, freeing humans from chores and giving more time for creative, human-centric parts of more important jobs."

Gates's reasoning may be significant to an executive, but what are the impacts on most people?  Should we have slowed down for a while before rushing headfirst, with little or no consideration of consequences like job displacement, bias and discrimination, privacy concerns, the ability to collect vast amounts of personal data, and taken time to establish ethical guidelines and legal frameworks.

In addition, what about the theft of information fed into the education of AI which not only used that information without compensation, but also subsequently displaced many of the people from whom they took the information.  For example, copy right laws forbid the theft of authors' work, but unknown numbers of books, ancient and modern, were fed into educating AI without compensation. Authors, Artists, and who knows what else, trained AI without compensation, and displaced the people from whom they stole. 

So, here we are, and one might ask, "Have you given this enough thought?'  In 2026 young college graduates found it to be the worst college hiring in two decades.  On the other side, the demand for large scale data centers is creating a boom for construction workers of all types.  As one man commented, "This is something that we've never seen before.  It's akin to the industrial revolution."

Trade workers are busy as electricians, pipe fitters, and other workers build the structures housing AI requirements, working 5 days a week to keep up, college graduates can't find jobs.  Some would say that is just the way the world has always advanced, it is the first time humans have competed with AI.  Construction works are benefiting now, but how long will they be needed, and will those workers with pensions and health insurance experience changes similar to the displaced office workers once the AI workers boom ends.  Will there be enough need for a permanent workforce to maintain the buildings once they have all been built.  

It is true that history tells us that as one generation creates a different world, new jobs evolve. However, humans have never competed with AI before.  History also tells us that there may be suffering in the interim.   I have seen many changes in my life, some mistakes, some imperfect, and some wonderful.  I believe this is different.  I understand that America was not the only nation exploring AI, and humans have always rushed forward, with inadequate concern for the consequences.  It seems to me that perhaps now more than ever, America, and the rest of the world, need wise leadership.  Perhaps now more than ever we need to ask that old question:  Have you really given this enough thought? 

   

How Can You Tell What's True?

Collection of Powerful Newspaper Editors

 We live in a very challenging time.  My father lived nearly his entire life in the house in which he was born, except for perhaps 5 years or less when he worked for the Forestry Fish & Game.  He knew his neighbors and they knew him.  I have lived in 6 different states, and I can't count how many different houses.  Recently a workman mentioned a name, assuming I would know the person.  I didn't.  "I'm sorry," he apologized.  "He lives about 4 miles from you, so I just assumed you would know him."  I'm sure my Dad would have, but I didn't.  

My parents subscribed to at least three newspapers--Pratt Tribune, St. John News, and The Hutchinson News.  We watched Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News every night that he was on. Edgar R. Murrow highlighted important news for us from 1951-1958.  We were quite comfortable that we knew what was going on in our community and the world.  Of course, we didn't.   

We no longer need to depend on 30 minutes of news in the evening, nor of only one or two people delivering it.  We don't have to wait for our favorite news program.  We can get our news on television, the internet, and our phones.  But, we trusted Walter Cronkite and Edgar R. Murrow.  Can we trust all of the people delivering the news today?  Sadly, no we cannot, but what we can do is research what we are being told.

I spend a great deal of my time researching the blogs I write.  The internet is full of information, but sadly, it is also full of misinformation.  Even more sadly, many people are willing to go in search of what they want to believe, rather than what is accurate information.  However, all of us are at risk of sometimes being fooled, even when we are trying to get accurate information.

If you are a sport's fan, you know about 'instant replay.'  How many times have you been certain that the football was over the line or the other guy touched the basketball last, and been wrong when you watched the instant replay?  Instant replay is a great tool when it is used correctly, but my recent blogs have discussed how technology can also be abused.  In response to one of my blogs about students entering key words online to obtain a custom essay for the specific subject of an assignment, one of my blog readers shared how much time his daughter has to spend investigating the essays turned in by her students to determine whether it was written by a computer rather than the student.

This is the world in which we live.  If you have found a news source that you like and you consult   nothing else, you may be ill informed, particularly if that news source has a bias.  Most of us have certain biases, mostly harmless, but our source for accurate news should not be careless about facts.

So, how can we tell whether or not we are being misled?  Here are some suggestions:

    Start by watching or reading more than one source of information.

    Is there an obvious bias?  Or, are there conclusions that don't make sense?

    Is the source a journalist or just a commentator?  A commentator is free to share his or her opinion without explaining how the conclusion was reached.  A journalist is meant to tell facts accurately.

   Use your computer to fact check the information.  There are organizations and individuals who search out facts to determine the accuracy.  Don't rely on just one.  Some good cites may have a bias, perhaps left leaning or right leaning.  Or, sometimes people just get things wrong.  If you try several fact checkers, you can get a sense of possible bias on certain subjects, and that will help you decide whether to check another fact checker.  Here are some fact checkers I have used:  FactCheck.org;  Wikipedia.com;  Snopes.com; TruthOrFiction.com .   

Not all opinions stay on the opinion page, and even the most conscientious people can get things wrong.   Sometimes there isn't a single right answer, and bias is something nearly all of us struggle with.  But the ways we can be misled are becoming harder to recognize, and we need to do what we can to get things right.