The lesson of advice columns

Dear Abby, dear Abby
My fountain pen leaks
My wife hollers at me and my kids are all freaks
Every side I get up on is the wrong side of bed
If it weren't so expensive I'd wish I were dead
Signed unhappy

Unhappy, unhappy
You have no complaint
You are what your are and you ain't what you ain't
So listen up buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood John Prine

 I have to admit that I am a regular advice column reader and always have been. These include Dear Abby, Dear Ann Landers, Dear Miss Manners, Ask Amy, Ask Carolyn - even columns on health and automotive advice. Like reading my horoscope each day, I immediately forget any advice given.

Personal advice columns too often have this sort of content:

Dear Miss Advice Giver,

My husband and I have been married for 37 years* and he has an annoying habit - he picks his teeth at the table and refuses to discuss it with me. My children are no longer speaking to me and my mother-in-law is mean to me. I am a recovering alcoholic and have ADHD. What should I do?

Confused in New Jersey,

Dear Confused:

Get counseling.

Advice giver

Reading advice columns has made me realize that problems are far more interesting than the solutions for them. I guess I’ve known this for a long time. Many years ago I wrote a blog post on Christmas gifts I would like to bestow on my grandchildren. One of these gifts was:

Problems. Yes, I am giving you lots of problems as a gift. You may be an old man like me before you come to appreciate this package, but it may be the most valuable one you receive. Problems engage our minds. Problems make us creative. Problems (and finding solutions to them) give you self-worth. Problems keep life from getting boring. Problems can make life fun - really! When you put these in your pocket, they may feel like a burden, but they are boosters.

Like many retirees, I get bored on occasion. Is it because I have a shortage of problems in my life? I can just see the fingers rubbing and people saying, “This is a miniature violin playing My Heart Bleeds for You.” Ah, well, I am sure if I am patient, a problem or two will present itself in the not-too-distant future…

*I always wonder why people put up with a spouse’s annoying behavior for 37 years and then suddenly decide to ask for advice.

Good guy AI?

Illustration source: https://www.memedroid.com/memes/tag/terminator

Artificial stupidity (AS) may be defined as the attempt by computer scientists to create computer programs capable of causing problems of a type normally associated with human thought. Wallace Marshall (as quoted by Ray Kurzweil)

Should we as a species be more optimistic or fearful about the rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence? 

On one of our weekly therapy sessions (AKA hike), a friend and I reflected on how robots and androids and computer programs are portrayed in the movies. It was pretty easy to come up with a list of villainous technologies in films like 2001: A Space Odyssey; Terminator; RoboCop; The Matrix; and Blade Runner. 

But do a search for movies in which tech plays the good guy and the going gets a little tougher. We all love C3PO in Star Wars, the titular character in Wall-E, and Data in Star Trek. Many science fiction movies have robots as supporting characters - often in comedic roles. An interesting character in terms of good or bad is the Samantha character in Her. Perhaps what makes Samantha hard to categorize so simply is that she really does seem emotionally human. But a program as fully good as the Terminator is evil? Good luck finding one.

The media has set us up to be highly suspicious of machines who are as smart or smarter than we are.

I’ve been re-reading Ray Kurzweil’s prophetic book The Age of Spiritual Machines from 1998. Kurzweil begins the book by asking readers to tackle some pretty tough questions about what the press is now bandying about rather flippantly: How do we know we exist? What is consciousness exactly and do other species have it? How does the development of machine intelligence fit into the overall design of evolution?

Less existentially, he demands, we should simply start with the question “How do we actually define intelligence?” That’s more complicated than one might initially think.

Now defining stupidity is not that hard. I’ve completed that task a number of times (See Seven stupid mistakes teacher make with technology), “I use stupid under fairly constrained conditions. To me, a stupid act has a degree of willfulness about it and is serious. Making an error once is ignorance; making the same mistake multiple times is stupidity.” In short, ignorance is doing the wrong thing due to lack of knowledge; stupidity is having the knowledge, but doing the wrong thing anyway.

It may well be that in order for ChatGPT and other AIs to fully be taken as human, there may be a need to build in AS (as Marshall defines in the opening quote of this post). Until then, you can be assured that the Blue Skunk is fully human-produced - due not to its content’s brilliance, but to the dumb ideas it contains. 

The next iterations of AI should be interesting, indeed.

Sentimentality as a danger to libraries

 

A good friend, knowing my love of both reading and libraries, sent me the following quote:

On the power of books:

"Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together—just the two of you. A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people—people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book." from Letters to the Children of Troy by EB White

I recognize and share the sentiments expressed by Mr. White. I’ve often felt comforted by reading a book and spending time in a physical library - especially as a child and young adult. 

But I worry that White’s feelings are those of a time and generation now past. And that if we assume libraries exist primarily to provide psychological comfort to people through access to physical books, we are doing modern libraries a disservice.

Yes, for some people, all types of libraries provide a “third place” environment. But for many, it is the socialization, not isolation that White describes, as the library's primary value. A passive rather than active place seems to me to be a tougher sell to those who may not have a sentimental attachment to quiet, old-fashioned libraries.

As for being buried in a book, White’s letter was written in the early 1970s to the children of Troy, Michigan (not Homer’s Troy) and so predates the ebook as well as most electronic forms of both personal entertainment and information. It wasn’t until 1989 or so that I installed an early digital encyclopedia in my library media center. Yes, print books are still widely used and loved, especially by young children and older adults. But for many of us, being engaged in a book means making sure your Kindle or iPad or smartphone is fully charged.

I get as much or more value from my public library today as I ever have. But I very rarely darken its door. I check out all my materials electronically from home. I read more in retirement than I have ever had time to when working. But I almost never read a print book. I do keep a few well-loved print tomes in my home bookshelves, but the mass of my purchased materials sit in some Amazon cloud. Times they are a changin’. Or for younger generations, already changed.

The fellow who sent me this quote is one of the most intelligent people I know. He keeps informed, especially on education and technology, and is in fact a highly regarded expert in the field. But it bothers me a little that a person so well informed about so many things might see the value of libraries still accurately reflected in this quote rather than the diverse, multi-platform, multi-function institution professional librarians have been struggling to make them over the past few decade.

Fellow librarians, our work is not yet done!