Posts Tagged: ‘Artificial Intelligence’

A Cajun Clickers Poem (2024-06)

June 2, 2024 Posted by Tiny

Thoughts From a Clicker
By Tiny Ruisch

At last month’s presentation of “Having Fun With AI”, I was asked to print this poem in the club newsletter.  Note: all bold, italics and links are duplicated as written by the AI.

Microsoft Copilot was asked to “write a poem about cajun clickers computer club using zoom”.  Copilot responded: Certainly!  Here’s a poetic tribute to the Cajun Clickers Computer Club, a community of tech enthusiasts who gather virtually via Zoom:

Cajun Clickers: A Virtual Ode

In the heart of Baton Rouge, where bayous flow,
A club of tech-savvy souls, their passion aglow.
They gather not in person, but through the digital haze,
On Zoom’s pixelated canvas, where knowledge plays.

Cajun Clickers, they proudly call themselves,
An all-volunteer crew, like digital elves.
From novices to experts, they form a diverse band,
Their common thread? A love for circuits and command.

Workshops unfold, like blooming magnolias,
Windows 11 secrets whispered, Android’s euphorias.
Genealogy SIGs trace roots through binary veins,
And Q&A sessions dance like code in the rain.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays they convene,
From morning’s first light till the screen turns serene.
Zoom squares fill with faces, each pixel a friend,
As they troubleshoot, explore, and their tech skills extend.

Cajun Clickers, a bridge across bytes,
Their mission: to demystify, to ignite.
From hardware to software, they weave a fine thread,
Connecting generations, where curiosity is fed.

Their virtual home, a cozy digital den,
Where ones and zeros blend, and friendships begin.
They laugh, they learn, they share bytes and memes,
And when the sun sets, they dream in binary streams.

So here’s to the Cajun Clickers, their screens all aglow,
In the bayou’s embrace, where knowledge rivers flow.
May their Zoom calls be merry, their circuits aligned,
As they navigate the bytescape, their passion enshrined.

Note: The Cajun Clickers Computer Club is a real organization in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, dedicated to promoting computer literacy. You can find more about them on their website.

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Seeing AI (2024-02)

January 28, 2024 Posted by Tiny

Thoughts From a Clicker
By Tiny Ruisch

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been sold on the artificial intelligence (AI) trend that seems to be taking over the world.  So far, it seems to be mostly smoke and mirrors hype.  Will jobs be lost, or just different?  That was said about every technological advancement.  Will it take over the world?  I’ve heard that story before.  Will AI create misinformation on the internet?  I’ll just wait to find out what George Washington and Abe Lincoln have to say about it.

Like many people, I’ve played around with AI.  A couple of months ago, I used it to write this column.  I’ve made some pictures and had several conversations with ChatGPT.  Mostly, I’ve been bored with AI.

Then I found Seeing AI, an app for both Android and IOS.  It is a Microsoft app that aims to help blind and low-vision folks understand more of the world around them with the assistance of their smartphone’s cameras and AI-powered narration.  My vision is pretty good when I wear my eyeglasses, but I’ve still found Seeing AI to be useful.

Seeing AI opens and immediately activates a live camera with voice narration built into the app.  Voice types and tempo can be changed in settings.  There are several functions that you can utilize with a simple tap.

Short Text – reads text that you point your camera at.
Document – is similar to Short Text, but more sophisticated. It can read and scan complete documents.
Product – is a bar code reader.
Scene – takes a picture and describes it in detail.
Person – identifies people.
Currency – identifies money.
Color – tells whatever color your camera is pointed at.
Handwriting – still experimental. Recognizes handwriting.
Light – plays a tone that changes pitch depending on how much ambient light there is.

In the Google Play Store, Microsoft says it doesn’t collect or share any user data. Would they lie to us?
Thanks for reading.

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Will Artificial Intelligence End the World? (2023-08)

July 30, 2023 Posted by Tiny

Thoughts From a Clicker
By Tiny Ruisch

Oh No!  The world as we know it is coming to an end!  At least that is what many people have been telling me.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here.  People are going to lose their jobs.  Deep fakes will be found everywhere.  We will not have any privacy.  We’re all going to be manipulated by algorithms.  I just hope that all this bad stuff doesn’t happen before I finish writing this column.

How many people will lose their jobs?  My guess is zero.  As with past technological advances, many jobs were created to replace those that were no longer needed.  The automobile caused the lost of much “horse work” employment.  We didn’t need blacksmiths, hostlers, saddle makers and many more.  There are hundreds of examples of this.  How many companies still make typewriters?  Try going to a store and buying a record album.  The list goes on and on.

Are fake objects going to be everywhere?  Probably.  If there is something of value, there will be a counterfeit of it.  Sometimes the fakes are even better than the originals.

We’re all going to lose our privacy.  I remember when I was a young boy growing up in a small town.  If I did something naughty, my parents would usually know about it fairly soon.  That darn telephone just took away all of my privacy.  The biggest difference now is that private information can be retrieved much faster than when Hoover’s FBI kept files on us.

Are we going to be manipulated by algorithms?  Aren’t we already?  Google maps tells what routes to take.  My writing program fills in many of my words after I type two or three letters.  Almost all of the things we watch, read or search for are recorded so that we can be advertised to.  The richest person in the world has so much privacy that no one knows who it is.

There have been so many other “end of the world” scares.  Remember Y2K?  That didn’t happen either.  I can tell you now that it was me that saved the world.  I changed the clock on my network time so that all of my electronics never did change to the year 2000.  After two years, when the scare was over, I finally allowed my clocks to update.

The decade of the 1980’s was going to be the end of the world several times.  It seems like everyone from Pat Robertson to the Jehovah’s Witnesses had proof positive that the “rapture” would be here soon.  Is it a coincidence that is the same era that personal computers started to become popular?  I can’t remember what George Orwell thought about it.

Wikipedia has a big list of dates that the world was or is going to end.  I’m not going to worry about the end of the world for a while yet.  Nostradamus made a detailed list of future predictions.  His prophecies end abruptly in the year 3797.  That’s when I’m going to worry.

Thanks for reading.

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