Why Not an AI Fact Checker?

                                                       

                                        

                                                Beelzebub

As I was  listening to the recent presidential debate I thought of another use for AI. It could be used to expose lies. There could be a red light installed above each candidate which would come on if he/she told a lie. It could even be more specific, differentiating between inaccuracies, evasion, exaggeration, claims inconsistent with previous actions, statements or policies. If the candidate challenged the machine, it could provide documentation, or even recordings of previous remarks.  I can imagine a candidate being laughed off the stage. From what I understand about AI, this would be an easy task. 

I guess politicians have always lied, or at least exaggerated, either to discredit the opposing candidate or to boost their own reputation. My grandmother used to tell a story about my uncle’s first campaign for the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. His opponent accused him of cattle rustling! Grandmother’s response was, “If he’s stealing cattle, I don’t know where he’s putting them.” He won anyway. 

I can remember my mother, who today would be considered a political junkie, complaining about the liars and crooks in politics. Back then Oklahoma was a one party state, which made it easier to get away with lying if the politician was in good standing with the party. She used to argue with another of her brothers, a judge, who believed it was important to support your party, so that party policies could be enacted. He was a expert debater, but I thought she held her own pretty well. 

It seems to me that things are different now. It used to be that a politician caught in a lie would be embarrassed. He/she would have to explain themselves, come up with an excuse, claim he forgot or was misunderstood. It seems that there are more lies now. Politicians don’t hesitate to change their positions, or flat out contradict previous statements, and there’s no backlash.   

How in the world could a person like George Santos ever get elected to anything? He lied about his education, his birth, his accomplishments. He claimed his grandparents were Holocaust survivors, that he was a volleyball champion, that he was a wealthy businessman and philanthropist, all lies, but still was elected to Congress. His lies were bad enough that he was expelled, but it’s a sign of the times.  Lying is more acceptable now. Even the senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, now supports Donald Trump,  even though after the January 6^th insurrection he stated that Trump was responsible. 

Lying is not only accepted, it has become a strategy. Steve Bannon, an outspoken right wing spokesman said, that if you “flood the zone with shit” the public can’t deal with so many lies, so can’t make decisions. That strikes at the root of democracy. How can the electorate make decisions if they don’t know who they can trust? 

Another observation, just as alarming, was made by historian Anne Applebaum, quoted by Brian Stelter in a recent Time magazine article: "sometimes the point isn't to make people believe a lie—it's to make people fear the liar." It’s to assert power over reality. If you lived under the power of a ruthless leader, truth would become irrelevant. Ask a North Korean or Russian. 

That’s why I propose using AI for fact checking. You could load it with background information about politicians’ records and previous statements, about historical and current events. It could be fast enough to provide an immediate response during a speech. It could rate politicians on honesty and performance. Let’s do it! The future of our democracy might depend on it.

Targeted AI

 

I’ve been having good thoughts about AI, especially after writing my last post, which was about how easy life is going to be with AI to do all the work. After spending three days on the phone on the Bank of America website, and even going to the local BOA branch, and still having to call again this afternoon, wasting another good day just to pay my credit card bill, I thought to myself, won’t this be easier with AI? The automated agent won’t have to put me on hold to ask a supervisor because it will have all the possible questions along with all the possible answers loaded into its memory. You won’t have too wait on hold for an agent, or make sure you call during business hours because AI responds instantaneously and doesn’t sleep.

I’m not too excited about having a computer that will chat with me, write a term paper, or give me all the latest basketball scores, but creating an AI help desk sounds wonderful. I won’t have to try half a dozen phone numbers trying to connect with an agent who is an actual person, because AI is smarter than any person. 

Then I started thinking. What will corporations do with an AI enhanced help desk? First of all, since they are saving you so much time by their enhanced efficiency, they will be able to spend it selling you more stuff, or more expensive stuff.  Then, what if there’s a problem? What if the program misunderstands your question. What if someone hacks into the system and corrupts the algorithm? Who do you go to with complaints? The company has fired all the help agents. Then you have to worry about finding new jobs for the former help agents, or an alternate support system. 

Seriously, I think AI could work amazingly well in all sorts of situations that lend themselves to algorithmic solutions. There could be AI diagnostic and treatment  solutions for physicians, structural algorithms for engineers, Legal research programs for attorneys, and so on. You’d have to screen the training information for accuracy and make sure the information is current.  I envision targeted AI programs for different purposes; programs that are continually reviewed and updated by experts; programs that identify problems and notify the user so he/she doesn’t proceed using inaccurate information. 

As far as the problem of losing jobs, I think that needs to be addressed proactively. We shouldn’t wait until there are millions out of work. We need to gradually evolve a system that provides alternative occupations and support. We’re still benefitting from the make work programs created during the depression. 

Then I can spend my afternoons strewing beads of wisdom on my blog instead of struggling with the Bank of America help desk.

Everything is Chemistry

 

 

It’s an interesting fact that we often don’t appreciate something until we begin to lose it. I notice this phenomenon more as I get older. Last month, one of my eyes decided not to look to the right, so I saw two of everything on my right side. It caused me to remember that with only one eye you have no depth perception. If you reach for a door nob or try to catch something you reach too far or not far enough.  I found myself ignoring my right side, which caused me to run into things, and in the car I constantly had to remind myself to turn my head to the right to avoid driving into something. Fortunately it cleared up after a month or so, but it was scary. The doctor was reassuring. She said, “It was just a small stroke.”  

There are many other examples. I no longer can put off going to the bathroom. A sudden urge is an emergency, and standing up to go makes it even more urgent. I can no longer understand people when they talk to me, and, you may not have noticed, but the closed captioning on TV is often just jibberish. My wife gets tired of repeating herself, and she can’t understand why I can’t just “turn up your hearing aides.” I’m not as strong. I can’t balance without a cane. My joints hurt, and my neck and back. I can’t remember names or words to express myself. I can’t sleep well without a breathing machine which attaches to my face with a tight uncomfortable mask. I don’t get thirsty anymore, so I have to remember to drink. I choke when I swallow so my meals are punctuated by fits of coughing. My eye’s get dry and burn, so I have to carry a bottle of eye drops in my pocket. 

The latest experience that made me appreciate my body, at least the way it used to be, is constipation. I’ve never had constipation, or headaches, for that matter. Oh gosh. I hope that doesn’t jinx me. Anyway, I now have to balance Metamucil and Miralax, eat lots of fiber, and drink plenty of water, even if it means getting up four times during the night to empty my bladder instead of three. I have to pay attention to the consistency of my stool. Is it too hard to push out, too sticky to clean off? Fortunately I don’t worry about how it smells. I lost my sense of smell years ago. This is almost too disgusting to talk about, but I am coming to a point, slowly as it may seem. 

What this brought to mind was how remarkable it is that we’re able to digest all the stuff we eat: from tough meat and fish, to all sorts of vegetables and grain. We do though, and it’s all converted into a solid brown cylindrical mass, uniform, digested, with all the nutrients removed. If you think about it, it’s truly amazing. If I gave you an average meal and asked you to digest it, not just that but remove the nutrients for use, I’ll bet you couldn’t do it, even if you had a complete chemical lab to use, yet our body does it every day, while we’re going about our usual routine, unaware of the miracle we’re witnessing. 

How does our body accomplish this remarkable feat? We now understand, through centuries of scientific research, that the digestive system has acid, strong enough to burn your skin, enzymes, often specific for a certain chemicals. It is full of bacteria which would kill you if they were released into the blood stream, but somehow the intestine shields us somehow from these dangerous substances. Even people with damage to their digestive systems: bleeding ulcers, raw and scarred intestines, almost always manage to digest their food and extract the nutrients they need. 

And all this made me think – why are you not surprised? – of my wise cousin, Steve. He used to say: “everything is chemistry.” From astronomy to geology – Steve is a geochemist – to agriculture, to engineering, to physics, to human physiology -as in digestion- even to psychology. Everything is made of chemicals or produced by the interaction of chemicals. Just think about it. It’s true. But what difference does it make? It seems like an oversimplification. 

If you take what he said seriously though, and think about how every substance, every process, can be broken down into elemental particles or reactions, that is, chemistry- I’m almost there- it makes you humble. 

When I studied medicine, I was amazed at the complexity of the human body: the nerves and blood vessels, the bony structure and how it works to enable us to move in and manipulate our environment. I learned about the complex interaction of hormones, genes, enzymes, about the digestive system, as I mentioned above. And now, almost sixty years later, science has made huge advances. It boggles the mind. The more I think about it the more overwhelming it is. You really have to specialize in order to understand just a small area of medicine, and every area of science is the same: Physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science. 

And how do scientists identify and understand the chemicals that make up each little area of science. By the scientific method. First, a scientist, usually an expert in a small area of science that he or she has studied for years, has an idea. Then he, along with a group of his colleagues, fashions an experiment to test his idea or ‘hypothesis.’

The experiment requires time, money, special equipment, often government approval. If it involves humans, it may have to be performed first on animals, and then approved by an ethics committee before it’s actually performed on humans.  If the experiment gets over all these hurdles the results are submitted to the review board of a scientific journal and if approved, it is published. Then the report is often accompanied by a critical editorial written by a recognized authority in the field, analyzing its strengths, weaknesses, significance, and recommendations for further research. At this point the scientist is just getting started. Other scientists, experts in the same area, often from different countries, publish their own critiques of the study. Others try to repeat the same study to see if they achieve the same results. The process goes on for years and most often the whole idea is discarded. A scientist will consider him or herself fortunate if he makes one significant discovery during his lifetime. 

And that brings me to my point – I’m almost there. Science is so complex; scientific knowledge is so advanced, that the average person, even the exceptional person, can only understand a part of it, and that only if he or she spends years of study. That is why it irritates me when I hear someone discounting the value of immunization, say, or questioning the judgement of a doctor and scientist like Anthony Fauci, one of the most knowledgeable epidemiologists in the world. 

Like my cousin Steve says, everything is chemistry. Everything can be broken down into finer and finer elements and processes, using the scientific method. No one is smart enough to second guess this process. No one is smart enough to disregard the accumulated knowledge of the past. The universe is so complex that even the incredible knowledge we have accumulated over history is still tentative, still being reexamined, questioned by scientists around the world.

 

 

 

 

More about AI

 

 

I wrote about AI (Artificial Intelligence) in a previous article – Jan. 24, 2024, but I failed to mention one of the biggest fears about AI – that it will take our jobs. Assembly line, construction, transportation, and all sorts of service jobs are the most obvious, but jobs requiring organization and decision making could be eliminated too, or at least facilitated by AI enhanced computers. 

The advocates of AI downplay this fear by saying, ‘Don’t worry. AI may eliminate some jobs, but it will create others.' They said the same thing about the assembly line. And that’s true. A hundred years ago, most people had their own farm, made their own clothes, and from what I can gather from listening to my grandmother, who was born in 1877, they had more free time than we do now. We no longer have to grow our own food, but there are still plenty of jobs to go around. 

I’m not sure AI will create enough jobs to replace those it eliminates, but what if it does? What’s wrong with that? I wouldn’t mind working two days a week instead of six, or even having the option of not working at all. If all or most of our needs can be met by AI and automation, why insist on having a job for everyone? 

Back in the 60’s I read a book, Nine Chains to the Moon, by futurist and inventor, Buckminster Fuller. In his book, written in 1938, he viewed advances in technology positively. He contended that there were already enough resources to comfortably support the world’s population. He observed that there was already enough space in buildings to house the homeless, and enough food to feed the hungry. His goal was to apply science to solving the world’s problems, to “do more with less.” He supported improvements in housing and transportation. He advocated for recycling and the use of renewable energy sources. He said competition was no longer necessary, that our survival depended on cooperation, and government benefits needed to include everyone. It seems to me that Fuller’s ideas are just as relevant now as they were in 1938, and AI is just another tool that can be used to improve living standards and solve the world’s problems.  

So why are we worried about losing jobs instead of being grateful that in the future we won’t have to work as much? One of the problems is our culture. Our culture is built around work. Our status, our wealth, our options in life depend on our success in our jobs. Doctors and lawyers and business executives are wealthier and more respected. Even if we don’t have more prestigious jobs, we still earn more respect if we work hard. Work, success and wealth have become  ends in themselves. 

But what is the result of this culture? Most men spend most of their time away from their families, and most women are so burdened with child care and housework they have little time to pursue their interests. Children are influenced mainly by strangers and don’t develop strong family ties. According to my wise cousin, it’s hard to be a good business man and also a good person. I think Jesus said something like that too, something about a camel squeezing through the eye of a needle. 

But what about terrorists and dictators, you say? What about global warming and the population explosion? I think Buckminster Fuller had the answer eighty-six  years ago. We need cooperation between individuals, political parties, nations. We need to use science to solve problems, and we need to share any solutions with everyone, not just limit the benefits to the wealthy, or to those who happen to be born in a prosperous country. If we don’t make those changes, AI won’t make this a better world any more than the assembly line did. People will lose their jobs; the homeless population will continue to grow; poor countries will continue to produce terrorists, and dictators will use technology to make themselves more powerful.

 

 

The Man I Love

Gigi

What Are Little Girls Made Of?

                                            

 

                                        What are little boys made of?

                                        Frogs and snails,

                                        And puppy dog tails;

                                        That’s what little boys are made of.

 

                                        What are little girls made of?

                                        Sugar and spice,

                                        And all things nice;

                                        That’s what little girls are made of.

                                        Mother Goose

 

In spite of Mother Goose’s ancient wisdom about the difference between girls and boys, the role of women in most societies has been and continues to be suppressed. For a long time, I have felt that we would be better off if we defied custom and put women in charge instead of men. 

This is another opinion that I share with my cousin and friend, Steve, and I’m afraid recent geopolitical tensions are about to again prove us right. Just look at all the wars going on now, all started and perpetuated by men. Look at the societies with oppressive governments in Afghanistan, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, all run by men, and all of which suppress women’s rights. 

I think most of us in the US think of ourselves as open minded, with modern, progressive views, but the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the Equal Protection Amendment, passed after the Civil War in 1868, didn’t apply to women, or to Native Americans, by the way. Women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, after much demonstrating, imprisonment, and hunger strikes by advocates. The Equal Rights amendment, specifically giving equal rights to women, proposed in 1923, and again in 1971, was never ratified. 

Throughout the years, prevailing opinion (especially among men) has been that women’s place was in the home, caring for the children, keeping the house clean, and their husbands happy. It was not until the year 2000 that the woman’s pledge to obey her husband was taken out of the marriage vows in the Anglican prayer book.  

A common belief has been that women are not as smart as men, that they don’t think logically, and that their opinions are often driven by emotions. As recently as 2006, Laurence Summers was fired as president of Harvard University, for a comment that women were not as good in science and math as men. The latest president of Harvard was a woman. During the 19^th century, “scientific” theories were advanced claiming that women are not as smart as men because their brains are smaller. It was later shown that brain size in humans is just proportional to body size, and has nothing to do with intelligence. 

It's a well known fact that girls tend to do better in school than boys, at least through high school. 70% of high school valedictorians are female.  Then several things happen: hormones kick in, people start asking girls when they’re going to get married, and boys what they’re going to do when they grow up. This steers girls into having babies and getting married, not necessarily in that order. And it steers boys into choosing a career, or at least finding a way to make money. 

The social pressures directing girls and boys in different directions are strong, starting at birth, when parents get girls pretty dresses and dolls, and boys cowboy hats and baseball bats. But there’s more to it than that. Girls have to face the real responsibility of having babies and caring for them. This makes them out of necessity more responsible, regardless of their interests or talents. And boys, boys have testosterone, which makes them more aggressive, makes them want sex and adventure, and less responsibility. 

Male and female roles are not just the result of social customs, they have evolved over the millennia. They enable women to bear children and to care for them, so women are naturally more empathetic, and nurturing, which serves to hold the family together.  

Men on the other hand, like males of other species, have evolved to fight to protect the family from predators, and other males. As a result they had to be competitive, possessive, and impulsive.

In my opinion these evolved differences are no longer useful. There are no longer lions and wolves lurking in the forest to carry away your children. Men no longer have to eke out a living by clearing the forest and plowing fields by hand. Women no longer have to make their own clothing, churn butter and cook dinner over an open fire. 

Throughout the ages women have had to fight against social expectations and prejudices, and at the same time shoulder the real burdens of caring for children and family. When my aunt graduated from law school in the 30’s she had to take a job as a secretary because no one would hire her as an attorney. She and my uncle divorced, and she had to give up custody of their son to him, since he had remarried and had a wife to care for his family.  She later worked as a teacher, served time in the Army, and finally worked as a clerk for a judge. My uncle, on the other hand, became a successful trial attorney, and later a district judge.   

Times have changed though, just in my life time. When I was a child, women were expected to stay home with the children. Those who worked were looked on as taking jobs away from men who were responsible for supporting a family. My own mother quit her job when she married my dad for this reason. She learned to play solitaire to fight the boredom. 

Now women have birth control so they can choose when or whether to have children, and they constitute a large part of the work force. When I went to med school there were only three women in my class of 100 students. Now they make up 55%. The numbers in law school are similar. Since 1970 the proportion of women with college degrees has increased from 8 to 39% surpassing males, which have increased from 14 to 36% during the same period. More and more women occupy leadership positions in corporations, and many have even become heads of state. 

Okay, so why should they be in charge? 

First of all, women are risk averse. It’s a well known fact that women are better investors than men, because they are less likely to take chances by investing in a volatile stock. Also they tend to be less impulsive, looking at the big picture, pursuing long term goals. 

Next, women are less aggressive, less confrontational and controlling. 80% of violent crime is committed by men. Men more likely to commit murder, domestic violence, gang or drug related violence and robbery. A 2008 review published in the journal Violence and Victims found that although less serious situation violence or altercation was equal for both genders, more serious and violent abuse was perpetrated by men. It was also found that women's physical violence was more likely motivated by self-defense or fear, while men's was motivated by control. 

Furthermore women are better problem solvers than men. They are more likely to see both sides of an issue, and to use negotiation and compromise to solve problems rather than competition and power. And they are better at multitasking, since they usually do the bulk of child-care, cleaning, cooking, scheduling, and transportation for the family. 

So who would you rather work for, someone who strives to understand your point of view and gives you a chance to try out your ideas, or a boss who tells you it’s his way or the highway? Who would you rather trust your savings to, a broker who wants to put your money into a company he believes to be the next Amazon, or one who prefers to spread your investments out among government bonds and stocks with long record of stability and safe dividends? 

And finally, who would you rather lead your country, someone who fights for dominance over his political rivals, who enters conflicts with other countries to show power, and who persists in wars to save face, or someone who settles differences with other leaders by negotiation and compromise, and whose goal in both domestic and foreign policy is to minimize hardship and suffering, and to reach solutions that are mutually beneficial to all parties.