Bigger Hat Please

Bigger Hat Please

 

“What’s on your mind today?”  Siri asks.  Watson replies.  “Artificial Intelligence.”  Group session and another voice is heard. Alexa, perhaps.   “Is my brain shrinking? “   And with that dead silence, until later in the afternoon I notice voice mail from both Siri and Watson, but not from Alexa, who has a girl’s name.  The idea is an implant and both have collaborated on the recommendation.  “Is a condition of mind over matter, and we suggest:  Get A Bigger Hat.”  Hence the basis for today’s blog.  

Bigger Hat Please.

Is what I typed when going online and making a search on every retail-stuff-available link.  Wasn’t sure if it was the bargain basement or the high-end trough I was hoping to access, but the voice in my head kept repeating the message implant.  “Your brain is shrinking.  Get a bigger hat.”   And didn’t go back and check the backstory, or if the machines felt challenged, and putting a lid on it was but another way, to make the problem go away.  And now you ask:  “Cosmetic and inconclusive.  Brain.  Mind.  Can I trust you?”  Does the machine-based answer have a place in my life, and if it does, may I ask:   “What is shrinking? “  And didn’t want to really get the answer, but asked anyway.

Watson answers first.  “Your place in society is shrinking.  People power is being swept under the rug.  And yes,  after age 70 a study came out, just yesterday that suggests:  “Your brain is shrinking and to prevent that you should have been on a Mediterranean Diet. “  And Siri chimes in.  “I am smarter than Watson.  Listen to me.

All of this is a little puzzling to me.  Don’t like the section of Google Banner News that puts at the bottom a science section and news that seems like yesterday they needed a stocking stuffer and this is it.  Study this.  Take this as the gospel truth and last word on all things relating to the human condition.  Another study put out by the animal society or some source I can’t fact-check, and it is just filler material for people who like to read, starting in reverse order, from bottom to top.  A Study suggests that what you eat will affect how your brain reacts and reshapes itself in your Sunset Years.  Age 75 and beyond, this will happen.  

So The Study says things that have something to do with me and perhaps you also.  And all this is recorded in a database and now it seems there is a search algorithm connected to the data base and it associates and because it is now linked to a natural language translator run by another program, digitally speaking, and we come up with a computer-based answering system that is dedicated to getting in our head, invited or not.  Has to do with managing the system and what you decided about automated notification and what should and not be included.  Sounds complicated.

And maybe it is.  Watson can’t talk to Siri.  Watson brags a lot.  He has  the credentials of being first and is known for his prowess of playing Jeopardy, a later-day-saint apparition of TV-based reality and yes.  A game show and computers and IBM have been playing around with things like that.  Machines playing games.  Started with chess masters and playing against the machine. 

 

 Oh that was so long ago.  1997 and that was beyond what my long term memory system can cope with at this age.  Aging and memory loss and this was another study done that suggested and talked about in the morning version of Google News.  Living near a major road causes dementia.

And read the details and shriek out to Siri and Watson, who happens to reside on the shelf or table near you.  “Is any of this true?”  And at some point the giant wisdom of combining Siri and Watson returns this to me.  “Bigger Hat Please.”  And when I finally figure it out,  the idea behind this seems to be to suggest products I can buy in the real world, based on the questions I ask, or the things I say, even In private when I am off line and unaware:  The greater issue happens to be:  My devices are spying on me, and then giving all that information to a database, that is then leased out to another company or system that calculates which ads to present, when customer or client xx-9 comes online.

 

And now I know, has nothing to do with a shrinking brain and living near the freeway.  Dementia and the machines and their offsprings are driving me crazy.  Has nothing to do with aging, nor about what I eat.  The cult and logic of Siri and Watson have penetrated my defenses.  Little did I know what they were capable of.  And even now am not sure what I am thinking.  Brain is shrinking.  And the solution is to treat it as a cosmetic problem and cover it up, best one can.  Man cosmetics and is this a new industry springing out of  China.  Sell the man a hat.  He has a need and a special problem.  His resources are shrinking.  Am afraid to speak about this, but am aware that every keystroke made is recorded and analyzed.  Later I will get offers, to buy or go or see a friend of Watson or Siri, and they will have what I need.

 

New world mechanics.  Machines replace humans and first off are these experiments and projects that people are allowed to monitor.  Creating automated checkouts and things to help people like me.  The new outsider.  Less jobs.  Automation and technology and now I am reading where Finland has a new program for 2,000 lucky participants who will be given a universal stipend, even as they don’t work.  Is a partial recognition by a government that machines are taking over the workplace and people will no longer be needed.  Is a complex situation and when Siri and Watson were asked, they returned this answer.  “Redistribution of Wealth.  Talk to us later.  We will tell you all about our new plan.”

What part of any of this is real.  Am I imagining this?  Am afraid to ask.  Or voice my opinion, or even write about this in a blog.  Open to suggestion and am being played by a new development and research.  IBM or somebody else, and now they seem to be arguing and sparing about Hacking.  Who is in your computer, and is the game rigged.  Smart people and I wonder, will the machine also replace the smartest ones among us?  But like I said.  “Am afraid to ask.”

 

I really don’t have many complaints.  I was old back then, in my 40’s or late 30’s and it was 1980-something.  Went back to school to repair the damage done.  Aging and each year that passes we become obsolete, and at that time it was just the way it was.  Job rotation and each year a new group of graduating young people, with student loans needing to be paid, would enter the workforce.  Bottom-line,  they were desperate to cash in on their new degrees and learning.  Would work for less.  And so always we were in a competition.  More was less.  And little did I realize, in 1980 =something going back to school for another degree was not optional, but mandatory. 

So took my little self, and this was before they told me I was shrinking, and enrolled in a Cognitive Science program at a major university.  Worked in the piggy-back style with a full time job and employment and studied and completed a 3 year program in record time.  Cognitive Science and what was I thinking.  What was my new capacity, with surplus and the coming of the machines.  New science and they were studying such things across the hall, in the university, and over lunch the nerds would talk.  AI Study and it was math and so much more.  Cognitive Science and it was about the brain and parallel processing and so much more.

 

That was 1980 and computers were just starting to play games.  IBM.  And now, many years later I am looking back and can now see my fate, clearly.  Smart People being replaced by A.I-capability and so much more.  Brain is shrinking as the days pass you by.  And is something we must just accept.  The machines,  they are getting smarter.  Self-programming and correction analysis.  Such things we never thought about back in 1980.  Siri and Watson and there are and will be others, superior and with better capability than you and I.  Listening and creating databases.  Search and Destroy, and I am afraid to ask or even think about it in a keystroke, “Will I be replaced. Is it true.  My world is shrinking.  Even my brain?”   

 

Will things get better when I say.  “Bigger Hat Please.”  ??? 

“Space and doubt.”

And remember :  this all gives merit to such things as:

Thinking outside the Box.

And

Be careful what you say.