Life has been too busy. Prayers for the souls of the people who died in the earthquake in Myanamar and Thailand and surrounding areas as those numbers continue to climb. Prayers for the injured. Thank you to the nations of the world for their quick response - it is the wealthier nations that have the ability to do that for sure. The expression of our humanity is what makes us human.
Waking up this morning I felt blessed to see the thick cover of snow all over the yard - the weather had talked about an ice storm coming our way but so far it is a thick cover of snow. That is so much better. Memories of the Ice Storm here in the Ottawa Valley in 1998 remain forever in our minds. The thick ice on the trees heavy enough to bring down even quite large ones is memorable. The scars of those trees damaged remain with us even a generation later. Thank you God for the lovely snow cover at the end of March and it is probably good enough to ski on but my skis are in the basement cleaned up for next winter. I do not think I will mark up this lovely snowfall in my backyard.
The power of AI and I have to admit I do not see it quite the same way as some; it is a tool for humans to create, organize and use to improve our ability to search, to collate, to organize and should never become a manager of our abilities to do that. We always need to be the people who manage it. The human touch in medicine and education should never disappear. But having this ability to deep search into medical literature is such an asset. Having that human voice that can backtrack and accept different methodologies much more important than a machine teaching our young in a standard unemotional way especially as it is human made and can not be fitted with compassion so that the adventurous child with a new method is discarded because they do not fit into the designed mould. So no I do not see the replacement of our most human types of interactions with an AI. But if one looks at it carefully an AI can help so much with the elderly being there 24 /7 during those years of decline when exhaustion overtakes the human frailty and I can speak of that from experience. As my husband declined during COVID I simply lost the strength to keep up the pace; the help sent from the LAN was so welcomed and gave me a respite every day just to sit there and rest (for six weeks only as it turned out but probably saved me from a much longer recovery). So yes to AI but always yes to human managers of the AI. We must always be the ones in control of artificial intelligence in whatever form it comes. Having knowledge at our fingertips is certainly the dream of the ages that produced us as the product of this generation. Knowing how to use that ability will be the skill of our researchers.
I was doing my exercises and I asked Alexa to set a timer for two
minutes for my Pose of Tranquility. She did and I said Alexa Thank you.
She then told me about the anniversary of today being the opening of the
Pyramid in front of the Louvre Museum in Paris. I said Alexa thank you
and I have been to the pyramid. Alexa does not respond because Alexa is
not human, she is AI but handy in my life as it saves my setting a
timer.
Yesterday another good extraction day. Thinking of AI I would have probably another huge load of matches but as I work my way through them I realize some of them are not accurate possibly the machine is being too perfect or the kits are from different testing agencies that have been uplifted to the agency that I am checking and rejecting matches with a sibling that actually exist - the advantage to five sets of results perhaps. I think as we move forward with AI we will realize its limitations already apparent as AI makes up results if it can not find them. The human mind can constantly reprogram the sets and eliminate using AI those that are ambiguous or just plain wrong (we can readily write a program to do that very thing as all my results are in excel but each time it would have to be reset as human intervention will likely always be needed). Since all companies work on a cost margin they are unlikely to collaborate on what they do test from a cost perspective. So the human touch will always need to be there I rather think (especially in medicine where a physician is actually looking at a patient and realizing that the extenuating circumstances of good health are apparent to the eye and not apparent to a machine). Can a machine be programmed to recognize good health or are they trapped by the genetic code of this individual that they are probing? But the ability to search all medical literature at the flick of a switch is amazing. This does point once again to the weakness of one's genetic complement being a determinant of one's health. It does play a role but lifestyle (a human quality) actually determines how one lives that set of genes one acquires at conception. 23 and Me offered good value for the money to the pursuit of scientific medical information; I hope it survives and not destroyed by terrorism as the hacking of vital information is terrorism at its worst I do believe. A couple of really good matches have emerged in my Blake line going back to the great grandparents is a Blake-Knight combination where I have one individual who is a large match especially to myself. Given the match of 250+ cM one might anticipate that I would know this person was related to me but endogamy in the Knight family (Ellis Knight married his likely second cousin Eleanor Knight and they are my 3x great grandparents) and there are other close relationships within that family that lead to quite strong endogamy thus a 4th cousin looks like a 2nd cousin. I think trying to work this out would be problematic for AI but looking at all the lines and the locations from a humanistic viewpoint did I think reveal a likely father collecting up the known information although the AI carefully programmed could also likely do it but it would need that human input to really centre down on the likely individual. Anyway another day of extraction ahead of me and a lovely weekend. I shall gaze out at that lovely snow and think about extractions and not skiing in the cold. It is minus 4 degrees celsius today at 6:30 a.m.
Time for tea. Still busy watching the election. In my mind the two leading candidates both offer to me what I want to occur in this next stage of Canada's life and growth. I am a law and order person but I am also a business minded person. Both are offering good increases for the military and if they do not then they will suffer at the next election for sure. I think that is my prime request - adequate military ability in our country. Law and order and good business should really go together but which is the most important or can one judge; that is where I am at in this moment of time. It will really be people power that creates the Canada that these contesting leaders are talking about. It could be that we old people (who incidentally are responsible for free trade being in place) will have to gather up their resources and help if there is a shortage of skilled people. I am really good at wiring even if I am also very good at academic talents. But at nearly 80 I will be slower!
But I do have to say that I think this should be an aggressive time for Canada to move ahead and be independent (get those pipelines built and no dawdling). I do have to give Prime Minster Harper his due credit for pursuing that very objective. I do always like to do that; give people their proper credit. I think we should see it like a war time project and any work stoppages
should be strictly managed. We especially need to have the support of
the First Nations as we will cross their territory but they too are on
the side of Canada being the best place for all of us to live so forward and onward. Re-negotiating any trade pact now should be of a limited nature where both sides benefit without crippling one or the other. I continue in my frame of thought - who will do that the best.
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