2024

2024. A brand new year. A magic time of music, joy, celebration and love. Fireworks! And happy memories.

The old year is limping off stage, bruised and bleeding, one of the most difficult years in recent history. A trail of destruction and sorrow in his wake. The legacy of 2023.

Ironically, that legacy also includes some very important discoveries and innovations which still bear his imprimatur. And which bode well for the future. For example:

• Powerful lasers were developed which can veer dangerous lightning strikes off path.
• Return of rocks and dust from an asteroid to Earth revealed that they contained carbon and water, building blocks of life.
• Mouse embryos grown in space were unaffected by low gravity or solar radiation. Positive indicators for eventual making the human race a spacefaring species. (don’t laugh)
• An international landmark treaty was signed to protect the seas.
• In aother landmark case, Brazil’s top court ruled in favor of indigenous race rights to their land.
• Solar, wind and geothermal energy became less expensive while fossil fuels became more expensive, thus reaching a tipping point in favor of green energy resources.
• A trial drug program yielded very positive indicators regarding avoidance of and remission from cervical cancer.
• And more

 So it seems that 2023, in spite of its dents and scratches, had its good points as well as its bad points. 

Hey, you might ask. Isn’t this blog supposed to be about Hideaway Pond and its neighborhood critters? Why are you writing about all of this stuff? 

Well, to begin, how does one avoid it? But point taken. That’s for another blog post.

First, I find it to be interesting and fun to do. Sort of my own little conversation with myself. Not the most silver tongued or witty chat pal, I suppose. But as long as nobody has put me in jail or a straight jacket yet, che sera’. I’d be very pleased if a few others were to find it interesting. But if not, it’s instantly deleteable. No hard feelings. More or less.

Second, we’re all a small part in the spectrum of life, from the lowest most basic one celled critter to the highest, most intelligent and complex. Including the folks who suffered through 2023. And the critters who live at or around Hideaway Pond. Even the bugs. Except mosquitos, may they burn in hell. Though not to put too fine a point on it, if Hell had mosquitos, it wouldn’t need fire, would it? Another argument against fossil fuels.

Scientists contemplate complex phenomena such as lightspeed, Interstellar gases, gravity, pressure and the birth of stars. The “depth” of mysterious ‘black holes:” A curve in the time space continuum. “Worm holes”. “Black holes” in the fabric of that continuum–leading to–what? And to where? Another dimension? Perhaps. “Warp speed” in the fertile minds of sci-fi writers.

Yet, with all of our research and scientific assets, we’re mere insects in comparison with the vastness of the universe.

One wonders–I do–if the critters of Hideaway Pond have the perception and curiosity to look up at the night sky that shines and spins overhead. And wonder too. I’d like to think that they do. After all, they’re part of all of this. The same wild abandonment of rules that exist in all natural things.

So we come full circle. Wonder. And curiosity. That’s why I write about this stuff. And I guess you could toss ignorance (one of my superpowers, by the way) in there too. Paradoxically that’s one of the human traits which, for better or worse, has brought us to where we are today.

Our ancestors, without our limited knowledge of the universe, feared many of its wonders. They invented and worshipped gods to fill that void. Space, time, the moon, stars and the rest of the cosmos were part of that void. And its mystery. 

With ample curiosity and no shortage of wonder, the modern human race has since filled that void and solved many of its mysteries with new and amazing creations:

• Antibiotics–Penicillin
• Tissue Culture–Study of viruses; Vaccines
• Artificial Heart
• Genetic Sequencing–Recognition of patients’ predisposition for certain hereditary diseases
• CRSPR–Gene Editing; Personalized Medicine
• Atomic Power
• Space Technology
• Telescopes that can discover “exoplanets” in other star systems and determine their potential ability to support life.
• Etc.

 

And now comes AI, one of the most controversial, promising, “frightening” and mysterious technologies since nuclear fission.

Inventing artificial intelligence is an ongoing process with many people contributing to its development. The term “artificial intelligence” was first coined in 1956 by computer scientist John McCarthy. McCarthy and other early AI researchers were influenced by a number of ideas from philosophy, psychology, and mathematics.

OpenAI is a company owned by a group of technology entrepreneurs who have been involved with other startups and technologies. Its CEO is Sam Altman, one of the most well known and controversial figures in the world of AI.

ChatGPT is an AI-powered language model developed by OpenAI. It’s capable of generating human-like text based on context and past conversations. It can also create images, chat with voice, and use and build custom GPTs for various purposes, some of which are used by casual users (me) and some really scary smart people like Geoffrey Hinton, formally of Google who said: 

“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us. I think they’re very close to it now and they will be much more intelligent than us in the future,” he says. “How do we survive that?”

He is especially worried that people could harness the tools he himself helped breathe life into to tilt the scales of some of the most consequential human experiences. Especially elections and wars. 

Nervous? Worry not. There are people on the IQ scale between Hinton and me who are keeping the digital ship afloat. So far.

I suppose I could sit back and let ChatGPD write this entire blog with little or no input from me. But where’s the fun in that? The text and images all sprang from this ancient fevered brow.

I conjured up this old gypsy with a crystal ball and asked her to give me some idea of where AI will take us.    She said “Who knows?”

Last month, OpenAI simultaneously stated that it is “impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials,” and that the company believes it has not violated any laws in such training. This should be taken not as a favorable illustration of the leniency of copyright statutes permitting technological innovation, but as an unabashed admission of guilt for plagiarizing. Now it is up to the public to deliver an appropriate sentence. 

P.S.–Read the link (stated) above. 

By the way, if you know anyone who might be interested in visiting Hideaway Pond, the address is hideawaypond.com. Thanks for sharing!