Quiet Sunday
Good morning, sports fans! Not much happening recently. I’ve been doing my Home Depot job (grateful!) and have started DoorDashing. Just dipped my toe into the latter. My car is a bit of a gas guzzler and I live in an area with lots of road construction, requiring detours and lost minutes. So I’m not sure how it will work out.
I have a Sunday-Monday weekend in my job. Sundays I’m usually pretty ragged after the work week. The honeymoon is truly over in this job: I’m getting slammed. I guess that’s a compliment of sorts.
AI continues to be a significant force in my life. I use it as a tool a lot for writing (not this post obvi), and for brainstorming. I use it for sourdough bread recipes (surprisingly effective) and techniques. I upload photos of my successes and failures at various stages of completion, and the AI is able to give me some pointers, some attaboys, and some solace sometimes. I’ve heard concerns that it keeps us from having to think, that it’s a crutch. I remember hearing that when the Texas Instruments SR-10 came out. and the electric typewriter. It’s definitely a force to reckon with.
I’ve also heard of more and more instances of people’s jobs being replaced by AI. I know it happened to me. I know there have been some sweeping workforce reductions due to AI. These systems also get their virtual hands on my resumes before a human can see it, and the AI doesn’t care about my life story. It looks for “recent education”, “recent experience” — proxies for age. I don’t know where it’s going to go or how to reconcile these forces. I know I’ve turned down opportunities to work in training AIs, sort of on a philosophical basis. But it’s scary.
I guess it’s like anything else. A few nights ago I couldn’t drive to the gym because the weather was so bad. Didn’t get to work out, but got to spend more time with my honey and my doggies. Yesterday I drove through driving rain storms and areas of flooding. But they cleaned my dirty car and I see some daffodils starting to poke up here and there. AI has definitely interfered with my ability to land a science-based job, but it has been a blast to interact with. There’s been a water main break near my home and we don’t have running water, but we have plenty of bottled water that is delicious.
For this quiet Sunday, I choose gratitude. Maybe I’ll get my keester in the car and DoorDash. I hope you all have a wonderful day!
❤️ — Ed