Thursday Thirteen

1. Alexa now says to me, "This reminder sounds important. Shall I remind you every hour until you tell me it's done?" when I ask her to remind me to do something. Not every time though. I wonder how she determines what sounds important and what doesn't.

2. She does make a good nag. Instead of nagging my husband to take his blood sugar, for example (he's prediabetic), I have times set up daily for Alexa to nag him. She nags him when I know he is going to be home. Usually he ignores her, but at least I am not the one doing the nagging.

3. Some time ago, Amazon changed the way I could listen to music on Alexa (unless I pay extra to join Amazon Music, which I won't do because I think I pay enough to be a prime member). There are ways around it, but it is aggravating to just want to hear one song and have to either tell her to stop after she plays it or to wade through several other songs to hear the one you want. You can tell her to skip to the next song, though, and she will.

4. The music change lessened my use of the device, so much so that I may not replace my Alexa when she has a technological heart attack. Instead, I plan to turn to my phone as my reminder and music player. I'm not sure what to do about nagging my husband, though.

5. When I am writing, I like to listen to Sheryl Crow or a few of Melissa Etheridge's albums. Not all of their songs, though. I am selective. I had a playlist but Alexa won't play it now. Well, she'll play it "and similar songs" because I won't join their little music club. So now I listen to that playlist on my computer while I'm writing. It's important that I not be interrupted by some song I wasn't expecting when I am using the music for background while I write. I have to keep my train of thought chugging along or I lose what I'm thinking.

6. The Alexa music change also upset my guitar playing, because before I could ask her to constantly replay a song while I tried to learn it. I can't do that now, so I use youtube. Like I said, there are ways around the issue Amazon created, but I have to take a few extra steps. I mean, I used to have to lift up a needle on a record player and find the song on an LP, so this is still easier than the "old days."

7. Since I have been using Alexa (and Siri on my phone), I have not been overly concerned about the new AI. I have played with ChatGPT and I have used the Bing AI to create images for my blog. I have found them both convenient and helpful, though I do not always get the results I expected.

8. While I might use ChatGPT for something on my blog, I would never use it in an article or anything I was being paid for. This is my personal space, so I feel like it's not a problem. However, I understand why writers and artists are upset about the way the AIs are being utilized and why some people consider it artistic theft. I also know some people are actually creating books to sell on Amazon using AI, and the information in them is not fact checked. This is not cool, and it is worrisome.

9. My brother told me he saw someone using a robot to mow their lawn the other day. It's like an iRoomba except for grass. To me that sounds like a great thing, but we have a lot of yard and it probably would have to mow a little, recharge, mow a little, recharge . . . I'm not sure it would have the whole 3 acres mowed before it had to start all over.

10. I also wouldn't mind having one of the iRoomba vacuums. It would be nice not to have haul out the vacuum cleaner. We live near a cement plant, and it gets dusty here. I could dust every day and it would look dusty anyway. Actually, it looks dusty almost immediately after I dust. This is why we run two air purifiers in the house. And, of course, the dust settles on the hardwood floors.

11. AI is going to be a great tool, but it is also going to be used for ill. The Internet offered, and still offers, great promise, but some humans tend to be destructive and find ways to use most anything in a bad way. Not everyone's mind goes off in that direction, thank goodness, but I think it is getting harder to tell truth from tall tale on the Internet. 

12. That's why I have multiple news sources that I turn to when I'm looking up things. Then I take the aggregate of the information and determine what is likely truth and what is likely not. Sometimes that is hard, and I think AI is going to make that even more difficult. It's already difficult to determine if an article in The Onion is truth or fiction, what with all the weird going on in the world.

13. For now, I am content with using AI as I am using it, but I am diligent and won't use it for profit (although I have to wonder now, if the computer finished my phrases for me, is that AI and is that utilizing it improperly?). I wish everyone felt that way, but I guess that would be asking too much. After all, I live in the "land of the free to make money anyway you can go about it."

*Bing AI created the images. Ironic, yes? But I couldn't draw them, nor could I pay someone else to. And it does liven up the reading a bit. :::shrug:::

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 822nd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.