Artificial Ignorance (AI)

 So much hype and hypothetical bullshit being spread as fertilizer to reap cash from the latest digital wunderkind, AI.  And handwringing as just another avenue of hype.  What am I more worried about? 

Consider two simple digital tools: 1) the clock and 2) the calendar.  Mere tools, and yet they rule, indisputably.  Consider how many billions of dollars have been wasted; megatons of CO2 poured into the atmosphere to accomodate adherence to the clock and calendar. There is a simple observation that can only be made near a major metropolitan area, but most can imagine... In the US or Australia, compare the traffic on an eight-lane freeway, say, 8:30 in the morning on a Tuesday, versus 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.  Those eight lanes aren't enough on Tuesday morning.  And yet they sit, millions of tons of concrete and steel, nearly empty on a Sunday morning.  

A shift of only one hour, which in many places happens twice a year related to daylight savings time, will correspondingly shift the peak load on weekdays, but barely nudge the Sunday morning effect.  This amazing Sunday affect - social tradition; specifically tied to every seventh day on the calendar.  The lesser weekday shifts related to other social traditions; a business will open at 8 a.m., 8:30, or 9.  All employees with the exception of the boss are expected to be in their assigned locations.  Depending on the business, the boss may have worked late and been allowed compensation, or may simply have greater status, and be allowed the freedom.  

There is a notion that the COVID pandemic of 2019 might have changed this set-in-stone dynamic.  Businesses that could, allowed working from home.  Now that it's over, managers are pushing a return to pre-2019 customs, in spite of productivity evidence, because... they like to manage?  Much of the traffic has returned, and a lot of people want to "get back to normal" - even when that includes everyone getting on the freeway at a certain time; even when it has been been demonstrated to be unnecessary.  Will machines take over the human race?  Ahem.  Whom does the clock serve more; you or your boss?

Artificial ignorance - Chapter 2.

(US) States that want history to be properly sanitized, genders to stay in their lanes, and certain public discussions to remain taboo (yet ironically clamor about their free speech being taken away).  And so-called leaders who fail to see the parallel with the enforced cultures of Afghanistan, Iran, and China.