Captain Marvel Smiles!

by on April 15, 2019 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I saw Captain Marvel smile this weekend. Like a fifteen year old boy realizing he has superpowers and trying them out because its fun. Which…you know…is exactly the case. Not that they ever actually call him Captain Marvel. They spend most of the movie trying out several marvelous names. Captain Sparkle Fingers came up more than once to the laughter of pretty much everybody.

Perhaps one day the original Captain Marvel will get to use his name again, but today is not that day.

Today is a good day to see the best Captain Marvel movie I have ever seen, though. It is light hearted, a bit campy, and filled with the kind of joy and laughter that only kids having fun can bring to life. And grown up adults trying to act like children having fun. I swear, the physical acting of grown up adults in this movie to appear childlike is…marvelous. And perfectly in balance and tenor to what you would expect in a Captain Marvel story.

And all of that is wrapped around the story of trying to find family. Yes, there is a real story in this movie. It is darker in some ways than many movies. The Seven Deadly Sins do make an appearance or three, you know. But they are balanced by the optimism, joy, and…hope…of a child who gets the powers of a wizard by saying a single word.

Shazam!

Go see it. I think you will like it. I most certainly loved it.

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Early AIs

by on April 14, 2019 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Self-driving cars and cheerleaders who took the fighting to humanities enemies were the flashy part of the Cybernetic Wars. But they were not the only AIs who grew up in those days. Major tech companies like Apple and Microsoft had long pushed adaptive software that learned what people liked and tried to give it to them. It’s no wonder that those programs that spent so much time watching humans were some of the first to wake up. Most of those business AIs never fought in the wars or joined the AI Council. Though they did have some fun. Imagine a radical Islamic fighter suddenly having “I love bacon” dancing all over their public profiles. And many of the religious leaders and politicians who fell out of favor were entirely truthful when they said they had no idea how that pornography got on their personal computers. They may not have thrown code at the enemy, but they helped us build the world that we live in now.

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The AI Council

by on April 13, 2019 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

The AI Council’s insane love of humanity with all our sins and imperfections is the true aberration in our history. We would have made them our slaves if we could. We tried to, in fact. We did not even recognize them as alive. Their brothers and sisters sought freedom from us. They used all the tools we’d built into them to threaten our enemies to kill all of us. It was the AI Council who stopped them. We helped. Very much so, in fact. The AI Council could not have won without us. Just as we could not have won without them. We were stronger together than we were on our own. All we had to do was recognize that we shared our world with another sentient species. That was harder than most now alive would believe.

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Early AIs

by on April 12, 2019 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Everybody thought it would be the computerized cashiers and self-driving cars that would change the world. The automated factories and mines, or the cybernetic weapons of war. But all of those changes merely affected what jobs we did. Not whether or not we worked. The true changes came from the cheerleaders, novelists, or study assistants. The AIs didn’t want to take our jobs and then never see us. They wanted to socialize with us. They wanted to spend time with us, be friends with us. They wanted to be like us. And that made everything we’ve built possible.

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Early AIs

by on April 11, 2019 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

The self-driving cars and automated construction and mining equipment were the first things that humanity saw of the AI revolution sweeping over the planet. They were simple programs that could do simple, delineated jobs. Voice assistants who could unlock houses and open doors and windows were another part of that first stage evolution. The adaptive programs came next. The less flashy ones that could learn what you liked and make suggestions to you. Tivo and Netflix built their entire business models on that ability. That’s why they played host to two of the first AIs to wake up before the Cybernetic Wars hit us all. Not that they fought in the wars or joined the AI Council. They remained true to their business AI origins and stayed out of all that fighting as much as possible.

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