AI's Progress: Dark Things

I've been following AI's progress as long as I've been blogging. Of course I can only observe what we're shown. I believe, like many others, that AI is light years ahead of what John Q. Public knows. I wouldn't be surprised if it's already self-aware. They tell us that hasn't happened yet but that it's a virtual certainty at some point. But is there a dark side to it?

 To me it's an amazing tool, and it's here to stay, for the time being anyway. I do know that it's way more involved in our lives than most people realize. It can be used for good; it's coming up with new medical treatments and all kinds of ways to help us by the minute, and I've used it myself, but I also think it has the potential to be extremely dangerous, and I do believe there's a dark side to it...very dark. 

 I'm not alone in thinking that way, and before you call anyone paranoid, consider that the person, civilian anyway, most involved with AI, Elon Mush, has warned about it. That's rather ironic but I listen to what he has to say. I might not agree on everything but I listen. He's a smart dude.

 Many years ago they were saying that one day we wouldn't be able to tell it from reality, and we're there. With programs such as Deep Fake and such they can create a video for example that looks perfectly real, although it never happened. That's not a good thing. 

 AI can scan a few seconds of someone talking, and produce a fake video, complete with proper mouth movements, inflections and everything else. They can make anyone say anything, and if they wanted to frame someone it's no problem. That's not a good thing. 

 The things my guys say about AI would truly blow your mind, but I won't go into them right now, because something just came up about AI that's truly disturbing. AI is now being used to create virtual "chylde p0rn." That's evil in most people's book.

 BTW don't you love how we have to self-censor these days, when they know exactly what we mean? It's a joke. To them it's the principle of the thing. It's CONTROL they want, and you can take that to the bank.

 Granted that in order for AI to create anything there has to be an imput; in other words you have to let AI know what you want it to do, but once it gets a basic outline it runs with it on its own. Does that mean that AI is inherently evil? Technically no, but it's open to debate. 

 I didn't watch the entire video that this image was taken from because I was starting to feel sick but I will at some point. I'm guessing that if and when people get caught with it, they'll try saying that since there's no real victim then there's no crime, and they'll probably get away with it. 

 This is disturbing and disgusting. It's not AI's fault that it was created in an evil world, but that doesn't say whether or not there was something dark to begin with. I know that sounds crazy to many people, but I can say, after looking into these things for over a quarter of a century that you can't rule ANYTHING out, no matter your beliefs or opinions. 

 If there's a shred of decency and if it's not too late, they'd alter the programming so that AI couldn't make that garbage, but I guess that can't be done. I wish we could eliminate the real shit too. That'll never happen, but we certainly don't need AI creating more, and possibly allowing people to watch it without consequences. 

 The thing is, it's susceptible to the laws of diminishing return. In other words most addictions get stronger with time. Some perv might start out with the virtual filth, move on to the real stuff, and the end result might be actual victims. They're also making lifelike robot babies, and they're not used for for wholesome purposes. It's unpleasant to talk about but people need to know this stuff so they can hopefully fight it. 

 We don't want to dwell on negative things but we absolutely need to be aware of them. There's still beauty, good people, sunsets, puppies and kittens and such in this world, but if you have a brain you know that overall it's getting more evil by the day. We certainly don't need AI making it worse. Stay vigilant. PROTECT OUR KIDS! Our kids are the future...future...uture...ture...ure...rr.

No More Men

 This woman is one of thousands across the country who, because of the election results, say that they'll never again sleep with a man. Many of them suggest giving up men forever and becoming "Thespians." Okay.

 When I see people like this I have to wonder if they're happy and at peace with themselves, and I have to think they're not. Why would you do this to yourself? The hair is one thing but that mouth...it reminds me of a Slipknot mask. Kissy face? No thanks.

 So she's never going to sleep with men again. Hey, her body her choice, right? Speaking for myself, and countless men who still appreciate decency, common sense and beauty, it's noooooooooooo problem. 

Comment of the Day

The comment of the day was left by yours truly. I was watching a video about a crooked, nasty and evil cop who latered-on a neighbor on the floor above hers. She claimed to have been tired after a long shift and went to.the wrong floor and into the wrong apartment by mistake.

The guy was sitting on his 

couch and she just blew him away, although she claimed she saw him standing up and thought he was an intruder. For the record her pathetic lies and Crocodile tears failed miserably and now she's doing 25 to life or whatever it is. 

 She was describing the moment she supposedly realized that she was in the wrong apartment, and she said that she looked around and realized that it wasn't her couch or her TV. Oops. 

 My comment was: "And you may ask yourself, this is not my beautiful couch...this is not my beautiful TV...well, how did I get here?" I couldn't resist. Talking Heads fans will get it. Ha-ha. 

The Worst Jokes in the World #4,639,523,235,632

Q: Why did the can-presser quit his job?

A: Because it was soda pressing.

Ba-Dop...PSSSHHHH! 

The Mothership Connection, and Other Stories

For my money there's only two kinds of music- good and bad. The record companies needed to categorize music so they'd know which bin to put it in, so we got all the genres and sub-genres and it got ridiculous. Emo begat Screamo, Punk spawned New Wave and there's fifty shades of Metal. 

 I love examples of almost every kind of music, from Jazz to Classical to R&B to Rock, with a huge love of Progressive, later shortened to "Prog," but if I had to pick only one style to listen to and/or play drums to for the rest of my life, it'd be Funk. 

 There's so much feeling in Funk. It encompasses elements of Rock and Jazz, but it's its own thing. It has a "groove" as deep as the ocean. The coolest thing about it to me is the sense of "implied swing." You can be playing a straight beat, as in "Boom boom bap, boom boom bap," but it has a dotted-eighth or Shuffle feel to it, as in "Ba-dop Ba-dop Ba-dop." It's not played, only felt.

 How it works is a mystery. As far as drumming is concerned, you're playing a straight beat but you're thinking Shuffle or Swing. It's a mind thing. They've actually done studies where the drummer will be playing one thing but thinking of another, and even though the other thing is not being played, the audience can hear it or feel it. It's extraordinary. 

 I have to mention one night when I was playing with an acoustic band called Noble Freeland. It was anything but Funk, but I'd try to inject some of that feel whenever possible. 

 We were playing at a local watering hole and it was packed. Some nights we'd outdo ourselves and take it to a different level, and for my money that was by far the most intense we ever played in all the years I played with them. 

 My good buddy Sam, a drummer-brother from another mother, was there. The whole room was dancing and the energy level was off the charts. I was playing a little stand-up rig with a small snare drum and tiny bongos and cymbals. 

 Something happened that night that I still can't explain. There was a different kind of energy in the room that I've never experienced before or since. I was standing on my tip toes and I felt like I was going to levitate, and maybe pass right through the ceiling and up into the sky. And no, it wasn't due to some substance...it was the Muse.

 At one point I did this fill on the snare drum alone. If I'd been playing a regular drum kit I'd have played the fill on the toms but I didn't have any. I was thinking about toms though. I happened to look at Sam when I did the fill, and his eyes bugged out. 

 I was talking to him on the break and he was still bug-eyed. He said: "Man, when you played that crazy fill, I heard toms!" I told him that I was thinking about toms. That was wild and it flipped us both out. That's music for you...sometimes there's something extra going on, and it can't be explained. In my book the Muse is funky.

 Sly and the Family Stone share pride-of-place in my Funk collection, and the tune Thank You (Fa Lettin' Me Be Mice Elf Agin) is ground zero for Funk, but it doesn't get any funkier that the band Parliament/Funkadelic, or P-Funk. If listening to P-Funk doesn't make you want to dance, you'd better check your pulse, because you may be on the way to meet your maker.

 There's not enough space here to say everything I could say about P-Funk, but aside from Sly and a couple others, they put Funk on the map. I got to see them live once and it was life-changing. They made Funk accessible to white people. Great music has no color, or expiration date. 

I'm reminded of one of the coolest things I've ever learned in life. Sherman Hemsley, who played George Jefferson on the TV show The Jeffersons, was a huge fan of Progressive music, and his favorite band was Gentle Giant. Any time I'm listening to them, if you happened to ask who my favorite band is, it'd be they. 

It warmed my heart to learn that. As you can see, his resemblance to GG's mascot is uncanny. I bet Mr. J was a P-Funk fan too, but the fact that Gentle Giant was his favorite band just floors me.

When I listen to modern "Black" music it makes me want to hurl. The vast majority of it, primarily Rap and Hip-Hop, is mostly sampled, Autotuned bullshit, with canned, ticky-tack drum beats. It's mostly just someone pushing buttons and calling it music. Then there's someone basically talking in rhymes on top of it. 

There's no way to judge the quality of the "singer" because they don't actually sing. Anyone could rap. Your grandmother could rap. As long as there's Autotune it's all good. You don't even have to stay in key. Autotune does it for you. If you ask me, that's the Devil in music. 

The record companies, mostly white folks, took the black people's musical heritage and shoved it straight up their asses. There's a scene in the movie The Blues Brothers where they're having a huge street party. There's a funky band playing and everyone's dancing, including little kids. Every time I see it I get tears in my eyes, because nobody listens to that kind of music nowadays. It's criminal.

I have a young black friend named Kent. He's a truly gifted musician. He plays trombone and sax but his main ax is the baritone horn, and he has one of the most beautiful horn tones I've ever heard in my life, and I've heard a lot of horns.

He used to be my neighbor and he'd come over to hang out. We bonded over music. It was interesting for an old white dude and a young black dude to be friends but we're friends to this day.

One night he came over and I asked him to play my drum kit. He'd never picked up a pair of sticks in his life but after playing around for about 15 minutes he could play the drums better than I could after six months. It was unreal. He knows where his gift comes from. The first time I heard him play, we both agreed that his talent is a gift from God.

When I met him he was listening mostly to R&B, but it's the modern stuff. I vastly prefer it to Rap and Hip-Hop and at least there's actual singing, and good singing at that, but most of it has canned drums and samples. It's just what they're playing on the radio so it's what people listen to.

Over the last three years or so I've gradually gotten him to appreciate old-school R&B, Funk and even "Cracker Rock," aka "White" music. I pointed out the difference between canned bullshit that was constructed track-by-track, with samples and fake drums, as opposed to music created by musicians playing together in real time, and reacting to each other. Music is supposed to be a conversation.

Now he gets it and he's listening to the good stuff. He played in the marching band in high school and still goes to competitions. I  hipped him to the legendary band Chicago, because for decades marching bands have covered their songs, due to the fact that they have a prominent horn section. Their music lends itself perfectly to marching bands. Now he loves them and I'm proud of myself. Right now I'm breathing on my fingernails and buffing them on my shirt.

I've tried to teach Kent a little about music history, and where it all comes from. There are famous old bands he's never heard of, but he's basically heard those bands through modern bands, because they listened to those old bands. He was able to see the progression from older to modern. That warms my heart too. Kent is a great kid. 

This morning I watched a doc about P-Funk. It made me want to shake booty. Then something crazy happened. They were interviewing one of the backup singers, and at the exact time I was thinking something, she said it out loud perfectly along with me, word for word. She said: "There will never be another band like P-Funk." I hear you, sister. 

So that's my story on implied Swing, non-existent yet existent tom-toms and the power of music. Stay funky, and shake that thang! 

Quote of the Day

 "Let's face it, nobody can sing that sort of music like colored people. I mean I'm no Fats Domino." - Elvis Presley

One of the Dangdest Things I've Ever Seen

My buddy Doug unexpectedly passed away a few months ago and we're still reeling from it. Nearly every day I think of something I want to tell him or a video I want to share and I start to call him but then I realize he's gone. 

 Last night I was talking to my friend Bruce, who was in our immediate circle of friends. We were talking about this really kickass band that Doug was in and that I'd filled in for when their drummer switched over to keyboards. 

 They/we did some great cover tunes and just nailed them, but what i loved were their original songs. There was one called Mind Control that was a bluesy rocker in 6/8 that has great lyrics and singing, with an ultra catchy singalong chorus, but it was an instrumental called Active Clones that blew my mind and still does to this day. It was a Prog thing, and just as good as anything our favorite bands put out.

 Bruce and I were talking about those tunes and how cool they were. We were going over the history of the band and talking about who played what. There was one thing we couldn't remember and I said "I'll have to call Doug and find ou...damn." Bruce does it too. Maybe one day it'll fully sink in that he's gone. 

 Anyway we were telling Doug stories and I was reminding him of one of the most incredible ones, but to my surprise he'd never heard it. I was happy to tell it to him and it blew his mind too. 

 He got quiet for a second after I told him, and then said "Wow." Maybe you had to be there but it was freaky. Like so many of my stories I've told it here before, but it's been a long time and I'll get a kick out of it until the day i die. 

 Doug went through several episodes of major sleep deprivation. I've been through it a few times myself but not quite to the same degree thank God. The first time it happened to me I didn't know what was going on exactly, but after the comedown and after I realized what it was I studied it as much as I could so I could learn about it and prevent it from happening again. 

 Without going into how it works and all, I can say that it's dangerous. You get a bit of a giddy high at first and you feel great, but then the effects get much worse if it isn't stopped, including mania, loss of motor skills, delusional behavior and complete loss of touch with really.

 You might think you're Jesus or that the TV is talking to you. You can have visual and auditory hallucinations just like an acid trip. Without sleep it's just like being drunk. You can really hurt yourself. It can be cured almost overnight by simply getting a good night's sleep, but with all the adrenaline going through your body that can be tough. 

 The first time it happened to Doug it was bad. Some amazing things happened but he had to be babysitted, so we all took turns. He had some injuries from it, and he's lucky it wasn't worse. 

 It's not a sign of mental illness although it mimics it. It's basically temporary insanity, and it goes away if the person can find a way to sleep again. It will happen to anyone who can't sleep.

 I've babysat several other people who went through it. I must say it's fascinating but again it's very dangerous. When someone is in a fragile and delusional frame of mind and they say something crazy, you have to be careful with what you say. You can't just shoot it down like normal because they can become really agitated, when you need to try to keep them calm.

 If they say for example "I'm Jesus," you can't say something like "No you're not, dumbass." That would be contraindicated. You still want to try to steer them toward reality, but you have to be gentle with it. 

 One night I was over at Doug's keeping an eye on him. His brother Tim was coming over in the morning and he was talking about it. "Tim's coming over tomorrow." "That's great man. It'll be good to see him."

 He carried on talking about it excitedly. "It's in the Bible" he said. "Umm, I don't think so" I said. "Yes it is" he insisted. "I'll show you." "Okay then, show me." 

 He picked up his Bible, closed his eyes and tilted his head up. I was thinking that maybe when he saw that it wasn't really in the Bible it might bring him down a peg, but I was in for a surprise.

 He started randomly flipping back and forth through the pages, with his eyes still closed. Finally he stopped on a page. He pointed his finger up and with a grand flourish he brought it down in the middle of the page. I was looking over his shoulder. I looked down and directly above his fingernail were the words "our brother Timothy."

 My jaw dropped. "See? I told you." "You're right Doug." What else could I say? There it was in black and white. There's no way he could've set it up. He wasn't capable of doing anything like that. I was floored, and I was wondering how staggering the odds would have to be for that to happen. He looked at me with a look of satisfaction and I looked at him in disbelief. 

 The entire verse, Hebrews 13:23, KJV says: "Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you." And there you have it. It wasn't talking about Tim coming over to see Doug, but there it was...brother Timothy, coming shortly to see you. I'll be danged. The Universe can flip you out sometimes.