The Witness Chronicles August 23,2023
The most annoying GOP candidate, a ‘report’ that never was, and my AI beginnings
It’s debate day for the losers and we won’t get to see Chris Christie hammer Trump in person. But the rest of it might be mildly amusing, though it is an exercise in futility. Why? Because 73% of Trump supporters told a poll they trust him more than friends and family.
That one says it all. It’s the biggest cult in our history and that guy created it, the guy who has committed so many bad things no one can keep count.
I still trust my friends and family and readers to be reasonably sane. Thank you.
The Most Annoying GOP Candidate
This is a tough one- so much to choose from
Almost any one of them is a likely choice, including the front runner. Chris Christie is amusing and useful in his unrelenting and caustic critique of Trump. I’m sorry he won’t get face to face time with him. Mike Pence is a wooden caricature of an old school politician. DeSantis has become a joke, otherwise he would be the logical choice.
Asa Hutchinson is the voice of reason in a party that has abandoned the entire concept. Nikki Haley just doesn’t seem too bright. Tim Scott? I have no clue what his thing is. Who am I leaving out?
Oh yeah, Vivek Ramaswamy, the wealthy know it all who glibly talks about taking the federal government apart, seemingly forgetting that this is a huge country with enormous infrastructure, a massive military, and about a hundred other reasons why we need a government, regulations, and all that other government stuff.
He gets the prize. This guy needs a good slap, preferably from a woman after he gets done mansplaining and patronizing her.
None of this matters because none of them is going anywhere. Certainly not anywhere near the White House unless they decide to storm it. The big first Republican debate is tomorrow as I write this and it will be a yawn because none of these people will get the primary win.
And no Republican will win the Presidency in 2024. That’s my opinion of course, but after the primary dust clears the Party will find itself listlessly supporting a candidate who will be spending most of his time in court and most of his money on lawyers.
There is a reality here they are not dealing with. The GOP has done nothing for the American people. In fact, they have been taking away things we like for years and giving them to the wealthy people that line their pockets with cash.
Meanwhile the Democrats have a quite remarkable list of concrete accomplishments like a strong economy, massive investments in critical infrastructure, the rebuilding of the US semiconductor industry, unification of NATO in opposition to Putin’s Russia, at least some efforts to cope with climate change, and inflation reduction, to mention a few things.
Oh yeah, lots of jobs too.
Mr Ramaswamy apparently thinks all these things are unnecessary, despite having made his fortune in this exact environment he plans to take apart.
I’ll watch the debate I guess, though I’m betting the entire thing will be annoying and, ultimately, meaningless. We are going to witness the weird balancing act between supporting Trump and trying to either not be him or be even Trumpier.
This charade is what’s left of Republican politics and, despite my obvious disdain for all of them, unfortunate because in a functioning democracy there should be choices. But the choice should not be between a functioning government of the people and a dictatorship.
We might ask ourselves, where are the ideas, the positive forward looking efforts, the grasp of reality? I’ll be watching for a glimmer of those things, but I have little hope.
The other thing I’ll be watching for is anyone who implies that the 2020 election was stolen, because it was not. We know that for a fact after endless attempts to prove it was true all failed, and because anyone claiming it was stolen is signaling the Republican strategy for what they will do if they lose next time.
They are going to say it again and that could be the end of the American Democratic experiment.
Now, that would be annoying.
The Trump ‘Bombshell’ Report About 2020 Never Happened
He announced it would drop today. It didn’t.
How much more of this BS are we going to put up with? Earlier this week Trump promised an extensive report that would prove he won in 2020.
Big surprise, there is no report.
It’s about time for the mainstream media to start calling out the boy who cried wolf.
How many ‘major’ announcements can this guy make before responsible journalists point out that he is completely full of it?
This guy can barely read a one page document, much less create an extensive report. But what he can do is lie through his teeth because he knows no one will call him on it.
I read through at least six mainstream news outlets each morning and there was nary a mention of his cancellation of the bombshell ‘research’. Nada, nothing. And he knows this will be the case. First, he doesn’t care what anyone thinks. Btw, that means you hardcore Trump supporters. He would walk over you in a heartbeat if it was the fastest way to get anywhere.
When I heard his big announcement of a forthcoming report that would conclusively prove he won in 2020 and the election was stolen, I paid it exactly no attention. And I was not alone. Everyone, including his FAKE supporters in the Republican Party knows this is all smoke and mirrors, but they pretend he has a shred of legitimacy because they need his desperate band of noisy idiots, a band that is shrinking daily.
It’s collective insanity on the part of one of America’s two political parties, a party that controls one half of our government and who are constantly reminding us of their hypocrisy on a daily basis.
The fact that any of us put up with this crap and pretend he has any legitimate claim on power is pitiful and it makes us all look pitiful, because as long as we give him a podium, we are pitiful.
AI Content Editor and Humanizer
My next profession?
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. When the original ChatGPT dropped, I checked it out and was, to say the least, skeptical. I also went on the record against its use to replace writers, fearing an onslaught of spammy, official-looking crap content.
That’s still a legitimate concern but I have to eat crow and admit I was wrong about this remarkable technology, because I’ve never seen any tech become so pervasive so fast. It’s everywhere and I know why.
Give humans a new tool and they will find a zillion things to do with it, many which could not even have been imagined a few short months ago. Think about power drills, specifically cordless lightweight drills used to drive screws.
They have basically replaced hammers in construction. Watch any recent This Old House episode and you’ll see how tech has replaced that most basic of tools. Screws and nail guns have basically replaced hammers and nails. They’re faster, make stronger connections, and save a ton of energy and wear and tear on worker’s bodies.
I know, I spent time renovating houses back when I was younger and stronger. Hitting things all day with a 16 or 24 oz hunk of steel is hard on your entire body.
How does this metaphor apply to AI, specifically AI-generated content? Writing comes naturally to me because I’ve been practicing the craft all my life (it wasn’t natural at the beginning). But for many writing is almost painful, so having a tool that in a few clicks can generate that CEO email to their employees, can take way too long.
Which gets me to my pitch. I could go back out into the freelance business writing world and offer my services to write content. Instead I am offering something equally valuable in the AI created future. I’m going to protect businesses and organizations from crummy AI by polishing it, editing and giving it a human voice consistent with the standards of those organizations.
In other words, I optimize it so it doesn’t backfire on you.
Are you familiar with the AI problem of hallucinations? This occurs when AI puts together data in ways that are basically crazy from a human perspective. It’s called hallucinating because it bears no relation to reality as we know it. It’s nuts, in other words.
Though widely accessible AI has only been available for a few months, this problem has been largely improved upon, but that also means those hallucinations are more subtle but just as problematic, because the AI becomes more convincing and more sophisticated.
Aside from the potential for making errors and generally causing communications problems, unedited AI use could create very real legal problems by unintentionally misrepresenting things in convincing ways.
But there are other reasons for what I want to do. Humanizing content is going to be a critical function for virtually any AI instance, including data analysis (not my expertise). Just as an expert marketing copywriter can improve a mundane message, this humanizing process can turn dry facts into compelling content; content that sells, convinces, and informs without distorting facts or actually being incorrect.
That’s the pitch, but it’s important to understand what the role of a business writer is. We learn as we write, including the ‘voice’ of your business or organization based on your guidelines and the personality you wish to project: friendly, just the facts, down to earth, intellectual, highly technical- whatever voice you need to reach your target audience.
That can make that all important first impression that can be a driver of sales, repeat business, loyalty, and customer satisfaction. Using AI to replace some of these functions may save money and time but it requires oversight and, yes, that humanization.
This was written and edited by an actual human. Or was it?
This past weekend I sat with the girl watching Tropical Storm Hilary dump boodles of rain on Southern California, which is where she is from and where most of her huge family lives. Amazingly, it appears that no lives were lost though the mud looks terrifying to me.
But in Maui there are an estimated 800 people missing, almost all of whom are probably dead. The Lahaina fires were two weeks ago and those missing would have been found by now. But today the Washington Post reports on the Republican Party’s steadfast denial that humans had anything to do with these terrible disasters.
I guess that is the easy way to deal with it.
We’re really not having a summer here in Western NY. It’s been cool and rainy which I’m guessing a lot of Americans would be very happy with compared to broiling or facing calamity on an almost daily basis. It’s extremely green and lush here at a time of year when it’s typically starting to look brown and dry.
I’ll let you know how long I last watching the debate tonight. There is only so much I can take from these guys (sorry Haley, Halley, whatever…)
Did you write today?
Martin Edic
1905 words
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Just what I've been thinking, but you have the words