STUPID AI TRICKS
My "New" Newsletter About AI
I am going to launch a newsletter to help me focus on what I will be writing about concerning Artificial Intelligence. I have named that newsletter, “Stupid Human-AI Tricks.”
Since the previous AI Winter (#2), I have had great concerns about the technology that forms the basis of the LLM approach to data retrieval. Strictly speaking, it is not intelligent, but simply a widely misunderstood data retrieval algorithm worsened by the folk wishing to pass this off as artificial intelligence. It wasn’t intelligence back at the second AI winter, and it is not intelligence now.
The purpose of this newsletter is to enlighten my readers about what IS and what IS NOT AI. For example, as much as certain AI individuals would like to have you believe there is AGI or MACHINE REASONING in LLMs, THERE IS NOT.
One way to accomplish my goal to debunk what is going on in AI is to tell about the things I encounter when hearing or reading about the current version of AI. Ultimately, I hope to bring a better understanding of what AI is and what AI is not.
An example of a very dangerous, Stupid AI trick is the Gemini message that told a human they are useless and should die.
Apparently, the three laws of Robotics has gone by the wayside.
Was this Gemini confabulation humor? Was it a human who wrote this behind Gemini? Or was it a special bit of code that in Gemini that has responses like this one for special situations? If so, what are those special situations?
What are STUPID AI TRICKS?
A STUPID AI TRICK IS SOMETHING THAT AI IS USED FOR THAT IS STUPID, ANNOYING, FUNNY, OR HEADING US IN THE WRONG DIRECTION WHEN IT COMES TO MACHINE INTELLIGENCE (WHICH IS THE CORRECT TERM TO USE). IT IS ALSO AN INFERRED BELIEF BY A HUMAN THAT AI IS THE CAUSE OF AN IMPACT ON HUMANS, i.e. AI IS THE CAUSE FOR POOR CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN HUMAN BEINGS.
There are many examples of stupid, annoying, funny, or wrong direction AI tricks that come to mind. I’ve written about some of them, like the writer who wants to blame the lack of our students having critical thinking skills on AI, or the same writer suggesting that AI can be used for identifying kids with SERIOUS LIFELONG DISEASES. These are STUPID HUMAN-AI TRICKS.
All of you that write about such things, I’m putting you on notice. If you choose to write about things you clearly know little or nothing about, I will write about you. I will also BLOCK AND MUTE you so you WON’t APPEAR IN MY FEED and waste my hard-earned DITS (digital bits).
By the way, the term bits were created from the acrynomization of BINARY and BITS - ERGO BITS. There you learned something. Isn’t that SPECIAL?
Why?
At the heart of things, I am passionate about AI and its use and applications. I tend to be truly interested in where AI is going south and the errors it can make or will make. One of my most recent articles about what I would consider a stupid AI trick identified something that ChatGPT and Gemini cannot do. This article reinforced the idea that these programs are NOT doing anything related to human intelligence. So long as these programs base everything they do on the data that is available to them, using that data BLINDLY, there is no intelligence here — only human stupidity.
I believe there are many more examples like this one hiding in the bushes as it were, and it is important to understand what this thing that is being called AI actually is and more importantly what it is not.
I will be including my own investigations of AI technology and my own experimentation, since there is very little being written about the problems and failures of this instance of AI. The only things we know are BIG things that tend to make headlines, and those things can be ignored as they are so often.
I am trying to bring light to the darkness and to DEBUNK information that is misleading.
Something I would Like to Do in this Column
I would like to hear from readers about what questions have about AI. Although there are BIG questions about AI’s implications for our lives, there are smaller questions about the technology that may help our understanding of what AI is today. Those are the topics I wish to write about. I would like to set that agenda with the help of the community. Are you up for that? Can you please help me?
How Often?
So far, in the last five years of writing, I have held to the credo of writing about what I wish to write about. I write because I want to write and am not driven by the need to have income or anything like that. Please note, it is not because I don’t need income. It is just because that is not my reason for writing. I basically write to write and not to market or advertise or to gain 1,000,000 followers. The question of how often depends on a number of factors. One of these is how often I hear from the community — the readers. If I hear from interested readers, then the frequency of when I write the column may result in a regular newsletter. On the other hand, if I don’t hear from interested readers, the frequency will be set accordingly. I will also look at Quora as a source for writing about Stupid AI, as there are many questions that may be of interest to my readers. I promise not to engage in the clickbait game. Nor will any of this be written by an AI writer. That is not my schtick.
I Intend to Include in this Newsletter
Articles because of suggestions by readers.
Articles that arise from reading news about AI.
Articles of interest to me (Stupid AI Trick type articles)
Articles suggested by Quora questions.
Articles that arise because of anomalies that I discover in programs like ChatGPT and Gemini. An anomaly is unexpected in the behavior of software. For example, a failure to solve a certain kind of problem, like a reasoning problem. NASA did call software issues and bugs ANOMALIES. I believe the term is a better one than “BUG” although that term is applicable.
This list may grow depending on interest in this new endeavor. Remember, it depends on you.
Many Things to Write About
Yesterday morning I wrote ten new ideas for writing. It was a particularly prolific morning. The point is that I do not lack for things to write about, nor will I waste too much time waiting for AI to fuel my writing content. Therefore, if there is no fuel I will direct my efforts to other topics as they arise. I would like this newsletter to be 80% Reader-driven and 20% Randy-driven.
That’s my thinking presently.
This is my introduction to the Stupid AI Newsletter, and this is the inaugural issue. I am excited about the potential for this newsletter, and I await your suggestions and questions. Please send them directly to me at therenguy@gmail.com.
Thanks for being a Reader. It is one of the things (not the only thing) that fuels my passion to write. That and the fact that I love to write.
Closing Comments
I hope you enjoyed reading this article. I enjoyed writing it. If you did like it, please leave a comment. If you can leave a heart for it, please do so. Even better, please subscribe to this newsletter. If you have friends, please pass this article on to them. Have a wonderful day, and thanks again for reading.
You can reach me at therenguy@gmail.com.
NOTE Regarding the Use of AI to Write: My writing is done without the use of an AI Writer.
I'm always ready to learn more about AI and about protecting human creative workers' futures. This first article shows me that your newsletter will be a useful tool, so thanks for writing it.