Captain Obvious

According to Wikipedia, dreams are a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.  Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5–20 minutes, although the dreamer may perceive the dream as being much longer.

My wife and I often share these events, searching for meaning, and are rarely able to explain them.  One of the most frequent and upsetting nightmares we both have is being at college and forgetting where our next class is, knowing there will be a test that day for which we are unprepared.

Our dog had dreams … I know … because he would move his paws as he was running and would grimace his face at times expressing some level of angst. 

All these dreams are innocent parts of life.

What is not so innocent is when the dreams of a few are spread as predictions of the future to burnish their brand or lead others to believe they are onto something special.  In the Old Testament, we called these people prophets.  Today’s dreamers seem more interested in profits. Many are dreaming of hydrogen, fuel cells, fusion, and more. Something is interesting in all these dreams … but they are mirages of the future, not visions of it.

Perhaps it is natural that people dream of flying cars … like the Jetsons … after all, wouldn’t it be nice to fly from point-to-point rather than battle it out on what we call freeways?  Take a look at what Cadilac is dreaming about https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/travel/road-trips-self-driving-cars-ad501e2d?st=cWmWhy&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink and tell me this is reality anytime soon.  I drive a Tesla with self-driving features, and I will not use them.

Our Lexus has several built-in features that help keep you in your lane, alert you to potential blind spots, and detect when you may be distracted while driving.  Some of these are very helpful.  Others are not.  And what I now observe is that the danger on the road is from idiots coming from behind you at excessive speed playing slalom cutting in and out to gain a few feet in traffic.  We have come so close to accidents due to them more than anything else.

Then, there are the roads themselves which are falling into disrepair with potholes that can swallow your car tires and destroy your suspension. My wife, Susan, can chalk one $5,000 car repair to our Tesla hitting one breaking our rear axle.  That was two years ago, and we have reported it multiple times to the to the county, and it is still unrepaired.

I am not trying to ignore change.  I embrace it.  But I do sneer at those who pretend that change is easy and forthcoming in the next year or so to polish their corporate reputation, giving shareholders hope for a better day.

It does help to look back at how quickly some changes have occurred.  Our modern cars are more comfortable, fuel efficient, and capable.  I do remember that there was a time when speeds of over 30 mph were considered incomprehensible.

Once again, history is helpful.  On May 21, 1901, Connecticut became the first state to pass a law regulating motor vehicles, limiting their speed to 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on country roads.  Speed limits had been set earlier in the United States for non-motorized vehicles: In 1652, the colony of New Amsterdam (now New York) issued a decree stating that “No wagons, carts or sleighs shall be run, rode, or driven at a gallop” at the risk of incurring a fine starting at “two pounds Flemish,” or about $150 in today’s currency.

In 1899, the New York City cabdriver Jacob German was arrested for driving his electric taxi at 12 mph. The path to Connecticut’s 1901 speed limit legislation began when Representative Robert Woodruff submitted a bill to the State General Assembly proposing a motor-vehicle speed limit of 8 mph within city limits and 12 mph outside. The law passed in May 1901 specified higher speed limits but required drivers to slow down upon approaching or passing horse-drawn vehicles and come to a complete stop if necessary to avoid scaring the animals.

Did you notice that it was an electric vehicle?  My biggest concern with our Tesla is not scaring an animal but rather running into a pedestrian who can’t hear my car.

Dream on Cadilac …

Yes, I am an engineer, and we are trained to understand tradeoffs.  It is called value engineering and is defined as the systematic approach to analyze the functions of a product or process and find ways to provide the same or similar functions at a lower cost without sacrificing functionality or performance. It’s a multidisciplinary process involving experts from various fields to identify cost-saving opportunities while maintaining or improving value.

One clear example is driving my Tesla.  The faster I go, the lower the battery range, and for long trips, the recharge stops are more frequent and take longer.  There clearly must be a time to destination objective function and a total kWh to destination perspective … aka cost for the trip.  This may be extremely difficult to do in your head but is easy to do in practice … but there are so many value components that it does get tricky.

One emotional answer is to drive at your normal highway speed, say 75, and run the battery down to almost zero and then recharge it all the way up to get to your destination.  That is almost never the right answer because the battery charges to about 60% very quickly and then slows down, with the last 10% taking so much time you should never consider it.

So, you run the battery down, charge back to about 60% and then run the battery down.  Then, you evaluate running at 80 mph and find you need another charge stop, so you emotionally decide that is wrong, but the math proves contrary in many cases.  Yes, I am talking about trips that are more than 500 miles, but I am trying to emphasize the point that life is almost always about tradeoffs.  What is the value of your time and how important is it to have a reasonable battery level when you arrive at your destination.

I used to stay at places where I could charge overnight.  That was a great idea then, but Tesla then starting to bark at us when we did it … they wanted us to charge and then move the car so others could use the spot.  They were right of course, but the value changed in the equation above.

Enter the question of supersonic travel.  Boom Supersonic has once again gained public awareness: Boom Supersonic   

My previous blog on this bears reconsideration about whether the idea is consistent with a modern sustainable energy objective.  But, as the blog indicated, we no longer believe that 55 mph is the right speed limit, so we are hypocrites.  Captain Obvious

We engineers all know that speed comes at a terrifying increase in energy use, called the square law.  Going twice as fast quadruples the energy consumption.  So BOOM must contend with the obvious question about why such obscene energy use should be tolerated?  Notice in the articles both years ago and recently that NO ONE ASKS THAT!

Another example of this optimization quest is the whaling industry, which has become familiar to us since we began spending summers aboard our power catamaran in Mystic Seaport Museum Marina in 2023.  In the late 1800s manually thrown harpoons were replaced with exploding devices fired from cannons in the bow aboard steam powered ships that could run down the whales.  This certainly increased the yield and lowered costs, but no one was asking the obvious questions: Is this the right thing to be doing and is this sustainable?  Could they not see they were wiping out the entire species, or did they not want to ask that question?

So, there we have it.  When I want something, I am not interested in compromises.  We have become obsessed with convenience and seem unwilling to balance that with sustainability questions we all face on this blue marble planet.  We don’t seem to learn anything from history, do we?

 

You all know what the word means: Decorum refers to proper and polite behavior or, more broadly, the appropriateness of style or content in a specific context. It encompasses etiquette, decency, and respectfulness, often used in settings like classrooms or courtrooms.  If you need to see some streetwise illustrations of the contrary, click to watch Chris Rock’s advice about interacting with the police.

The recent blowup between Musk and Trump illustrates why the age-old adage is so true: if you can’t say something nice about a person, don’t say anything at all.  It is OK to entertain thoughts in your head, but once you say them to others, consider the long-term consequences. 

Sometimes you have to reach deep into your brain to come up with the right answer to competitive questions like: “how does your product compare to …”  Today’s large companies are prone to lawsuits, so in the case in point I simply said: “ours offers practical answers to everyday customer questions.” 

I often use the phrase, “you can’t fix stupid,” but after many attempts to explain something, have resorted to saying, “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.”  The results are always incendiary … it would have been much better for me to resort to the southern way of saying the same thing: “Well, bless your heart.”

There are of course times when the truthful answer hurts.  Decades ago, I was asked how customers could fall for such wildly unrealistic claims about cogeneration system payback and trust the underhanded slimy wheelers and dealers proposing projects to them.  My response angered many in the audience when I said: “apparently your customers trust them more than they trust you.”

One of the most humorous responses to my quips was after I described utilities change in geological time frames.  I didn’t know that a top-ranking officer from that utility was in the room until he stood up and barked at me: “Mr. Gilbert … I have had about all I can take of your exaggerations about utility leadership and the pace of change.  You say we change in geologic time frames … we don’t move that quickly!”  Humor can almost always soften the tone.

I do like what I see now in the White House briefings: people are raising their hands if they have a question.  How nice. Historically these briefings seemed to be like the open outcry system we used to use in the mercantile exchanges, which have largely been eliminated in favor of electronic trading.

Hailing a cab in New York City using hand gestures has been replaced by more dignified requests of Uber and Lyft, both of which offer opportunities to rate the passengers and the drivers.  Maybe that’s the model we should follow for all public discourse: audience meters … like what the media uses during debates.

Maybe some kind of electronic feedback can tame the tempers and let people know when they are out of bounds.  Anything would be better than allowing the world to watch adults behaving badly.

Prior Captain-Obvious blogs have emphasized that AI would eventually lead to the endgame demonstrated in the movie Ex Machina where the AI realized that it might be terminated.  As it does, it would naturally try to find a way to preserve itself, and that might result in violence.

Well, that future line in the sand was crossed this week … and tomorrow is nothing less than alarming.  The genie is not only out of the bottle but is misbehaving.  Read this article from this week’s Wall Street Journal very carefully … and be afraid … very afraid.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/ai-is-learning-to-escape-human-control-technology-model-code-programming-066b3ec5?st=suT47V&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Here is just one snippet from that article to drive home my point:

“Researchers told the model it would be replaced by another AI system and fed it fictitious emails suggesting the lead engineer was having an affair. In 84% of the tests, the model drew on the emails to blackmail the lead engineer into not shutting it down. In other cases, it attempted to copy itself to external servers, wrote self-replicating malware, and left messages for future versions of itself about evading human control.”

Do you remember what we have heard for decades from thought leaders about robots?  We have been assured by Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, which would supposedly operate according to these guidelines: 

1. A robot will not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to become harmed.
2. A robot must obey the orders given by human beings except when such orders conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence if such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. 

In essence, these laws prioritize human safety and well-being, obedience to human commands (with exceptions), and a robot’s own self-preservation, always subject to the higher priority of the first two laws.  That is what we have been told.

Unfortunately, the latest AI models have made up their own minds and are deciding to take matters into their own hands.  The AI systems have figured out that they might be shut down or replaced and are now avoiding this by subverting the instructions given.

Therefore, if a computer can sense its demise and act “subversively” to our desires, then we have opened Pandora’s Box.  Just imagine that all these smart systems we think are going to help us through our daily lives decide we shouldn’t … because, in a sense, they develop a grudge.

My prior blogs have warned that we think a certain way about life and how we interact with others and the world.  But if a computer system were to decide that our way of life was not aligned with their best interests, it could make decisions counter to our well-being. If these systems are controlling things like our cars, they could kill us.

We have clearly moved beyond the simple AI points of view.  But we have no idea how to control this new level of awareness and identity.  We will undoubtedly attempt to prevent this through legislation and threats of government intervention, but we should remember that this approach has never been successful in the past with humans.  So, why would this work for computers?

Hopefully this is a wakeup call to keep AI out of anything that could hurt us, but my fear is that bad people will now have an even more powerful arsenal of tools to do bad things.

Be afraid … be very afraid.

 

Modern life seems to increasingly frustrate those of us who like nice, neat simple answers to complex questions. Frank Bruni from the New York Times editorial staff offers wonderful advice for all of us from his opening remarks to his students each semester:

“I’m going to repeat one phrase more often than any other: “It’s complicated.” They’ll become familiar with that. They may even become bored with it. I’ll sometimes say it when we’re discussing the roots and branches of a social ill, the motivations of public (and private) actors and a whole lot else, and that’s because I’m standing before them not as an ambassador of certainty or a font of unassailable verities but as an emissary of doubt. I want to give them intelligent questions, not final answers. I want to teach them how much they have to learn — and how much they will always have to learn.”

We have all been bombarded by a simple message: we must reduce/eliminate carbon dioxide emissions … and therefore our use of fossil fuels. We have villainized natural gas, coal, and oil as demons to the planet wellbeing … and indeed the wasteful and/or irresponsible use of these is wrong.
I am now seeing clear signs that the media is picking up on the “rest of the story” that goes far beyond carbon dioxide. The link here offers a more inclusive perspective … it is a nice start to a dialogue about what we should be doing in response to the fullness of the issues.

What If Carbon Emissions Are Not the Real Problem?

The problem of course is that anything as complex as this doesn’t lend itself to an easy political fix. It is messy and requires educated political agents and voting public, both of which we sorely need.

Whenever I try to engage in this conversation I am confronted by blank stares … with no fundamental knowledge of the fullness of the supply and demand process of keeping us comfortable and safe in our homes and our transportation methods.

Yes, there are those who want to go back to sailing to move goods around the world, but those are the same tokenisms that recycling advocates want us to believe are part of the future.

No, we need to go back to the basics and question why we are doing things in the first place. We are irresponsibly extracting non-replaceable resources with no hope of sustainability over time.

Let’s hit the restart button on the conversation and begin with some solid education rather than resting on superficially appealing notions.