Musings – bendingtheneedle

An Untapped Opportunity?

When it comes to AI, It’s not a matter of if but when.

When AI becomes smarter and when companies begin replacing employees with AI tools and applications.

Corporations are throwing money (see Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar investment in OpenAI) and resources at AI technologies that can lower costs and improve outcomes for them and their customers.

AI will be a disruptor and a differentiator for businesses across all sectors, from retail and manufacturing to research and transportation, to software and content development.

The latest AI technologies will touch everything and everyone. They’ll affect the world’s economic food chain in ways we’ve never experienced. And while companies scramble to beat their competitors to the punch when applying AI to their processes and applications, our society fidgets and nervously awaits the next brave new world.

Creating corporate-sponsored programs and government policies to train workers in AI might work in the short term. Still, the more advanced AI becomes, the less reliant on humans it will be. Of course, small numbers of people with specialized and advanced AI skills will find complementary roles in this new work paradigm, but many others will not. For the worker, jobs will disappear, and wages will drop. For corporations, profits will soar.

We (especially Americans) measure personal success in terms of our work and compensation because most of what we value — the house we own, the car we drive, the family vacations we take, and the sense of safety and security we provide our children is inherently tied to our work and compensation. And thus, our definition of success and how we value ourselves are all balled up in what we do for a living, what we can afford, and how well we can provide.

When automation began replacing workers in manufacturing, those workers lost more than their jobs. People (who just a few years before had a valued and specialized skillset) became obsolete. Unable to pay their mortgages, afford their car, take a family vacation, or provide security for their children, they lost their sense of self-worth. And because the skills they brought to their workplace could now be replicated by a machine, they also lost hope. To survive and be successful again, they’d need to start over – learn new skills, and claw their way back to relevance. For many, that challenge was too great, and they gave up on life. Research shows a causal link between investment in automation and rising mortality levels, “with this rise largely due to so-called deaths of despair, such as drug overdoses and suicides. This was especially so for men and women aged between 45 and 54.“

So, how do we avoid future deaths of despair when the new AI takes hold across industries?

What will our societal response be to millions of jobs disappearing in the wake of AI-driven software and automation?

What happens when the magnitude of job replacement from AI exceeds what we experienced when automation in manufacturing became the norm?

AI is not inherently bad. Its impact on society will largely depend on our reaction to it. We need outside-the-box thinkers in economics, business, the social sciences, and government to begin planning for the consequences of success when it comes to AI, because the effect on humans will be broad, deep, and potentially devastating.

If AI and automation become the benchmark for productivity and success within a corporation, then perhaps AI presents us with an opportunity to reshape what it means to be a productive and successful human.

What if AI allows people to focus on a higher purpose? If AI kills more jobs than it creates (and I think it will), we might consider implementing universal basic income (UBI) to help people find purpose in this brave new world, without fear of losing the roof over their heads.

With the right social and economic safety nets in place, AI can give people the space and the time to become better humans, where instead of defining success by work and compensation, we define it by how we treat others, by volunteerism, and through our capacity to love and care for one another — you know, the things that machines and AI can’t do.

Dark Day Afternoon

Doomsday Clock https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/

Doomsday just inched a bit closer

So says the clock on the wall

Amused, nihilistic humans

just waiting for mankind to fall!

We know the problem’s we’re facing

We know what needs to be done

We know that the weapon is loaded

but we like the taste of the gun

We’re ninety seconds from doomsday

So says that guy on the news

“It’s the end of the world as we know it”

A theme song to give us the blues

Doomsday just inched a bit closer

it nuzzles up to the fear in our head

The tick of the clock getting louder

It thickens our fear into dread

Religious to the point of destruction

Tribal to our own self-defeat

Chained to a blood-violent nature

Man and doomsday were destined to meet

When Sorrow Clings to Angel Wings

She made it through the Spanish flu
a million others died
but slipped and fell with scissors held
Oh, how her parents cried

Rorschach’s plume, still in bloom
soaks through her dressing gown
she raps on heaven’s pearly gate
but no one is around

When sorrow clings to angel wings
They might-as-well be clipped
So back to earth
To haunt the house
Where she tripped and slipped

Immortal klutz with lots of cuts
dark shadows on the wall
she roams the house without a spouse
wrapped loosely in her shawl

The Cleaner and His Cat

He caught himself staring blankly at his coffee, wondering how long he’d been sitting, cup in hand. The last sip must have been hot. He could still feel the blister on the tip of his tongue.

Like a Picasso, a dark sadness hung on his face. He hated the look. “Definitely his blue period,” he mused, half smirking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

He mostly avoided reflective surfaces. Feeling depressed was terrible enough; he didn’t need to see it. He didn’t need to be reminded of it.

His cat circled impatiently, rubbing against his calf. “Time to eat,” he purred . . . . “Snap out of it!” he meowed.

On days like today, he was grateful for his cat. The cat’s well-timed reminders kept the man from the doorknob and belt, and the dark thoughts that tied everything together.

He whispered, “My demise will have to wait; there’s a cat to feed and a litterbox to clean.”

His apartment was a shambles. It mirrored the cluttered chaos in his head. Based on experience, he knew a good house cleaning would lift his spirits.

He often wondered how external feng shui works its magic on the mind. “I’ll have to google that,” he says in the direction of his full-bellied cat, who bathes contently in a patch of sun on the kitchen floor.

The sink is full. There’s half-eaten food caked on dishes, the remnants of last week’s menu. Why not just clean up after each meal? Especially knowing that cleanliness and order helps quell his anxiety.

“Why do I let things pile up?

What keeps me from staying on top of things?

Will I ever grow out of this?

That last question bounces around the inside of his skull like an unselected lottery ping-pong ball.

Will I ever grow out of this?

Of course, he didn’t know the answer to that question. He remembers a bright era of pre-affliction, which gives him hope. He thinks “if I magically went from being happy to being depressed, why can’t I miraculously go from depressed to happy?”

Unfortunately, there’s a history – a consistent footprint on the ladder of his family’s DNA. In a sense, he’s been branded, and sometimes that feels so fatalistic, he just wants to give up.

But he doesn’t.

He continues to clean.

An Ugly Lust for Power

Floating in his own orbit

absent from the ethos of ethics

he was driven by an ugly lust for power

fueled by an insatiable desire for attention

bootlicked and buttressed by a sycophantic public

and buoyed by yes men

The man was wholly unhinged from truth

divorced from morality

and devoid of integrity

Gripped by insecurity

and the crippling fear of being labeled a loser

he cultivated lies and deceit

Like a Shakespearean witch

hunched over a cauldron

of poisonous misinformation

he hatched his plan

to cling to the reins of power

just long enough to topple the republic

For a few hours that day

our democracy flickered and dimmed

teetering on the dark edge of an authoritarian abyss

and if not for the courage of a few

and the rationality of the rest

We’d have lost our democracy

and the hope and freedom it brings to us

It would be a fatal mistake to think

the bullet we dodged cannot be reloaded

The confederacy of cowards

who defended the snake

and helped perpetuate the crime

still walk the halls of congress

and just beneath the ashes

of the failed attempt

are the smoldering embers

of the next

At Sixty

“I know I could do this if things would just slow-the-fuck down,” he muttered. Head bowed, sitting at a dimly lit kitchen table, teetering on the edge of a midlife meltdown.

With more than 30 years in the industry, you think he’d be brimming with confidence. For most, that kind of experience leads naturally to calm assuredness. But with experience comes expectations, and those expectations smother him like a blanket of boulders.

He feels incapacitated by his experience, not buoyed by it.

He fixates momentarily on his wife’s furrowed brow and imagines himself tiny, wandering through those deep valleys of disappointment.

At work, he’s surrounded by the young and hungry. Buzzing with ambition, their bright voices float on currents of frenetic energy.

Was he ever that exuberant (about anything)? He struggles to remember his younger self, but it’s like painting with numbers without the numbers.

In his cubicle, yellow sticky notes pop off the edge of his monitor. A sleek uninviting flower, daring him to delve in – begging him to fail. Tossed to the corner of the desk, a coffee-stained and panic-scrawled legal pad.

His “to-do list.”

After a full day’s work, that list somehow gets longer, not shorter.

Early in his career, he’d slide into a work groove and rip through his “to-dos” effortlessly, like a sickle through the wheat. But nowadays, he’s easily and willingly distracted. His ability to focus comes in short bursts only, and the mental elasticity of youth is frustratingly absent.

His focus is hampered further by a barrage of instant messages and multiple meetings a day. As a result, he always feels two steps behind in a mad dash to a deadline.

He wears his age like an ill-fitting suit, and he struggles to keep pace with his profession.

He lifts his head and speaks again.

“Honestly, I don’t think I can do it anymore. I’m sorry, because I know that puts us behind the eight-ball financially, but every day’s a struggle, and I’m barely keeping my head above water.”

He wasn’t being lazy. He was being honest.

He remembers when success was all the motivation he needed. He remembers plowing through whatever work stress he encountered, because on the backside of that stress were people who depended on him. For 25-plus years, that was all the motivation needed to keep at a job he never truly enjoyed.

Now that his kids are grown and on their own, he faces an increasingly stark scenario. Deadlines approach, the work pace quickens, his ability to keep up wanes, and the desire and motivation needed to plow through it all has vanished.

He concludes that what’s required of him, and where he is philosophically (at sixty), have diverged irreconcilably. He feels this in his bones and in his gut every morning when he wakes.

And there’s a nagging sense of entitlement, that at this phase of life he’s earned the right to slow down — to take his foot off the gas — to smell the roses. He romanticizes about a job that doesn’t follow him home every night. A job that ends when the day ends and doesn’t occupy his mind ceaselessly.

At sixty, he has no interest in climbing the corporate ladder. Instead, he wants to set it ablaze, sit cross-legged on his cubicle floor, and watch it burn to ash.

At sixty, he has no illusions about discovering job satisfaction. That boat has sailed, and there’s no sense lamenting he never got on it. Instead, he’s looking for balance.

He’s looking for “just enough.”

Just enough to pay his bills and free up some time.

Just enough to sip coffee in solitude, and not worry about work.

At sixty, he sits at a dimly lit kitchen table, looking for a way out.

Crackling Fires from Funeral Pyres

Digging holes with metal poles

Earth hanging by a string

ember coals and smokey souls

our hearts refuse to sing

Nostril flares and double dares

blood coursing through our veins

no one cares or fires flares

to save us from the flames

Rubber necks on splintered decks

missiles pierce the sky

the crackling fires from funeral pyres

sparkle in our eyes

Mascara streaks on dampened cheeks

as quiet fills the air

we crawl across a floor that creaks

to waken our despair

Stars explode and fade to black

the darkened sky above

stretches far from east to west

obscuring peace and love

Democracy on the Ballot

Price hikes and inflation are cyclical and are tied to global events – things will return to normalcy regardless of which party wins the majority in Congress.

Your democracy (and the freedoms it provides) is tied to local events – specifically, election day voting.

If you fail to vote against the party that espouses nationalistic and fascist views, your democracy will disappear.

If you fail to hold politicians accountable for supporting a former president’s attempts to overturn a free and fair election, your democracy will disappear.

If you vote for a party that wants to restrict freedoms and rights rather than expand them, democracy and the freedoms it provides will disappear.

Don’t be short-sighted this coming election.

Slip Knot Future Up Ahead

Mascara streaks

on expressionless faces

punk-metal fills the air

a swarm of pierced humanity

hits the mosh without a care

Rabbit holes of red-hot coals

their world spinning on a string

empty souls dance to Dave Grohl

life to them, a fling

Rubber necks on double decks

Russian missiles fill the skies

distant fires from funeral pyres

the flames flicker in their eyes

Tattered seams on crocheted dreams

slip knot future up ahead

poisoned streams and noiseless memes

They’ll dance until their dead

Fodder for Felons

Mar-a-Lago’s a henhouse

guarded by foxes

with top secret files

in taped cardboard boxes

Classified docs

spread all over the floor

fodder for felons

trying to even the score

Millions of lost souls

and Q-cultist bigots

they lap up the lies

from electronic spigots

Looking for purpose

while grasping at straws

praising their savior

despite all his flaws

Empty of knowledge

full of deep longing

Q fits the bill

and their need for belonging

Fingers raised up

they sing and they sway

“The storm is-a-coming”

and so’s judgement day

Engaged in a story

which casts them as heroes

too dumbstruck to know

that they’re dancing to Nero

drinking the Kool-Aid

they’re dope-sick on Q

freebasing lies

and shouting fuck you

There’s fear in not knowing

how this will end

how far Q is going

to strongly defend

the lies of a con man

unwilling to bend