Month: February 2024

It Only Takes One

I had lunch the other day with a very dear friend who I’ve not seen for a while – silly me for not partaking in such rich conversation and astute observations (hers). We had worked in several corporate environments together many moons ago, none of which we espoused with great joy and enthusiasm.

So, we reminisced and groused about our past professional gigs, and grumbled about the many toxic work environments that existed then, and perhaps even more, today.

And then my friend said something that perhaps should seem obvious about workplaces, but never has in my many, many moons working in many, many different places.

“It only takes one person,” she said. “Only one toxic person can pollute an entire organization.”

Well, do pardon me for perhaps stating the obvious, but this seeming innocuous comment lit a lightbulb of “Wow” for my old and humble self.

Please Pick Up the Poop, People

100_0050It happened again today. My spitfire puppy, Rosie, and I were off for a pre-rain walk when my foot suddenly slid as I took a step into something gross and squishy. Instantly I knew.  The pooper-scooper had not found its way to this part of the block – an all-too-frequent occurrence in this, our quiet suburban neighborhood.  What’s worse, there are multiple pooping culprits here based on the variations in size and color of the many poops scattered about. Let’s face it, most dogs poop when they’re on the beloved leash for a walk, and there are those owners who religiously clean up after them. I am one of those owners. However, there are those owners who simply don’t. Are they lazy? Careless? Believe in the ultimate “let nature be nature” approach?

Ugh, I for one am sick of hopping home and having to turn on the outdoor spigot to remove the by then the malodorous crap (literally) from my shoe. What’s a step-in-poop soul supposed to do?

One answer I came up with is to be hyper-vigilant about every footfall I take on a walk. This is not ideal for me because I’ll miss much of the enjoyment I get from walking my precious pups. On the other hand, looking down might help control my other walking issue which is the frequent trips taken  by one who is not graceful.

Another idea is to call the local animal control folks and complain. Scratch that thought.

Educate by example? Unfortunately, it is a rare occurrence that one of my dogs’ poops within close proximity of one of the offenders, so scratch that one, too.

The one I think about often is this: I know the worst offenders who, get this, have two dogs they take on two miles-long treks each day. Their pups’ poops now adorn the entire town. What I am thinking of is catching up with them one day with one of my dogs, a blue poop bag in hand, and asking them what brand of poop-scoop bag they use for their dogs!  And of course, I’ll go on to tsk-tsk about all the unpicked-up poops ( not to mention those of their dogs, of course) scattered about, and what a terrible nuisance, not to mention health hazard, they are. <grin>

Result? Will I succeed in shaming these two into picking up the poop or piss them off so they make sure their dogs always poop on my lawn. Oops – never thought of this.

Perhaps it’s back to the pooper-scooping drawing board.

 

Dehuminizing with a Humanizer

So, I’m having my morning coffee and going through my usual digital news stuff, and I come across the Humanizer! Just consider the name!! It sounds like some sort of evil, human-destroying thing. It is!

I can’t express enough here my total revulsion for what this thing is. It’s a tool that goes through AI generated material (another dehumanizing technology) and makes it “human.” In other words, it replaces the “real” human being in the writing process. Now the companies that sell these things don’t say that, not at all. Here is what one site says proudly about their product:

“Our platform uses advanced algorithms to analyze content and produce output that mimics the way human (sic) write.”

In other words, what this is all about is to “hide” material that comes from an AI tool. I used to write for a company that just sent out an email to its writers, and this is what it says:

“As many of you know, our team is launching a Humanizer tool for writers to polish and fact-check AI-generated content at the end of this week. It is not replacing our human-written content process, which is still our top priority, focus, and core offering. However, we recognize that times have changed, and as with every organization in our industry, we are adapting and evolving with the available technology. We still believe that human-written content leads to the best performance.”

Read through the lines and you’ll see that this company is looking to eventually replace its humans with a humanizer.

In yet another aspect of the impending doom of the humanizer tool, an article by MIT researchers discusses the allocation of blame potentially associated with the output of humanized AI:

“The way we allocate responsibility is complicated when AI is involved. AI is simply a tool created and used by humans, but when we describe it with human characteristics, people tend to view it very differently. It can be seen more as an agent with independent thought and the ability to create.”

Besides being sickened, I am also terrified. We are not dummies, and we can think ahead as to what this means: digitally generated material where the tool is charged with the responsibility for what’s in the content, content that will not be created by talented, experienced writers. So, in other words, who, or what, is responsible for what?

Sigh.

So much for the little newsletter I wrote and crafted by hand when I was a kid. Today’s kids will press a few keys and voila! No brains. No creativity. No life….