AI TRANSITION

The potential of AI is akin to the Industrial Revolution, yet it could surpass it significantly if managed correctly by humans.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The AI-Savvy Leader (Nine Ways to Take Back Control and Make AI Work)

By: David De Cremer

Narrated By: David Marantz

David De Cremer (Author, Belgian born professor at Northeastern University in Boston, and behavioral scientist with academic studies in economics and psychology.)

“The AI-Savvy Leader” should be required reading for every organization investing in artificial intelligence for performance improvement. From government to business, to eleemosynary organizations, De Cremer offers a guide for organizational transition from physical labor to labor-saving benefits of AI.

AI offers the working world the opportunity to increase their productivity without the mind-numbing physical labor of assembly lines and administrative scut work.

Like assembly line production implemented by Ford and work report filing and writing during the industrial revolution, AI offers an opportunity to increase productivity without the mind-numbing physical labor of assembly line work and after-work’ analysis reports. With AI, more time is provided to workers to think and do what can be done to be more productive.

Arguably, AI is similar to the industrial revolutions transition to assembly line work. Assembly line work improved over time by changes that made it more productive. Why would one think that AI is any different? It is just another tool for improving productivity. The concern is that AI means less labor will be required and that workers will lose their jobs. De Cremer notes loss of employment is one of the greatest concerns of employees working for an organization transitioning to AI. Too many times organizations are looking at reducing costs with AI rather than increasing productivity.

The solution identified by De Cremer is to make AI transition human centered.

His point is that organizations need to understand the human impact of AI on employees’ work process. AI should not only be viewed as a cost-cutting process but as a process of reducing repetitive work for labor to make added contributions to an organization’s goals. AI does not guarantee continued employment, but reduced manual labor offers time and incentive to improve organization productivity through employee’ cooperation rather than opposition. AI is mistakenly viewed as an enemy of labor when, in fact, it is a liberator of labor that provides time to do more than tighten bolts on an auto body frame.

AI is not a panacea for labor and can be a threat just like industrialization was to many craftsmen.

But, like craftsman that went to work for industries, today’s labor will join organizations that have successfully transitioned to AI with a human-centered rather than cost-reduction mentality. Labor productivity is only a part of what any AI transition provides an organization. What is often discounted is customer service because labor is consumed by repetitive work. If AI improves labor productivity, more time can be provided to an organization’s customers.

When AI is properly human centered, the customer can be offered more personal attention by fellow human beings employed by an AI organization.

Too many organizations are using AI to respond to customer complaints. Human-centered AI becomes a win-win opportunity because labor is not consumed by production and has the time to understand customer unhappiness with service or product. AI does not think like a human. AI only responds based on the memory of what AI has been programmed to recall. With human handling of customer complaints, problems are more clearly understood. Opportunity for customer satisfaction is improved.

De Creamer acknowledges AI has introduced much closer monitoring of worker performance and carries some of the same mind-numbing work introduced in assembly line manufacturing.

De Creamer suggests negative consequences of AI should be dealt with directly with employees when AI becomes a problem. Part of a human-centered AI organization’s responsibility is allowing employees to take breaks during their workday without being penalized for slackening production. Repetitive tasks have always been a drain on productivity, but it has to be recognized and responded to in the light of overall productivity of an organization.

AI, like the industrial revolution, is shown as a great opportunity for human beings.

De Creamer suggests AI is not and will never be human. To De Creamer AI is a recallable knowledge accumulator and is only a programmed tool of human minds, not a replacement for human thought and understanding. The potential of AI is akin to the Industrial Revolution, yet it could surpass it significantly if managed correctly by humans.

SPINNERS

“All the Worst Humans” is a macabre but revealing look into the darkest corners of public relations.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

All the Worst Humans (How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians)

By: Phil Elwood

Narrated By: Holter Graham

Phil Elwood (Author, public relations operative, graduate of Georgetown University with graduate studies at the London School of Economics.)

“All the Worst Humans” is a macabre but revealing look into the darkest corners of public relations. It is an anecdotal story, with a ring of self-effacing truth by Phil Elwood who specializes in spinning news about morally corrupt people and bad events. A listener is skeptical of Elwood’s integrity because of the nature of what he does for a living. Elwood manipulates societies understanding by spinning the facts of current events to hide what truth there is in history.

The truth of history is purposeful or a choice and spin of facts to recreate a past that always has more facts than can be or are reported.

Reputable historians certainly try to accurately report the facts of history, but truth is malleable based on the facts that are chosen. Though Elwood profiles himself harshly as a troubled human being, he is like a disreputable historian who spins facts that have little to do with truth. Elwood’s job is to make facts tell a kind of “truth” that makes bad people and/or events look good or at least better than bad.

Elwood’s self-effacing story admits his weakness for alcohol and addictive drugs.

Elwood manages to become an intern for Congressional representatives like Senator Daniel Moynihan after failing to graduate from college. He corrects his college failure with the help of his congressional contacts to enter Georgetown University where he earns a college degree.

Elwood leaves his Congressional internships and the contacts they entailed to become a success as a public relations operative.

He becomes an operative who spins facts to change the public’s perception of people and events. Elwood is an “operative” because he contacts legitimate media writers/broadcasters and political influencers to change their minds about people and events that are or will become news of the day.

Elwood’s story begins with an FBI phone call that asks for the correct number of his and his wife’s apartment address.

He arranges for a meeting with the FBI in an hour after the call, purportedly to allow his wife time to leave with some of the files in their apartment. This is a puzzling beginning to a wild explanation of Elwood’s life. One is unsure of how much of what is written is spinning the truth of who Elwood is and what he believes. One wonders if Elwood’s story is just an entertaining vignette of a complex and intelligent writer, a public relations expert, or writer of fiction. (A brief review of the internet shows Elwood is not only a graduate of Georgetown University, but did graduate work at the London School of Economics.)

Peter Brown (American-based English businessman who became part of the Beatles’ management team.)

After Elwood’s stint as a congressional intern, he is hired by a public relations firm headed by a former Liverpool Beatles’ assistant, a man named Peter Brown. Brown became an officer of Apple Corps, the Beatles management company. Brown was instrumental in arranging the wedding of John Lennon to Yoko Ono in Gibraltar which is made famous in Lennon’s song “The Ballad of John and Yoko”.

Elwood offers examples of work that he does as an operative for Brown’s company. Brown, or someone from his office, calls Elwood to “baby sit” Libyan executives who work for Muammar Gaddafi in a trip to Las Vegas.

Elwood explains they carried millions of dollars in suitcases they kept in their hotel room. They lost thousands of dollars at the gaming tables and used Elwood to arrange private plane trips and ferry suitcases of money to pay their gambling bills and travel expenses. Elwood feared for his life and was relieved to see them off in their private jets after steering them away from what could have been a public scandal in Las Vegas.

Elwood explains how he is ordered by Brown to use his contacts in Congress and news publications to make Gaddafi look more like a statesman than thug in his 2009 United Nations Speech.

Elwood was tasked to make Gaddafi look humanitarian rather than venal by arranging interviews and media engagements that would emphasize his role as a revolutionary, not authoritarian leader. There seem to have been some successes but the speech at the UN and the debacle over a tent on Trump’s property made Elwood’s public relations effort a failure. Elwood is eventually fired by Brown and leaves with a sense of enmity toward Brown.

Elwood eventually slips into another morass when asked by his new public relations employer to make Nigeria look better than the Boko Haram kidnappers who took 276 schoolgirls from a Government Girls Secondary School.

Elwood is unsure of what he can do despite travelling to Nigeria to convince the government they needed to act in a way that looked like they were concerned. Elwood admits he fails and that the appearance of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist who was nearly assassinated by Pakistani thugs, entered to insist Nigeria must do something. Elwood is fired again.

In another incident where Elwood is working as a public relations operative, he consults with Antigua after the United States threatened to prosecute Antigua for online gambling services.

The Antiqua leader worries that it would destroy tourism in his country if they fought America’s threat. Elwood explained the loss of revenue from online gambling far exceeded tourism income and that he would plant a story in the media about restraint of trade as being un-American. Elwood suggests to the Antiqua government that they take America on with a complaint to the World Trade Organization. Antiqua follows the advice, and successfully remains an online gambling mecca. But Elwood, despite his successful spin of the facts loses the account and is fired again.

Elwood then slips into a very gray world where money is being laundered by the Israeli government.

Elwood becomes a conduit for the laundered money and is contacted by the FBI. The story comes full circle, and its ending adds to the value of Elwood’s story. Public relations are a sophisticated way of muddling the truth. Being smart is two edged when it comes to the truth. Ignorance is not bliss but spinning the truth can kill you or put you in jail.

Elwood considers suicide because of his dodgy reputation and fear of losing his marriage. Through treatment with ketamine, Elwood recovers some level of mental health. Treatment with ketamine is an ironic fact in view of the recent death of the comedic actor Matthew Perry. In a twist of fate, Elwood is spinning the benefit of ketamine while its use is being abused by the public today.

BACKYARD COLONIZATION

Adoption of the English language and the presence of military bases from Liverpool, England to the Northern Mariana Islands seem to “…Hide an American Empire”.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

How to Hide an Empire (A History of the Greater United States)

By: Daniel Immerwahr

Narrated By: Luis Moreno

Daniel Immerwahr (Author, American historian, professor and associate department chair of history at Northwestern University.)

Daniel Immerwahr offers an interesting perspective on American History in “How to Hide an Empire”. Today’s Americans do not think of America as an empire because of its anti-colonial criticism of other countries. In the 21st century, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa are arguably part of America because of their cultural/social relationship. The U.S. actually owned the Philippines when America purchased it from Spain in 1898. The Philippines did not gain independence until July 4, 1946. At that time, America’s population was approximately 141 million. The Philippines and American territories in 1946 were nearly 20 million or approximately 14% of America’s total population. The official language for government, education, and business in the Philippines and America’s territories became English. (Puerto Rico’s domestic language remains Spanish, while Guam and American Samoa still teach their native’ languages.) Immerwahr’s inference is America is an empire in many ways, if not in name.

One might take Immerwahr’s history as a criticism. He implies the ownership of island territories has been a history of occupation, inuring more to the benefit of American needs and wants than local populations.

Immerwahr argues the financial wealth of the Philippines was used to build local roads and cities to benefit American commerce with little consideration for the personal needs of the indigenous. Undoubtedly, there is some truth in that opinion, but one realizes jobs were created for local people that offered some benefit to indigenous families. Americans managed road improvements and city developments that certainly aided Philippines’ economic growth after independence.

Location of the Philippines in relation to the U.S.

Philippine’ city and road development is a tribute to American architect and planner Daniel Burnham. The road improvements managed by William Forbes and Francis Harrison stimulated economic growth and connected remote communities. One is inclined to believe that indigenous peoples are as much benefited as damaged by America’s “empire” categorization in the use of Philippine resources to build new roads and cities. These improvements were a great accomplishment and monument to American architects and road builders, but the end benefit inured to the Philippines as much, if not more, than what is characterized as an American Empire.

Ringworm infection. The infection causes a pallor in facial appearance and fatigue in those who contract it.

Immerwahr goes on to explain how public health initiatives were begun during its empire building in the Philippines. One of the notable American doctors that began treating ringworm among the indigenous was Victor Heiser, the Director of Health from 1905 to 1915 in the Philippines. Ringworm had been identified as a fungal infection in the 1840s. It came from ringworms that penetrated the feet of children not wearing shoes who stepped in contaminated soil from human feces. The infection caused a pallor in facial appearance and fatigue in those who contracted it. American doctors trained Filipino medical professionals on how to identify, prevent, and treat the infection.

Japanese internment camp.

World War II brought out some of the worst and best in Americans.

In Alaska, Aleut village inhabitants were relocated for the alleged purpose of protection. They were housed in unclean, nearly uninhabitable, facilities in the interior of Alaska. Some of the Aleut’s abandoned houses were occupied by the military and many Aleutians were not allowed to return for years after the end of the war. And of course, as most know, the rounding up and incarceration of Japanese in camps in the continental U.S. is well documented. These are actions of a country acting like an omnipresent, omniscient empire. The bombing at Pearl Harbor reinforces a view of America as an empire. Nearly 3o% of the Hawaii’s population was of Japanese heritage. Many Americans, not to mention President Franklin Roosevelt, acted badly in respect to American born Japanese in Hawaii and the continental United States. Like an emperor, Roosevelt ordered the incarceration of American born Japanese citizens.

Just as there were native American heroes, there were Japanese American heroes in WWII. Private First Class Sadao Munemori was shot in the belly, left leg, and lost an arm while attacking and destroying 3 machine gun nests in Italy.

When Japan took control of the Philippines in 1941, some Japanese residents joined the Japanese army. However, the Filipino people began an intense guerrilla war that eventually led to the return of General MacArthur to liberate the islands in 1944. Immerwahr reminds reader/listeners of the valor of American Japanese’ soldiers who risked their lives during the war. He tells the story of Private First Class Sadao Munemori who was shot in the belly, left leg, and lost an arm while attacking and destroying 3 machine gun nests in Italy. He survived and was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Despite Immerwahr’s detailed argument of America as a hidden empire, he does not suggest or imply America supports colonization.

The most convincing evidence of Immerwahr’s belief is in America’s trip to the moon and the government’s statement that the moon belongs to no one, despite the mission’s planted American flag.

In the end, Immerwahr explains how American military bases on islands around the world reinforces effective colonization of foreign cultures by America. Widespread adoption of the English language and the presence of military bases on islands from Liverpool, England to the Northern Mariana Islands and beyond suggests America functions as an empire but not as an intended colonizer.

PSYCHOSIS

Psychiatric illness is disturbingly believable and terrifying. Human psychosis ruins lives if not properly diagnosed and treated.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Night Guest 

By: Hildur Ingveldardóttir Guðnadóttir

Narrated & Translated By: Mary Robinette Kowal

Hildur Ingveldardóttir Guðnadóttir (Icelandic Author, classical cellist, and composer –awarded an Academy Award, two Grammies, and an Emmy.)

The multi-talented Guðnadóttir has written a chilling tale of psychosis in “The Night Guest”. In one sense, it is a reflection of sexual equality, but it also reveals how complex and dangerous it is to be human. This fictional story is about an attractive single woman who is unable to peacefully sleep through the night. Every morning, she wakes up with a tiredness that sticks with her through the day. On some mornings she finds bruises or scratches on her arms and has no idea of why she feels so tired. She sees several doctors and finally finds one that takes her symptoms seriously.

Her doctor runs tests and finds nothing seems to explain the tiredness. The doctor asks her if she is depressed. The woman says she feels sad sometimes but not particularly depressed. The doctor recommends she see a psychiatrist, but she chooses to ignore the advice.

The tiredness, odd bruises, and scratches on her body continue to appear, i.e., after sleep and in the morning. She comes across an article that tells her of sleepwalkers that don’t realize they are sleepwalking at night after falling asleep. She is convinced that explains her symptoms and asks her doctor for sleeping pills. The doctor reluctantly agrees and provides a prescription. Initially, the treatment seems to help, and the young woman resumes her life, meets a new boyfriend, and begins to feel everything is okay.

The author explains the young woman is a lover of cats but notices that lately the cats in her neighborhood have become afraid of her.

When she approaches them, they hiss and raise their backs. She is mystified by their response. As the story progresses, listeners find she was involved with the owner of a company for which she works. He is married and the relationship is ended with some acrimony. The two avoid each other at the workplace but the still-married man tries to resurrect their relationship. The young woman is involved with another man and has no interest in resuming a relationship with a married man.

She returns to her belief that her sleeplessness is caused by her sleepwalking and decides to monitor her behavior with a video recording devise.

She reviews the recording to find she wakes up and leaves her bedroom for hours at a time. She is wearing a pedometer to measure the steps she takes and finds it is several thousand steps more than what it was at the end of her day. What makes her discovery ominous is that the recording shows a conscious and alert person that has to be her, but she feels that person is entirely different from herself.

The woman’s tiredness returns, and she finds one morning that all of her sleeping pills are gone. Her former married lover disappears. Her current lover tells her to never contact him again without an explanation. The denouement of the story is horrifying. Explanation of her psychiatric illness is disturbingly believable and terrifying. Human psychosis ruins lives if not properly diagnosed and treated.

CLICKS

Just as McCulloch’s history shows how the internet changed yesterday, it seems A.I. will change the future.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

How the Internet Happened (From Netscape to the iPhone)

By: Brian McCullough

Narrated By: Timothy Pabon

Brian McCullough (Author, CEO of Resume Writers.com, entrepreneur.)

A book about the beginning of the internet is such old news, one is inclined to put this book aside. The internet was born in the 1960s and only became recognizable in the 1980s. However, even in 2024, it is interesting to hear about early users who became rich just by organizing information on an easily accessible and free media platform.

Like this blog, it is rewarding to write something that others are interested in reading.

The exercise of book reviews is a reward to one’s education and an ego boost for a writer from an audiences’ clicks. Brian McCullough tells the story of the founders of YAHOO, Jerry Yang and David Filo who were in college and became fascinated by the World Wide Web because of information it offered with clicks on a computer board. This was in the 1990s. Though there were many websites to choose from, they were disorganized and difficult to find if you were looking for specific information. Yang and Filo began organizing the websites by their offered information. YAHOO’S founders were looking for information of interest to them, and presumed others would like to know how they could use a keyboard to find information they might need or want.

Jerry Yang and David Filo were fascinated by what could be found on the internet.

They spent hours, days, weeks, months that grew into years organizing website addresses so others could find what was interesting to them. In these early years, making money was not their primary objective. They did not use their site to advertise products for income. They felt clicks were their reward and that clicks would be lost if advertisers were allowed to use their site. They chose to have users pay a fee to become members of their site. Their use and organization of the internet became an obsession for them and followers steadily increased. Their click numbers and users rose into the millions and advertisers were again knocking at their door. They resisted until they realized their idea could be worth something more than their interest in learning, gathering, and organizing knowledge. They relented, allowed advertising, and the clicks to their site kept on rising. YAHOO went public. The rest is history.

McCulloch goes on to describe the rise and fall of companies that capitalize on the internet.

The companies ranged from behemoth companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Ebay that rocketed to the stratosphere while Priceline.com, Netscape, Pets.com, Webvan and others plunged into the abyss. This is not to say today’s behemoths will continue to dominate the market or that some new company will replace their success with even greater appeal. A.I., like the internet, may be a killer discovery that makes or breaks today’s behemoths into tomorrow’s also-rans or hangers-on.

McCulloch’s history is interesting because it explains how winners understood the future better than losers understood the present.

It’s fascinating to find Apple’s Jobs resisted creation of the iPhone but employees worked secretly to refine the idea and Jobs eventually agreed. McCulloch also reveals the monopolistic nature of today’s winners and the threat they present to the future. Killer ideas of today’s tech companies capitalize on the internet’s information ubiquity, and how it can be organized to offer product to the world at a competitive price.

A.I. is a new idea that organizes information on its own with consequences to the public that are yet to be realized. Just as McCulloch’s history shows how the internet changed yesterday, it seems A.I. will change the future.

RULE BY THE ONE

With rule by the one there are no checks and balances which threatens war and discounts peace.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Autocracy, Inc. (The Dictators Who Want to Run the World)

By: Anne Applebaum

Narrated By: Anne Applebaum

Anne Applebaum (Author, journalist, historian, wrote Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction with “Gulag: A History” Also wrote “Red Famine”, both of which have been reviewed in this blog.)

“Autocracy, Inc.” infers there are two forms of government in the world, one is autocratic, the other democratic. Applebaum shows autocracies are often venal and kleptocratic. One might agree, but immorality and greed are a part of human nature in every form of government. This is not something Applebaum denies, but all forms of government have experienced excesses of wealth and power that have led to autocracy. What Applebaum argues is that autocracy is more threatening today than at any time in history.

The prestige of national leaders is by definition power.

As the British Lord Acton noted in 1887–“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Both democratic and autocratic leaders are subject to Acton’s aphorism. This is not to say Applebaum’s argument is not important, but no form of government, including democracy, has been found to fairly regulate the faults of human nature.

What Applebaum makes clear is that autocracy magnifies the faults of human nature because in countries like China, North Korea, Myanmar, Russia, parts of Africa, and similar autocracies, there are no checks and balances.

Imprisonment, torture, and murder for challenges to leadership are condoned, and commonplace. Applebaum’s added dimension is that many autocratic nations have begun aligning themselves to split the world between the lands of the relatively free and the chained.

Alexi Nalvany
Liyu Xiuaobo
Jang Song-thaek
Aung San Suu Kyi

Applebaum offers many examples of imprisonment, torture, and murder in autocratic countries. Some of the most famous are Navalny in Russia, the Nobel Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo in China, Jang Song-thaek, the second most powerful leader in North Korea, and of course, Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar. However, what makes Applebaum’s history terrifying is the calculated and cooperative effort by aligned autocracies to subvert freedoms offered in America and other democratic countries.

The author argues many autocratic leaders have become so powerful that no fellow countryman, regardless of their location, is safe from incarceration or assassination.

Assassination of Kim Jon Un’s brother.

Vladimir Putin is believed to have ordered the assassination of a number of Russian citizens around the world. Autocracies use the tools of State to directly or indirectly threaten or assassinate dissidents anywhere in the world.

Facial recognition in China.

The advance of Artificial Intelligence has magnified the strength of autocratic rule with tools of surveillance, assassination, and indoctrination that reach around the world. Applebaum argues the line between democracies and autocracies is hardening to the point of irreconcilable difference, leading to wars between states and territories like Syria, Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza.

Democracy has its problems which includes dalliance with autocracy, but rule by the one where there are no checks and balances threatens war and discounts peace.

SO MANY SORROWS

What Kalifa shows is how alone every human being is in a country led by leaders who care only about their power.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Death is Hard Work

By: Khaled Khalifa, Leri Price-translator

Narrated By: Neil Shah

Khaled Khalifa (1964-2023, Syrian author, screenwriter, and poet, died at age 59.)

Conscience is an inner sense of voice that guides a person to understand the difference between right and wrong. The author is characterized by western publications as a critic of Baath party rule in Syria. Khaled Khalifa chose to remain in Syria despite the horrendous rule of Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad. (Khalifa died of a heart attack at age 59 in 2023.)

Khalifa’s “Death is Hard Work”, published in 2016, seems a conscience driven criticism of Bashar’s rule during Syria’s 2011 civil war.

Though Khalifa is a Muslim, his novel appears to object to Assad’s rule during the war. Of course, there are five sects of the Muslim church in Syria, but al-Assad’s Alawites are only 10% of the population versus 74% Sunni Islam, of which the author is said to belong.

This is not to suggest Khalifa is anti-Assad because of religion but that Khalifa is noting in his book the muti-religious fabric of Syria. The novel is about the cruelty and lawlessness in Syria during the 2011 Civil War which is, at best, a frozen conflict in 2024. The country remains divided despite Assad’s continued rule and growing normalization of his regime among regional powers.

“Death is Hard Work” reflects on the many wars being waged today. The conflict in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, tribal conflicts in Sudan, the Sahel, Ethiopia, and Nigeria create societal tragedies that make America’s problems pale in comparison.

The overarching story is the main characters commitment to his father to bury him in his family village somewhere near Aleppo.

Khalifa explains some of the horrific consequences of the Syrian civil war in “Death is Hard Work”. The Civil War is raging in Damascus where the family patriarch dies from old age. There are checkpoints throughout the country that have to be crossed. Each checkpoint is a test of two brothers’ and a sister’s resolve to fulfill their father’s last wish.

The backstory is about a father who marries and has been a constant critic of Assad-rule. He recalls his life in the 1960s as much better. That is odd considering history shows the four Presidents during that period fostered political instability, revolt, and global tension. The point made by the author is memories often block out the truth of our past.

Assad’s murder of women and children is a reminder of today’s conflicts in Ukraine, Russia, Israel, several African nations, and Gaza. Leaders in these countries are fomenting war over land and ideas that only increase the suffering of their people.

The past is always present. Khalifa reflects on what he sees as Syria’s present. He writes of a Syrian woman raped to death by four men. He explains a story of a husband who sends his children to another country while he stays in Syria to plan the murder of the four rapists whom he knows. Khalifa writes of the poverty and hunger of Syria’s civil war. Citizens searching garbage cans and eating flowers and grass to stay alive. It makes no difference whether one is a college professor or bum, all were hungry. One is reminded of the chemical attack in Syria and the many bodies on the ground that President Obama called a red line for America when it was not.

The two brothers and sister risk their lives at each check point in their treacherous journey to bury their father in his ancestral graveyard.

At each check point, they explain the reasons for carrying a dead body cross country while it begins to smell. “You have to do something if you don’t want to die” becomes the mantra of Bolbol, i.e. the youngest son who is trying to fulfill his father’s last wish. Flash backs remind listeners of what happens to one’s beliefs about right and wrong when powerlessness against tyrannical leaders is the measure of life. The older brother, Hussein, is influenced by belief in power and is often in conflict with his younger brother as they take their father’s body to his home village.

The two brothers and a sister have lived sorrowful lives because of their country’s leadership. What Kalifa shows is how alone every human being is in a country led by leaders who care only about their power. Until or unless leaders in Syria, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, and Gaza come to understand the harm they are doing to their societies, only sorrow remains for their people.

A.I.s’ CROSSROAD

The greatest threat of A.I. is that the ubiquity of information will turn people and countries against each other.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Feeding the Machine (The Hidden Human Labor Powering A.I.)

By: Mark Graham, Callum Cant, James Muldoon

Narrated By: Orlando Wells

Mark Graham
Callum Cant
James Muldoon

Graham, Cant, and Muldoon have backgrounds that offer an educated opinion about the impact of artificial intelligence on the world labor market. Graham is a Professor of Internet Geography affiliated with the University of Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment. Cant is a researcher and labor rights advocate for workers in the gig economy. Muldoon is an Associate Professor in Mangement and Head of Digital Research at a think tank on modern technologies.

“Feeding the Machine” reminds one of the Industrial Revolution in its early stages.

The fear of loss of jobs because of machine replacement led to the Luddite movement that destroyed machines manufacturing products. The quality of machine-produced product may not have met craftsman standards, but production cost was so much less, the public preferred the lower-cost product. As the industrial revolution grew, the quality of production improved, and many craftsmen lost their jobs. Many of these craftsmen had to find new jobs. Some became users of machines to produce product. The transition was undoubtedly difficult because it required changes in the way people work. Rather than working for themselves, they had to work for manufacturers that produced products with machines. Craftsman had to work regular hours for a wage rather than sell product based on their exclusive labor. Karl Marx in “Das Kapital” explained that capitalism devalued worker’s contribution to society because they were not compensated fairly for their work based on profits earned by company’ owners.

Workers began to unionize to increase their political power and influence on managers of companies owned by entrepreneurs.

The results of unionization have been to begin equalizing wages and company profits. That equalization is a battle between corporate profit needed to stay in business, reasonable return to company owners, and livable wages for workers. When any of these three are out of balance, companies either go bankrupt, or find an acceptable balance that serves the needs of all.

Information is energy in today’s A.I. world., just as steam was in the industrial revolution.

As one listens to “Feeding the Machine” which claims A.I. produces poor quality energy is like early steam engines that provided inadequate energy. Who can say that A.I. “energy” will not improve just as steam engines improved? One becomes skeptical about the authenticity of the authors’ opinion. It seems too soon to believe A.I. power will not improve human life, just as steam engine power improved product quality and lowered consumer prices.

The authors make valid points about the impact of A.I. on workers.

Workers are often paid a pittance for repetitive work that is mind numbing because of the need to monitor digital information for its accuracy and quality. Is that significantly different than the repetitive motions needed by workers on a production line for manufactured goods? Henry Ford changed the way cars are produced by creating assembly line work that gave repetitive jobs to workers. Is that repetitive work much different than digital inspection by workers of A.I. production?

The many examples the authors give of remote workers’ wages for digital accuracy in Africa and other poverty-stricken areas of the world is heart rending. These new laborers are paid small wages that assure continued poverty. Economic inequality is a crime against humanity. Improving education seems the only sure way of defeating economic inequality. Education is a long road to travel but there seems no solution for economic insecurity without it.

Having traveled to Africa, seeing firsthand a dedicated teacher in a class of school children, one feels there is hope that the world’s economic insecurity will end.

Ford was a conservative right-wing businessperson by any measure. He supported Hitler because he was an authoritarian that resurrected a faltering German economy. However, Ford recognized workers were consumers and despite low wages for automobile workers of his time, he chose to raise wages. Ford recognized workers were also consumers. That remains true today. It seems reasonable to presume, unlivable wages will rise for digital workers around the world for the same reason the conservative Ford raised his worker’s wages.

This is not to say, what the author’s write is wrong about workers in Africa that are exhausted from repetitive work at an A.I. company but that the world is at a crossroad similar to the industrial revolution.

The world will change based on the weight of people’s discontent. The greatest threat of A.I. is that information ubiquity will turn people and countries against each other. The result may be a nuclear holocaust that changes the world and societies in a way that is impossible to predict.

The war in Ukraine.

The authors go on to explains how A.I. dehumanizes society. Creating a world-wide’ assembly line for product production allows companies to reduce their production costs by hiring workers around the world who are eager to have an income to improve their lives. The consequences to companies in the host country are improved profits. The consequence to host countries’ workers are layoffs and loss of income. A country of wealth has tools to mitigate worker layoffs, poorer countries do not. Laid off workers have better chances of finding new jobs in wealthy countries. This is not to minimize the consequence but to suggest the world is benefited more than harmed by A.I.

A point made by the authors that played out in the actor strike in America is that actors should be compensated for any work generated by A.I. images or voices of actors.

A.I. that generates false images should be penalized for misrepresenting real people without their consent. Another caution suggested by the authors is that A.I. can recreate art that is equivalent to todays and past literary and visual artists. That seems somewhat hyperbolic but if it is true, society has the tools to penalize those who choose to use A.I. to deceive the public. A.I. is only a tool of society. It is a source of energy that can destroy but also improve the lives of humanity. The authors note only minds are truly creative. A.I. is a recreator of the past, not the future. The use of A.I. by humans improves creative potential.

IN THE LAST CHAPTERS OF “FEEDING THE MACHINE”, THE AUTHORS SOUND AN ALARM BY NOTING THE CONTROL EXCERCISED BY INTERNET MOGULS WHO DIRECT THEIR EMPLOYEES TO CODE ALGORITHMS TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THEIR COMPANIES. THIS IS A SMILAR POWER EXERCISED BY ROBBER BARONS OF THE LATE 19TH CENTURY. DEMOCRACRATIC CAPITALISM COPED WITH ROBBER BARON’S HEGEMONIC POWER THROUGH GOVERNMENT HEARINGS AND OVERSIGHT. ELECTED OFFICIALS SEEM WILLING TO COPE WITH MEDIA BARONS OF THIS CENTURY IN THE SAME WAY. PUBLIC HEARINGS AND GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT OF MEDIA MOGULS ARE BEING CONDUCTED TODAY.

ABOUT LIFE

“2666” is a well written book by an author who has read and understood more about society than many who have lived long lives in America.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“2666”

By: Roberto Bolaño

Narrated By: John Lee, Armando Duran, G. Valmont Thomas, Scott Brick, Grover Gardner

Roberto Bolaño (Author, 1953-2003, died at the age of 50, Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist.)

“2666” is a journey around the world. One begins the journey as though one is sinking into inescapable quicksand. Roberto Bolaño dazzles one’s imagination. Its granular mix of western society captures one’s imagination. The book’s narrators trap “2666” listeners in a story of modern times.

Bolaño infers sex is an equal opportunity exploiter.

He suggests communism and socialism are distortions of Marxism and shows capitalism as a form of enslavement. Women’s societal inequality extends to physical abuse in many societies and, at an extreme, to murder. Bolaño’s many characters illustrate the way in which he believes these are societal truths.

The first part of Bolaño’s story tells of three highly educated people who travel for business and pleasure based on their professions and desires.

They are academics steeped in literature who lecture on poetry, philosophy, and great writers. They meet in different areas of Europe as a trinity of lovers, two men and one woman that form an emotional and sexual threesome. The woman appears the more dominant of the three with the two men abandoned for a time because of a younger lover in the woman’s life. The two men continue to travel together and apart but pursue a licentious life with women, some of which are paid for their sexual favors. The author seems to explain sexual desire is characteristic of all human beings, both male and female. Human desire can be exploitive, companionable, and/or a way to make a living.

Bolaño’s travels extend to Mexico and the United States after his literary journey through Europe.

He shows every form of government, whether communist, socialist, or capitalist fails to treat its citizens equally. He infers Marxist theory may hold an ideal of equality but suggests communism, socialism, and capitalism only distort the ideal of a classless society. Materialism, the struggle for recognition, and the value of labor are chimeras, i.e., wished for ends that are illusory in every known form of government.

Bolaño’s trek to Mexico reveals its poverty and the hard life of a country of the rich and many poor.

He focuses on a notorious record of women being murdered in Mexico by an unknown killer and rapist who may be one man or two. The grim view of Mexico dwells on the investigation of these horrific crimes. In the process, the listener is told about prison life in Mexico, a probable killer of the women and another that may still be on the loose. The murders of women continue. An FBI agent from America is involved in the investigation. This is a hard section of the book because of its repeated explanation of crimes against women, but it offers a view of Mexico’s poverty and the unfair, unequal treatment of women and others in the world.

The last chapters of Bolaño’s work are a flash back to WWII and Germany’s attack of Russia after Stalin’s mistaken alliance.

There are flashes of brilliance in this flashback, but the length of the novel begins to wear thin. “2666” is a well written book by an author who has read and understood more about society than many who have lived long lives in America, a land of opportunity with many of the faults noted in Europe and North America.

THE BALTICS

Traveling to other countries is more interesting because of what writers of fiction and history have to say.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Dogs of Riga” A Kurt Wallander Mystery

By: Henning Mankell, Laurie Thompson-translation

Narrated By: Dick Hill

Henning Georg Mankell (1948-2015, deceased Swedish author, social critic, and playwriter.)

We are planning a trip to the Baltics in October of 2024. As in previous trips, this blog has been used to memorialize former travel experiences and this American’s view of other countries. Prior to traveling, some books are recommended by tour guides as introductions to other cultures. “The Dogs of Riga” and “The Lilac Girls” are two that offer some information about the Baltics. “The Lilac Girls” is a history of incarcerated women at Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany during WWII. The Nazis were researching the efficacy of drug treatment and prosthesis for injured soldiers by amputating arms and legs of imprisoned women to study regeneration of bone and the utility of prosthesis for lost arms or legs. Many of these young women were from the Baltics, though the largest number came from Poland.

Having heard of Henning Mankell’s mysteries (of which there are many), Kurt Wallander is a reoccurring character as an investigative Swedish detective.

The relevance of “The Dogs of Riga” is in the transition that was occurring when Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia achieved independence from the U.S.S.R. The Baltics had been a part of and controlled by the U.S.S.R. since 1940. Mankell’s book was first published in 1992, one year after the 1991′ dissolution of the U.S.S.R.

Riga Technical University (Engineering Center in the Baltics)

It is interesting to find in “The Dogs of Riga” that Wallander’s daughter chooses to go to Riga for her college education which makes one wonder why Riga would be chosen. Is it because of the quality of education or just to be further away from family? In any case, the reason these books are recommended is to give some perspective to new visitors of other countries. An interesting observation one makes about “The Dogs of Riga” is a sense of resentment from the Latvians about Russia and their former domination of the Baltic States.

Season 3, Episode 2 of “The Dogs of Riga” on Masterpiece Theater.

Going back to the story, two Russians were shot in the heart, and set adrift on a raft in Swedish waters. Autopsy shows the Russians were well dressed indicating wealth. It was found they had high concentrations of amphetamine in their bodies. In investigating the murders, Wallander finds they came from Riga, the capitol of Latvia. An officer from Latvia goes to Sweden to talk to Wallander. After the visiting officer returns to Riga, he is murdered and Wallander is asked to come to Riga to investigate his death.

With the opening of Latvia to the western world, freedom from communist controls is a mixed blessing.

Mankell begins to tell listener/readers something about Latvia and its suspicion of Russian residents in their country. Along with more freedom to pursue economic growth is the rise of a drug trade and criminal activity. Mankell’s story infers illegal activity is exacerbated by Russians who resent Latvia’s independence from the U.S.S.R. However, with greater freedom comes crime as well as improved economic opportunity. One reserves judgement about whether Russians are the primary cause of drug activity in Latvia because breaking the law is characteristic of all nationalities under all forms of government. The characterization of Russians as the cause of the illegal drug trade in Riga is possible. However, it is the same question one must ask themselves about America and the origins, causes, and persistence of its drug trade.

Freedom entails the pursuit of what one wants out of life. Money, power or prestige are goals of most (if not all) human beings.

However, those goals need to be based on equal opportunity. This is not to say those goals should include criminal activity, but only education offers a chance for all to understand the difference between right and wrong. When equal educational opportunity is available to every person in the world, they may pursue what they think is in their interests. This, of course, is not a world that exists or can exist because personal interest is not the same for everyone.

Getting back to Mankell’s story, Latvia is challenged by its new freedom from the U.S.S.R. The suspicion of Russians is undoubtedly a truth about Latvian culture based on Latvia’s former life as a part of the U.S.S.R. Whether Russians are the criminal master minds of the drug trade is not the point. The point is that human nature requires a reason for everything that happens in a culture. The bad experience of repression by the U.S.S.R. may make Latvians suspicious of every Russian in Latvia. It is similar to Trump’s vilification of immigrants and how that ignorance resonates with some Americans.

Mankell and the author of “The Lilac Girls” are worth reading or listening to if you plan a trip to the Balkans. Traveling to other countries is more interesting because of what writers of fiction and history have to say.