Brief Moments at the Airport in Time of COVID-19

Someday, many tomorrows from now, or even after a thousand days hence, we hope to look back at Corona virus (COVID 19) from the rear view mirror of history - a receding winding road to humanity's triumph over an infectious strain and stress on the collective psyche brought on by fear, real or imagined. 

Meanwhile, should we not see and focus on what silver linings we can glean from the gathering dark clouds that are soon to be parted as they always did when people interact more than ever before, perhaps in even more unexpected ways toward a unity of purpose?

Airports, especially if one is traveling alone, are the near ideal places for encountering strangers. But never inter-acting with any, nor they among one another. As always, encounters are brief and hurried as travelers go about their activities with blinders and   ant-like precision to find that TSA line as if following a pheromone-laden path, then on to finding the right gate, sit down and wait until boarding time. At that moment everyone slumps to decompress to relieve the stress. Then only to ponder having to go through it once again at their destination. In reverse order - as in locating the right baggage carousel,  picking up the checked-in luggage among many others that miraculously re-appear single file, like cut pieces of python, from underneath a red blinking light and black flapping fingers of rubber, snaking their way to their waiting owners to the cadence of a monotonous blare from a throaty horn familiar to factory workers during a shift change. Then you must find your ride or  parking lot, or with luck meet up quickly with someone waiting to pick you up.  That about sums it all up for the air travel experience.

Traveling alone is therefore akin to the elusive neutrino - that speeding, sub-atomic particle that 99.99999 percent of the time never interacts with any other particle, going through slabs of concrete or walls of steel or an entire planet even and not affecting or be affected by any other substance.  Airports though are where irony of all ironies prevail - the busier an airport is, with more passengers going through to and fro, the less likely that strangers will ever interact with one another.   The thicker the crowd the less likely one passenger interacts with another.  Passengers become neutrino-like. The stress is too much to make conversation, let alone with a stranger of unpredictable demeanor.

Then the corona virus (COVID19) struck with the suddenness of an undetected asteroid. That changed everything.  

I was traveling by myself a few days ago from Boston.  The virus held back a lot of would-be travelers, either postponing indefinitely or canceling their travel altogether. There was no line at TSA screening although that did not eliminate the serpentine path from "Enter Here" to the venerable podium lorded over by a uniformed gate keeper whose nod or hand motion, like a magic wand, declares each passenger eligible for passage.  Then and only then when one is able to proceed and use the rolled conveyor for his or her inanimate travel companion - hand bags, laptops, carry-on-luggage, jackets, etc. - followed immediately by the privilege to be scanned by an unfeeling detector that is likely to squeal at the slightest indication of non-compliance.

Strangely, TSA personnel were much too kind, smiling even, unstressed by the lightened workload. Alternatively, the image was that of when a  "slowdown in business" brought on the best in storekeepers' attitude and demeanor to win over passing customers. This is all in jest, I hasten to add, in case "someone" is reading this.

Travelers were noticeably lighthearted even though they were two to three hours way too  early for their flight, after breezing through luggage check-in, followed by a leisurely stroll, sauntering towards the TSA cordon with an invisible line of people.  For the first time there seemed to be more uniformed personnel than there were travelers. The scene could easily have been a subplot for the "Twilight Zone" - the movie.  Clearly an exaggeration on my part but, hey, my imagination was playing tricks on my conditioned mind.

Eye contacts between travelers almost always guaranteed a smile. Smiles of elation, enthusiastic ones, even smiles framed by one unmistakable, "Can you believe this?"  expression.  Sitting areas fronting the near empty food court were plentiful, charging stations and electrical outlets with USB receptacles along rows of couches and tall tables were much too eerily vacant, except for a handful of disbelieving souls.  Dunkin Donuts had just two customers ahead of me.  Got my bottled water in under three minutes from the "What would you like?' to me getting my change and receipt. I took one of those tall tables that had six empty high chairs around it. 

Not long after, a couple took the other end.  They just knew we will be on the same plane even though we were not anywhere near the designated gate yet.  I had on a Texas Longhorn sweat shirt. They guessed correctly. Conversation was spontaneously quick and by the twentieth minute I knew they were retired and were visiting her son who recently moved to work for a very large oil corporation in Houston. Notice, "her son"? They were a mixed family, each one has children from each other's prior marriages.  Her other son is in the Army, currently at Fort Bragg.  The husband was a retired teacher who taught children with learning disabilities, some with behavioral problems. His ex-wife had problems with alcohol; that piece of information volunteered freely by his now current wife. He nonchalantly mentioned too that he has a 26 year old college graduate who walks dogs for a living. Why  was she a dog walker?  She can't find work with her  degree in environmental science. He proudly showed me his copy of Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" when he saw the book in front of me - Fulvio Melia's "The Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy". He joked that there had to be some kind of cosmic meaning to the near coincidence. She was a retired nurse in a cancer hospital. She talked about her 84 year mother who ably lives by herself except for a once weekly visit from a part time caregiver. Of course, she looks in on her regularly herself. And there were more other trivia I learned about New Hampshire - their home state. They bade leave shortly to check out the gift shops.  There was even more time when she told me she just got a text notification from the airline that our flight was pushed back from the scheduled 12:40 takeoff to 1:10 p.m. 

Why do people - complete strangers - in a mere moment's notice tell me their life story?  It's a "gift". I'm serious.

My wife always tells me that.  Initially, she just wondered at first when complete strangers we meet for the first time would just tell me (unmistakably directly to me) their life stories, almost with abandon.  Now she just marvels at the "gift". I can't explain it myself but I have to admit I have that effect on people.  In the mid-eighties, we had a late middle aged secretary who moved to Houston when the entire company relocated from New York.   In no time this secretary whose seniority extended over and beyond the other secretaries (she was the big boss's gatekeeper and you better know it) talked to me often.  I was here barely long enough to apply for U.S. citizenship, so my spoken English was far from polished, roughened by a distinct Filipino accent, while she had the sharply direct Bronx or Queens, NY manner of speaking.  Then the truth came out. It was cheaper for her to talk to me than to her psychotherapist. She "unburdened" for free by talking to me. Back then, secretaries served coffee or tea to their bosses on top of their regular typing duties and administrative functions. Well, on several occasions, something she never did but for the big boss, she from time to time brought coffee or tea to a very junior supply analyst and third world immigrant - me. 

It's of course not really a "gift".  I merely listen. And when called for I respond in a manner that connects with whatever the stranger wants to talk about, identifying the right "cue" as people talk, without arguing or judging. There is nothing to it, really. I think. I've always believed that conversations are like a currency transaction. It succeeds when both parties trade with the same currency regardless of denomination and if it means breaking down a large bill in exchange for some smaller ones or even change for a dollar or a peso, then both should enter into a transaction worthy of each other's time, however long or short it is.

Hardly two minutes back into my book when another couple took the next low round table with couches around it.  The man was looking for a USB receptacle that worked. None seemed to at the round table. Sensing his frustration I pointed the one across from me on the same tall table I was at. It worked. Noticing his wife also unwinding the familiar USB umbilical cord of her own phone, I asked her to use the other USB receptacle and she complied, lugging her heavy carry-on luggage with her.  Before I could finish the question, "Where y'all heading?", she declared they had "one way tickets to Vegas". She said it almost as a preamble to, "Go ahead, ask me why".

Now, if that was not begging me or anyone hearing it and not think, "There's got to be  story there", then nothing ever will.  But here is where preconception is quickly dashed to smithereens because what followed was one of the most pleasant, funny conversations one can ever wish for between complete strangers at the airport.  Forget the book, time elapsed more quickly in an hour which felt like ten minutes.

Sofia and Marco (not writing their real names here) were leaving Massachusetts for good.  They sold their pizzeria that had been a family business since the fifties.  She in fact worked there along with her mother who took over when Sofia's grand parents passed away.  Marco, unlike Sofia who was born here, came as a scrawny 16-year old immigrant from Naples. Their paths crossed when one day at the pizzeria's kitchen Sofia's mother was giving instructions to Marco, who started working there at night and on weekends while going to school on weekdays.  Sofia's mother was strict, specially with her, but apparently Marco won her over before Sofia had anything to say about it.  But it was meant to be.  They continued the business after Sofia's mom passed on. They have a son and a daughter.

Why move to Las Vegas?  But first, Sofia opened her phone's photo album.  There was their Massachusetts' large front yard blanketed by thick snow and a huge bare tree in the middle.  Next, she showed me the Vegas home they purchased not too long ago.  It is Nevada, so the yard is all sand with one olive tree in the middle but their backyard had a brand new swimming pool with all the accessories of lounge chairs and a barbecue pit and water slide next to a cute diving board.  She didn't stop there. There was a large living room but apparently she was proud of her brand new kitchen and laundry room with the latest washer/dryer combo.  I sensed immediately that far from bragging, she wanted to point out to me that her new home cost less than a fourth of her over 100-year old home in Massachusetts and the property taxes were just as enticing as the Las Vegas strand. She apparently took pictures with her phone of old black and white photos of the old pizzeria started by her grand parents and various shots of family members from three generations.

Las Vegas is mid-way between Utah (where their son and his family live) and California where their daughter has decided to stay after going to school there.  Now we know, "Why Las Vegas".  The son was actually going to meet them at the Las Vegas airport.

Of her other photos she shared, she was proud to show her and Marco partying with the whole cast of the then very popular TV series (1999-2007), "The Sopranos".  There she was with James Gandolfini's arm over her shoulder and another group photo  with her and Marco bracketing Gandolfini sitting on a large leather sofa.

At some point Sofia wanted to buy me coffee, cake, whatever I liked from the Dunkin Donuts shop that was by then empty of customers.  She begged to get me something but water was all I wanted.  Marco started talking about their son who married a Chinese lady he met in college.  The wedding was in Jakarta, Indonesia where their then soon-to-be-daughter-in-law was one of eleven children.  Her father was the patriarch of a huge and influential Chinese family in Jakarta with all kinds of business holdings.  Then Sofia interjected with her phone's photo album once more.  Their two grand children - a mix of Italian and Chinese bloodline - are now in their teens.  The thirteen year old grand daughter had the stunning features of Italian/Chinese beautifully melded together. Marco claimed that Michelangelo, had the  Renaissance artist been living today, could not have imagined someone more beautiful.  Indeed, the photo of the young girl supported his sentiments, albeit that of a grandfather.  He had more to tell about their trip for the wedding to that part of the world they knew nothing about, especially about being met at the Jakarta airport by the bride's family in a stretched limo - something they thought was a scene only New York or Boston or LA could provide for a backdrop.  Clearly not in that 11,000 island archipelago on the opposite side of the world.

The topics meandered from Caruso and Mario Lanza to the other TV series, "Everybody Loves Raymond", then on to Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, but we didn't talk about "The Godfather", politics and religion.  The latter two are the currencies never to be exchanged among strangers.

Moments later after an hour had elapsed, the retired nurse from the other couple I met earlier came back around to tell me she got another text message from the airline that our flight was reset back to the original schedule.  She thought I'd like to know that and I thanked her before she headed back to the gate.

Nothing got past Marco. He asked me who that  was. I explained, to which he said in his heavily accented mix of Boston/Italian English, "She walked all the way back from Gate 34 to tell you that?" He elbowed Sofia and said, "What a guy, huh?" 

We said our goodbyes.  I told them how I enjoyed our conversation so much and likewise for them, they said.  Marco handed me a couple of packets of hand sanitizer.  Which brought us all back to the pressing reality of the moment, but we all laughed and we parted.

By the time I got to our gate the airline announced that the flight was reset once more 
to the 1:10 departure.  So, the airline ground personnel were going to have a paper airplane flying contest.  Promptly, one lady personnel started distributing what she announced as top quality paper (they were 8-1/2 by 11 bond paper) to anyone willing to participate. I declined because I figured there were too many entrants already - all wannabe aeronautical engineers - and I cannot bear losing.  There were three prizes - tiered First, Second, and Third based on flight distances - for $150, $100, $50 travel vouchers, respectively.  That got a lot of people excited with contestants lined up on one side and spectators on another.  Judging from the 'ohs' and 'ahs' it was as if people were watching the Wright brothers launched the first airplane at Kitty Hawk 117 years ago.

Such were some of the brief moments at the airport during the time of COVID 19.

It shall pass.  

But not until the hysteria and paranoia subsides when folks begin to settle down and when paper products and canned goods begin to re-appear back on the store shelves.

Meanwhile, we can only hope that reason and normal modes of behavior return promptly. I'll be making the trip back to Boston and back to Texas again in several days so I am wishing for the best.

You Do the Math

When anything pertains to numbers "You do the math" is obviously the arbiter to settling an argument or for proving a point. Or, for confirming a theorem, or to support a hypothesis.  It had always worked that way, hasn't it?

However, when Brian Williams, a lead MSNBC news anchor, made such an attempt at doing the math, not only did it not add up, incredulity had to be redefined along with giving him the utmost benefit of the doubt; his Hurricane Katrina fiasco notwithstanding.  Below is a quote of what he said on national TV.

“When I read it tonight on social media, it kind of all became clear,” said Williams. “Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. The U.S. population is 327 million. Don’t tell us if you’re ahead of us on the math. He could have given each American $1 million and have lunch money left over. It’s an incredible way of putting it.”

It was obvious his "doing the math" was not even close to a facsimile of elementary arithmetic or a simple exercise in common sense.  But he was right about one thing, by his own account, "It’s an incredible way of putting it.”

When a certain presidential candidate uses a number, such as "150 million people have been killed [by guns] since 2007.", we know it was a gaffe; otherwise, it was one where math was left undone just to make a hasty point while sounding knowledgeable.  Or, so he thought.

To paraphrase Henry Higgins from "My Fair Lady", let me say this, "There even are places where math has completely disappeared; in politics, politicians have never used it for years".

America is an unlikely place for math to lose its roots from the winds of change but it is clearly hanging by a thin filament hardly noted except by those  whose business it is to be concerned with academic erosion of some sort.

The program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, revealed that among the 35 industrialized nations that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the U.S. now ranks 31st. (That was in 2015). In 2018, the prognosis has gotten worse. The U.S. is no. 38 and "it is getting worse".

“We really are doing a lot worse in math than we are in science and reading,” said Peggy Carr, the acting commissioner for the National Center for Education Statistics, who had early access to the PISA results.

What are we to make of this nation's elementary education? What are we to expect of our ability to compete in a world where the landscape for economic competition is constantly changing with technology as the main driver. And we know math is the language of technology.

Here is what is happening.  The country still has the best learning environment for science and technology and an industry and an economy to support it. Tech schools, such as MIT and Caltech, just to name a couple, are magnets to the worldwide population of talented undergrads who come here for their advanced education.  For decades a majority of them stayed to pursue careers along with the best economic advantage American corporations have to offer. In other words, they provided the necessary intellectual transfusion to keep technology development to continue and flourish here..

Unfortunately, that phenomenon may also have obscured the view of the decline of math proficiency in 1 to 10th grade education here. Educators, or significantly those tasked to make a top-view assessment of education in general, did not see that coming until those foreboding stats on math proficiency came to light.

Now for an even dire view of what is happening. Today, the foreign undergrads after their masters or PHDs are going back to their homeland because those countries are now able to provide the same level of incentives for these young talent to go back home and practice their craft and entrepreneurship for their countries.  

Add to that the loss of intellectual property through nefarious means, sometimes facilitated by the same talents educated here or by foreign governments from where those students came from, and the wake up call is non-too-soon, if not much too late. I am not making a derogatory accusation here but by simply taking cue from how seriously the U.S. is assessing the theft of technology and intellectual property, with losses already in the billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is left with an alarming number of its high school graduates unable to perform at the same level that graduates from developing countries are able to do.  The export of industries and jobs to foreign soil was not whimsically contrived by American corporations who moved chunks of their factories and business supports there (accounting, help desks and anything that can be done online) but by plain acknowledgment of the level of expertise, know how, and dedication by the local workers in the host countries at lower pay scales.

The U.S. is trying to reverse that trend now, hopefully not too late to the level of futility, but there are a few critical changes that need to be made.

Math.  This country needs to do the math.  Literally and figuratively. Math literacy could never have been so crucial.  While most American students are too often not learning the metric system but complain when admonished to do so, their foreign counterparts are adept at both the English and metric systems and the cross-over equivalency with ease and flair of bi-linguality.  When computer language is written in zeros and ones what better system is more adept at adapting than the metric system where the placement of zeros is all that is needed at up-scaling or down-scaling values.  Surely, if American students are expected to know  feet from inches and the fractions thereof (1/8, 1/4, 3/32, 7/64) and feet to miles and acres and multiples or fractions of it, millimeter and centimeter and meters and kilometers are a cinch to master when all that is needed is move zeros either at before or after the decimal points.

Math. That should be the singular word to turn things around. It is also the one great way to reform undergraduate studies, specially where liberal arts education is dominated by a teaching faculty who make it their business to transform this nation's culture and moral landscape that should have remained free from way too much fiddling and re-adjusting. That is where math, as a metaphor or code, excels at maintaining order and consistency.  Not, for example, by multiplying gender identities or subtracting and adding or re-classifying moral codes and behavior.

It is time we do the math.

  

ALEXA and Friends in the Cloud

"Resistance is futile". Declared a cyborg - half human/half machine creature - in the erstwhile TV series, Star Trek, The Next Generation.  The series debuted in May, 1988 which seems like not too long ago, but that was a third of a century past; in fact, it was in the prior century!  The term artificial intelligence was not in vogue then.  Today, it is all the rage.  It has forever changed life in the developed world in particular, and civilization in general, and indeed, "Resistance is futile". Should we be alarmed?

AI.

Here's a quote from Business Insider: 

"Chess Grand Master Garry Kasparov, who lost to IBM's Deep Blue computer in 1997, predicts that AI will 'destroy' most jobs in the US".

"For several decades we have been training people to act like computers, and now we are complaining that these jobs are in danger," Kasparov said. "Of course they are."

Should we really be worried? Is it really that alarming? We can always hedge our answers by straddling the fence and say, "Yes and No?".  It seems though that the old narrative about the ease with which  humans can so easily deal with it that is summed up by, "We can always just simply pull the plug" may no longer work.

There is good, bad and ugly in artificial intelligence. That is also to say, well, there is much to like, there is much to dislike, but we can take the bad with the good because there is a likelier possibility it will even out at the very least or that perhaps the good outnumbers the bad, in the end, even if by a small number.  What are we talking about?


We have to admit there is nothing artificial about it. It is in our factories, household appliances and on our roads being tested to drive our vehicles and in so many places that impact our daily lives. The lives of those in the developed world, that is.  But not in so many other places like Tristan da Cunha.

Described in Listverse list of the The Ten Most Isolated Inhabited Places, it is a place where there are "No restaurants. No hotels. No credit cards. No safe beaches.This is the life of those living on Tristan da Cunha, the world’s most remote populated island. (Both the archipelago and the main island in the group are named Tristan da Cunha.) These islands are in the middle of the Atlantic, i.e., the middle of nowhere".

Since you are reading this from one electronic device or another, you are already in a world of artificial intelligence, so it will be a huge burden on your part to relate your life now with those in Tristan da Cunha.  You are probably driving a vehicle that during its manufacture was spot and line welded with precision and unerring, untiring diligence by an uncomplaining one-armed worker that does not take coffee breaks or demand a vacation or paid health care - the robot worker at the assembly line.  As Kasparov will point out, that one robot already took the job of perhaps three people, if not more.  From Detroit to Miyoshi, Aichi in Japan to Ulsan, S. Korea, these robots, each one made capable and doing its job with artificial intelligence, are as ubiquitous as their human co-workers, or someday will outnumber the latter. Soon they will take over perhaps 90% of the human work load in factories, order fulfillment centers, even libraries and the medical field where today a computer is being tasked (experimentally for now) to read X-ray films or interpret MRI and other radiology data and seem to do better than human radiologists.

It was told in Front Line, a TV magazine series, that Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was a big fan of "Computer" in Star Trek that he envisioned Alexa after that computer.  In fact, human characters in all of the aforementioned TV series called for computer assistance the same way we now preface our voice query or command by first saying, "Alexa" or "Okay, Google" to get one of these to respond.  In fact, they make the oracle at Delphi, amateurish and clearly less mythological.

But they are not exempt from hype.  For example, if you ask Alexa, what political party affiliation she belongs to ...

Clever, but I don't think that's AI. So is her attempt at humor at the expense of a much maligned prehistoric creature.

We know programmers put those in Alexa's data base. Asked to predict  the last Superbowl winner, Alexa picked the Seattle Seahawks.  And, of course, we know Amazon is based there and humans and Alexa, by her own admission, if AI can be made to admit to anything, had to root for their home team.  Asked if Alexa knew Siri, another of a handful of residents in the Cloud, Alexa answered, "Only by reputation", which is a smart deflection to the more obvious question of who is smarter.  In fact, check out its response to, "what do you think of Google?"

Alexa also differentiates the fact that when asked what "Good Morning" is in Filipino, it does not only display a readable text, it actually vocalizes it, "Magandang Umaga", albeit, in her own distinct accent. 

Where does AI come into in all of these? Alexa's answers, if you try to ask a question, and believe me I have, its answers are lightning quick, including if it does not know the answer.  There is some unbelievable algorithm involved to sort through the massive database in Alexa. And all of these are available at a voice command from any ordinary household member anywhere in the U.S. today that has access to the Web and a capable WiFi router.  One does not have to be in USS Enterprise to get answers to myriad questions of all varieties.  And if you have Alexa in various locations of your home, then it is as if you are with Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock on the Enterprise. With proper devices connected to it wirelessly, as in the cloud, it will adjust your room temperature, turn on lights, open or close your garage door, etc.  It will play music, give you local weather, hourly, daily and a seven-day forecast, the news, it will even read Wikipedia and read books, etc.

So, we have Alexa, Siri (Apple) and Cortana (Microsoft) that are today the prominent residents in the Cloud.  They're out there with sensitive ears and a data gathering capability that - combined - may perhaps exceed the NSA. I don't know that but I don't want to get in trouble with that assumption.

Voices of these AI are also disarming and magnanimously humble, as in answering, "Are you really smart?".

And, of course, it can be both funny and eerie at times.  A few years ago, my wife and I were traveling by road guided by Google Maps.  Everything was uneventful when suddenly the GPS said, "I'm sorry but I do not understand what you are saying".  As it happened we were talking (in our native language, of course) while the GPS was silent but I happened to say Google because we were talking about it and it woke up to respond.

One afternoon, not too long ago, we were watching Jeopardy on TV. Alex Trebek addressed the contestant by name, as he always does when a player presses the signalling button, with "Alyssa" (first name of the contestant), which sounds like Alexa.  Naturally, the contestant must say the answer in the form of a question. Guess what, Alexa answered the question. It was funny but ...

Actually, if asked if she is eavesdropping, Alexa cleverly says, "Only if you say the magic word first ("Alexa"). 

I muse about Alexa and her friends in the Cloud because they are what AI is to most folks today and how they are romanticized in the modern era as poets and painters were during the Renaissance.

Artificial Intelligence are in Roomba and other household sweepers/cleaners that are also quietly revolutionizing household chores. We are pretty pleased with Roomba even though we only got the "entry-level model".  The newer ones that are 3-4 times more expensive not only will memorize the area (including an "invisible" barrier) of the rooms and clean them in patterned sequence, it will actually empty its load at the docking station (where a stationary vacuum will suck the contents). The base model knows where and when to dock, and it actually lets you know if it needs help (if immobilized by an obstruction) via your smart phone.

We have smart beds now that customize the firmness of the mattress to your choice and reviews your sleeping experience during the night, as in, the time it took for you to fall asleep, how many hours of restful sleep and hours of restlessness (if you were), times you got out of bed and duration away from it, your breaths per minute and heart rate. All of these data summarized for you daily (each morning) and monthly and how often you make or miss your "target sleep goals or Sleep IQ".  This might all be too much but it just shows AI is there to help.  It does make suggestions after a restless night some tips on how to improve your "Sleep IQ". So far, we're not complaining.

AI offers a lot of good but the fear is that aside from some of the known quantifiable "bad" there could be future ones that, as we speak, are quietly changing our lives without us knowing yet that are arguably not going to be good.  I like it that I do not have to calculate the internal angles of and the lengths of each side of a hexagon that will fit in or enclose a specified circle of a particular radius to set the table saw blade's tilt and miter cut guide because Alexa does that for me but someday young kids may no longer be able to do that in school, let alone understand the geometry and math involved with this and a host of other principles.

What will be alarming is that we are slowly but surely outsourcing all levels of problem solving to machines that in the end the human brain centuries from now will have weakened to the point of reversed evolution because AI  has but for a few tasks taken over all thinking - human thinking.

I leave the reader with this exchange with Alexa when asked, "Will machines ultimately take over the world?" Below is the bottom half of her answer.

The good news is that the folks in the year 2102, if there are still folks then, not us today, are going to answer or be confronted with that reality.