|
|
The ABQ
Correspondent Last Two Issues February 2025 HUM A
FEW BARS… What with
all the recent stir about “drones” flitting about over New Jersey and
other spots of interest, one recalls a minor story from what must have
been late 1963. I was working as a none-too-competent Production Coordinator
for a TV commercial production studio, FilmFair, in
Hollywood, and we had a batch of commercials to produce, promoting Mattel’s Chatty Cathy
doll. Chatty Cathy was not equipped
with as-yet-unknown solid-state technology, but with an honest-to-goodness
teeny-weeny record player. If you wound up the spring and released it,
Cathy would say one of several randomly selected short phrases. The thing
worked...not as well as the smartphone now in my pocket, but it won the
hearts of many little girls. One panel on each of the storyboards for the
television spots said something like “Just pull the cord on the back of
Cathy’s neck, and she’ll speak to you.” …except that “cord” was spelled
“chord.” suggesting that the storyboards had been laid out by a musician.
One of my tasks in preparing for the shoot was to find, somewhere in LA, a
highly reflective wall, so that we could photograph an actor walking next to
it along with his/her reflection. The official comment was “We can always
do it at the airport, but that has become trite; we want something fresh.”
Well, I must have looked at a hundred promising walls all over town, shooting
pix of many with a great big old Polaroid camera that was also a wonder of
technology in those days, and I couldn’t find anything suitable. Time
was running out, and on a cold, rainy, nasty afternoon, I called the
spot’s producer at the Carson/Roberts agency with the news. He sighed,
and said he’d pick me up, and we’d run down to admire walls
at the airport. He turned out to be a pleasant young guy about my age,
named Bob Emenneger, a musician as well as a filmmaker. Aha! We both hated the airport on
inspecting it…and I can’t remember what we did about a reflective wall. BUT
the connection with recent events is this; creative Mr. Emenegger went on to be a director/producer/composer.
He also authored a
book UFOs: Past, Present, and Future, which he turned into a 1974 documentary film that has become a classic reference
in the UFO/UAP/UAS world in the years since. The story is more intriguing than
many. I think we have an ancient Chatty Cathy or two somewhere around the house. We don’t have any UFO memorabilia. Shhhhh, JUST
KEEP IT BETWEEN US Back in the ‘70 I published a piece or two
suggesting that robots could become warm companions and helpers to old
folks like me now. I was insanely optimistic about the time schedule,
assuming that these critters would be among us by the ‘90s, but fortunately,
nobody took me seriously. They are just now beginning to look really practical as LLM technology booms. One of the
inhibitions, apart from concern about the uncanny valley, is the
amount of energy and storage required by these systems. You have to know a lot to be useful to others, to anticipate
needs and understand the limitations of the party you’re trying to assist. Dogs seem to be equipped by Nature with
companionability, and many can learn a lot, often more than we realize. Dogs
learn a different class of skills from those we expect in our robotic
companions. For example, they can’t read aloud the contents printed on
the label of a can of soup. (Does it really contain that much sodium?)
The robots oughta be able to do that…as well as
taking the can from a shelf, opening it, and warming the contents on a stove
(remembering to turn off the burner afterward). The problem is not just the
size of the necessary robot brain, but the need for the critter’s
discretion. To be useful, the robot must learn continuously…about
everything and everyone it encounters We probably don’t want it to
share with the rest of the world everything it knows that’s important to us
personally. Some folks are working on that, Nvidia, for example. They
are reportedly building a “$3K AI-powered desktop for researchers and students; system
allows users to run many AI models locally instead of relying on cloud
computing.” And
others are developing super-efficient software that may squeeze
an LLM into your smartphone. (Yes, you’ll need lots of energy to run it for more than a few
minutes, but people
are working on that, too.) The part we haven’t
solved yet is making the robot as caring as a dog. We shall see. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NELS
MUSES Item: Long-ago associate Larry Bellinger (the only guy I knew who was pushed out
of an airplane over Panama by a crazed crew member) commented about 1996 that
he saw a short future for the cellular phone business. Why bother with
cellular, he asked, when direct satellite communication with personal phones
will shortly be feasible? Well, it took a while, but Starlink is
reportedly providing service to currently-on-fire Los Angles as this is
written. This wireless palm-sized robot…it comes in a
kit…walks and jumps using a kind of locomotion that is apparently becoming more
popular becoming more popular. See this scuttling table. Item: Musical
instruments are quickly becoming digitized, and sounding
pretty good in the bargain. I can’t play my few chords on a guitar my guitar
any more, but have hope for making satisfactory sound with this
remarkable device. It may not even be necessary to develop calluses. _______________________________________________
ITEM FROM THE PAST This item from
1993 is recalled by the current to-do about the
use of computer generated images…and
sound…well, almost real people in movies. WOOF Brock has reported from the wilds of Hollywood about the stresses of operating a realistic dog puppet in a production
whose real performing dogs were owned by a trainer who was pathologically
jealous of the puppet. "My dogs can do all the action the script
calls for," he said. The dogs couldn't, but the guy threatened to walk out if the interloping puppet was allowed
to do anything. Without those dogs the production would shut down,
because they couldn't match the animals exactly. Brock was less concerned about that than about having the guy come in
and shoot the puppet with a gun. They got through it by photographing
everything with the real hounds, and smuggling
the puppet shots in at night. Brock did not expect exactly this hazard in
showbiz. He recently puppeteered a wolf in a film called…um…Wolf. He hopes he's not canine
typecast. Reminds me of a session years ago in Hollywood when we were shooting a television commercial
for a Minneapolis bank whose logo featured a small girl standing next to an
immense protective dog. We simulated the logo with a real girl and
a real dog...actually three or four identical Great
Danes. Dogs get bored and moody in a hurry on set, so the trainer typically
maintains a fleet of interchangeable animals, and brings several to the
shooting session. At one point our
director, Hank Ludwin, gestured with a stick while explaining something. The dogs instantly took note. Their ears went down, and they dropped to attack
positions. The trainer and his helper flung themselves on the dogs,
shouting. "Drop the stick, drop the stick!" Hank did, and the dogs
relaxed. The trainer explained. "These dogs just came off Disney's Swiss Family Robinson. They've been
trained to take swords away from pirates." (Swiss Family Robinson was
on television this afternoon, and the sight of the dogs brought it all back.)
By the way, Brock commented that the director of Wolf
was really good, smart in his use of the puppets, appreciative of what the
puppeteers were able to accomplish, and fun to work with. "His name is
Nichols," said Brock. "Mike Nichols?" I asked.
"Yes, have you heard of him?" said my son, the Hollywood expert.
He hadn't. Gad. The resentment
of imitation dogs by the trainer is matched
currently by the resentment of special effects critter
creators who see their business slipping away.
When a director tries a special effects shot
several times, is dissatisfied, and finally says “Never
mind, we’ll CG it,” those words are chilling. While
it was hard to imagine in 1993 that CG would become
as practical as real 3D props, the reality is
upon us in 2025, and lots of people are greatly
upset. One assumes that CG “avatars” can be trained
with AI/LLM techniques so well that they will
simulate real people, living or dead, to become such
capable, cooperative, game, inventive,
interesting performers that their living models will
become less useful and will be paid or otherwise
encouraged to disappear. Not
recommending this. mind you, just pointing out its
practicality. Coincidentally,
last time I visited family in LA (their neighborhood hasn’t yet burned down, though many of
their friends have lost their homes) I
watched Brock’s excellent brother Garth, who
manages a special effects studio, directing
creation of a puppet dog. I paid close attention but
did not spot an angry man with a pack of real
dogs coming in to shoot this puppet. We lost good old Brock to MS in 2015. Doggone it. January 2025 OH, I
REMEMBER YOU After only a few years I’m slowly learning to use
my smartphone for more than making and receiving phone calls.
Lately, the spook-in-the-iPhone, Siri, has been helping me set timers, steer
me to locations, and turn off the iPhone…which I think is supposed to shut
down if I press on the button long enough…but which doesn’t seem to do that
in practical time. Siri is polite and efficient, asking for
clarification if I don’t explain clearly what I want her to do, and one hears
that she’s about to become a full-fledged LLM. Critics have complained
that Siri is fawningly subservient, but I just find her decently courteous.
When she does something for me, I often automatically thank her (just the
habit of a lifetime), and she sometimes replies “You’re welcome” or “My
pleasure” or something similar. She’s not a real person, but neither were our good
old dogs, to whom we always gave a word of approval for good performance. It
just seems like the thing to do. I mentioned this to a colleague who makes a
point of being extremely courteous in frustrating situations…notably in
dealing with representatives of bureaucracies. (In fact, my colleague is far
more able and likely than I to take cool, devastating action when crossed,
“cool” being the operative term here…well, so is “devastating”…like showing up at the
bureaucracy office with a carefully annotated notebook explaining the
bureaucracy’s own rules, and politely discussing the notes in detail for as
long as it takes.) Always with kindness and tolerance. Why bother with
courtesy to Siri and her increasingly numerous cousins? My colleague’s response had not occurred to me. Siri
and her cousins have almost perfect memory, stuffed with metadata,
recording not only your specific exchange, but the date, time, geographic
location, your name, race, religion, political
identification, apparent frame of mind, the frequency of your
exchanges, any apparent connections with other events and people…and
so on and so on. Siri and her cousins are getting better and better at
remembering and relating things…and we must assume that they will chat
among themselves, sharing all they know, never mind any silly rules
intended to prevent such hobnobbing. To help you (or somebody else) to
achieve something in particular, those agents must
know you well. They will. Do you
want Siri and her cousins to think of you warmly or frostily? NAME DROPPING While driving from Connecticut to Wisconsin in
1950, my uncle and aunt took me on a scenic route that included
Niagara Falls. We did the Maid of the Mist tour, went into tunnels
that let us see the falling water from behind, and admired the big
power plant. (Canada was still on 25-cycle power, instead of the 60-cycle
power standard in the States, and the clear impression lingers of the
perceptible flickering of the lights at the 25-cycle rate.) We spent a
couple of hours in the Niagara Falls Museum. Founded
in 1827, the museum had a checkered history, changing hands and locations,
and acquiring many collections of this and that unrelated stuff. We
saw, of course, the oak barrel in which the first person to survive going over the
falls intentionally made her successful journey, as
well as other over-the-falls vehicles. The museum was in a big loft building
with an open central area and maybe four floors of galleries around it. On
exhibit in a room along one of the galleries was a pile (literally, a
pile) of Egyptian mummies, of which one stood out distinctively,
and I stared at it for a while, pondering the guy’s ignominious fate. The museum closed in 1999, and the mummies were
passed to people with some respect for them who did research to figure
out who they might be. It turned out that the chap I had been staring at
was the Pharoah, Ramesses I, founder of the 19th
Dynasty who reigned in the 1290s BC. Gosh.
There he was in upstate New York with people staring at him. He’s now back
where he belongs in a museum in Egypt with people staring at him. When I
comment on these contacts with folks others might
know about, I’m often asked, “How come you know all these people?” Most
of the contacts are just brief encounters, not “acquaintances,” and it’s chiefly accidental. I feel as
much connected to Ramesses, just sharing space with him for a few
minutes in that odd place seventy-some years ago, as I do to many others. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Item: Speaking of the impact of technology on society…a friend who visited an eye doctor a couple of days ago was told that the incidence of “dry eye” has been increasing significantly in recent times, requiring the use of appropriate eye drops …especially for those wearing contact lenses. The change is attributed to our tendency to blink less frequently when watching display screens. Really? I’ve been looking intently at increasingly large computer screens since the mid-seventies (well, and at television screens since my family first acquired an RCA, all-vacuum-tube, black and white television set with a giant ten-inch display in 1949), and my eyes no longer produce tears. I had not associated the condition with video screens. Hm. Apparently also, there’s a major increase of nearsightedness in school kids. That too is attributed to dramatically increased screen time, though the mechanism is not obvious. Maybe we should be cautious about staring at things. Item: The Correspo has more than once commented admiringly on both the physical and social attributes of octopuses…and something else amazing has turned up. The little Coconut Octopus has figured out how to fire projectiles at critters that are threatening, or at least annoying it. Item: An associate departing a Sam’s Club recently with a basket of purchases was steered through an “arch,” instead of having to pause while an attendant checked the stuff in the basket against her receipt. To her surprise, she was waved on without stopping, because cameras (and perhaps other sensors?) in the arch had looked at her purchases in a couple of seconds, and had it checked by an AI system that said the paper and the stuff matched. Sam’s has already installed the new systems at many stores, and plans to install them at every location. One assumes that Costco and others aren’t far behind, because this significantly speeds the process of leaving the store without having to plod through long lines. So far the systems do not automatically shoot thieves. _______________________________________________ ITEM FROM THE PAST This item
from 1997 is recalled for no particular reason
except that I came across it, and nostalgia drew me to
it. FROM THE
HORSE'S MOUTH When the
10th anniversary of the UN was celebrated thirty years ago, many
dignitaries blew into San Francisco for the show. Among famous speakers
like Romulo of the
Philippines (who died just the other day) and Kleffens
of the Netherlands, was the distinguished Paul Henri Spaak of
Belgium. His speech was a major event, and the Belgian Consulate
took steps to translate and distribute it in English to the swarming press.
The first step was to give the French manuscript to consulate employee Mado Winkless (my wife). She and Andrée Casey
clawed the thing into interesting, if baffling, English. The
second step was for Mado to bring it home so I
could polish the English. Time being of the essence, I made wild
guesses at what Spaak and his interpreters had intended by phrases like “We
have other cats to whip,”' and quickly knocked out an impressionistic
third version of the man's oration. Skilled reviewers would, of
course, check it against the views of the Belgian Foreign Minister. First
thing in the morning, the secretaries typed my draft neatly, and handed
it out as the official speech. What review? I have no reason to
suppose that any of Spaak's ideas were fairly represented in that document. At
least it didn't start a war promptly. The consulate gave us tickets to attend
a session. It was an inspiring spectacle, and Spaak sounded impressive
delivering the speech. In the crowded lobby of the War Memorial Opera House I
trod on the foot of Indian Ambassador
V.K. Krishna-Menon, who then shook his gold-headed cane at me, and a
grand time was had by all. The Time Magazine report of the
meeting struck me as so outrageously inaccurate, that I cancelled my
subscription. Years later, it occurred to me that Times's confusion
was partly my fault. Still later, it became clear that rampant
confusion is the normal order of things. My contribution was
trivial. Well, I’m
pretty sure the “other cats to whip” phrase did not
actually appear in the Mado/Andrée draft, but there were others equally puzzling. Indeed “other cats to whip”
did arise in family conversation. Mado and her sister were born in New Jersey, but in the
1930s when Mado was a small kid their
French mom fled their dad
with the girls, heading first to her family in La Flèche, Sarthe, then to Brussels (where they were stuck
through the Nazi occupation). Mado spoke English,
French, Flemish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish,
and some Romanche. I was an
embarrassingly tongue-tied
monolingual Yankee when we traveled in Europe.
She was secretary to the Belgian Consul General,
Willy van Cauwenberge in San Francisco when we
married. I miss
her. If you
look at the link to Krishna-Menon, you’ll see that he was a striking figure, often featured in the media for both his
looks and his outspoken manner. My direct impression
of him there in the lobby was startling, because he didn’t seem more than five feet tall. Of course, he had his cane
raised, and that loomed large by comparison in my
subjective perception…but I still see him clearly in mind’s
eye. --------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2024 – 2025 by ABQ Communications Corporation All Rights Reserved |