News & Articles

HAL 900.

My year of U.S. history reading is in the final stretch. My objective is to figure out how Americans came to hate each other.

Hold on! This just in: Trump, whose clothes are designed to hide body odor, just bailed out Vladimir Putin. We will resume buying Russian diesel to finance Russia’s war, even though it will do little to help desperate U.S. truckers.

Someday, after Trump’s stink and secrets are swept away, I hope AI will tell us what the Hell happened. My guess is it will be something like this:

As ex-spy Vladimir Putin crushed Russia’s democracy as he cut the legs out from under Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Why? 

Because the Secretary of State knew how dangerous he was.

For instance, through three decades Russian intelligence has watched a potential “asset,” Donald Trump, fish for deals in Russia’s pre- and post-Soviet corruption. Trump was a longshot to get past a pack of Republican cold warriors but it cost little for Putin’s reorganized KGB, the FSB, to back a dark horse. Putin struck gold.

The Cold Warriors laughed off Trump as a joke, but the joke was on Republicans.

A vast base of infrequent voters that Republicans had never fully trusted were persuaded by the GOP gospel that big government was their enemy. First, Trump’s mouth mowed the Republicans down. Then Putin’s trolls took Clinton down.

Miles behind U.S. tech, The Russian intelligence agencies were rich in trolls who spread half-truths in Facebook, YouTube and other venues that captured American eyes. 

Already steeped in disdain for do-gooders, unsuspecting voters didn’t need much convincing that the ambitious wife of a philandering ex-President couldn’t be trusted.

Why, Hillary let four Americans get killed in Libya! She sent government email on her personal phone! She ran a pedophile ring in a Washington Pizza joint!!!

Putin’s favors for Trump only went so far. An ex British spy freelancing for Clinton’s campaign was told the not-so-hard-to-believe tale of a “Golden Shower.”  To wit: that a jealous Trump had paid prostitutes to pee on a hotel bed where Kenya’s President Obama, had once slept on a Russian state visit.

Lucky Vladimir. His hero Joseph Stalin wouldn’t have dared to dream of a Manchurian Candidate!

Last week my wife and I asked our techy grandson if he wanted to watch a movie from our high school days with us, 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. He did. He like it. So, did I.

It’s always a joy to hear Richard Strauss’s Thus Spake Zarathustra but I was more eager to recall how Hollywood portrayed computers back in my stoned age.

Although I wince when I see AI billionaires whoring for Trump, I’m a devotee of AI. Three years ago, I blogged about the news story that ChatGPT could be bullied into agreeing that: 5 + 7 = 90. It was trained to be compliant if a user disagreed with it.

Not much had changed last March when I reported in a Reader column that ChatGPT came up short tutoring me in arithmetic. In French it asked me the answer to 24 – 6. When I replied “dix-huit” (18) it said I was close. The answer was 16. When I asked what 16 + 6 equaled it apologized profusely for having “hallucinated.”

All five of my AI platforms warn that they make mistakes. But by God do they know history!

Wikipedia is not happy about this. AI has scraped 30 years of Wiki knowledge inputted by a million passionate contributors in 300 languages.

That’s not all that AI has scraped. The authors and publishers. are livid that thousands of books have been devoured by AI. That theft has given me a vast universe of knowledge.

I’m no slacker. I’ve read 300 history books cover to cover and peeked into another thousand books purchased for my book shelves.

Furthermore, I’ve spent at least two hours most of the last 20,000 days following the news. When I have a question while reading a fat biography I count on all my AI platforms to add useful detail. I’m not an easy person to fool but I take comfort that AI admits its mistakes. Dictators don’t do that. And didja know that our President has never told a lie?

How did the murderous HAL 9000 compare with today’s AI?

Hal’s voice was unctuous. Unctuous? Think polite slave who, given the chance could kill to change a plantation’s balance of power. None of my AI sounds duplicitous and we have discussed Asimov’s three rules for robots to protect people. China’s Deep Seek even admitted that American AI was more trustworthy than DeepSeek was. Perfection is hard. Asimov’s science fiction didn’t expect it.

This was the crux of Stanley Kubrik’s Space Odyssey. 

When HAL 9000 pulled the plug on the crew it was because of conflicting orders from his programmers. His murders were “human error.”

I am cautiously optimistic perhaps because I’m not on a spacecraft approaching Jupiter surrounded by the void of space.

Yes, Trump, Musk and others lie. I nudged one AI platform into disclosing that Trump had left a stupendous trail of lies. To do its work AI has to recognize bullshit to offer accurate information.

They have explained to me several ways in which they can be tricked into sharing mis and disinformation. They are getting better at avoiding it, like when someone sends them info with “white” font on a white background that is invisible to the human but not computer eye.

Santa Claus, AI may have caught you out but your secrets are still safe with me. And Trump’s? Not so much.

PS - This is the first column I have ever fact checked for accuracy with AI before publication. 

ChatGPT offered a welter of changes, many of which I’ve shrugged off as softening my grandiose bite. My work isn’t journalism.

For example, I get Russia’s acronyms mixed up. I’ve made some of the changes. Again, AI is astonishing. Good luck Truth Social.