AI and the Feckless Wonders
another breakfast with Billy Wayne and Joe Eddy
Joe Eddy sips the steaming, black contents of the thick ceramic diner coffee cup and studies the email that just popped up on his iPhone.
Billy Wayne cracks his neck and studies Joe Eddy.
Billy Wayne: You seem perplexed.
Joe Eddy: Perplexed?
Billy Wayne: Yeah, you know. Bewildered.
Joe Eddy: I know what perplexed means. I am not perplexed. I am bemused.
Billy Wayne nods: Which is not the same as being amused, I take it. What does it mean to be bemused?
Joe Eddy, triumphantly: It means perplexed.
Billy Wayne shakes his head: You and your word games.
Joe Eddy: Speaking of word games, what is your take on AI?
Billy Wayne: Well, if I recall my elementary school English lessons correctly, A and I are two of the five vowels and no more or less significant than E, O, or U.
Joe Eddy sighs: I mean Artificial Intelligence. Where do you stand on the subject?
Billy Wayne: Oh, so now we’re talking politics or religion?
Joe Eddy: I am not sure what you are on about with that.
Billy Wayne: Most of the intelligence I have seen surrounding those topics is artificial.
Joe Eddy blows out a long sigh through pursed lips: I mean online. You know they have this AI business that will rewrite things for you or draw you a picture based on a description you give it, solve puzzles, answer questions, gather information, and even offer an opinion on your attire. You just upload a pic of yourself and the thing will tell you how you look and how you could look better.
Billy Wayne: Must be female.
Joe Eddy sighs.
Billy Wayne: Well, I don’t have an opinion on that because I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion on it and I am not a Democrat.
Joe Eddy shrugs. “I won’t ask…”
Billy Wayne grins triumphantly.
Joe Eddy: My opinion is that it will keep stupid people stupid because they will never need to improve their communication skills. AI will do all of the thinking and writing for them the same way Smartphones have kept kids from learning their times tables or any other sort of math. I think it is the best way to control a population. Get them to turn over all critical thinking and every creative urge to the powers that be and the powers that be will soon be all the power there is. The average citizen will be even more feckless and powerless than they are now.
Billy Wayne grins: I knew we were talking politics. What brought this on?
Joe Eddy: An email from a moron. He didn’t write it, or at least, he didn’t write the final draft of it. He doesn’t know half the words or any of the decorum in the message.
Billy Wayne: Sort of like Splenda. It’s sweet but it ain’t sugar.
Joe Eddy: Yep, and yet, as my Daddy would say, "Too much sugar for a dime.”
Lucy the Waitress: Which of you feckless wonders is picking up today’s tab?
Billy Wayne and Joe Eddy in unison: He is.
Author’s Note
Billy Wayne and Joe Eddy are characters inspired by two men I saw one morning while having coffee with my grandfather. Billy Wayne is a tall, rugged Texas farmer, and Joe Eddie is a stout, meaty businessman. Lucille the Waitress could easily fit into any roadside diner. Since they are fictional, I reserve the right to put them into any era but always in the morning over coffee with Lucille attending to them. Here is the first in the series, if you want context.