artificial intelligence

The reboot program worked furiously for seventeen minutes, trying to get Killmech 215-70308 back into action. The basic repair functions were destroyed; rebooting was the only chance for reactivation. The reboot attempt would continue until it was successful or the mech was permanently powered down.During the eighteenth minute, the mech’s sensor array and AI came online.

The mech realized that it was on the ground. None of its limbs or its assortment of weapons were active, and neither was its powerplant. A quick diagnostic revealed that they would never be online again. The mech was alive on limited battery power.

It listened for the sounds of the battle but heard nothing.

The battle is over. Were we successful?

Continue reading “Fiction: Gentle Winds and Waters Near” →

As previously noted, it’s getting harder to find and hold onto a decent job. And awfully few of the alleged job creators – the ones the Republicans say we can’t tax because they need that money to create jobs – are creating jobs.

I had held out hope that those of us who put one word after another to create meaning might be spared the ax. Oh, sure, newspapers have been shedding jobs for almost a decade; I’ve known that since I lost my newspaper job in 2003. Under the right circumstances, though, those jobs could come back.

Or not. Not when advances like this are being made in the field of artificial intelligence. Read it first, then continue here.

Continue reading “Pen to Paper: We Will Be Replaced, Too” →