Gary Lucero Writer

While those building today's artificial intelligence systems see limitless possibilities for the technology, they don't actually know what the future holds. AI could take over the world, replace most of our jobs, and turn us into an even more leisurely species, but there's no guarantee of that.

 

And when you consider how much electrical power it takes to run the data centers that run AI, you have you wonder where that power's going to come from, just how expensive it will be, and who's going to pay for it?

 

Also, if AI puts most of us out of work, who's going to take care of us? Will those of us displaced by it get a special government subsidy so we can live out our lives in poverty? Or might we compete with the rest of the population for whatever blue-collar jobs are left in the world?

 

 

There's no questioning the usefulness of AI, as we often find it to be an invaluable assistant to us, aiding us in software programming, writing, accounting, and many other fields, but AI raises more questions than it answers and in some ways is a solution without a problem. It has amazing potential, but as we know from past discoveries, that doesn't mean it can solve all of life's mysteries.

 

When we look at the invention of the nuclear bomb, plastics, and even social media, we see that technology is always a double-edged sword. If offers great value, but at great expense, and often kills us or undermines our humanity in the process.

 

-

 

It's important to look at AI with a good measure of skepticism, especially since it's unproven technology in so many ways. As we come to rely on it more and more, I often wonder how it will look five or ten years from now, how much it will cost us, and how many companies currently on the AI band wagon will go under in pursuit of a dream that may not have as much merit as we're being told it has.

 

 

Even at the dawn of personal computing, there was never a shortage of devices to choose from.

 

In the mid to late 1970s, there was the Apple I and II, the Commodore PET, the Radio Shack TRS-80, and the TI-99/4A. Before that there was the Altair 8800, but it didn't include a keyboard or monitor, so while it was technically a personal computer, it was only ever useful to hobbyists.

 

The Altair 8800

 

The selection grew in the 1980s and included the ever-popular Commodore 64, more Apple II variants, the IBM PC and its clones, the Apple Lisa and Macintosh, the Atari line of 8 and 16-bit personal computers, the Commodore Amiga, and more.

 

 

The Commodore Amiga

 

By the 1990s, the only personal computers left on the market were PCs and the Macintosh. All the others were dying out, and by the end of the decade, no real competition was left. A new breed of devices came on the scene, though, the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). These included the Apple Newton and the Palm Pilot, but they didn't have the raw horsepower of a "real" personal computer. What they did was provide a handheld option to offload some of the work of the PC.

 

The Palm Pilot

 

The 2000s saw the advent of handheld devices with robust operating systems. Nokia built rudimentary smartphones, but towards the end of the decade, Apple introduced the iPhone, and Google began releasing Android phones with similar features and power.

 

Today we have a dizzying array of smart phones, tablets, desktop computers, laptops, and 2-in-1 computers of all shapes and sizes. Whereas Windows was the dominant operating system in previous decades, now Linux, ChromeOS, and MacOS provide much needed competition. And any of these personal computing devices are inexpensive, which means almost anyone can afford to buy one.

 

Computing has never been more ubiquitous than it is today, or more accessible. And while all personal computing devices aren't created equal, meaning not all can run the same applications, and some tasks are more easily completed on a "real" computer versus a tablet or phone with operating systems customized for those devices, most people can perform most tasks on any device they choose. This levels the landscape and empowers people so they can buy the device(s) they prefer and can afford and provides a vast market for software developers.

The following short story is a prose adaptation of my latest book of poetry, In Life There Is No Escape, which is about a person who has lost everything and is unable to find comfort even in death.

 

In Life There Is No Escape is available from Amazon.com in paperback and as an ebook. It's also part of Kindle Unlimited.

 

 

I was in my forties when my parents died, and I couldn't understand how the two people who loved me most in life were gone. As I grappled with this devastating event, my wife was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and within months she passed away.

 

But life wasn't done with me yet.

 

The following year my son Jimmy died in a car accident. A few months later, my daughter Maria became sick with an infection and the doctors told me it was incurable. All I could do was make her comfortable until she passed.

 

It didn't end there. As the years passed, I suffered more loss. Friends, family, and neighbors all passed away. My world crumbled before me.

 

Falling into a deep depression, I barely functioned.

 

I was let go from my job and everywhere I turned, people looked at me as someone who was cursed. I was a pariah, and no one wanted to employ me, talk to me, much less touch me. I became homeless and wandered the streets.

 

I finally decided to end my life, but every attempt I made failed, which made me believe that even God had abandoned me. All those years I had prayed at his altar were for naught.

 

With absolutely nothing left, I fell into madness.

 

Now all I can do is bemoan my existence and pray that one day it comes to an end.