Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

In the past month or two, many have bemoaned the appearance of software that can write essays for students. I have yet to read concerns about software that teachers can use to write essay assignments.

ChatGPT is ruining the world. Well, at least some folks think it is ruining their world. The software writes essays. Students won’t write their essays any more. How will teachers know if the students are “doing their own work?”

First, ChatGPT doesn’t write essays. Give it a prompt like, “Write an essay about the drafting of the Declaration of Independence,” and the software will access the the world’s memory banks (we used to say things like “memory bank”) and mimic what is found. Not too exciting when you think of it.

Second, I have read many essays and posts by teachers at many levels of education bemoaning this software. What is a teacher to do? How will the teacher know if the student “did their own work?” Well, if a teacher cannot tell… Never mind that.

Finally, what I have not read is a single post or essay about how the teachers will use such software. Will the teacher be creating their own assignment or using ChatGPT. “Write a one-sentence assignment for college freshmen writers in English 102.” Ooooh, aaaaaah. Wait. Is that okay? Wait.

Why aren’t any of the teachers questioning their fellow teachers?

Perhaps we could ask that last question of ChatGPT. Well, maybe we don’t want to hear any answers.

by Dwayne Phillips

I like to speak in front of audiences. I like to take the podium and talk. Sometimes, however, I don’t take the podium. Sometimes, I need another person to stand in the way and say, “No, not today.”

I recently attended a memorial service for someone who died. Close family members stood at the podium and said a few words. I guess the words were “few” as I didn’t understand any of them. The speaker was overcome with grief and mumbled and didn’t make much sense.

The speaker’s performance was understandable. They were overwhelmed with grief during a terrible day of their life. The thing was, everyone present knew the person was overwhelmed with grief. Overwhelming grief was a theme of the day.

This happened to me several decades ago after my father was killed in an auto accident. I wanted to take the podium and say a few words. Someone stopped me. I cannot remember who that was, but I have always been grateful for that intervention.

Funerals and grief are not the only circumstances in which I shouldn’t take the podium. Someone does something I don’t like. I am fuming. I shouldn’t take the podium. Someone else, who is not fuming, should. It is there place to stop me. It is my place to realize my emotional and mental state and recognize the good deed the other person is doing.

Stop. Consider the situation. Consider my state of mind. Sometimes I don’t take the podium.

by Dwayne Phillips

This one is finished. Time for the next one. It too will finish, and another one will come after it.

Many years ago as a much younger man, I spoke with a much older and wiser man. He was about to leave an assignment and begin another assignment. He had learned the phrase that is the title of this post. “When you are on the plane and it is taking off, you say, ‘Next slide, please.'”

“Next slide, please,” is what a speaker would say to an assistant while presenting materials to an audience. These were actual, physical slides—not just another electronic or virtual slide in PowerPoint.

This one is finished. It doesn’t matter if “this one” is a two-year assignment, a mid-term exam in college, or a meal with dishes waiting to be washed. It is time for the next one. Move on.

Some slides (experiences) are thrilling while some are dull. There is a long list of opposites that I could write. Nonetheless, learn—always optional and chosen too infrequently—and move on. Regardless of the value, perceived or otherwise, let go of that prior slide. It is finished.

Besides, I’ve already presented that slide. Let’s do something new.

by Dwayne Phillips

We know the answers. We have the information. Can we access it? More importantly, can you access it?

We have the data silo. Some call it the data stovepipe. Some call it the sandbox. Others call it job (in)security.

Enough of the metaphors and cliches. We have the information. I can find it. You, however, cannot find it because I stored it on the computer network in a place you cannot access. Then there is other information. You can find it. I, however, cannot find it because it is stored on the computer network in a place I cannot access.

Isn’t this great fun? I’ve got a secret. You’ve got a secret. Someone is wasting a lot of time while someone else is grinning with knowledge, power, and foolish pride.

While we adults enjoy childish games, someone suffers. Someone doesn’t receive the right medicine or enough food or a phone call of comfort. Someone pays taxes that are wasted. Someone suffers.

We can all do better. Let’s all do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

I see amazing solutions and advances in technology everyday. Are all these, however, solving worthwhile problems?

I recently read about how persons at Nvidia created a system that modifies a live video so that the eyeballs of the person on camera point to the camera. This happens while the real eyeballs are glancing away at notes and things.

This is an amazing technical achievement.

They have modified video in real time so that a small portion of the video feed is “corrected” to a specific target. Again, an amazing technical achievement.

Is that a worthwhile problem?

The system will be quite useful to some persons. Their live video feeds will look better. Those watching the video feeds will feel more comfortable with the speaker and may listen better and… the list of possible benefits goes on.

Still, is that a worthwhile problem?

Will anyone sleep better tonight because they feel safer? Will anyone function better because their disability is reduced? Will anyone be nourished instead of hungry?

Am I being too naive?

I hope that good, smart people work on worthwhile problems.

by Dwayne Phillips

For what it is worth, and I think it is worth much, read or review Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.”

I didn’t take many English courses in college (just one). While happy, at the time, to skip needless courses, I sometimes regret what I could have learned. Then again, I was young(er).

I was in my late 40s when I first read George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language. I found the content amazing. It wasn’t all original as some of it came from other short and enlightening pieces on writing that I had previously read. Still, Orwell had a way of conveying concepts that cut the heart and mind.

Engineers, like myself, don’t read these types of things. That is probably a great shame. Then again, that may be the reason why engineers “get things done” so often. That argument is left to those who argue those types of things.

At my current age, I have the great urge to require reading of Orwell’s essay over and again and then writing about it to be a prerequisite for college and high school graduation in America. No one has asked me about such, so I doubt anything of the sort will occur. To this day, Orwell is too controversial. His thoughts and writings tend to say, “Look, the emperor has no clothes.”

One of the problems of our day is that it is not the emperor who has no clothes, but those who are supposed to be pointing at the naked emperor who have no clothes.

by Dwayne Phillips

Old metaphors indicate many problems. One result, however, is that they prevent thought. Thinking is a pretty good practice, and I discourage anything that reduces it.

The old metaphor should be avoided. George Orwell wrote about this in his essay on Politics and the English Language. Orwell wrote it much better than I could, so I quote him:

But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.

Do you have a metaphor? Stop. Think. Write what you wish to convey instead of using the metaphor.

One reason is that pause for thought often causes me to consider the subject of my writing. I learn that I am writing about symptoms and not sickness. Under the symptoms is a real problem. The extra thinking shows me the real problem.

Put away the first piece of writing for now. Write about the real problem and possible remedies.

Hence, the old metaphor can be useful. It can cause me to think, and thinking is something that should rarely be avoided.

by Dwayne Phillips

We can focus on only one thing at a time. That is part of the definition of “focus.” There are ideas for shifting focus that work pretty well.

I can focus on one thing at a time. That is what “focus” means—one thing at a time.

Am I focusing on the problem or the solution? Jump to the solution too quickly, and I probably solve the wrong problem. Stay on the problem too long, and I go no where. Try to focus on both at once, and I just get a headache.

Put the problem on one white board. Put the solution on a different whiteboard (use computer screens or walls or tables or sheets of butcher paper or whatever). The person with the marker stands in front of one whiteboard. Discussion can only be about the topic of that whiteboard. The person can only write on that whiteboard.

The person moves to the other whiteboard. Discussion can only be about the topic of that whiteboard. The person can only write on that whiteboard.

The person moves back and forth between the two whiteboards. The focus shifts from the problem to the solution and back with the person. The discussion follows the shift in focus.

Simple? Maybe. Easy? Maybe or maybe not. Try it.

by Dwayne Phillips

How to you accomplish a big task? One thing at a time. Sorry, I wish there were magic here, but I have yet to see any of that.

I recently removed 6,000 pounds of items from a home. Given each item weighed half a pound on average, that is … a whole lotta’ items.

How do you remove 10,000 or 20,000 items? One at a time. Pick up one item. Remove it. Repeat.

There must be a better way. If there is, I have yet to find it.

I was in the third of four semesters of Calculus in college a few decades ago. The professor explained it something like, “We take a problem we don’t know how to solve, break it down into parts that we don’t know how to solve, and repeat this until we have problems we do know how to solve. Then we start solving.”

This approach of break-it-down and do one thing at a time worked then, it has worked over the decades, and it still works. Seemingly impossible tasks are possible. How do you write 1,526 blog posts? One keystroke at a time. How do you remove 20,000 items? One item at a time.

Magic? I doubt it.

by Dwayne Phillips

If AI wrote this, is that okay? The question isn’t that difficult.

In the past few months, we have all sorts of artificial intelligence or machine learning sites “writing” things for us. Well, this isn’t that intelligent or learned (in my humble opinion), but clever mimicry. Still it is quite useful.

Why do all that typing? Type a question, the software returns a couple hundred words on a general topic. Edit. Finished. The process: ask, edit, finish. No problem.

But can you put your name on that? Did you write it? Did you write it all? Did you write enough of it?

The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, 1776.

There, ten words that I typed. If I had copied those ten words from one of a million places that they appear and pasted them in this blog post, did I write them? Can I claim them? Most importantly, does anyone care?

No. No one cares. It is general knowledge.

Okay, I ask some software a question and it returns 100 or 200 or whatever-hundred words of general knowledge. Do I need to type those words? Do I need to paraphrase and type 90% of those words?

Let’s take a breath. We have dealt with this for a couple of centuries. We quote someone, we give them credit. We quote a result returned by software, we give it credit. Basic stuff, enough written.

But… but what? The general information on a general topic does not make prose. My statement of July 4th, 1776 does not make prose. Any clod or piece of software can spurt words. Let ’em.

Simply write, general information from some-clever-piece-of-software.

We don’t have to write it all.