Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

It must be difficult running a college and deciding what departments to create and what degrees to offer.

It seems only yesterday that colleges started offering degrees in Data Science. Data Science was the sexiest job of the century or so said an article in Harvard Business Review. I guess they missed as it wasn’t even the sexiest job of the first quarter of the century.

Now colleges are offering degrees in Artificial Intelligence. Uh, let’s see, most employers consider AI to be a part of Data Science. Or do they? I am confused. And I am not the only confused person wandering blindly about and bumping into ivory towers on college campuses.

Should colleges be behind the times and offer courses in the new stuff that fit in the old fundamental stuff? Should data science and AI be offered as classes in Mathematics or Computer Science? I remember when Computer Science classes were offered in Mathematics. But then, I am old and slow and not qualified to run a college and setup departments and offer degrees and keep up with the times.

Seems like these hot topics should not be college degree programs. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

I don’t like surveillance. Why is someone surveilling me? It is sort of like testing a system I built. But are the testers out to get me or help me?

I don’t like surveillance. I don’t like the police state. Why is someone surveilling me? I haven’t done anything. What about the Bill of Rights? You don’t search someone or surveille someone without due process.

Back in June 2025, there were the No Kings protests in America. Guess what? Federal, State, and Local law enforcement used various video camera systems to watch the protests and the protestors. What? What was that about? Did they gather data on all the protestors so they could “round ’em up” and punish them for something? That is rotten.

Let’s ask, “Why?”

Let’s sidetrack to something else I often don’t like (at first glance). Testing. I don’t like someone testing something I’ve built. I built it. I tested it myself. Leave me alone. I don’t want your opinion on the system I built—even if your opinion is based on data. Leave me alone.

Perhaps, however, the testing is for my own good. Perhaps, however, the other person will see things I didn’t see. Perhaps, however, I can learn and do better. Hmm.

Let’s go back to surveillance. Remember the Boston Marathon bombing? Video cameras in public places helped law enforcement catch the bombers. Good thing, huh? Some people question that. Those questioning people weren’t relatives of the dead. This isn’t an easy item to discuss.

Now consider the video surveillance of No Kings day. Perhaps law enforcement was watching because they feared some malcontent would shoot some of the protestors. Surveillance, like in the Boston Marathon bombing, would help law enforcement find and convict the malcontent. It is possible that the surveillance was to protect the protestors, not spy on them.

I am not naive. No Kings day was a political event. Surveillance is a privacy versus security political issue. The politics cannot be removed.

Still, there are more reasons for some of these things like surveillance. Let’s try to consider the possibilities.

by Dwayne Phillips

Influencing behavior via modeling instead of coating with chocolate syrup.

I recently read an article written by a mother describing how she had her children eat vegetables. The answer applies to all behaviors that are distasteful to some persons.

There is an old joke about a farmer who fed his dogs spinach. Another farmer asked if the dogs ate the spinach. The spinach-feeding farmer replied, “They didn’t for the first three weeks.” The punch line meaning that given enough hunger and pain, dogs will eat spinach.

The article written by the proud-as-can-be mother related how she combined vegetables with something her kids liked. She covered the vegetables with chocolate syrup. Not literally, but she coated the vegetables with something her kids liked. She taught her kids bribes work.

When my children were young, someone gave me wonderful advice about vegetables and all that. When you put green vegetables on the table, proclaim, “Ooh, aah, asparagus. I love it. You can’t have any until you eat all your mashed potatoes and meat. This is great!”

This worked. My kids loved the green vegetables because I loved them.

Management consultants call this modeling behavior or something that has enough syllables to warrant outrageous management consulting fees. If I want others to do something, I do it first.

As I sit sipping coffee and typing words, a little boy across the room is climbing all over a chair, bouncing, sitting upside down, and generally doing everything to the chair that you shouldn’t do. It is evident that the parent hasn’t modeled the reason and use of chairs.

I have sat in business offices and watched new employees doing everything on company time that is like the little boy and the chair. It is evident that the supervising employees haven’t modeled what is deemed as appropriate uses of company time. Hmm.

As a manager, have you eaten asparagus in front of the new employees and proclaimed their goodness? Hmm. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

A simple question can start a meaningful conversation that prevents bad things from happening.

As I write this post, our elected representatives ended a partial shutdown of our Federal government a couple of days ago. Such shutdown set some type of record and brought lots of grief to thousands of people. I know this involves politics and as such raises blood pressures and the volume of speech but keep reading as the solution is applicable to many different situations.

Before such a standoff occurs, gather the folks in a room and ask, “What do you want?”

Answer honestly and candidly.

“Well, we have certain constraints here, what can we eliminate so that you have what you want?”

Further honest and candid conversation as both sides say what they want with brevity and clarity.

No on belittles what the other wants.

Note: if what you want is to embarrass the other party, say so. Honesty and candor are essential.

Oh, you want to embarrass me? Okay, I can take some ribbing and be the butt of your jokes. What else?

I can picture our current elected representatives engaging in such. Perhaps I am silly, but I can picture this. I can also picture the needless loss suffered by thousands of innocent bystanders.

Move to my regular day-to-day job. Same question applies. Same honesty and candor applies. Same conversation applies. We can do better with simple questions like, “What do you want?”

by Dwayne Phillips

Happy Thanksgiving Day. In America, this is Thanksgiving Day. Something about the fourth Thursday in November or something.

We attribute this to folks in our history who were thankful that they had a good harvest and had stored enough crops to sustain them through the winter. Their children would not die this winter.

I have never had a situation where I doubted if my children would live through the winter. Food has never been short of supply. There has always been a roof, warm and dry beds, and clothing. Food, shelter, clothing—never been a worry.

Thank you God.

by Dwayne Phillips

Expert systems live on after 40 years. Well, sort of.

I worked in artificial intelligence research in the mid-1980s. We had an AI boom in that decade. Then a winter and a boom or two since then.

Back in 1985, we had “expert systems.” (I am old enough to remember this. I was there.) Have one of your human experts talk to an AI researcher about their expertise. The AI researcher would write software that captured the expertise. That software would run 24/7, never become tired, never take a day off, and never make mistakes from fatigue.

Believe it or not, the idea worked. Some businesses actually used the idea to their great benefit. Most folks bought into the marketing hype, were disappointed in reality (reality always seems to be less than market hype), and gave up. Hence, an AI winter.

Today? Here we go again. Sure, companies are hiring people in the developing world (Is that what we call it today? I am not sure.) for a dollar a day to say, “Yes, that is right. No, that is wrong,” when shown pictures of cats, dogs, giraffes, etc.

Not reported as much is the trend in hiring actual experts and paying them real salaries to check the answers from systems that only actual experts could check. Is that a fracture or a bad x-ray? Is that a correct proof to a theorem? Is that argument logical?

Experts training AI systems. Hmm, sounds like expert-based systems. Sounds like expert systems.

We’ve come a long ways in 40 years. Right? Have we? Maybe.

by Dwayne Phillips

One of the oldest phrases in computing is still true. Rats. Some folks thought AI would fix this.

If I meant to find the sum of 2 and 3 but typed 2+4, I would have the wrong answer. Rats. Inputing the wrong information produces the wrong output. So said Charles Babbage some 120 years ago and so have said countless others since.

No worries. AI will fix all this. AI will find the answer we seek in a great big pile of stuff we have. We know the answer is there. Some agentic chattering bot avatar will find it for us and write a concise essay on the topic. Right?

Well, probably not. I am sure I put that document in here somewhere. Well, maybe I didn’t. Multiply that uncertainty by a number (maybe 1,000 or maybe 1,000,000,000) and I have more uncertainty. Okay, my colleagues did it, right? Probably not them either.

It seems we are back to the same old thing: if I am diligent everyday and record things as I should and put them in the right place at the right time, things will go better for me.

Sigh, I thought all these new tools would relieve me of the need for diligence. I continue to wish. I could do better. I guess we all should.

by Dwayne Phillips

Here come new tools. Adopt them or lose your job? Probably not.

Yet more recent news about big tech eliminating jobs due to AI. Or perhaps they were eliminated because those companies simply hired too many people and they weren’t doing much of anything on the job. Here are more thoughts on the topic.

I guess I should provide some thoughts as this is my blog and all that. Okay, here is my take: new tools can eliminate jobs. That what new tools do. Nothing new here.

To eliminate jobs, folks need to jump into the new tools, work harder and smarter, and produce
That takes initiative and energy. My guess is that about 1% of folks on the job have that initiative
energy.

About 49% of folks on the job will use a new AI tool to do something they don’t want to do,
but still take the same amount of time to do the job because they are hiding from their boss.
The other 50% will just sort of keep doing what they’ve always done until someone bothers them.

Is that cynical and pessimistic? I don’t think so. Folk, jobs are important. They provide the money to feed, clothe, and house families. Many people at work come to work and try hard now and then so they can have the money needed to feed, clothe, and house their families. Their job, however, is not the most important thing in the world. They have other things in their lives that are far more important.

I find that good and honest, not cynical and pessimistic.

Yes, some of these new AI tools will reduce the need for some people to be doing the same old thing. I wish those people well and hope they find jobs to care for their families. Is this a turning point in the history of the world and the workplace? Perhaps, but not likely. We have come through plagues and such and other things that were much worse. We will come through this one as well.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes I can do more than my job. I can exceed and excel. I recommend caution.

I read an editorial recently about newspapers. Perhaps that editorial was agreeable or not as it delved into the politics of the English language (thoughtful and fraught with peril). The topic was journalism, journalists, and journal-ing.

Journalists who engage in journalism journal, i.e., they write the news of the day. The news of the day is sufficient. Sometimes the news of the day is less than more and hence the saying, “the dog days of summer.” So be it—continue to journal.

It seems that many journalists over many years time were not content with journal-ing and wanted to excel and exceed. Hmm. How did that work out? Not too good as newspapers are dead, online newspapers are dead, and folks read my book of faces et al. for the news.

The demise of the journal-ing crowd provides caution to just about everyone: when bored and wanting to excel and exceed, do so with caution. Try to think things through. That is an attempt at predicting the future, something we usually fail, but is worth a try.

If I exceed my job, I will probably lose my job. Perhaps that is what I want. Perhaps my exceeding leads to a new and desired job. Perhaps I want to keep my current job. In the latter case, don’t exceed unless I exceed as a side hobby.

Let’s think this through. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes you concede or yield to another person’s experience in a situation. Folks seem to hate that.

“You have more experience with this type of thing or this type of situation. I yield to your judgement here.”

Seems like that is pretty reasonable and wise. Folks seem to hate it. What is wanted is some general or universal admission that I am inferior in all situations at all times. The insinuation that I may have better expertise some of the time is taken as just that—an insinuation. That word sounds bad. It means something bad, but it sounds really bad.

Still, when superior experience or knowledge is present—concede. No one has to be superior in all things at all times. No one ever has to be superior at any thing at any time. Let’s do the work and move on.