Working Up

Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

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The Death of AI $$$

December 29th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips All this $$$ is killing AI. I used to work in AI. That means that I researched things that might allow us to do things that we couldn’t do. I attempted to instruct a computer or, as we used to say, I attempted to write a computer program to do something that […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Language · Money · Technology · Word

Cleverly Deceptive

December 15th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips AI has eaten the world. It is the latest and greatest thing…or is it? I hang around America’s Federal government. There are many new programs in our Federal government to push and pull and take advantage of AI. AI will do wonders. Isn’t it wonderfully wonderful? Sigh. Perhaps I am just too […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Engineering · Language · Mathematics · Systems

Fundamentals and Fads

December 11th, 2025 · No Comments

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 […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Data Science · Learning · Systems · Teaching

Expert Systems Circa 2025 (or was it 1985?)

November 24th, 2025 · No Comments

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 […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Computing · Expertise · History · Technology

Garbage In, Garbage Out

November 20th, 2025 · No Comments

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 […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Chaos · Commitment · Competence · Expertise · Humility · Technology · Tools · Work

AI, Tools, and Jobs

November 17th, 2025 · No Comments

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 […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Jobs · Technology · Tools · Work

Predictable (yikes!)

October 23rd, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It isn’t flattering to understand that what I do is quite predictable. Ah these AI chattering bots—they are amazing. Type a question, they call it a prompt, in plain English and out pops answers, sometimes as long as books, in plain English. This is amazing! Well, the software looks at a bunch […]

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Tags: Analysis · Artificial Intelligence · Context · Jobs · Problems · Work · Writing

A Little-Better Prompt

October 20th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Here is an attempt to gain value from a chattering bot by wording the prompt a little differently. These chattering bots are everywhere. Some value is gained while some skill is lost. I thought of a better prompt: Find, display the URL, and display a few sentences from three key commentaries regarding […]

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Tags: Alternatives · Artificial Intelligence · Clarity · Communication · Tools · Writing

AI and the American Teenager

September 18th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips This current trend in AI fails miserably when confronting the nemesis of all logic—the American teenager. I recently read about a big fast food chain in America that installed one of these AI chattering bots on the drive through ordering system. Let AI take the orders. Save cost. Improve profit. This will […]

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Tags: Adapting · Adults · Artificial Intelligence · Fun · Logic · Technology · Thinking

The AI Crisis

September 11th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Borrowing from The Software Crisis of the 1990s, I declare The AI Crisis. A recent report from MIT claims that 95% of AI projects attempted by well-meaning folks fail. Gosh. That is a pretty high percentage. I remember the software crisis of the late 1980s and all through the 1990s. Reports like […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Computing · Design · History · Requirements · Software · Systems · Technology