My Fire TV controller allows for voice commands. Usually, I say, “Alexa, what time is it,” or, “Alexa, what is today” when I can’t remember what day it is. Today is Thursday.
This morning I was in the bathroom, reading the Bible on my phone. I’ve recently just finished reading all of the New Testament (KJV) and have started on the Old Testament again. *I’ve read the Bible completely through at least 12 times. Well, I am rethinking that I may have only read the New Testament completely through 12 times, because I had an 8 translation copy of the New Testament that I read through quite some time ago. I’m not sure if I tracked down the other translations for the Old Testament, but I’ve read at least four or five different translations of the entire Bible. But, as I read, I was also listening to the television in my living room. I had left it on, while watching the movie, “The Night Digger,” a 1971 film featuring Patricia Neal. The character, Billy, is a disturbed youngish 20 year old, who arrives riding a motorcycle and eventually we find he is a serial killer, killing young women, about his age, after raping them.
“The Night Digger” 1971
There is a large number of years difference between the Billy character & Patricia Neal’s character, but eventually they marry (or at least go off to Ireland or Scotland, and take up residence in a stone cottage on the rocky ocean coast). She does love him, but she knows he must be “the killer”. And at the end of the film, Billy has kidnapped (or perhaps even killed) a good looking (young woman) neighbor’s dog in order to get her to come looking for it. This is a part that we don’t see on screen. We don’t see him snatch the dog, or what he does or doesn’t do with it. We don’t see him rape the young neighbor woman, although Patricia Neal hears him playing a harmonica, and she is then standing by a window, which she may see him raping the young woman, or not, when she looks in the window. But then we see her walking along a stony road undulating along the rocky coast away from this event. We also see Billy riding in the same direction, come up just short of her, she’s turned around to face him. And they both look into each other’s eyes and he sees tears in her eyes. At which point, realizing how much she loves him, he “guns the motorcycle” and heads up the road past her, and then off the rocky ledge. We see the motorcycle and Billy start to tumble down the rocky ledge to his death. THE END.
Well, we knew it couldn’t end well. He was a serial killer, and there was a great age difference between them. But, a nice ending anyway. Very “old school”.
So I’m reading the Bible on the toilet and listening to the audio on the TV in the other room. And, I then think that when I am in the Living Room, I can tell Alexa to stop the movie or show and it will. I figure it is worth a shot, I say loudly, “Alexa, stop the movie.” And, to my surprise, Alexa stops the movie upon my audio command. As an additional test, I speak in my normal voice and ask Alexa what the temperature is. And from the other room, Alexa answers the current temperature. I then whisper, “Alexa what is today,” and Alexa tells me the day, just as if I were in the living room.
*Think about it. In 1960, the cartoon character, Dick Tracy, the famous detective, wore a watch that had video & audio for communications. This was totally unbelievable. I don’t recall exactly when Jim & Mary Ann built their nice home in Hubert, but the 1970s I’m pretty sure. And, when they built their home, they installed a “wired” internal communications system. In each room there was a visible Speaker mounted on the wall with audio controls, and a hidden microphone. You could talk to someone else, in another room of the house. I mentioned this “wired” setup yesterday to Ray. Those wired boxes have been removed, and only the light switches and electrical boxes remain (not sure if the phone jacks are still there, I did not take note). But who would have thought back then (just 50 years ago) that in 2023, you could communicate wirelessly, with audio, video and text not only from room to room, but from house to house, from town to city, and country to country, around the world, and probably even from world into space, if the setup, which is entirely possible exists.
If you watch old Twilight Zone or original Outer Limits episodes, sometimes there is a reference about future events in some future year, to them, which is long past to us in the current year, 2023. Something to happen in 1987, or 1992, 1999, etc. And, you may think when you hear these references that, in 2023, we are nowhere near accomplishing these predicted futuristic tasks. Still, with personal computers and cell phones , and the Internet, our world speeded up greatly and extended vastly. I can watch a live video feed of San Francisco Bay, which pans from the Golden Gate Bridge to the bridge across to Oakland, and watch cargo vessels passing by. I can watch ships passing by the Port of Gdansk, Poland in real time, or going into the Kiel Canal from either end, or video of what is happening down at Southport, NC, or Southampton, UK.
Telephone booths have disappeared because of “die Handys”. And now, who has to rely on memory when trying to remember old movies or actors/actresses?
I honestly don’t ever believe we will ever travel at “warp speed,” or “time travel,” or be able to “teleport” long or short distances. Still there are probably unbelievable surprises for humanity, given time. I recall an image from an old comic book, “Lost in Space” in which the mother figure was fixing a meal, and she held a plate of food beneath a single light beam to heat it. I think cooking with microwaves goes back at least to the 1940s, so this beam of cooking light was not so “far thinking” but I’ve used a microwave oven to cook food, defrost various items, and heat water for hot tea, for years.
So, after going shopping in Raleigh today, I returned home… with assorted colorful peppers from the State Farmer’s Market, some white peppercorns from Savory Spice in Lafayette Village, and some Seeded Rye Bread, Castelvetrano olives & Swiss Cheese from Wegman’s. But, I was tired. Recall that I was down in Hubert, Swansboro, Havelock, Minnesott/Cherry Branch, New Bern, and Jacksonville yesterday.
I started to watch some TV, but then realized that I was very sleepy. I got up from my easy chair and was so tired that I walked into my bedroom, all the time thinking that I needed to cut off the TV but so o o o tired. I rolled into bed, and then I thought. I said in my normal voice, “Alexa, turn off the TV.” And, it seemed that I didn’t hear the TV any longer. But, the oscillating fan was going beside my bed, and I wasn’t really sure if the TV had turned off (it had) and so o o o tired, that I went to sleep. *Awaking later, I felt better, and got up to go to the bathroom. But, I did a quick “poke my head into” the living room, and sure enough, Alexa had turned off the TV. Wow, what an interesting find. In a normal voice, not like I am having to yell back into another room to a real person, to have them understand me, I can ask Alexa to do various things for me and she does, just like I am sitting beside my Firestick next to my easy chair.
**Oh yeah, Mary Ann gave me some tomatoes, shrimp and frozen, cooked collards (she makes a really good “mess of” collards) yesterday. These were normal sized red tomatoes but when I tried them at home, they had really good flavor. It’s been a long time since I had a full sized red tomato that had good flavor. I have been buying Campari tomatoes, and those little Cherry tomatoes (both red & yellow) and most of them have consistently good flavor.
Had made a tomato & bacon sandwich last night when I got back home. The bacon was a little “off” but the tomato had good flavor. I made another sandwich (with the Seeded Rye Bread) tonight, and had a different batch of bacon, and this sandwich was “spot on”, perfect, deeelischious!
So, I’ve just learned from Alexa that she can learn my voice. She now knows that I am Bill. I think that as the AI interface gets better, we will probably have a human face, on the TV or phone, that talks to us. Maybe we can even put a familiar, personal face on to interact with, or maybe buy or rent a person, famous or otherwise to become our Alexa (or whatever other name we might choose to become our personal AI assistant). That will be fun!
And as I continue to think on the AI possibilities, why not a whole body, and not just a face. And, why not create a whole personality for this AI assistant. In “Settings” we can say that this personality has Yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays at a certain time. Then, if we are asking for the AI’s assistance during that time, we see them in their Yoga outfit, doing Yoga, and stopping to ask how they can help us. At another time, they might be shopping, or sleeping or eating. Why would I want an AI assistant with that level of detail? Hmmm… I’m not sure, but I’m also not sure that I wouldn’t. It would be almost like having a pet that looks forward to you coming home, that you become enamored of interacting with, and with each encounter, you become less aware that this is just an AI, and begin to act as if it were a real assistant. *Sounds like something out of a SciFi movie? But, also something that lonely people would spend money on, to be “no so” lonely. Children have played with dolls for years. You start a child out with a digital doll. But this doll has a personality. This doll can answer many of your questions. This doll can make you feel, “more human”.
Bill Gibson, II 