Greetings to all our Blurb Readers!
At some point, it becomes inevitable. Even writers cannot fight the march of progress! That’s why I am using a few Artificial Intelligence tools now in my own writing. And this is a follow-up on something that started a few months back. Because everyone knows that AI is considered to be ‘the next big thing’ in terms of what will happen to expand businesses or the growth of technology in the next decade. But I’m not so sure. I’ve heard a lot about quantum computing models. And the AI that we have heard about is already ‘baked in’ to what we are doing now! (Google searches).
But there are a few questions that we should be asking. That has become a ‘thing’ with me of late. The idea of critical thinking and asking the right questions has made me begin to look at events differently. There are some of us who are just naturally more adept at being able to look into the future and ask the right questions, etc… For example:
There is a piece this month from billionaire Bill Gates, who has a perfect track record of predicting what will be coming next. Of course he has- he was one of the men who brought Microsoft into our homes! Therefore, it’s no secret that he knows a lot about predicting what future trends will be.
There is another piece from an extremely smart person, Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, where he recommends books that we all need to read or should have read already!
But the point here is that the march of progress is inevitable. We need to learn to listen and watch for all the signs of ‘things to come.’ And to prepare for a future world that we are already living in! It’s one where there is extreme weather, and those who have predicted it was coming were right! And we have big changes in our political trends and our ways to find information (Podcasts, Social Media and even YouTube!). So we need to bow to the inevitable and learn to use tools like AI wisely. And keep learning and listening from those who are always ‘in the know!”
This past month, at The Growing Group, we have been examining “Better Living through Creative Thinking!” That is a wonderful segue way to delve into our own small subset of ideas and the ‘blurbs’ that are presented this month. It may (hopefully) help us think even more creatively-and learn to ask the right questions about the future!
Enjoy the rest of your summer! Till next time
6 Degrees Writer..
Some Blurbs to enjoy ….
The Book to Read: Why Nations Fail
I admit that this was an intriguing title that sucked me in. I have not had the pleasure of reading the book as yet-just the article. But the intriguing premise was enough to make me put this one at the top of my summer “Must Reads!”
According to the author, the problem is ‘rooted in a long-standing failure of liberal democracy to deliver shared prosperity & address growing inequalities that have emerged over…decades.’
The stress test is here. Will we A) Reinforce the foundations of our success that laid the groundwork for American Exceptionalism in our institutions? Or B) Succumb to the creep of decay through populist regimes such as Trumpism where the leader jumps from subject to subject in a planned course of destruction of democracy?
The Private Equity Scam
Here is another tantalizing tease of a headline that drew me in. I have long been curious as to then nature of private equity, and being completely a novice on all things of a financial nature, this was an informative look inside the thinking and the mindset that has led us to where we are regarding the growth of private equity!
In the article, they look at a series of claims from different industries. And it turns out, The claim to revitalize ended up turning a company into a ‘series of spammy content farms’
Did you know…that private equity now exists in *Retail/ Health care/*Journalism/*Housing …and many other industries? All industries are affected by this scam!
- 12 MILLION Americans work for companies owned by private equity
- 8% of Private Hospitals
- Four out of FIVE largest for-profit day care chains
- $8.2 TRILLION in assets
It has the largest asset sheet-bigger that that of any country other than CHINA OR the US!!!!
It doesn’t pay them to turn a distressed company around when bought out… it works out just as well, or BETTER when they run the company into the ground!
If ‘reducing the quality of service, selling off real estate & collecting fees are more profitable…’ than running the business, liquidation becomes perhaps the ONLY option left!
One little known fact is that when money is borrowed to ‘save’ a company, the debt is carried almost always by the company, NOT by the firm purchasing it! And 2/3 of the firm’s profits come from the management fees that it collects. It makes it more difficult for the private equity companies to LOSE money with all these loopholes and built-in clauses that benefit them.
Their magic fallacy is the belief they push that only financiers know best about what really makes a successful business work well. They know nothing about the business or industry they are buying into. Their expertise lies in accounting tricks and making money for themselves and shareholders.
So it goes. They hop from industry to industry, cutting jobs and leaving a trail of companies holding massive debts. It doesn’t matter if it is a hospital, a toy manufacturer or a rental housing property, the model is always the same to the private equity manager.
The stories are similar and are filled with sad endings throughout a range of industries. But the bottom line is this: There’s a need to bring much more creativity and expertise to the critical industries and institutions that the country depends upon and needs to flourish. The business of industry should be in the hands of those who care about what they are doing. Not in the indifferent hands of those who see the lives of the people and the businesses they disrupt as nothing more than a balance sheet filled with assets and debts.
The Round homes that survive
Of course, living in the Tampa Bay area as I do, this one really caught my eye. And I’ve been hearing some of the promising studies where homes that were built in a different model from traditional square housing had excellent track records in regards to surviving the big storms we’ve seen along the Florida coastline.
The Domed homes are the ones that survive the Hurricanes. It’s a question of wind force and the building based on aerodynamic principles where the stress on the structure is changed with the shape of a round object being able to withstand the force of the powerful Hurricanes now hitting the coast of Florida
Bill Gates Record on predicting the Future is 100% spot-on!
Gates has been a champion for AI in some respects. Also, I have had other industry leaders, particularly in the field of writing and research, who are using some AI tools to get their work done and to create new ideas and brainstorming models. Gates has said:
AI is something we can work with, and use as a tool. It’s a model we are working with now..
Bill Gates has a pretty good track record when it comes to predicting the future. Here are a few of his impressive and documented winners:
- Sites for automatic price comparisons/ For Cars/ Vacations/
- For job sites; such as LinkedIn
- Remote work he predicted
- Idea of “Zoom’ conference calls!
- Google Docs was another of his predictions!
- Covid-19 Pandemic- he predicted some type of pandemic…
Will AI destroy College Writing?
This piece gives us the chance to re-examine the purpose of higher education…
Several really brilliant writers I have spoken with are interested in pursuing this subject. What becomes of critical thinking? And for that matter, this becomes a chance to re-examine the purpose of higher education….
How will students learn if the student paper is written by Artificial Intelligence? One interesting perspective I found recently came from a long-time guru for working writers named Jane Friedman. Ms Friedman had a workshop in which she acknowledged the use of AI in some of her own writing. But also, the need for critical thinking and the ability to ask and present the right questions to the ChatGPT was something that came up on multiple occasions.
In other words, no matter how intelligent you think you are, or how much you believe you have ‘outsmarted the system,’ it still boils down to: Garbage in, garbage out. So if you are not thinking in an original manner, you will not be able to input the data into your own model that will give you any kind of clever twist or original take on any given subject. The machine is only as good as the data that is going in or out of the system!
It presents a challenge for writers and all users of AI to find ways to ask the right questions and enter the data that helps to present new and clever ways to solve problems or to create interesting topics for articles!
Next month is a look at some of the best articles we have found about the future. The theme: The Future is Here! Till then-have a wonderful August!