M. Thomas Apple's Blog, page 24

Merry Xmas 2022!

Happy holidays, everyone!

Best wishes for the 2023 New Year. See you on the other side!

What does a dust devil on Mars sound like?

It was “definitely luck” that the dust devil appeared when it did, said the study’s lead author, who estimates there was just a 1-in-200 chance of capturing the audio.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/mars-rover-captures-first-sound-dust-devil-red-planet-rcna61642

Perseverance has been on Mara for almost two years now, and already recorded wind on Mars for the first time in February 2021.

This dust devil was recorded in late September 2021 (wonder why only now it’s being revealed?). The dust devil was “average size,” which is described as about 400 feet / 122 meters tall and 80 feet / 24 meters wide, traveling at 16 feet / 5 meters per second (≈ 11 mph / 18 mph).

Click on the link below to hear the dust devil

https://jirafeau.isae-supaero.fr/f.php?h=2JWSkdJR&p=1

There are a lot of dust devils on Mars. A whole lot. Any settlement would have to be extremely prepared to deal with dust all the time, everywhere. If it ever got into equipment that regulated, say, breathable air inside habitats…

[image error]

From nothing to Mars in 6 years

In 2020, the UAE’s space agency launched its first Mars mission, less than a decade after it was created. How did they manage it?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221206-how-the-uae-got-a-spacecraft-to-mars-on-the-first-try

This is a great story about how true international cooperation rather than competition can result in scientific progress.

Thanks to their efforts, despite nearly being derailed thanks to the pandemic, we will soon have a complete picture of an entire year of Mars weather.

Not bad for a country whose space agency is so small “you could probably lose it in the car park of Nasa’s giant Johnson Space Centre in Houston.”

(Of course, the project’s findings may mean I have to rewrite some of my novel in progress, but why not? All in the name of science fiction…)

ChatGPT: Is this really the “death of the essay”?

I’ve been testing ChatGPT over the last couple of days. (If you don’t know what this chatbot is, here’s a good NYT article about ChatGPT and others currently in development.)

The avowed purpose of ChatGPT is to create an AI that can create believable dialogues. It does this by scouring the web for data it uses to respond to simple prompts.

By “simple,” I mean sometimes “horribly complicated,” of course. And sometimes a little ridiculous.

Somehow, I doubt that people in the US said “livin’ the dream” in the ’50s…

As has been pointed out, chatbots only generate texts based on what they have been fed, i.e., “garbage in / garbage out.” So if you push the programs hard enough, they will generate racist, sexist, homophobic etc awful stuff — because unfortunately that kind of sick and twisted garbage is still out there, somewhere online in a troll’s paradise.

So far, I have asked the program to:

Write a haiku about winter without using the word “winter”Write a limerick about an Irish baseball playerWrite a dialogue between God and Nietzsche (I just had to…)Imagine what Jean-Paul Sartre and Immanuel Kant would say to each other (see above) but using US ’50 slangHave Thomas Aquinas and John Locke argue about the existence of God (that one was fun)Write a 300 word cause-effect essay about climate changeWrite a 300 word compare and contrast essay about the US and JapanWrite a 1000 word short science fiction story based on MarsWrite a 1500 word short science fiction about robots in the style of Philip K Dick

OK, and the verdict is:

Poetry

It didn’t do too badly with the haiku. However, its vocabulary range was limited and when I generated a second and third haiku with the same directions (i.e., don’t use “winter” in the poem, because haiku are not supposed to directly use season’s names)…

…the program repeatedly used the word “winter,” even though I told it not to. It kept using words like “snowflakes” and “ice,” which naturally do bring “winter” to mind, but it couldn’t seem to figure out how else to describe the season.

The limerick was much worse…

“Faugh a ballagh!” Honestly. Let’s be a little more stereotypical, shall we.

I was hoping the program would substitute an actual Irish player’s name, but it simply repeated the phrase “Irish baseball player.” In subsequent tries, it identified the player as playing for a baseball in Cork.

So I suppose that means that it didn’t have access to the various historical writings by SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) members about early Irish players in the US (yes, actually born in Ireland, and there were many, many, many).

Dialogues

Now, this is supposed to be the raison d’être of the program, and indeed, it is amazing at how fast this thing can create dialogues in flawless English (more on that later).

But naturally there are anachronisms. Such as, ah, Thomas Aquinas being familiar with the theory of evolution.

(I forgot to copy the one between God and Nietzsche, but it disappointingly did not include the expected phrase by Nietszsche: “Huh. I thought you were dead?”)

As in the dialogue between Sartre and Kant, the dialogue sounded more like a first-person college essay than an actual dialogue. Real people don’t speak in perfect prose. They make grammar mistakes, use the wrong word, repeat themselves, backtrack and go off on tangents…all sorts of chaos.

Chatbots simply can’t do that, because they are not true AI (yet, TG). They rely on existing text and string together words based on their program. I suppose one could argue that that is what people do, but our brain is not a computer. It’s much more complicated.

We would certainly never have Aquinas — a 13th century Italian priest and religious scholar who “five ways” to prove God’s existence are well-known even to non-Christians — end a dialogue by saying “Ultimately, each person must come to their own conclusions about the existence of God.”

Fiction

I didn’t even bother taking a photo of the fiction prose the program spat out, because it was incredibly descriptive and horribly boring at the same time.

In two attempts, the chatbot wrote exactly one line of dialogue — “Are you okay?”

The rest was prose. That’s it. Even the attempt to get it to write like PKD about robots was a total failure. It simply wrote descriptions, even though it finally did give one character a name (Rachael, not surprisingly).

But nothing happened. There was no plot, no dialogue, no character development, no tension or conflict to be resolved.

Fiction writers, your careers are safe. At least until we can figure out how to make a better prompt (more like, direct the program to texts publicly available, such as the Bible — I have to admit, the biblical story of removing a sandwich from the VCR is pretty funny.)

However…

Essays

Here is where the program shined. Scarily so.

I copied the four essays written by the chatbot and pasted them into MS Word to check.

As usual, MS Word (a program designed to torture business office workers around the world) identified “reflected back” and “in order to” as being redundant (although we do use these phrases and they sound perfectly natural).

In other essays, it insisted that a comma be inserted before each and every conjunction (and, but), regardless of whether there was an SVO sentence before and after the word (i.e., it would insist on a comma prior to the previous “and” in this sentence!). And it didn’t like phrases such as “the majority of people in Japan” (MS Words thinks “most” or “many” is “more precise” a phrase…uh…no, they are exactly the opposite, MUCH less precise).

So the chatbot writes essays even better than what MS Word is programmed to judge. Scary.

In the three versions of “compare US to Japan” essays, the program used three different points of comparison, but the only point that remained the same was “collectivism” versus “individualism,” which are indeed typical comparisons made.

However, the program also failed to use any hedging modifiers such as “tend to” or “are more likely to,” which places the essays firmly in the “Essentialism” camp — i.e., claiming that all people in a certain group behave and think exactly alike.

It also never made it even close to 300 words, ending at around 220 at most in its third attempt. The conclusion paragraph was adequate, though short, and the introduction paragraph was incredibly short — a single sentence in one case.

So, even though the chatbot has its issues — obviously, it didn’t bother with references, since it would have to cite virtually the entire internet — it can produce reasonably well-written essays in borderline academic prose.

And that is what has some up in arms. Even newspaper columnists are musing whether their jobs are safe. After all, couldn’t we just tell a chatbot to write an editorial or opinion column, given the right prompt? And college professors worry that “the college essay is dead” — while others laugh at the idea of professors using a program to automatically judge papers that are automatically generated.

For me, as an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) writing instructor, it has become progressively difficult to determine which essays are written just by the student and which are written using machine translation. But I’ve never had to deal with the entire essay being generated by the machine. And that is very likely to happen once my Japanese students figure this out (i.e., once the news stories about chatbots are translated — by DeepL — into Japanese).

So I figure — there’s very little I can do about it, it’s not going away and will likely only get better, so the focus should be on the students’ learning something that they want to learn, rather than focus on how many mistakes in vocabulary or grammar they make.

Which is to say, continue to teach writing as I always have. As a means of personal expression and growth and communication with one’s peers.

And naturally I will continue to write my own fiction the old-fashioned way…

Heh

ispace is not “Japan” but “Japanese”

Mission success would also be a milestone in space cooperation between Japan and the United States…

https://www.yahoo.com/news/japans-ispace-readies-delayed-launch-220204283.html

OK, wait…

A Japanese start-up (I.e., a small private company)…

using a SpaceX rocket (I.e., a private company owned by the world’s wealthiest pri…er, person)…

sends up a small craft made in Germany…

along with the Rashid rover (made by the UAE)…

and “a two-wheeled, baseball-sized device from Japan’s JAXA space agency”…

and somehow this is cooperation between the US and Japan versus China and Russia?

I’m not seeing it. The project may have used a NASA launchpad, but the people are charge (and the ones paying for it) are not part of any national government.

And I have a feeling this is the wave of the future. More and more private companies will get involved in space projects as they realize that they can thus ignore politics and aim at profits.

I, for one, welcome our future corporate overlords…

Smashwords End of the Year Sale from 12/15 to 1/1!

“Find my ebooks and a wide collection of great indie titles as part of the Smashwords 2022 End of Year Sale! Check out https://smashwords.com/shelves/promos before the end of the month and follow @smashwords for more promos like this! #SmashwordsEOYSale #ebook #sale #books2read #indiebooks”

(I swiped this from the Smashwords promo site as a “generic blurb.” But what else, really, do I need to write?

All my ebooks on Smashwords are “50%” off! That means the books that are listed as $0.99 are actually free, since they don’t do $0.49.

And don’t forget that all proceeds from Destiny in the Future are donated to fight cancer.

Gift an ebook to friends and family!

Chatbots — Still not AI but still dangerous

[ChatGPT] could teach his daughter math, science and English, not to mention a few other important lessons. Chief among them: Do not believe everything you are told.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/10/technology/ai-chat-bot-chatgpt.html

They’re all the rage online. Type in a request for a description how two historical people who never actually met would respond to each other had they actually met, and the program will oblige.

They’ll cause all sorts of rage online, too, once the peddlers of incessant false news and innuendo realize what a bonanza they’ve stumbled upon.

You want an image of an event that never really happened?

No problem. A program can generate one for you. We can even call it “art,” for what that’s worth.

No, BIG problem, especially when it convinces the gullible that it DID happen.

2023 will tell 2020 and 2022 to hold its coffee.

Just what we all wanted, right?

Still, chatbots are not (repeat, NOT) true AI. Sorry, Google engineer who watched too much Ghost in the Shell. Chatbots repeat our very human bias. Repeatedly.

As in, there are way too many racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, and transphobic comments online. Full stop.

At a minor level, as a writing instructor, a student telling a chatbot to write a 600-word comparison-contrast essay is the least of my worries.

For starters, the damn things are probably scouring the Internet right now and “learning” from text on web pages like…uh…this one…

US to report major fusion breakthrough

The Financial Times reported Sunday that scientists in the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) had achieved a “net energy gain” from an experimental fusion reactor.

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-to-announce-major-scientific-breakthrough-amid-nuclear-fusion-reports-3598437/amp/1

This is being spread across various websites. FT and Washington Post wrote the most details, but both are behind paywalls (boo) so I cited NDTV instead.

If…a BIG if…this report is true, it would still take a decade or more to commercialize fusion to the point where it would make even a dent in climate change.

But it would be a big first step.

A BIG if.

(FWIW, European scientists claimed this back in February …and in June… and again in September, and then it all fizzled out. So I’m not holding my breath on yet another politically charged, puff out our nationalist chest claim until I see scientific evidence that the reaction can be sustained and repeated elsewhere.)

Can you say “billlyons and billyons of dollars”?

Why do all the planets orbit the sun in the same direction?

Note: not to scale (duh). Thanks, Getty. Uh, is this really the best way to show the solar system? (There…are…NINE..planets!)

Think of pizza dough flattening into an enlarging disk as it’s tossed. Because the cloud had an initial rotation, this same direction of spin has persisted…

https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/solar-system/a39729213/why-do-all-the-planets-orbit-in-the-same-direction/

So basically the answer is simply that that’s the way they all started out.

Some moons, however, do have retrograde orbits. I.e., they orbit in the opposite direction around their respective planets. Some small asteroids and comets also have retrograde orbits due to their small mass being easily affected by larger cosmic objects.

But I bet now you’re all thinking of pizza…

Bringer of Light, Chapter 37: Transit Ceres to Luna

In a story long, long ago…

Sorry that it’s been almost three months since posting more fiction. The colonists on Mars are still undergoing training by Riss and Sanvi so that they can understand and control their new abilities. Meanwhile, Bardish has headed out into space, where he met his destiny.

And Gennaji, who had been headed to discover Bardish’s fate on Luna, is now approaching his own.

“Prepare to board that Loonie ship,” Gennaji said tersely, unstrapping his flight harness.

“Aye, Captain.”

Karel’s voice sounded void of emotion. As if the big man had gone numb.

Gennaji glanced over at his new navigator. It looked as if the man hadn’t slept at all since they left Ceres. Since their failure. Since Andrej betrayed him.

He couldn’t help himself. 

“Pining for that backstabbing vybliadok?”

Karel shot him a glare that Gennaji could not back down from. He planted his magboots firmly down on the control room deck and returned the glare. Neither spoke for a moment.

“He made his choice,” Karel finally said. He kept his eyes firmly on his captain.

“Yes,” Gennaji said, crossing his arms. “He did. And you?”

No response.

“You agreed to join this crew. Standard sixteen-month contract.”

“For two more weeks.”

“Yes, two more weeks! A man makes a promise, a man keeps it. You have a problem with being a man?”

Karel turned red, clenched his fists. 

“Captain,” said the pilot. “The Lunar skiff is changing course. Heading…directly at us!”

“What?” Gennaji took a step towards Orynko. He felt a big hand grab the back of his right upper arm, twisted him around to face behind him. The punch came in slightly off target, a glancing blow on the chin that sent him backward a step or two. He staggered, recovered, anticipated the left body blow and blocked with the inner part of his right arm. Karel fell forward, his momentum carrying him into his captain.

Gennaji immediately sidestepped, tripping the bigger man and forcing him into a headlock from behind. Left forearm under the man’s left shoulder and neck, right arm behind and locked with the left bicep. Twisted hips, pushed down to the floor, pinning his opponent down with his body weight.

Karel gasped, grabbed at the forearm, kicking futilely.

“Captain!” Orynko called over from her console. “150 meters now!”

“Get in my way again,” Gennaji whispered in Karel’s ear, “and I’ll end your contract early. With a toss out the airlock.”

He released the headlock, shoved the bigger man to the deck. Hard. Karel made no sound as his forehead struck the metal floor. 

Gennaji stood without a backward glance. “Ory, evasive. Now.”

The Sagittarius groaned as it shifted down and to the right. Gennaji staggered again and grabbed for a console. His knee violently banged against the captain’s chair and he fell backwards, landing with a crash.

“Is the ballbuster still loaded?” he shouted.

“Aye,” Ory shouted back. “But no way to aim—”

“Fire!”

She hesitated. Only the sound of pieces of the control console bouncing off the ceiling replied. He stood and seized the captain’s chair from behind with both arms.

“Hamno, I said fire!”

The ship lurched. Lights flickered, went down. In the dark, Gennaji felt a grip around his ankle. Instinctively he kicked out, hit nothing but air. The grip tightened. Another shudder. He felt himself floating, nearly horizontal. He held onto the chair more tightly. Shockwave, he thought. The nuke exploded too close to them.

The emergency lights came on, faint and dim red.

“Ory!” he shouted.

No answer. He looked over his shoulder as he wildly tried to kick loose whatever had grabbed him. The pilot was in her chair, harnessed to prevent her from falling. But unconscious and slumped sideways, arms akimbo.

He began to feel his weight settle down to the deck. Centrifugal force. They must be spinning. He looked down.

Karel. Blood streaming from a gash in his forehead, one eye shut completely, one barely open. The big man grinned and tightened his grip.

Enough.

Gennaji drew out his pistol from the side holster. Raised and aimed it at Karel’s face.

Pulled the trigger.

The resulting splatter came as grim satisfaction. But he took no pleasure in the deed.

He’d finally crossed the line.

Ory began to stir.

Magboots touching down again on the floor, Gennaji pried loose the dead hand. Placed the weapon in it, then kicked the empty head for good measure. Son of a bitch, useless…nobody would work for him now, even if he could spin this somehow. A mutiny. Suicide. Who would believe him?

Dark red bubbles floated up, colliding and collecting in the circulating air. Tiny white and grey bits as well. Something he’d have to clean up before the circuits were affected.

But he had more urgent matters.

A warning light blinked on Ory’s console. He ignored it. Leaned over her, held her head as she groggily straightened. He relaxed. She seemed unharmed.

He kissed her. Her eyes opened, tried to pull back. He held her in place, kissed her again, hard. She gave in, closing her eyes again.

He released her. She gasped. “Captain, I—”

The blinking light caught her attention. “Proximity alert!”

“What now? Didn’t we get it?”

He let his fingers fly across the console. No, it was too small. Not as big as the Lunar skiff that had come charging at them. A small object. The size of…

“A lifepod,’ he whispered. Not again.

Another light blinked. Incoming message.

But from where?

“Answer it,” he said. Ory nodded, flicked a switch.

A familiar bearded face appeared on the console’s tiny screen. Haggard, sagging on one side. Old and tired.

No. It can’t be.

“This is a pre-recorded message. I am Bardish. Perhaps you know me.”

Next: Bringer of Light, Chapter 38: United Mars Colonies, Cut the Tether