Nothing Artificial...

    This starts out with a pie, a delicious looking one based on the cover, one whose filling is basicially a shortbread cookie: sugar, eggs, and butter (okay, shortbread has flour instead of eggs, but you get the idea).  My friends wanted a chocolate cake so this seemed rather easy: thaw for a bit then serve.  It was a rather small "pie," typical of what you'd see in a store or in one of those pre-made pie forms.  But then, I cut the thing into six pieces --pieces which turn out to be nowhere near the size of the picture on the box-- and saw what my stomach might be in for: 510 calories and a whopping 14 teaspoons of sugar!  And check out what's in that pastry: margarine, palm oil, "natural" flavors, and need I add, 30 grams of fat...no wonder it was so delicious.  I make gist of this because so much of what triggers our dopamine pleasure centers are things we maybe should check out a bit more carefully.  Not always is this a negative (a pleasant vacation, a new date, a tasty dinner, or dessert), but often.  Temptation calls on us to eat that candy or place that bet or peek at those pictures.  Same dopamine trigger...and I think governments around the world may be feeling that right about now with "artificial" intelligence.

    Now again, this is not my field, so clicking on Gemini or Claude is not something I tend to do, even if those AI offshoots continue to pop up first when doing most any search.  Try me, the browsers plead (at least DuckDuckGo, which is famous for blocking trackers as a browser, asks you if you want to try their version).  And the warnings are coming our more and more, not so much about AI surpassing the minds of the elderly (such as most of Congress) but rather for the money being poured into this newest "venture."  Even Wall Street seems to fear a bubble ahead as the old "guardrails" of fiscal prudence topple over one by one.  Full steam ahead, as was said in the days of such powered engines.  But today, AI is a massive energy gobbler, and it would appear that full steam ahead merely means start building (or reopening) nuclear.  Which means mining...and what better place than the Grand Canyon (what??).  Many mines remain from the days of the Cold War, but a surge in prices have lead to many new mining claims in the state, as many as 10,000 claims as of 2009 (the state of Arizona put a hold on the claims within a 10-mile radius of the Grand Canyon until 2032, wrote the Grand Canyon Trust).  Still, as Diné activist Leona Morgan told the Arizona Sun: The administration now is pushing incredibly forcefully to develop uranium mining by shrinking monuments, [and] fast-tracking mines.  She was referring to "Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum’s secretive review of national monument lands, including the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni -- Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in northern Arizona," wrote the article, adding that:  Since January, President Donald Trump’s administration has promoted an agenda of increased domestic uranium production through executive orders and cabinet-level direction.  Morgan said she sees that as a new twist on the same old hype.

Graphic: US Park Service

     "Can't go no further," said a skit on the Firesign Theater, "this here's Injun territory."  And the reply?  "Well then, it's treaty time!"  Those were the days of imagination radio, when simple sound effects accompanied great dialogue and forced you visualize what was happening (Garrison Keillor* and his Prairie Home Companion provided a modern revival of this).  Sadly though, that Firesign Theater skit showed how the US had pushed Native Americans deeper and deeper into dry and "barren" lands, places with little to offer, much like places in the Middle East, so mentioned because it would seem that a land doesn't become something worth wanting or fighting for until something of value is discovered...oil, or perhaps uranium (the uranium mines around the Grand Canyon area affect 11 Native American reservations).  But the uranium ore mined in both Canada and Australia is of a higher grade than that of the US, as in up to 20x higher, which may help to explain why the US continues to import 99% of its uranium.  Wrote the investor site Crux: The economics vary significantly by mining method and jurisdiction.  In-situ recovery (ISR) projects in favorable jurisdictions like Australia could be profitable at current prices, while underground operations in challenging environments like Canadian permafrost require substantially higher price incentives despite superior grades.  Trump hopes to quadruple uranium mining permits, fast-tracking their approval almost as quickly as he cancels both solar and wind production (which accounted for over 17% of our electricity, compared to just 10% for coal, reported the EIA).   And the cost for AI and those nuclear plants to power it?  Try $350 billion.  That's the planned investment figure, according to Bloomberg.  And where will that money come from?  Certainly not from the power plants or data centers themselves.  The energy research firm Wood Mackenzie showed that 20 large power users paid less money "to cover the cost of the equipment needed to serve them."  Try saying "the taxpayer," wrote the Wall Street Journal.  Noted Barron's, people living near AI or data centers saw an average increase of $247 in their electric bills.  And those of you with electric vehicles?  Republicans backing Trump want electric vehicle owners --past and present-- to pay an annual $250 highway tax, wrote The Washington Post. 

     This idea of needing nuclear power is partially driven by the planned growth of AI, which is pretty much in its "predictive" stages, and limited to a few analytical tasks.  The goal (possibly within a year or two) is to reach AGI, or "general" intelligence where systems could begin to process multiple avenues and create a solution, "thinking," in a sense.  Reported The Week: Late last year, Open AI's o3 model scored 87.5% on the ARC-AGI test, which measures fluid intelligence—the ability to solve logical problems and recognize patterns without prior knowledge or training.  In March, University of California San Diego researchers released a preprint study suggesting that two AI models, OpenAI's GPT-4.5 and Meta's Llama 3, had passed the Turing Test, formulating answers that led human interrogators to believe the bots were human more than 50% of the time.  The quest is to reach ASI or "super" intelligence which would surpass our small human brains.  But the article noted a caveat: "A simple verbal or typed command like, 'Execute an untraceable cyberattack to crash the North American electric grid' could yield a response of such quality as to prove catastrophically effective," according to a recent State Department–funded report.  That paper also warns of "massively scaled" disinformation campaigns in which personalized AI-generated video, audio, and text turn Americans against each other.  AGI-powered drone swarms and robots could overwhelm military installations.  And just as an AGI could be tasked with creating breakthrough medicines, it could also be used to craft lethal bioweapons.  An artificial super-intelligence—trained on all publicly available texts, including those written by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Adolf Hitler—might also independently conclude that humanity is not worth preserving.  Sheer paranoia?  The article ends with this: 

Editorial cartoon by Pat Byrnes

In May, the AI safety firm Palisade Research reported that multiple OpenAI models had refused explicit instructions to power down.  Anthropic revealed that, during tests, its Claude 4 Opus model even resorted to blackmail, threatening to release fictional emails that suggested the engineer trying to shut it down was having an affair.  This does not mean the models have attained consciousness; rather, they're so optimized for self-preservation that they can independently formulate ways to manipulate and subvert their human handlers.  Senator Ted Cruz tried to thwart efforts to regulate AI into the recently passed budget bill but failed (the vote was 99-1, reported Roll Call).  Fortunately, our nearly 80-year president and our aging Congressional minds thoroughly understand the implications of AI and nuclear power (wait, quit laughing in the back).  Those pigs...no, the real pigs.

     A piece in National Geographic pointed out that as chimps and monkeys decline in the rainforest world, so they do in our experimental labs (yes, animal testing is still alive and well, in contrast to the fate of the animals being used).  Enter the genertically-modified pig.  Gene editing is advancing to the point of having a pig grow two kidneys for later harvesting for humans.  Trials have moved on from placing these new kidneys into brain-dead humans to living ones, and xenotransplants have extended those patients lives beyond a few months (the FDA sets a year as the target before approval).  Kidneys, hearts, livers, even lungs have been transplanted into humans (one should note that over a billion pigs are alaughtered each year for our "baby" back ribs and our bacon & ham, so the supply is rather plentiful).  But before you get too excited, one should recognize that such reports from the National Institutes of Health come with this letterboxed warning: Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.  The NIH Clinical Center (the research hospital of NIH) is open.  For more details about its operating status, please visit cc.nih.gov.  Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at opm.gov.  

     There's that "super" intelligence on display.   Wrote The New York Times: “This government upheaval is discouraging to all scientists who give their time and lend their brilliance to solve the problems beleaguering humankind instead of turning to some other activity that makes a more steady living,” Gina Poe, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in an email.  Next year looks to be worse.  The 2026 budget proposed by the White House would slash the National Science Foundation by 56.9 percent, the N.I.H. by 39.3 percent and NASA by 24.3 percent, including 47.3 percent of the agency’s science-research budget.  It would entirely eliminate the U.S. Geological Survey’s $299 million budget for ecosystems research; all U.S. Forest Service research ($300 million) and, at NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, all funding ($625 million) for research on climate, habitat conservation and air chemistry and for studying ocean, coastal and Great Lakes environments.  The Trump administration has also proposed shutting down NASA and NOAA satellites that researchers and governments around the world rely on for forecasting weather and natural disasters.  But consider this: get on Meta's "list" to work in AI and you could get a $100 million pay package, wrote the Wall Street Journal.  Work as an airline mechanic (which will likely have 25,000 openings by 2028, said CNBC) and you'd make less than $80,000.  With flight controllers not being paid during the government shutdown, but those workers issuing permits for mining and oil being considered "essential" and thus worthy of ongoing pay, which direction would you favor if you were looking for a job?  Perhaps this attitude of conflicting priorities is why so many heads of the AI field, at least those in the health industry, are breaking away from their alliance to Washington,  Wrote STAT: ...as the Trump administration attacks CHAI, there’s evidence that some key companies' support for the group may be fraying...“We must not let the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) build a regulatory cartel,” health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote this week on X, echoing a recent editorial blasting the industry group written by two other senior health officials, deputy health secretary Jim O’Neill and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary.  The Coalition for Health AI, or CHAI, is made up of some of the country’s biggest names in health care and technology, including Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Mayo Clinic

     Okay, I'm being a bit cynical here (or just presenting an opposing view) but here's one reason: mushrooms.  You've likely been reading more and more about them, ever since the massive book by Merlin Sheldrake (written about in an earlier post).  Even the magazine Orion devoted an entire issue (and they only print 6 time a year) to mushrooms.  As I quoted Sheldrake some 5 years ago: From one perspective, "individual" is no different: just another category to guide human thought and behavior.  Nonetheless, so much of daily life and experience --not to mention our philosophical, political, and economic systems-- depends on individuals that it can be hard to stand by and watch the concept dissolve.  Where does this leave "us"?  What about "them"?  "Me"?  "Mine"?  "Everyone"?  "Anyone"?...The "loss of a sense of self-identity, delusions of self-identity and experiences of 'alien control,' " observed an elder stateman in the field of microbiome research, are all potential symptoms of mental illness.  It made my head spin to think of how many ideas had to be revisited, not least our culturally treasured notions of identity, autonomy, and independence.  To also read ancient texts on fungi, such mushrooms as maitake, kings trumpet, and lion's mane have properties to possibly ward off cancer, as well as dementia, anxiety, and diabetes.  Wrote Kiplinger's: Studies show older adults who eat more than two standard portions of mushrooms weekly have 50% less chance of mild cognitive impairment.  Lion's Mane in particular shows promise in improving cognitive function and mood.  So perhaps it boils down to us looking in the wrong places.  My local grocery store carries these "different" mushrooms and they never sell, probably because they are often priced at $6 for a small carton;  more importantly, consumers are skeptical simply because most people (like me) have never heard about or tried them.  Within a few days, those expensive cartons soon drop to just over a dollar, which is when I snap them up...throw in a bit of miso broth, perhaps a sprig of fresh tarragon (also on clearance) and one has a delicious mushroom soup.

    I also tend to enjoy clouds, rather obvious since I throw so many pictures of clouds in these posts.  How can anyone resist these amazing expanses of natural wonder, always changing, always colorful, always surprising.  All one has to do is look up.  Sometimes just watching the clouds helps me to slow down, their wispy yet massive forms motoring by as lazily as a barge going upstream.  The sunrises and sunsets are left to the privileged few who awaken early enough, or pause long enough to watch the day give way to darkness.  And day after day, it continues to happen...for free!  As the Drifters sang about looking up at the sky: When this old world starts getting me down and people are just too much for me to face.  I climb way up to the top of the stairs, and all my cares just drift right into space.  On the roof, it's peaceful as can be.  And there, the world below can't bother me.  Maybe it is time to ignore that advice of getting your head out of the clouds.  After all, we already send almost all of our computing to the "cloud," so why not our heads and minds.  Look upward, look outward, look inward.  We need that imagination and that creativity.  And that hopeful outlook.  Personally, I happen to love both clouds and mushrooms...just not when they appear in the sky together.

*If you've never heard of, or listened to, or read, Garrison Keillor, you're in for a pleasant escape from whatever may be troubling you.  His (dare I say acerbic) wit will make you chuckle, think, and scratch your head at the same time.  Here is but one example he wrote a few weeks ago: If you think I’m a Democrat, you’re wrong, I’m curious, I’m a human being, I like stories...Summer weather in September isn’t good for this country; it leads to moral relaxation.  A big crowd of generals and admirals sat and quietly listened to their crazy Commander’s meandering speech inviting them to join in a domestic war against his political opposition and they politely clapped instead of rising up and grabbing the demented man and clapping him into custody.  Their oath is to defend the Constitution, not him, and his suggestion to establish a police state should’ve been met with force.  But the weather made them dozy.  Craziness and stupidity are a dangerous combination and you find less of it in folks in the North because the wolves and coyotes eat them or they fall through the ice.  If you planted the Commander in a cabin in northern Minnesota with a pair of skis and no phone, he’d be helpless.  You can’t impress a grizzly by waving a fistful of cash at him.  The world is changing rapidly but some things remain the same...A great many young people worked hard in college studying computer science — young people whose education is about to be suddenly obsolete thanks to AI, but the ability to speak English clearly and persuasively and with grace and humor is as valuable as ever, maybe more so.  And the Commander’s stumblebum hourlong mumbling embarrassment in front of dedicated officers should’ve been the end of him, but the show goes on.  He strode to his executive helicopter and the Marine at the door saluted just as smartly as ever...Great intellects in college read Sartre and Camus and went to Bergman and Godard movies so I traveled to Europe long ago to be broadened and deepened but instead was darkened.  I flew to Amsterdam and could only think of Anne Frank who felt like a personal friend and the Lutherans who tried to ignore fascism or accommodate it.  The ghosts of history, the castles built to isolate the aristocracy from deadly plagues.  The massacres of World War I, generals employing 19th-century strategy against 20th-century weaponry.  The odd English regard for monarchy, paying people so lavishly to stand on a balcony and wave.  Do they have no lifelike manikins?  The cathedrals holding their own dark secrets.  And then the truth dawns on the youth: they came to America to get away from the disease, the aristocracy, the vicious generals, the dimwit doctors who employed bloodletting and enemas and thereby killed their patients but kept doing it.  And now here is tabloid trash from Queens trying to reestablish monarchy in America where our people came to make a new start.  The bowing and kissing, the lying, loyalty as a prime virtue ahead of public service: this is not how it’s supposed to be.  My teachers at Anoka High School, Stan Nelson and Frayne Anderson, were there at the beach on D-Day to save European civilization.  We asked questions and they talked very matter-of-factly about it.  Were they scared?  Maybe but they were too busy doing their jobs.  And now it’s time to come home and save our own civilization.  But you know that.

And now back to those exorbitant pay offers for a few techies.  This update came from Bloomberg on 10/16/25: Wall Street is warning—again—of over-exuberance in the AI industry.  And so far, generative AI isn’t helping hedge funds produce market-beating returns or meaningfully impacting the industry, according to billionaire Ken Griffin.  Still, the AI jobs carousel continues.  The head of Apple’s effort to make Siri more ChatGPT-like is jumping ship to Meta, just weeks after being appointed head of the team.  Wrote Investopedia: OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft (MSFT), is the latest of a string of AI startups to have seen valuations soar as investors are eager for exposure ahead of potential market entries.  Nvidia (NVDA) also said last month that it plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI to build out AI data centers.  Nvidia, the chipmaker at the heart of the AI boom, has a market capitalization of well over $4 trillion, making it the world's most valuable publicly listed company.  On a side note: OpenAI announced it will roll out "erotica" AI in ChatGPT...