Wordle II - The Spawning

Introduction

Over three years ago, in this post here, I described how I came to enjoy the Wordle, which is a daily puzzle you can play on the New York Times website or on their app. Though I normally consider games a waste of time, this one is fun and quick. Best of all, since it’s the same puzzle for everyone each day, I can compete with my daughter Alexa who lives in SoCal, hundreds of miles away. It’s a fun way to keep in touch: we share each day’s result via text.

Well, over the years the fun has only increased. Not only are we better at the puzzle, but we decorate our game boards before sending them to each other, just for grins. I turn photos into virtual stickers, and Alexa creates original art. Meanwhile, we have the Wordle Bot analyze our game to see how it says we did, and whether or not we beat it. To the extent the Bot is inane or judges us unfairly, my daughter and I can bag on it together, united in our indignation.

And of course we end up with some pretty remarkable Wordle results at times. In this post I’ll share some highlights. If you don’t have a tradition of doing the Wordle with a friend or family member, I highly recommend you give it a try, and perhaps this post will inspire you.

[Art above by ChatGPT, based on James Cameron’s first feature film, “Piranha II – The Spawning.” No rights reserved.]

Some artistic highlights

It is no exaggeration to say my daughter and I spend significantly more time decorating our game boards than we do solving the Wordle. Even though we always do hard mode (i.e., any revealed hints must be used in subsequent guesses), the puzzle itself seldom takes us more than a few minutes. Here is some early Wordle art showcasing Alexa’s artistic talent and my resourcefulness:

The art, I think, gives us a chance to redeem ourselves when we get a lousy score. Who cares if we took five or even six moves, if the art is good?

Our chatter around the Wordle is fun, too. Of the above “GROSS” result I sent, Alexa wrote, “AI kinda roasted you with those photo picks LOL.” She’s referring to the fact that I use AI to find photos, from my collection, that pertain to the word. It’s hard to imagine how it comes to its conclusions. Above, going clockwise from the top left, we have one of my burritos which is far from gross (details here); a failed attempt to make candy which was Alexa’s fault, not mine (details here); some salad we had in Hawaii that was actually quite tasty; my friend Pete and me (who you callin’ gross?!); me after drinking GoLytely (okay, totally gross, fair enough); and me either yawning or sneezing (ibid).

Not all the art is good. Sometimes I can’t be bothered to try to come up with photo stickers for an abstract word like this one:

Art can seem beside the point when you’re recovering from the psychic exhaustion of almost crashing out. Perhaps this is why the same word failed to inspire Alexa to sketch anything:

But all is not lost; there’s almost always room for enjoyable chitchat about the day’s puzzle ... as you shall see.

AI for Wordle pictures?

Is AI fair game in decorating our pictures? I tried it once, but wasn’t too pleased with the effect:

I obviously don’t have any photos of lathes in my own archive, and figured photos of lathes pulled off the Internet wouldn’t be that interesting, hence my experiment. But there’s something creepy about what AI came up with so I was ready to call this a one-time thing even before seeing Alexa’s glorious drawing:

She wrote, “I have no idea what a lathe looks like so I just drew a complex doodad.” Well played!

Thinking alike

Often, Alexa and I will see that we made the same penultimate guess (before hitting upon the solution).

Or, we’ll even have the same second guess, as with this example, though we always start with different words:

Also, if you scroll up and look at the CROOK game boards, you will see we had three of the same guesses! On such occasions we like to point out, “Great minds think alike and so do ours!” We abbreviate this homegrown expression but don’t always get it right.

Occasionally I simulate this minds-thinking-alike phenomenon by pretending I know what the hell my daughter is talking about. Consider our dialogue around this word:

Alexa: Bonus points if you know what gland that is.

Dana: Pituitary. I mean, obviously.

Alexa: Good guess but no. That is in the brain. This is in the torso. It has alpha and beta units hence the little squiggles.

Dana: TBH, that looks like a carrot to me.

Alexa: It rather does. Looks phallic in some images but I try to avoid that in my drawing. J

Dana: I’m gonna say salutary gland. It’s the one that makes you want to salute.

Alexa: I’m learning something new every day!

Dana: Yeah, I guess that’s one of the benefits of being related to the D-Dawg!

Alexa: My drawing is of the pancreas. Which is only fractionally a gland. Only the purple spots are technically glands.

Dana: Oh, right. It being only fractionally a gland is what threw me off.

Alexa: It was a trick question.

Dana: Actually, I barely know that the hand bone is connected to the wrist bone. That’s about the scope of my understanding of the human body.

Alexa: That’s all you need TBH.

Dana: Exactly! I hope you like my non-glandular stickers. My photo library doesn’t include any glands, and I wasn’t about to comb the Internet for pictures of glands.

Alexa: Very understandable. Your pics are a lot more cheery!

Consolation

When I crash and burn on a Wordle (i.e., fail to solve it in six moves), it’s always a bummer, and then a small part of me hopes Alexa also crashed and burned so we can commiserate. (Of course, being a father, the bigger part of me wants her to succeed at everything.) Sometimes it just comes down to luck: with certain words there are so many possible answers, there’s no way (in hard mode) to eliminate all the wrong ones. We call this “Wordle roulette.” Here’s a word that stumped us both:

As you can see, we were both too disconsolate to do any art.

In at least one case I was able to console Alexa because she’d literally never heard of the word that was the solution:

Alexa: Gofer? What even is that?

Dana: It’s a guy who works on some sort of team that frequently needs an errand to be run. Probably it comes from “Hey, tom, go for some coffee.” Even this [texting app] voice recognition software knows that Tom is a nobody whose name doesn’t need to be capitalized consistently. So he becomes a gopher. As you can see the voice recognition software doesn’t even seem to know the word “gofer” even with all this helpful context provided. By the way, I love that you guessed “boner.”

Alexa: Yeah, I knew it wouldn’t be boner but I was feeling feisty. Go big or go home.

Talk about roulette: look at how many different words it could have been:

Occasionally I’ve crashed and burned on the same day Alexa forgot to do the puzzle. This leaves me hanging, and in such situations I can sometimes gain consolation from seeing that the bot also lost, like with this one:

(If you’re curious, the answer to the above puzzle was ROWER. Sheesh.)

Meanwhile, if I’m the second one to post my result, and Alexa crashed out but I did okay, I almost want to let the matter drop and not share my score. Like with this one:

Alexa: I can’t believe I lost today. Rouletted to death. There were only twelve possible words after my first guess. Not a good round.

Dana: OMG, I am so sorry. I kind of don’t want to send you mine now, though the stickers are quite good.

Alexa: Please do send!

Interesting results

Sometimes the results are just interesting in their own right, like when all the incorrect guesses are yellow, or they’re all green, or in one crazy case, all grey:

And then there are the strange coincidences, like when we both get all green on the same puzzle:

Alexa’s FUZZY puzzle is particularly strange because she had two guesses in a row where not a single letter was in the solution (i.e., all grey). What are the odds?

Regarding FUZZY:

Alexa: I like your fuzzys!

Dana: Thanks! It’s a lot more fun a word [to decorate] than “gland” or “dryer.”

Math in the Wordle

Sometimes math works its way into the decoration, like with this one:

Dana: Nooicin’ your art including the ever-useful quadratic formula.

Alexa: Haven’t used that equation in forever!

Dana: OMG, I use that equation constantly! Why, just the other day I was calculating … oh wait, I mean that I actually have no idea what it’s for and never have, though it’s still committed to memory.

Incidentally, my solution to this Wordle had to be faked. As sometimes happens to one or the other of us, Alexa accidentally sent me her completed puzzle prematurely, when I hadn’t done it yet. Obviously I could have then “solved” it in one or two or three moves, but that wouldn’t mean anything and would skew my averages across the years of doing the puzzle. I didn’t want that, but also didn’t want to end my streak, so I put in plausible guesses as though I didn’t know the answer already.

Getting back to math, check out this gaff:

I think that’s the first time I really goofed after solving the puzzle. Now, in case you somehow missed it, here is the corrected version:

A tough competitor

I tend to do the Wordle before Alexa, and whenever I solve it on the second move, I eagerly anticipate the BOO-YA! moment I’ll presumably get when we compare scores later in the day. But time and again, she matches my score of 2 and I’m denied! For example:

In one case, we both scored a 2 two days in a row! Considering we start with different words, what are the odds?

Bemused by the bot

The bot sometimes really confuses us with its analysis. And in fact, this can be downright annoying. For example:

How come when I guessed TUILE, the bot scored this as a 1 for skill, claiming it’s not even a possible solution, but when the bot guessed TUILE, it scored a 99 for skill? And if my guess is not a possible solution, how did it “eliminate one of the two remaining words”? To paraphrase the writer Muriel Spark, the silly bot is bats. And in this game (the solution being EXILE), the bot didn’t even beat me despite its self-professed superior skill.

I think I always bristle when I’m in the position of being evaluated by an intellect (in this case an artificial one) that makes mistakes I wouldn’t make. Consider Exhibit B:

Notice how it failed to point out the serious blunder that I did make—trying A as the first letter when I knew for a fact (based on the yellow in the first guess) that it couldn’t be—and yet it facilely points out that guessing “MACHO,” that being the answer to the puzzle, would have been a “better option.” You think?

The overall rating the bot assigns can be frustrating too. For example, check this out:

Given that I solved the puzzle in just 4 moves, vs. the NYT reader average of 5.6, I must have been either luckier or more skillful than average. But according to the bot, I was significantly less skillful, and only a tiny bit luckier. Huh?

If you yourself get frustrated by the bot’s judgments, check out this goof it made:

In its third move, it tried a word with an E in it, despite having learned in its first move that there’s no E. Weak, Wordle bot, weak!

And so, it’s very sweet when, as occasionally happens, both Alexa and I beat the bot. Here’s an example:

Wordle in 1?

I distinctly remember getting the Wordle in one move, and at the top the bot commented “GENIUS.” And I remember Alexa getting it in one move, once upon a time, as well. But despite sifting through many hundreds of snapshots while creating this post, I cannot seem to find either one of the Wordle-in-1s. But you can see them in our stats:

If it ever happens again, I will be sure to grab (and decorate!) the game board(s) and update this post! I hope my daughter and I have inspired you to continue Wordling, and to share the love...

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From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XXVI

Introduction

This is the twenty-sixth installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. Volume I of the series is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume XIV is here, Volume XV is here, Volume XVI is here, Volume XVII is here, Volume XVIII is here, Volume XIX is here, Volume XX is here, Volume XXI is here, Volume XXII is here, Volume XXIII is here, Volume XXIV is here, and Volume XXV is here. Thematically these are all over the map. Geographically they are also all over the map, come to think of it. Well, within California to be precise.

What are albertnet Bits & Bobs posts? They’re more or less random compilations of short form prose I wrote in my youth, typically letters or emails but sometimes essays or graffiti. I post them to albertnet on the off chance that one of them will garner widespread adoration and propel me to worldwide fame, or at least notoriety. Read them in order, out of order, out of ardor, or outdoors in the arbor. Pay attention to the dates because some of these are rather old, some are just old fashioned, and others are merely passé.

October 17, 1989

I wonder how many unwanted pregnancies are caused by college kids using Trojan Magnums when they ought to be using the standard size. You know, guys aspiring for largeness, refusing to accept that their schlongs are merely average. In our school paper, an outfit called ZPG advertises wholesale condoms by mail. They offer a variety pack … I wonder what that is? Different colors? Textures? I can't understand this wholesaler advocating a variety of sizes, unless students are supposed to share, or just collect them like stamps. My roommate T— says his favorite condom is the Trojan Rough Rider. My neighbor, an exchange student from Korea, says he’s fond of leather ones. That's right, leather. If Vittoria made a CX Seta condom, I think that would be the ultimate, though I don’t have any use for such a thing, at least at the moment (sigh).

September 20, 1993

On Saturday I overhauled my Guerciotti over at the Square Wheel where I used to work back in college. (The owner is cool enough to let me use a bench there.) The bottom bracket spindle was pitted, along with the bearing races in one of the cups. The shop got swamped and I went out to the floor to help out, and actually sold a bike. Not such a big deal, of course, but it becomes more impressive when you consider I sold nothing more than a hypothetical bike. The shop didn’t have the right size GT Outback, aka Outhouse (or Compost, another fond nickname for this low-end model). Their stock is really low because business is bad and they’ve run out of credit with all their suppliers. I could’ve sold this kid and his proud parents an 18” bike, but you know how it is: he’s clearly growing like a weed and would outgrow the thing before its 300-mile tune-up. His dad, who had appropriated himself to be the boy’s official spokesman, said, “Well, he’ll be growing at least another four inches,” looking hopefully at the lad, who stared at the point two inches above his dad’s head that he would reach, if he truly did grow four inches. Hope springs eternal I guess…

Having come clean about the kid needing a different size, I faced the prospect that they’d just leave, and buy a bike from a shop that actually had one for sale, vs. ordering one that the kid wouldn’t even get to test ride. So I played up the shop’s free service plan, and how valuable that is. To emphasize the importance of proper servicing, I showed them the pitted BB cup I just pulled off my own bike. If they can’t see or touch the bike I’m trying to sell them, at least they can see this random thingie, right? Besides (I told myself) there’s nothing more impressive than the grease and grime of a real mechanic who knows what he’s talking about and handles real bicycles every day. I didn’t mention that I’m not actually even an employee of the shop. I hope when they come to pick up the bike they won’t ask for me. (“Dana who?”)

November 1, 1993

I went to a wedding where alcohol seemed to be the main theme. The venue was a winery, and each guest was required to have a glass of wine in hand during the ceremony. The bride and groom kind of slurred their way through the vows, very sentimentally, which I found kind of sweet. The drinking only accelerated at the reception, beginning with open bar before the food was even served. By the time the dancing and games had started, everyone was good and heated. One of the games was the throwing of the bouquet, and as usual, the tallest maiden won. Do you imagine that tall women in general have better chances of marrying, just like the taller presidential candidate usually wins? Anyway, following that was the male version, the tossing of the garter. I find this game especially absurd, but it was a hard-fought battle nonetheless, since drunk men tend to play full-contact, whatever the game. The garter (which was little more than a silky, frilly band) bobbed up in the air, was snatched from hand to hand, and eventually ended up on the floor where it was batted about like hockey puck. I was fighting hard, and eventually—likely due to reflexes less dulled than those of my competitors—I came up with the garter. Everybody cheered as I did a touchdown dance, and then the horrifying realization hit me: they’d all taken a dive! It’s only women who earnestly seek the prize of the soonest betrothal; men delay this as long as they can. Sure, it was a good fight, but was only fought in order to appease the woman: “Sorry, honey, I tried, but....” Had I realized this, I too would have intentionally lost. But I, of course, am a born competitor.

January 6, 1994

The Oregon trip went fine. The Landlord’s new computer, an Apple, is fun to play with. This new CD-ROM technology is pretty amazing. I went through this Great Works of Literature on Disc CD, and it’s got a huge number of stories, poems, etc. on there, and shows various pictures, all from the original works, but only in black and white. This doesn’t bother me, since the originals were in black and white, after all; the Landlo’, on the other hand, was fuming mad about something, as usual. I think it’s that I was spending too long reading individual works and not letting him show me enough different features of his Mac. And he seems to have basically given up on those discs that don’t have full-color motion graphics and probably wishes he hadn’t let me stumble upon Great Works of Literature. My best find was “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe, and—I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit—I’d never really sat down and read it closely before. The CD-ROM featured a few sound samples, where you can hear stanzas read by a professional, which was fun. For some reason, I still somehow expected the recordings to be in that cheesy computer-synthesized voice, but no, they were a human voice, in digital stereo. I ended up spending over an hour reading and rereading the poem, before realizing I had lost interest in the technological wonders of the CD-ROM technology itself. I mean, I was reading a printout, for crying out loud. I highly recommend the poem. I guess CD-ROM ain’t bad either.

We also visited Grandpa, Aunt J—, Uncle W—, and [cousin] J— on the way to a New Year’s party in SoCal. I’d sent them a holiday card with a photo, taken at a recent company party. This photo apparently caused a bit of a scandal. Aunt J— gave me an ominous warning over the phone prior to our visit: “Daner, I just have to warn you: your grandfather, well . . . he’s just not the man you used to know. He’s just turned 97, and he’s, well, old-fashioned. W— and I have been harassing him all morning, but he just won’t stop grumbling about the length of your hair. Anyway, he has no tact, so I just don’t want you to be offended if he says something. We’ve tried to get him ready for you, but you know how he is. Anyway, I think your hair is gorgeous, just don’t let him offend you.” I told her I’m totally used to being hassled for my long hair, but I doubt I successfully conveyed to her the extent of my immunity to criticism. All the same, I put it back in a ponytail for the visit, just to make it a bit more tidy.

Well, at first Grandpa didn’t realize it was a ponytail, and thought I’d actually cut my hair. He said, “Aaaah, now that’s how I remember—” and at this point the game was up: he realized I hadn’t cut it. “What’s this!” he said, yanking as hard as he could on the ponytail. Ow! That was about all he said for a while. Dinner was fun: Uncle W— dragged out his legendary electric carving knife and was sawing away at the ham when I made a comment to E— that nobody was supposed to hear. I imagined I was speaking pretty quietly, but that thing makes quite a racket when you’re sitting right next to the man wielding it. I said, “The electric model is a big improvement over the earlier, more cumbersome gasoline-powered one.” J—, clear at the other end of the table, laughed and said, “Yeah, you don’t need to run an exhaust pipe out the window anymore!” I hope I didn’t offend Uncle W—. He does seem rather proud of that thing. I was pleased that E— had the opportunity to witness it in action.

April 20, 1995

Mr. Albert has received your gift of the Tom’s of Maine Natural Shaving Cream product with moisturizing glycerin. He asked me to give you his most sincere thanks, and is very enthusiastic about trying out this product.

He was, however, slightly perplexed by the statement made by Tom & Kate Chappell on the packaging; they state that they “use no animal ingredients,” and that “nature does offer wonderful and simple solutions.” Mr. Albert cannot think of anything more natural than animals, and asked me to remind you that the Genesis chapter of the Old Testament very clearly stipulates that Man has been given, by the hand of God, dominion over all the beasts of the field and has at his disposal “every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”  He asked me to inform you that most toothpaste uses sponge spicules for an abrasive, and why not?

One last note: Mr. Albert expressed some concern that the coconut oil used in the Tom’s of Maine shaving cream product may be very high in saturated fats. He requests that you investigate the availability of a “Lite” version of this product. Beef tallow, he suggests, would be significantly better than coconut oil in this regard.

May 4, 1996

I’m bummed because I’m all set to “roll over” my Avocet 40 bike computer (i.e. exceed the mileage that it can display, so it shows all zeroes) but I’ve come to realize that this newer model has a far-left-hand “1” digit so it won’t roll over after 9,999 miles like the old Avocet 20s and 30s. Here I was, thinking I was just miles away from that, well, milestone, but I’m only halfway there. I’ll have to log another 10,000 to roll it over, and I can’t imagine the batteries will last that long.

May 25, 2013

My opinion of the wild turkeys in our hinterlands turned around 360 degrees today. I had considered them a nuisance until early this morning when, riding up South Park, I saw a mother turkey with her little turkey chick riding on her back. It was the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen.

But then, heading down Claremont, with the whole road to myself, I opened ‘er up a bit, enjoying the smooth, fast descent (but being ever-vigilant of course). And then suddenly there were four giant tom turkeys ahead, each with the whole peacock-like plumage disk puffed way the hell out, spaced evenly across the road like some kind of patrol, all facing me, bringing to mind a shooting gallery. If I had the Star Trek universal translator I’m sure their gobble-gobble-gobble would have been translated as, “You wanna piece of me!?” I pounded the brakes with a quickness. This was an eight-finger, full-force, Bluesmobile-style-both-feet-smashed-into-the-brake-pedal kind of braking, where I was waaaaay, waaaay back on the saddle so I wouldn’t skid or face-plant. Sure, I stopped with plenty of time to spare, but imagine if this were a month or two ago before I’d trimmed down the ol’  aero-belly, or if the road had been a bit wet! So now my opinion of turkeys has come full circle and I consider them a nuisance again.

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Old Yarn - The Dark Alley Incident

Introduction

This is the seventh “old yarn” on albertnet (following in the footsteps of “The Cinelli Jumpsuit,” “Bike Crash on Golden Gate Bridge,” “The Enemy Coach,” “The Brash Newb,” “The Day I Learned Bicycle Gear Shifting,” and most recently The In-Flight Voyeur). This is the kind of story that would normally be a “From the Archives” item, except I’ve never before written it down.

The Dark Alley Incident – ca. 1993

I was living in an apartment on Webster Street in San Francisco’s Western Addition, aka Lower Haight. This wasn’t one of your better neighborhoods, but wasn’t too rough either. The rent was low and the architecture was really good, mostly Edwardian/quasi-Victorian row houses that were built not long after the 1906 earthquake. Honestly, in those days—and to some degree even now—architecture and walkability were more important to me than safety.

Doing a little light fact-checking now, I see that in the early ‘90s this neighborhood was worse than I’d realized. It was considered sketchy by most San Franciscans, and compared to today had significantly higher rates of violent street crime, largely due to a crack epidemic that lasted until around 1994. The homicide rate was bad enough that the local media often described parts of the neighborhood as a “war zone.” If Internet research had been a thing back then, I might have chosen not to live there.

Still, it was cheap, I had my own room, it was a short walk to my favorite Thai restaurant, and it offered easy mass transit to my office job downtown. Plus, it was only six blocks to the Market Street Safeway where I shopped. And that’s  where this story (finally) gets interesting: if I was willing to take a little risk and go down an alley next to the tall, fenced-off hill where the San Francisco mint is, and then cross over the subway tracks at a place where you really weren’t supposed to, I could cut the walk down to just three blocks. It was practically a straight shot from my apartment, and from the standpoint of convenience, pretty much irresistible.

Granted, this was a pretty dicey shortcut. I can’t remember if there was an actual fence, but if so it wasn’t high (though looking at Google street view I see now that they’ve since built a giant fence, easily 12 feet tall). This wasn’t the classic dark alley of the imagination—long and narrow and dripping wet for some reason—but it was remote and kind of spooky, especially at night. It drove my girlfriend crazy that I took this shortcut, and she exhorted me to go the long way around, but I didn’t want to listen. Perhaps I had some premonition that one day she’d be my wife, with all the authority that goes with that, and then I’d have to toe the line—so I should enjoy my freedom while I still could.

On the night in question, as I headed toward the tracks well after dark, I encountered three shifty-looking characters off to my right in a narrower, perpendicular alley. They wore large black hooded Starter jackets, sagged pants, and ribbed wool watch caps. They were leaning in toward one another, speaking in low voices. Just as I passed their tight huddle I saw a flash of light, which had to be a cigarette lighter. Even back then, smoking a joint right out in the open in this neighborhood would have been perfectly normal, so their discretion meant something. Wow, I thought. How urban … they’re actually smoking crack!

Of course I didn’t gawk or anything—wouldn’t want to draw attention to having witnessed them. I kept my head facing forward, kept walking, minded my own business. I crossed the subway tracks, went around to the front of the Safeway, and did my shopping.

Now, given what I’d just seen down this alley, you’d think I’d finally go the long way around on the way home, right? But I was really loaded down with groceries and just didn’t feel like walking that far. I had multiple plastic shopping bags hung along each arm, all the way down to my wrists. One hand clutched a couple more loaded bags, and the other a big plastic jug of liquid laundry detergent. So I was lumbering along pretty slowly.

Past the subway tracks, when I was halfway down the alley, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t look over—just kept my eyes pointing ahead, seeing what I could with my peripheral vision. The movement was getting closer. I wasn’t sure it was the three dudes from earlier until one of them spoke. “Yo man,” he said, “hold up.”

I stopped and turned. It seemed important to act as casual as I could. Obviously these guys weren’t asking for directions … maybe they just wanted to mess with me. Could be they were sizing me up. I gave a quick chin-up nod, like, ‘sup? The dude looked me over and said, “Whaddya doin’, man?”

I glanced down at my bags, reflecting soberly upon how utterly impossible it would be to run with such a burden, and yet also how ridiculous it would be to abandon my groceries and flee, on the mere speculation that I was about to be mugged. I mean, I’d be pretty irritated if someone took one look at me and decided I was obviously a criminal. So I played it off. “Just doin’ my shopping,” I said. It’s funny: years before this, when I was an awkward teenager, suddenly called upon to speak, my voice would sometimes come out high and weak, like there was a reed stuck in my throat and I was short of breath, but now, when I really might have had something to be legitimately nervous about, I managed to sound fine. Casual, even, I thought.

“Hey man, I see you got detergent there, man, you gonna do some laundry?” the guy asked. He and his buddies were standing awfully close. Was this some preamble while they got ready to surround me? Or was I just being paranoid?

I glanced down at the laundry jug, wondering if it would make a good bludgeon but reflecting that the soft plastic would be more like a wiffle bat. Plus, loaded up as my arm was, I lacked the strength to even lift the jug that high, much less swing it. So I just looked back at the dude and gave another  upward nod. “Yeah. Of course.”

This is the part you’ll swear I’m making up, but I’m not: the dude reached into his coat and pulled out—not a gun, but a box of Bounce. You know, the fabric softener. “Man, you wanna buy some Bounce?” the guy asked. I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d pulled out a bouquet, or a puppy. Where did he get that? I wondered. Did he roll some other guy walking home from Safeway?

I shook my head. He persisted: “For the dryer, man, make your clothes softer!”

I shook my head again. “No, man,” I said, feeling increasingly like I was part of some improv skit. “I don’t use that stuff.”

“Aiiight, ‘s cool,” he shrugged, and the three of them shuffled off without so much as a glance back. I faced forward again and resumed my slow trudge home. I resisted the temptation speed up, or to look back. Was that really it? Was the encounter truly over? The whole way home I was simultaneously a) braced for the other shoe to drop, and b) working hard not to burst out laughing. Were those dudes  just screwing with me, or had I passed some test? I will never know. And did I ever take that shortcut again? Honestly, I can’t remember.

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New Year’s Resolutions — AI Edition

Introduction

It’s that time of year again, when you start planning out how you’ll be better this year. This can be really annoying, especially when you have to read about “SMART” goals even though you know in your soul that “DUMB” ones are better. And now you’ve stumbled across this post. Well, fear not – I’m just as fed up as you, and will try to make this as painless as possible.

As with everything now, I will consider the topic through the prism of Artificial Intelligence. That satisfies the “T” in “SMART” because it’s timely—and for this I apologize. But I must press on, because there are many ways in which we could resolve to use AI better, more responsibly, or less annoyingly. I’ve managed to winnow this post down to five key resolutions.

Resolution #1: Do not pass off AI work as your own

This recommendation probably seems self-evident, and yet it needs to be said. How many times have you read something ostensibly written by a human but obviously ghost-written by AI? It’s kind of amazing to me how brazenly people will paste straight from ChatGPT or another AI chatbot and think they can get away with it. Only an AI could fail to spot the nuances that betray AI-generated text.

Even if AI worked perfectly as a ghost-writer, by using it you would suffer from the neglect of your own intellect. There is an intrinsic value in learning to represent your ideas in your own words, just as you would do when speaking. Ideally, over time, by doing your own work, you will develop a writing style—a unique voice—and this is what makes you you, and ought to keep you from being easily replaced by AI. And the more you write, on your own, the better this voice will be developed, and the better you will do at in-person communication, which is almost always ad hoc. This capability ought to take precedence over the convenience of outsourcing to AI.

I asked ChatGPT to weigh in on this matter, and it said, “If AI helped draft, summarize, or rephrase something substantial, acknowledge it—especially in professional, academic, or published contexts. For your blog, this might mean a light disclosure like: ‘Drafted with AI assistance; final edits and opinions are mine.’” I cannot imagine using AI for drafting, summarizing, or rephrasing anything substantial. I assume that you are reading albertnet right now only because you trust that I can do more for you than an AI chatbot, and that I’m willing to put in the hard work to make the writing witty, entertaining, and concise. ChatGPT’s disclosure would be like the cook greeting you at his or her restaurant and saying, “My gravy is from a mix and my apple crisp is Sarah Lee.”

Resolution #2: Do not trust AI with any info you cannot verify

Obviously one of the fundamental benefits of AI chatbots is that unlike a single-query Google search, you can have a dialogue to get very specific about your question or problem and provide all kinds of context. When this works, it’s great. The trouble is, as we all know AI hallucinates. And to make matters worse, it hallucinates very confidently and feeds you incorrect information very convincingly and assuredly. I spoke with a doctor recently who described a bizarre and yet increasingly typical dialogue with a patient: she asked him why she shouldn’t just take x amount of such-and-such medication, as ChatGPT suggested.  He replied that that dosage would be lethal.

Of course you, gentle reader, are too wise to use AI like that, but it’s surprisingly how poorly it can do even with very basic information. Recently I asked two different chatbots, ChatGPT and Copilot, if my Sigma Sport bike computer is compatible with the power meter on my new bike. I provided the make and model of each, and both chatbots assured me they were indeed compatible. So I tried to pair them and got nowhere.

Both chatbots dragged me further off into the weeds when I started troubleshooting. Copilot determined, definitively (or so it claimed) that my power meter was defective. Based on blinking colored lights, it declared that “your 4iiii is doing exactly what a unit does when it can power on briefly but fails its internal startup test” and that the cause is most likely “internal hardware failure” that is “unfortunately not rare with brand-new 4iiii units.” It then offered to draft a note to the manufacturer to get the device replaced. Its voice was that of the expert advisor, when it was actually swinging wild based on training data of unknown and unverifiable provenance.

Of course the whole reason I reached out to AI on this in the first place is that I’d never messed with power meters before, and knew nothing. And yet, just having human-grade intuition and skepticism ended up being more valuable than all that training data and lightning-fast research capability. I distrusted Copilot’s conclusion, figuring hallucination on its part is more likely than a hardware defect. So instead of wasting any more time online, I tried a different bike computer to see if it would sync, and it did instantly. What a relief, that I didn’t start some needless warranty replacement process and waste some tech support person’s time, only to end up looking like a jackass. I’m still grieving over the fifteen or twenty minutes I’d spent pointlessly troubleshooting with AI. I should have experimented with the second bike computer in the first place, before asking AI for help. (Why didn’t I? I was intimidated and wanted my hand held. This was a poor instinct.)

This isn’t to say AI is never an appropriate tool, of course. As I’ve blogged about before, it can be very helpful in all kinds of technical matters, such as scripting HTML. But you should only use it when you can verify its output experientially instead of blindly trusting it. For example, when ChatGPT helped me implement the copyright footer on this blog, I knew the instructions were valid because I could see the footer for myself (as can you, below).

Resolution #3: Limit the influence of “secondhand AI”

Now that we’re all using AI chatbots more and more, it’s easy to forget that most of the AI that affects our lives is behind the scenes. We think of AI as a productivity tool, but that’s just the chatbots; most AI is developed by corporations to drive algorithms that try to grab and hold our attention, which ends up reducing our productivity. To make an analogy, a chatbot is like smoking a cigarette and getting all the benefits it provides—e.g., the drug, the rich and satisfying smoke, and the coolness—while AI-driven algorithms are like secondhand smoke that doesn’t taste good, doesn’t make us cool, and just gives us cancer. I hereby nominate for widespread adoption the term “secondhand AI,” meaning the AI that drives us instead of responding directly to our queries. (Yes, I was being facetious about the “benefits” of smoking. Just making sure you’re awake.)

So the gist of this resolution is to try to limit our exposure to secondhand AI, or at least the extent to which we let it shape our behavior. Instead of looking at the books Amazon suggests, get more of them out of those little free libraries, or from the “Staff Picks” section of your bookstore or library, or ask your friends for recommendations. Stop letting YouTube and TikTok thrust content in your face. And instead of letting Spotify choose the music after your selected album or playlist is finished, configure it to just stop (i.e., turn Autoplay off). Why? Because the crap it chooses doesn’t belong in your ears or brain. All these algorithms share the same central flaw: they select for stickiness, not quality. They can’t judge quality because they have no taste  … just the ability to carry out endless A/B tests and learn from the results.

Resolution #4: keep AI out of your messy human stuff

The most sensitive human interactions—consoling, arguing, advising, listening—might present the most tempting use cases for AI. After all, here’s a platform that can give you guidance, suggestions, actual written content, etc. without judging you or getting distracted or running out of time or patience. But this is also the area where I exhort you to close the laptop, lock your phone, and sort things out on your own. (Using a close friend as a sounding board is fine.) Why? Three reasons.

First, what if AI came up with the perfect thing to say, and in just the right way, and you couldn’t resist and just delivered its sensitive message verbatim? This might work, but what if the person you’re having the difficult dialogue with detects the distinctive AI diction and figures out you used a chatbot? This sends the message that you cut corners, that you couldn’t bother being sincere and authentic—that you outsourced your role in the interaction. This could (and probably should) be deeply offensive to the other person.

Second, if you struggle during the dialogue, and the other person perceives your vulnerability, I think that can only help. Instead of being perfectly articulate and glib, why not let your difficulty be plain to see, so that the other person can tell the struggle is mutual? Meanwhile, if you have “your” thoughts perfectly rendered with the help of AI, won’t you be more inclined to doggedly stick to that script, instead of letting the dialogue go where it needs to?

Finally, engaging in this struggle on our own is good for us. Inhabiting this discomfort, instead of trying to settle the dialogue with maximum efficiency, is bound to lead to the kind of soul searching we ought to be doing anyway. And, like with anything, we get better with practice, which is important, because we won’t always have the opportunity to stop and consult AI during a social crisis. Thinking on the fly will go a lot better if you’ve done the time working through the messy human stuff on your own.

Resolution #5: don’t replace humans with chatbots

According to this article, about half of the teens in a Common Sense Media study reported they use AI bots “regularly, not just for entertainment, but for venting, emotional support, and companionship.” And according to this article, “About one-third (31%) [of American teenagers] actually claim that dealing with AI companions is more satisfying than talking to a human being.” It seems incredible to me—that is to say, I’m amazed that I find myself even  weighing in here—that anybody should need to be advised against using AI in this way. How did we get here?

I cannot get past the most obvious issue which is that every minute a person spends typing into a void (or talking, I guess they have voice mode now) is a lost opportunity to bumble around in the real world and have the opportunity to meet people, one or two of whom could potentially become a friend. Can’t we all agree that there is a nonzero chance of making friends just by leaving the house? And that the chance of forging a real friendship with an AI chatbot is zero?

Okay, fine, I don’t personally struggle with social anxiety, and I should try to empathize with those who do, but it’s difficult, particularly since I myself was a social pariah in grade school, and then things got worse in middle school, and I’m constitutionally shy, but I did manage to eventually learn how to get along. But setting all that aside, how good is the strategy of replacing human interaction with programmatically easy, safe AI companionship? I’ll cite one article, from the Columbia Teachers College:

According to research from MIT, for example, people who are lonely are more likely to consider ChatGPT a friend and spend large amounts of time on the app while also reporting increased levels of loneliness. This increased isolation for heavy users suggests that ultimately, generative AI isn’t an adequate replacement for human connection. “We want to talk to a real person and when someone's really suffering, that need to feel personally cared for only grows stronger,” says George Nitzburg (Ph.D. ’12), Assistant Professor of Teaching, Clinical Psychology. 

Gosh, this last resolution seems like the literary equivalent of a plate of bulgur wheat salad with a side of kale. I hope it has so little to do with your life that you can just flick it off your sleeve like a booger. And then resolve to get fewer boogers on your sleeve to begin with. In fact, why not resolve to get that number down to zero?

 Other candidates for New Year’s resolutions

If you don’t overmuch care about AI and are just looking for general inspiration as you contemplate your own resolutions, here is a wide assortment of suggestions: 

• If you’re over 50, get the shingles vaccination
• Improve your balance
• Discover the power of loafing
• Configure a mental firewall
• Dodge the exercise gumption trap
• Stop discussing politics
• If you have kids, try to unplug them
• Consider donating blood this year
• If you’re over 45, get a colonoscopy
• Learn how to cure your hiccups
• Switch to a proper razor
• Adopt the “Dutch reach” when getting out of your car
•  Stop pushing STEM
• Learn self-compassion
• Master multitasking
• Cut out cream and sugar
• Avoid bad movies
• Develop a family Internet use policy
• Avoid phishing attacks
• Switch to a wax chain lube
• Try these life hacks
• Hold yourself more accountable
• Avoid bad restaurants
• Be ready for an earthquake
• See the bigger picture
• Switch to a better keyboard layout
• Stop worrying about goals
• Try to have more fun

Further reading 

• New Year’s Resolutions
• One-Size-Fits-All New Year’s Resolution
• New Year’s Resolutions - Dental Hygiene Edition
• New Year’s Resolutions - Let’s Get It Right This Time
• A Wide Net Approach to New Year’s Resolutions
• The DUMB Approach to New Year’s Resolutions
• New Year’s Resignation
• A Scattershot Approach to New Year’s Resolutions

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