Tag: artificial-intelligence

STEEL PENCIL NEWS REVIEW

SEPTEMBER 14, 2026

VOLUME 162

CENTER-RIGHT PERSPECTIVE ON CURRENT NEWS EVENTS WITH A LITTLE FLAG WAVING INCLUDED

Don’t waste your time perusing the obituaries, I’m still alive and well up here in the deep blue Pacific Northwest. Believe me, I had no idea what the political climate was when I moved here. Shudda done my research, I guess. Turns out California essentially covers the entire west coast, just goes under different flags as it moves northward. Anyway, I’m alive and well, I have numerous other irons in the fire, so sometimes my writing suffers. I have been doing some artwork lately, see the picture below. BTW, I’m an architectural fan, and love to design buildings.

I’m a huge fan of the 1950′ and 60’s “modern look” architecture. I designed this house to mimic the architecture found in the Palm Springs area of Southern California. The “butterfly” roof was created in this part of California by one particular builder. He and his entire family perished in a private plane crash at the peak of his career. Hope you enjoy the picture as much as I did creating it. As you probably guessed all of my artwork I put up on my blog is copyrighted.

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE DEMOCRATS

I think if you speak truthfully about the new identity of the Democrat party (DSP) it’s just window dressing. The Democrat party has always been about socialism at its core. The old Dems that say they don’t recognize the party anymore weren’t looking deep enough to see the truth. However to be fair, the young Democrats today are more aggressive and willing to cause trouble to get quick results.

Labor unions have always been a key component of the Democrat party. Currently they are, and always have been pro socialism. Labor unions are about empowering the workers, bringing the pay scale of blue collars more in line with the white collars. The whole principle of equality when it comes to incomes is naked socialism. The quest to make everyone equal whether they deserve it or not.

When I was working in a union shop as a young man, that was an issue that bothered me. On one hand it was good for me, on the other hand I didn’t feel it was fair to the more experienced journeymen. I didn’t have anywhere near the experience of the older journeymen, but because I served my apprenticeship and became a full-fledged journeyman I hired in at the same wage as a 25 year veteran.

As I gained more experience, I dropped out of the union and started working in shops that would pay union scale with benefits, but would reward you for your extra effort. Workers in union shops rarely ever went the extra mile because there were no rewards. It was not uncommon for me to receive extra pay, plus perks like a company truck or a credit card to pay for my commuting expenses. I made more money and gained more management experience than I ever would have in a union shop.

Are you getting my point? Union shops are nothing but a scaled down version of what a socialist society is. Everyone is equal, so why put forth any extra effort when there are no rewards. I wanna be the best at what I do, and I damn sure want to be rewarded for it. Workers like me, are good for the company. Efficient and smart employees make the company more profitable. When the company benefits, you benefit. It the company doesn’t reward you, find one that does. You’re a free agent.

So, I think when you examine the people making all of the noise in the Democrat party, they are brainwashed morons. Their brains have been destroyed by communist educators, none of whom have ever had to fend for themselves in the open job market. They have poisoned the minds of thousands of youngsters that could have been hard working patriotic Americans, working to make America a better place for all. The big burning question is; why can’t they see the glaring example 90 miles south of Miami? The whole of Cuba is a hell hole and is the direct result of Communism.

LINDSAY CLANCY CIRCUS

This is not an isolated story by any means. This has happened numerous times in my lifetime. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen often, but when it does it always has the same effect on my mind. How can a parent kill their offspring? My late wife and I raised two daughters, and our mission 24 hours a day, 365 days a year was to protect them and keep them safe from all manner of harm.

You sometimes jokingly say “if that kid does that again, I’m gonna kill ’em”. Realistically, you wouldn’t do that in a million years. That said, you surmise that to actually kill a child (three) you would have to be totally insane. Turns out that isn’t the case. People can be totally sane, able to plan the killings, come up with very creative stories to blame someone else. They show no remorse and go to great lengths to defend their actions. In my mind, that’s not insanity, that’s pure evil.

When we think of an insane person, we imagine a person who acts incoherently, yells at passing cars, acts out at people for no apparent reason, sometimes doing great bodily harm and sometimes actually murdering another individual. The difference is that anyone that has come in contact with an insane person, knows what the person is capable of and steers clear of them. People like Lindsay Clancy, Corie Walsh, and others like them quietly harbor these thoughts and the people around them never imagine what is about to happen. Seemingly normal people suddenly do unthinkable things.

People tend to categorize behavioral problems. Using my description above, I see quite a lot of what I would term “crazy” folk around homeless encampments. Doing things like being down on “all fours” picking up imaginary things off the sidewalk. Standing on the curb yelling at passerby’s in foul language. Waving large sticks around in the air. I highly doubt anyone ever looked at Lindsay Clancy through that Lense.

There is definitely something amiss in that woman’s brain, as well as the others that have committed similar crimes. I think insanity is the wrong call entirely. She is not insane, she clearly knew what she was about to do was very wrong, yet she went through with it anyway. For that, she deserves at least life imprisonment. if not the death penalty.

AI HOOPLA AND POSTURING

This is a very interesting topic to me, and I know very little about it. What I know is that it’s obvious at this point in time, AI operates on known knowledge. It takes the known knowledge and manipulates it. Apparently, the data centers that are causing such controversy are simply housing this knowledge and making it available for people like ChatGPT, and Canva to use in their companies.

Here is what I think would be great. If AI collected all of the data available and then processed it to find real truth and discarded the rest. For example, something simple; there could be a100 different ways of doing a particular task. AI examined all of the data and said; all of the collected data combined says that this method would yield the best results for the least amount of money. How great would that be?

I think what is truly scary about AI is that it could manipulate data for political purposes which could cause mayhem in spades. It could actually bring down governments. It could make claims of false information and destroy age old religious institutions. It could become the sole provider of data and information, causing people rely on it and believe whatever claim AI made. It could become the all-knowing oracle, becoming the undisputed truth sayer. In essence it could replace God in people’s minds. I can see people begin to look at it as divinity.

To bring this AI conversation to a close, I think we are years away from AI being the holder of all knowledge. But even as I say that, Google amassed most of the world’s knowledge and even created the most comprehensive mapping the world has ever known in just a few years. So maybe, I’m underestimating the time frame. It may be happening faster than my little pea brain can comprehend.

Right now, as I write this, I use AI for all sorts of things in my life. The picture above, of the California house, was drawn by hand, by me, a plain pencil sketch. I fed it into AI and gave it final instructions regarding weather, time of day, colors, geography, even the types of plants. AI completed the task in minutes. A task that would have taken me days to complete, and it never would have looked that good. Right now, AI is great fun, a great tool for an artist to use to create beautiful projects. As long as it is used to enhance people’s lives and assist them in their chores, I’m perfectly OK with that. Somebody needs to erect some guardrails, but I sure as hell don’t trust the government to do that.

I’ll try to get back on the keyboard more often now as winter is closing in, and my outdoor activities are going to be curtailed by the Pacific Northwest rain. Thank you fo taking the time to read my stuff. I appreciate all of you for making this one of my best years of readership yet. God Bless all of you and the USA.

VERITAS VINCIT ~ LIVE FREE OR DIE

THE ONLY PURE TRUTH

STEEL PENCIL NEWS REVIEW

MARCH 2, 2025

VOLUME 99

POLITICALLY INCORRECT, CENTER-RIGHT PERSPECTIVE ON CURRENT NEWS EVENTS.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE ARTS. 

Our family produced several natural born artists that possessed multiple talents. Only one chose to follow his talent as a vocation. He has been working in the movie industry his entire life and is recognized as one of the top animators and story board artists. He just happens to be my nephew (my sister's son) We grew up together as a very close family. He developed and produced three well known cartoon series that were shown on Nickelodeon for several years. He is currently working on a feature length animated movie. 

Even though he is my nephew, he is really more like my little brother. We remain close even though we live in adjoining states. We talk on the phone usually once a week, and of course art and family usually dominate our conversations. 

During our last conversation, we discussed artificial intelligence. He and I both have very similar feelings about it, so the following opinions and observations should be considered mutual. 

Mitch has created numerous characters for his projects. Those characters are strictly products of his imagination and creativity. In other words, those characters although just images on the screen, Inbody a little bit of their creator. They came from his mind, created from his energy. The likelihood of another artist creating the same exact character on the other side of the world is not even remotely possible. 

So, as AI grows and develops, I think it's inevitable the human involvement in creativity begins to shrink. I think it's sad to think that someday, young people may not have the opportunity that my nephew had to be part of a world of creativity, to be able to produce entertainment strictly from imagination and talent.

I have seen the power of computers and robotic machines and it's a bit scary. I recently watched a YouTube presentation of a shop that has a large array of computer driven robots, and they are producing metal body panels for automobiles in minutes from raw flat sheets of metal. You might say ; "what's the big deal? Auto manufacturers have been stamping metal panels in minutes for years. The big deal is these machines are miniscule compared to the large hydraulic presses, and a form doesn't have to be made to put into the press. These robots simply make the parts from scratch. There is no "tooling" required, they just command the robot to make a different part. So again, you are taking the human being out of the equation, you no longer need machinists, welders, millwrights, crane operators and etc. Just a robot, and a programmer. This is brand new territory; we are going to a place we have never been before. 

Admittedly I'm nowhere near being an expert on AI. Here is what I have heard the experts say, As AI learns a task, it can actually figure out how to improve its performance on its own. They say it can analyze data such as computer programming and figure out how to improve it and even begin writing programs on its own. If I understand correctly what I am hearing, you could upload dozens of novels, or movie scripts and AI could actually learn to write on its own. I jokingly told my nephew it looks like AI is already at work, the plot on the average TV show looks like an old story line that has simply been modified. I think most of what we see on TV is regurgitated crap. That said, maybe AI could come up with some better stuff.  Seriously, could we see a time in the future when a human tells a computer to write a story about a fictitious event and the computer churns it out in an hour? 

This is sounding to me like humans are voluntarily making themselves irrelevant to a large degree. Are computers going to be calling the shots in government, creating art, and humans are going to be manual labor? I'm serious, how far does this go? Does it get to the point that it can't be turned off? Can it get to the point humans can no longer control it? 

What makes this more likely to happen, is humans historically love to create machines that do their work for them. I have owned several homes with swimming pools. Pools require a lot of maintenance to keep them beautiful and inviting. One of the mundane tasks that takes a lot of time is vacuuming. I am seeing this new "crawler" vacuum that even climbs the walls of the pool and sticks it's nose out of the water and cleans the perimeter tiles. This machine learns the shape of your pool and cleans every square inch. How great is that? This is simply an illustration of how lazy we are and how quickly we are willing to hand off our responsibilities to machines. 

The bottom line is that being 84 years old in mid-April, it's highly unlikely that I will see any significant results of this. My world is not likely to be seriously impacted by any of this stuff. However, it is highly interesting me, and stirs my imagination. If any of my readers have real-world experience with AI, I would love to hear from you. 

In closing, I will treat you to a sample of my nephew's creativity.

VERITAS VINCIT   ~   LIVE FREE OR DIE