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

STEEL PENCIL NEWS REVIEW

DECEMBER 11, 2024

VOLUME 92

POLITICALLY INCORRECT, CENTER-RIGHT PERSPECTIVE ON CURRENT NEWS EVENTS

THE DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY IS EQUIVALENT TO A BOTTLE OF TABASCO SAUCE IN A DONUT SHOP.

As a former drone pilot and enthusiast, I know a little bit about this subject. I bought my first drone years ago, a small basic machine for beginners. A few years later, I did some trading and ended up with a DJI Inspire which is a very large drone, very popular with Hollywood for filming action shots. Very fast, great camera, and dual controls so you can fly, and your co-pilot can man the camera. Very powerful, able to lift 3.5 lbs. It has a range of just over 1.5 miles away from the controller. I have flown many times by camera only, the drone was out of sight. That will make you a little nervous with a $4,000.00 aircraft.

To fly a drone of that size, you have to be an FAA licensed pilot. There are two classes of pilots. I had a sports pilot license. I was not allowed to fly over people or traffic, and I could not market my photography taken during flights. If you are using your drone for commercial purposes, you have to have the same license as a manned aircraft. Then you can fly at night, above populated areas and trafficways. You can also market your photography, which is totally amazing.

I chose to sell my drone because of the new laws and regulations that were coming out requiring me to affix a transponder to my drone so it could be tracked and identified by the FAA officials. The rules were going to continue to become stricter in the future on drones of that size. There has even been discussion in Congress to outlaw DJI drones from being sold in the United States. DJI is the world’s leading drone manufacturer, and they are made in China. The concern is that the very sophisticated software the drone uses can be used by the Chinese for spying. When you register the software to control the drone, it is connected to your email address. This is concerning.

So, the reason I told you all of this, is because all of these laws and regulations are only good, as long as law abiding citizens are willing to comply. If you are not a law-abiding citizen, then you can operate whatever you want, whenever you want until you get nabbed. Exactly like gun laws and driver’s licenses. The average person complies with these nonsensical rules because they don’t have the money or time to fight with the Feds.

The Feds cannot identify the drones flying around New Jersey, because they are illegal, flying without transponders. That tells me immediately that they are rogue pilots intentionally breaking the law so they can’t be identified. That is also an indicator they may be up to no good. This flys in the face of the story the FBI and Homeland Security are telling you. John Kirby is saying today they don’t believe they have any malicious intent. He can’t know that, because he has no idea who is operating them. Also, they haven’t been able to identify the operating system used to control them. You can’t jam a signal if you don’t know what it is.

These are the same people that allowed a Chinese spy balloon to fly across the Pacific, entering our airspace in Alaska, and allowed it to continue it’s flight unimpeded almost all the way across the lower 48 before taking it out with a missile. I think they only reason they destroyed it, was due to the mounting public pressure. Otherwise Slo-Joe would have just let the damn thing drift off over the Atlantic. I’m sure he didn’t want to upset those folks that greased his palm for years.

These drones have been operating in the New Jersey area since mid-November. It is now mid-December and they still have no clue as to what the hell is going on. This doesn’t give me a “warm and fuzzy” feeling. Is the FBI, Homeland Security, and the Military really this inept. I told you earlier my drone would lift 3.5 lbs. These drones are much larger than the one I owned; they could probably lift upwards of 10 to 15 pounds or more. That is one hell of a lot of sophisticated explosives. I would be very nervous if they were flying around my neighborhood.

Here is another point for you to consider; My drone was small compared to these, which are over 6′ in diameter. My drone fully outfitted with accessories was over $4,000.00. A drone of this size can cost upwards of between $20-50,000.00. So, who can afford to fly these many drones with this kind of a price tag? I am watching this with great interest to see how the geniuses in our so called “Homeland Security” and the FBI deal with it.

Well folks, you can rest easy toight knowing that the Federal Government is watching the borders and the skies, keeping you safe from intruders.

VERITAS VINCIT ~ LIVE FREE OR DIE

STEEL PENCIL NEWS REVIEW

DECEMBER 2, 2024

VOLUME 91

POLITICALLY INCORRECT, CENTER-RIGHT PERSPECTIVE ON CURRENT NEWS EVENTS

SORT OF A STRANGE THANKSGIVING, BUT A GOOD ONE NONETHELESS.

My wife and I have four offspring between us. I use the word “offspring” because all of them are old and couldn’t be remotely referred to as children. My oldest daughter turned 68 years old this year. Don’t bother trying to do the math. Anyhow, they are scattered from heck to yonder, and no way are they all going to show up for Thanksgiving. The only time all of them will show up at our house is for the reading of the will. Boy they will be surprised; I already spent their inheritance and then some. Don’t look at me expecting to see a sad face of regret, I had one hell of a lot of fun.

Anyhow, they all checked in by phone, messaging, and Face Book. I’m considering myself lucky ’cause all of ’em are apparently doing well, not one of ’em asked for money. I’m thankful for that, because I just saw a great deal on some 9 mm. ammo. Thinking I’m a little short of .45 cal. as well. The Democrats have been unusually quiet, I don’t trust those suckers. I’d feel better with a little more fire power.

How could Thanksgiving be any better with Trump back in the Whitehouse? Is that great or what? He saved us from the crazy Commie Harris and Tampon Tim. Now, stop and really think about that for a few minutes. Kamala and Tim are a couple of knucklehead clowns themselves, can you imagine what Kamala’s cabinet would be like? It would likely look like the latest Jaguar commercial. Could she even find enough freaks to fill the slots? I break out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.

Did you think even for a nano second that “Crooked Joe” wouldn’t pardon his crackhead son? When you really think about it, Joe couldn’t afford to have Hunter on trial, because he was bound to get entangled in the details. He had no choice, he had to pardon Hunter for his own protection. I can’t believe we had a crime family in the Whitehouse.

I don’t think Joe Biden actually knows what the word “truth” means. One of the biggest collection of lies is in the following short video. Click on the link below.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/biden-ill-always-tell-you-the-truth/2020/03/12/4b1bc4f5-62a8-4a80-85c5-73d55d2d0bad_video.html

When you reflect on the past four years, you have been lied to like the wife of a drunken gambler. I challenge you to tell me one thing that came out of the Biden Whitehouse that was true. It was literally a full time “smoke and mirrors” show.

I have never been more proud of my fellow Americans who saw through the lies and deception and made the right decision at the ballot box. My faith in America has been restored and I am extremely thankful for that. God bless you all, you stayed vigilant, you acted courageously, and I am proud to be counted amongst you.

VERITAS VINCIT ~ LIVE FREE OR DIE