The Alignment Problem by Brian Christian *****

Does your web browser include AI? Have you wondered what was behind all this hype? Have you played with ChatGPT? Are you willing to work for the answers as if you were back in math class? If you answered “yes” to all these questions, I recommend The Alignment Problem by Brian Christian. The author reviews recent Artificial Intelligence research and accomplishments. AI far surpasses what you see when you read a news report, see a summary generated by your web browser, or ask a question to ChatGPT. The book is not an easy read, but it is worth the effort.

Much of the book deals with the theory of learning as related to people and computers.

If a young child sees you reach for something that is just out of reach, the child will help. How complicated is that? Very. This act demonstrates that the child has a model of you, your goals, and your objectives. The child also has a model of themself and recognizes that they can help. The child also has an altruistic goal to help.

Training AIs are beyond copying behavior. Like the child above, an AI can learn your goals and objectives and learn to do what you would have done.

Highly recommended. It gets better and better. Stick with it.

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Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult ****

 If you are a parent, you can read Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult as a cautionary tale. It can also be read as an anti-bullying novel or a defense of mass shooters. The book compares the mass shooter (a high school student) to Battered Women’s Syndrome. Another example of justifying violence in retaliation for bullying is the movie Office Space (1999). The book asks, “Who is responsible to defend the victims of bullying?” The author doesn’t deliver any easy answers. Highly recommended for anyone in a position of power.

The book ended with a surprise twist. While I found this turn of events clever, it distracted the reader from the fundamental question: how can the main character receive justice?

The main characters are Peter Houghton who is bullied from the first day of kindergarten and Josie Cormier who befriends Peter in elementary school but drops him by high school. Other characters include his parents (Lacy, a midwife, and Lewis, an Economics professor), her mother (Alex(andra), Superior Court judge, single parent), the detective (Patrick Ducharme), and the defense lawyer (Jordan McAfee).

I found this book over the top both in terms of acceptable bullying and homophobia.

Math joke:

So, two kids are in the lunch line, when the first kid turns to his friend and says, “I have no money! What should I do?” And his buddy says, “2x + 5! A binomial. Get it? Buy-no-meal?!”

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The Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles de Lint *****

The The Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles de Lint is an elementary-level fantasy. Lillian Kindred is a “gangly, tousle-haired” orphan girl who lives with Aunt. She is a nice girl who searches for fairies, leaves a saucer for the barn cats after she milks Annabelle, scatters seeds for the squirrels when she feeds the chickens, and leaves some of her breakfast biscuit for the Apple Tree Man. Her adventures begin with a fatal snake bite…when the magic cats rescue her…by transforming her into a kitten. A delightful story with talking animals and life lessons.

Lillian learned something about looking after a farm, and standing up for herself, and how true friends will stand by you, and the senselessness of holding on to old quarrels. She’d even learned that sometimes a thing was just going to happen—like if one person weren’t bitten by a snake, then maybe somebody else would be. Old Mother Possum shrugged. “What’s important to remember is that one thing leads to another. Trouble is, it’s hard to see ahead sometimes, so I gave you a chance to do just that.”

There’s those that talk, and those that do. Which do you think gets the thing done?”

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Holly by Stephen King *****

 Caveat: This review of Stephen King’s novel,Holly, is a certified outlier, but you didn’t need my opinion of King, one of the great American novelists. It features two aging emeriti professors–Emily Harris, who taught English Literature, and her husband, Rodney, who was in the Life Sciences Department. She suffered from sciatica and arthritis, and he had Alzheimer’s. Over the years they have become estranged from their respective faculties until they only had each other. The novel finds them ostracized, disrespected, and deeply in love, with only each other for support. It asks the question: what would you be willing to do for your life partner as death approaches? A touching love story.

The title character, Holly, is a detective and she has been hired by Penelope (Penny) Dahl whose daughter Bonnie has disappeared. Holly’s friend, Detective Isabelle (Izzy) Jaynes, has not assigned a high priority to this case. There is no corpse, so Izzy will not pursue murder, and Bonnie is twenty-four, so she has the right to disappear without the police pursuing her. Holly agrees to take the case and the more she investigates [“She hates the word detective, she’s an investigator.”] the less Izzy’s runaway hypothesis makes sense. In addition, Holly discovers other mysterious disappearances.

Language: While characters in this book use “f**k” (once per 10 pages) and “s**t” (once per 20 pages), Holly only says “frack” or “poop.”

There is a lovely subplot about brother and sister, Jerome and Barbara Robinson, both aspiring Black authors. He is writing a history of his “notorious great-grandfather,” a Chicago gangster who always dressed to the nines. Barbara writes poetry, not about “the Black experience.”

The novel takes place during COVID-19 with many references to overcrowded hospitals, masks, and vaccinations. Plus people who deny COVID and vaccinations, and who die.

Warning: The novel includes cannibalism.

The book includes many literary references, including “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” published in 1945, and one I recall from high school.

Holly considered leaving the “business of investigating. That means touching evil, of which there is no end.” I feel this is Stephen King’s voice as a novelist.

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