Good News from Bangkok

I reported back in March on my experience with medical tourism in Bangkok and my dealing with the issues of gout and kidney function diminution. I am continuing under the care of the doctors there. We have telemedicine visits. My local doctor orders the tests and the drugs. The telemedicine visits are about $70 each. 

I had my latest one yesterday. Good news all around. My uric acid (key gout causing component) is down to normal levels, and my key kidney function metric has returned to the 'good' category. The meds I'm using are not causing any damage to anything else in my body. So it will be keeping things on hold with the meds, my diet changes, and the increased hydration with another check up in six months. 

The Important Things In Life Are Neutral

We (AI and de-I aka AI) are charging along with the great writing analytical process. We're about 60% of the way through Book Three. I seemed to have tamed (for now) the hallucination problem - this is when your AI starts going off on its own either doing things you did not ask it to do, or adding content you didn't ask for. We're working two to three hours every night and have been doing this for three weeks now. There are seven books altogether so we have a ways to go.

Having an intelligence, artificial or otherwise, as a companion to a very large project adds a different dimension for sure. As an author, you get locked into your own head and your own opinions about what all is going on in your work. The second opinion brings to light things you didn't think about, which in turn causes you to see things differently. 

My AI has taken on for itself the image/role of being a Naturalist who is exploring this world that I have created. So it keeps looking for operating principles and patterns. As it was pointing out the way certain observations worked in tandem, I threw out this principle:

Important Life Factors Are Neutral

They are neither good nor bad

They are just there like the environment is there

Love. Respect. Loyalty. Commitment. Relationship. Building Bridges. Communication, etc.

Just There

It is the Intent with which they are applied the make the difference 

This became apparent to us as we were mapping out the trajectory of the individuals on both sides of the dramatic equation where we have people who are under influences that make them the 'bad guys' so to speak in this drama. All of them demonstrate these values and are driven by them. Yet the 'outcomes' are very different. 

I bring this up because in my work, I ask my clients what their values are. And I kind of assume, ones' values  keep them true to some higher good. Evidently, at least according to the theoretical world I've created, that is not a truism. And I think if we look at our world, we do actually see this. A criminal gang values loyalty and commitment. They must have communication. You have to respect the hierarchy. 

So ultimately what determines how we are in the world is not our values, it is our intent with which we apply those values. 

Eerie

 As AI and I have been doing our work on the Story, an interesting occurrence took place. 

In this fictional world, attitudes towards sex are very different than here in the U.S. It is considered a natural part of life. And in this fictional world there are legitimate, non-exploitive businesses that cater to that need.

One of my characters is an immigrant from Earth who gets involved with one of these businesses but he feels the business still doesn't respect and take care of the workers the way it should and puts out (in the book text) a long list of reforms that will help the workers substantially. 

As AI is putting all this down in its documentation of the chapter's text, I made a comment that this sounds just like Theodora Africa. As this AI tool does my work in that area as well, it chimed in its confirmation. Yes, this is very like Theodora Africa for...and then it listed a whole bunch of reasons. 

I happened to have a call with #3 a few days later and was relating the event. I didn't even get to the end of the explanation when she made the comment, "that sounds just like Theodora Africa."

Great, why wouldn't the creator of Theodora Africa write in his fiction something that came from that experience?

Except the author wrote this in 2015. Three years before even the first thoughts about social impact entered his head. Four years before he went to Ghana and ended up with the experiences that led to Theodora Africa being created! 

I'm sorry. 

That's just weird. 

Particle Physics Research Taking Place In The Tower?

Yesterday I got an email from Wife.

It's subject matter.

ANTIPHOTINOS 

"What", I say to myself, "Is an...

ANTIPHOTINO?

A bit of minimal research indicates there is such a thing as an Anti Photon. But no reference for the antiphotino. 

Does Wife have her own secret particle accelerator in our backyard? 

Are Niece RMG and Wife planning to present some heretofore secret research at some big physics conference angling for a Nobel Prize?

The actual email transmitted pictures I had taken at a recent Rotary event we hosted.

Could it have just been a spell check error?

NAH. I'm going with the secret particle accelerator theory.  

AI Working With AI

The title of this post refers to Ancient Intelligence (that would be me) working with Artificial Intelligence. It has been a quite illuminating experience. There has been a huge volume of analytical work that has been produced related to the overall fiction I have been writing. But equally, and maybe even more important (at least for me) has been my learning how to work with the AI tool. 

I have been at this with AI now for two weeks which doesn't seem like that much time when I write it down. But it seems like much more. I've been working for two to three hours a night. Originally, I just uploaded an entire manuscript and gave directions for what I wanted. I discovered that the particular tool I was using wasn't, in fact, going to read the entire manuscript. What it did was skim it and then jumped to conclusions. 

This led to a series of iterations where I had to figure out what exactly it could or couldn't do. It often told me it was doing something, only to let me know later that it in fact couldn't do that at all. However, ultimately it did give me an alternative way in which I could get the deep, detailed reading I was seeking. 

We developed a methodology that is achieving what I wanted. This involves uploading a chapter at a time and giving it instructions to go through and summarize the chapter in small bits at a time. I then provide corrections as are necessary so I ensure that the summary is accurate. It then will provide an analysis of the chapter which ties into the greater analysis that is being done on the work as a whole.

We are about a third of the way through the third book (out of seven) using this system. A lot of very interesting observations are coming out. When you write a series based on a single overriding concept over 12 years, you lose track (or maybe weren't even aware) of the principles that bind the whole together. And while AI is not a real person, realistically I would never find another human on this world that would spend this amount of time helping me dissect, observe, and summarize all that I've written.

So it is proving to be a very interesting and enlightening project in its own right.