Chatting with AI Holds Promise for Future Learning, Etc.

Tonight I had a bit of a chat with Gemini, the AI application offered by Google. For all practical purposes I've decided that this might well be the way to go with my foreign language reading, as I can have Gemini generate any number of various sentences in whatever target languages I want, based around any particular topic I want to bring up.  I have a Rosetta Stone of Chinese, Russian, Spanish and English set up and ask Gemini to create, say, six sentences in them that have to do with my stated topic...I happened to pick "long distance running" as one.  So, here was the response:

1) Chinese: 参加马拉松比赛是我的梦想之一。(cān jiā mǎ la sōng bǐsài shì wǒ de mèng xiǎng zhī yī) 

Russian: Участие в марафоне - одна из моих мечт. (Uchastie v maratfone - odna iz moikh mechta.) 

Spanish: Participar en un maratón es uno de mis sueños. (Participar en un maratón es uno de mis sueños.) 

English: Running a marathon is one of my dreams.

2) Chinese: 长跑可以锻炼我的耐力。(cháng pǎo kěyǐ duànliàn wǒ de nài lì) 

Russian: Бег на длинные дистанции может тренировать мою выносливость. (Beg na dlinnye distancii mozhet trenerovat' moyu vynostlivost'.) 

Spanish: La carrera de larga distancia puede entrenar mi resistencia. (La carrera de larga distancia puede entrenar mi resistencia.) 

English: Long distance running can train my endurance.

3) Chinese: 今天天气很好，适合长跑。(jīntiān tiānqì hěn hǎo, shìhé cháng pǎo) 

Russian: Сегодня отличная погода для бега на длинные дистанции. (Segodnya otlichnaya pogoda dlya bega na dlinnye distancii.) 

Spanish: Hoy hace buen tiempo para una carrera larga. (Hoy hace buen tiempo para una carrera larga.) 

English: The weather is great today, perfect for a long run.

4) Chinese: 我正在训练参加半程马拉松比赛。(wǒ zhèngzài xùnliàn cānjiā bàn chéng mǎ la sōng bǐsài) 

Russian: Я тренируюсь, чтобы принять участие в полумарафоне. (Ya treniruyus', chtoby prinyat' uchastie v polumarafone.) 

Spanish: Estoy entrenando para participar en una media maratón. (Estoy entrenando para participar en una media maratón.) 

English: I am training to participate in a half marathon.

5) Chinese: 我和朋友们经常一起周末去长跑。(wǒ hé péngyoumen jīngcháng yīqǐ wèimó qù cháng pǎo) 

Russian: Я часто бегаю на длинные дистанции по выходным с друзьями. (Ya chasto begayu na dlinnye distancii po vykhodnym s druzyami.) 

Spanish: A menudo salgo a correr largas distancias los fines de semana con mis amigos. (A menudo salgo a correr largas distancias los fines de semana con mis amigos.) 

English: I often go for long runs with my friends on weekends.

6) Chinese: 我跑完步后感觉神清气爽。(wǒ pǎo wán bù hòu gǎnj覺 shén qīng qì shuǎng) 

Russian: После бега я чувствую себя бодрым и энергичным. (Posle bega ya chuvstvuyu sebya bodrym i energeticznym.) 

Spanish: Me siento renovado y con energía después de correr. (Me siento renovado y con energía después de correr.) 

English: I feel refreshed and energized after a run.

The parenthesized sections following each sentence lay out their pronunciation...especially helpful with the Chinese characters! These AI algorithms hold the promise to help me make great strides in my language learning and are easy to access and use for practice.  Also, they can quickly surpass the ability of ordinary search engines to explore the Internet for answers to problems I have about various topics.  As someone admittedly possessing a phobia about form-filling and dealing with bureaucracies on just about any level, I find this possibility very hopeful...

Shortcomings in Digital Technology Skills Impair My Computer Use

I have had a Google Chromebook for the past few months...still a long way off from figuring out this supposedly simple device.  For example, I had just typed out several sentences introducing a completely different subject for today's blog article entry, but somehow the way I rested my hands on the keyboard caused the whole thing to erase...and without any means of undoing it!  I've also had issues with the word processing here and certain keyboard functions I'd normally consider standard, such as the absent "Capitals" key normally available anywhere else. Yet overall I'm pretty satisfied with it, since after all I'm a big user of Google applications, including this blog, YouTube, Google Search and Google Maps: they seem to be well integrated.  It's also true that I lag behind many others in my knowledge of how to maneuver around the computer...not an advisable shortcoming in this age of heavy dependency on digital information and the Internet.  I think my problems are probably more due to needing to improve my digital IQ than with the computer hardware or software.  Then again, something inside me says to not get too involved in it all and stay as long as possible on this side of reality.  That might explain why I feel a strange sense of relief whenever I sign out and shut off the computer.  And at least I managed to get this article out before inexplicably erasing it...  

Enjoying Amazon's Music Unlimited Feature

A few weeks ago Melissa, who is infinitely more adept than me at maneuvering through the intricacies of the Internet, got our household on Amazon's Music Unlimited feature.  Since then I've enjoyed listening to various artists I've loved in the past and have been reacquainted with a lot of forgotten music.  I've also used it to listen, commercial-free, while I do my neighborhood runs.  Alexa, who seems to be everywhere, is the AI voice I speak with to make my requests...sometimes she gets them and sometimes she's off track: hey nobody's perfect!  Already an Amazon fan...as well as with Google, which provides the platform for this blog as well as its amazing YouTube...this music feature has done for me what I had hoped Amazon Kindle would have done for books but hasn't by a long shot, with so much written material still digitally unavailable.  But I'll gladly take the music, both from Alexa and from YouTube, and take a rain check on the books.  Now excuse me while I get out my headphones and ask Alexa to play some Kinks...

Using Own Blog Writing to Study Other Languages

I'm using my own writing, here on this very blog, to practice reading and building up (very gradually) comprehensible vocabulary in other languages, specifically Spanish, Russian and Chinese.  I'm using Google's easy translation device, available in the taskbar on the right upper corner of my screen. I copied and pasted each translation of today's article to present a kind of Rosetta Stone of the four different languages, giving me the opportunity to filter out the words and phrases I still need to acquire...

Estoy usando mi propia escritura, aquí en este mismo blog, para practicar la lectura y desarrollarla (muy gradualmente)...vocabulario comprensible en otros idiomas, concretamente español, ruso y chino. Estoy usando el dispositivo de traducción fácil de Google, disponible en la barra de tareas en la esquina superior derecha de mi pantalla. Copié y pegué cada traducción del artículo de hoy para presentar una especie de Piedra Rosetta de los cuatro idiomas diferentes, dándome la oportunidad de filtrar las palabras y frases que aún necesito adquirir...

Я использую свои собственные тексты здесь, в этом самом блоге, чтобы практиковаться в чтении и построении (очень постепенно)...понятный словарный запас на других языках, особенно на испанском, русском и китайском. Я использую простое устройство перевода Google, доступное на панели задач в правом верхнем углу экрана. Я скопировал и вставил каждый перевод сегодняшней статьи, чтобы представить своего рода Розеттский камень четырех разных языков, давая мне возможность отфильтровать слова и фразы, которые мне еще нужно усвоить...

我正在用我自己的寫作，在這個部落格上，來練習閱讀和累積（非常逐漸地）

其他語言的可理解詞彙，特別是西班牙語、俄語和漢語。 我正在使用 Google 的簡易翻譯設備，該設備位於螢幕右上角的任務欄中。 我複製並貼上了今天文章的每個翻譯，以呈現四種不同語言的羅塞塔石碑，讓我有機會過濾掉我仍然需要掌握的單字和短語...

Wǒ zhèngzài yòng wǒ zìjǐ de xiězuò, zài zhège bùluò gé shàng, lái liànxí yuèdú hé lěijī (fēicháng zhújiàn de) qítā yǔyán de kě lǐjiě cíhuì, tèbié shì xībānyá yǔ, èyǔ hé hànyǔ. Wǒ zhèngzài shǐyòng Google de jiǎnyì fānyì shèbèi, gāi shèbèi wèiyú yíngmù yòushàng jiǎo de rènwù lán zhōng. Wǒ fùzhì bìng tiē shàngle jīntiān wénzhāng de měi gè fānyì, yǐ chéngxiàn sì zhǒng bùtóng yǔyán de luó sāi tǎ shíbēi, ràng wǒ yǒu jīhuì guòlǜ diào wǒ réngrán xūyào zhǎngwò de dānzì hé duǎn yǔ...

For Chinese I used the Traditional script although the more commonly used Simplified is also available.  I liked the feature for Chinese translation that Google provides for the pinyin transliteration...very helpful.  This is still a work in progress because the aforementioned taskbar didn't quite work as I had planned and I had to copy and paste my English article to another Google Translate site, which worked quite well.  It's true that you can easily use instant translation programs to translate whole pages from one language to another, but I find it more more useful to see them at the same time side-by-side, and I like that pinyin for the Chinese...

Quote of the Week...from Fareed Zakaria

I enjoy writing but I much prefer the experience of having written.          ---Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria is a CNN weekend host whose programs delve more deeply into international events and trends, placing his own stamp of perspective and opinions about his chosen topics...he is perhaps the best of his profession in this regard, in my opinion.  He also has had columns writing for the Washington Post and Newsweek. Since today happens to be his birthday, I thought I'd do a little delving of my own, checking out some of his past quotes...and found the above admission.  For some of us, writing is a blissful, wonderful experience...if there were more hours in the day then they'd just see it as more writing opportunity.  For others, there is no writing, just as there is no reading, either...that's true even so for a high percentage of the college-educated population.  And then there is the middle of the two extremes: people like me who like to write once I'm actually into writing something, but sometimes find it difficult getting started with a task or project.  Oh, and I suppose there's a fourth group as well: people, usually celebrities, who take credit for writing books that others have written for them...we'll just leave these phonies out of the discussion.  One thing I like about this concept of blogging, besides it being freely provided (thank you, Google), is that I can write about anything (although I try to be discreet and respectful in some areas) and not only express my opinions, but also explain them and elaborate.  I've written this blog almost daily since April 2007, with some 5,300 total articles...and they're all still there, for you or anyone else in the world who has free access to the Internet.  I know that blog writing is something that I like a lot, yet there still is that resistance to sitting down and starting...some days I don't know what I will write about until I open up a new, blank page.  Fareed Zakaria, on the other hand, as a renowned journalist probably feels that he must adhere to much higher standards with his writing and use impeccable research, knowing that pretty much anything he says will be scrutinized to small detail by not only his colleagues (especially those in disagreement with his views) and those whom he features, but by millions of his general readers...that's bound to throw a damper on anyone's enjoyment of writing.  But the finished product? Pretty good, Fareed...

Just Watched The Social Dilemma Documentary Movie

Melissa, Will and I recently set down and watched on Netflix a very intriguing and disturbing documentary film, released just this year: The Social Dilemma, released for general public viewing just a couple of weeks ago after appearing at the Sundance Film Festival in January.  In it former Google designer Tristan Harris, along with several other former major Internet company employees, present their view that uses of social media like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter...along with simple Internet use of search engines like that of Google, present skewed outcomes because the companies providing these services use complex algorithms deliberately designed to give the user what he or she wants and pander to people's prejudices in order to increase their usage...not necessarily providing truthful or balanced information.  Each user has a separate profile that the company analyzes to increase their addiction to the application by feeding back material that supports their own preconceived notions. This is creating among adults a very politically divided, bubbled-off society with each "camp" armed with its own "facts" and perceived outrages perpetrated by the other "side" as they spend their time shouting past each other on the various issues and politicians.  But with teens...and preteens as well...social media can become very addictive and personally demeaning, possibly even contributing to suicide...

I just finished rereading A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin's first volume of his apparently never-ending A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series.  His fiction may be fantasy in that it involves a mythical world, dragons, monsters up north and the like, but with regard to how unseen forces manipulate the characters into acting against their own interests, it is very, very real and applicable to what is going on now with not only social media and the Internet in general, but also television and radio: the companies obey the bottom line of economic profit, which is provided by advertising, which in turn is driven by viewership...regardless of the truth value of what is being put out there.  As with Martin's book with his "puppet masters" stringing the characters along with their strategically-placed provocations eventually pitting the House of Lannister in open conflict against that of Stark, Harris and others reveal that these corporate AI algorithms have come to the conclusion that inciting people's passions about different subjects and themselves is the most cost-effective way to increase onsite activity and get those crucial profits for the company...and this is causing our children to become more withdrawn and insecure while our society as a whole is much more deeply divided and uncivil...

This past Sunday evening I was watching the end of an exciting, close football game between the (boo) New England Patriots and the (hooray) Seattle Seahawks.  My 'Hawks managed to squeak out a close victory on the last play of the game, but what if the broadcasters behaved the way of social media or search engines?  While not denying the final score in favor of Seattle, NBC, knowing my preferences, would have exalted everything Seattle did while casting New England in the role of dastardly, evil villains...and the officials were of course biased against the Seahawks.  But for my neighbor who likes the Patriots, the presentation by the same NBC on his TV would portray his chosen team as the heroes robbed of a victory by Seattle's cheating and poor officiating: New England really did win, even if the score says otherwise...must be some kind of hoax.  That sounds crazy, but if The Social Dilemma is right then in a way that's a lot of what we're getting on our smartphones and computers.  Users beware: they're taking us for a bunch of damned fools, and maybe they're right...I highly recommend this documentary and let the wise among us wake up to the danger...