How Can We Matter

A spaceship landed on earth and the commander sent out his little green men to investigate the creatures that humans referred to as 'doctors'. A few days later the aliens reported back to the spaceship. 'So, what do you think?' asked the commander. 'From our study of the activities of the specimens called "doctors", they declared, 'this is our conclusion. Most Doctors are men who put medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.' Criticism of Medical Practice This quote, often attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire, criticizes the medical practice of doctors prescribing medications with limited understanding, to treat illnesses about which they have even less knowledge, in patients whose individual complexities they may not fully grasp; essentially highlighting a potential gap between medical knowledge and its application in real patients.  Though the quote reflects ...

In what follows, I am making an attempt to analyze the political landscapes of two large democracies, situated on diametrically opposite sides of the globe, to understand how polarization of the government manifests in different contexts and disadvantageously affects their respective populace.  Polarized World I'll analyze the two large democracies without naming either of them or their leaders. Yet, the readers can easily understand which countries and which leaders I am referring to.  The Rhetoric "He is a Hitler, he is a Fascist, he is a threat to Democracy". These epithets are employed to deride two world leaders by their political opponents. "One country, one constitution, one destiny". What is ironical is that these rhetorics are used by the opposition parties against leaders who are democratically elected by the majority populace of the respective countries - one already ruling his country for a third time, and one about to rule his country for a second t...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has many uses and potential misuses. This post presents some examples of how AI can be used, misused, and abused and its potential consequences. Seeing the World Through Our Lens It all started when my imagination was triggered by a cloud formation of an image in the azure sky that looked like a giant face peeking out from behind a building. Immediately I captured that image with my mobile phone camera on 31 May 2024 at 18:21hrs. It goes without saying that what we observe in the sky depends on the way the image is visualized, conceived, and interpreted by us. This in turn is shaped by our background and life experiences.  That is, our ability to see, hear, and become aware of the image, through the limits of human senses, creates different perceptions on different people. AI: A Creative Tool Inspired by what I visualized in the photo, I used an AI tool (Google Gemini) to generate ideas for a poem. Of course, the poem is not a verbatim reproduction of w...

I started writing blogs on my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ntunni but soon realized that I needed a dedicated platform for blogging. Facebook offers minimal formatting options and you can't create a unique look and feel that reflects your writing style. Also, it's challenging for me as well as for my friends to discover my older blog posts on Facebook.  Image courtesy Pixabay On a dedicated blog , people can easily search and browse an archive. Another problem is that Facebook's algorithm controls what shows up in users' feeds. Even with a large following, only a small percentage of friends might see your posts. Finally, your content technically resides on Facebook's platform. They could change policies and even remove certain contents without notice. A dedicated blog platform gives you complete ownership and control . Therefore, I created a new website to host my blogs, namely www.howcanwematter.com and I use the Google Blogger tool to create and publish my ...

I asked Google's new advanced AI chatbot, Gemini , this question! This is also an experiment to see whether we can use these Artificial Intelligence tools for our personal decision making. Here is the answer Gemini came up with.  Copyright Web The Candidate Narendra Modi is the current Prime Minister of India. He has been in office since 2014, and his term will expire in 2024. Whether or not he is a good candidate to lead India for the next 5 years is a matter of opinion. His Accomplishments Some people believe that Modi is a strong leader who has made significant progress in improving India's economy and infrastructure. They point to his government's initiatives such as Make in India and Digital India as evidence of his commitment to modernizing the country. India's GDP growth rate has been strong under his leadership, and millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. Modi has also been praised for his foreign policy, which has seen India forge closer ties with t...

Deep fake images, videos, and news are creating zero-trust societies, using the latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) tools. Today, we just can't distinguish between true and false news. Consequently, we can't take trust for granted, we can't trust anyone, forcing us to assume that everyone and everything on the Internet is out to get us! AI-generated image (Eliot Higgins/Twitter)   Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative group Bellingcat , used an AI tool called Midjourney to imagine in pictures what the former president might look like being arrested. These pictures have been viewed millions of times. View this report .  On top of it, a new study by three MIT scholars has found that falsehood diffuses significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth, in all categories of information, and in many cases by an order of magnitude. From communication and transport to healthcare and connectivity to blockchain and gene-editing t...

Another year is dawning. It is also the dawn of a new decade - starting on 1 January 2021 and ending on 31 December 2030. I am sure these coming ten years would be the beginning of a new era.