Between Posts

When Did Loyalty Die? The rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth dogs of the Hypocrat party, forever looking for someone to attack and infect with their deadly political doctrines, lately have taken to the streets to slobber about President Trump's alleged demand that his Cabinet members, political appointees and other government employees under the purview of the Executive branch, should be loyal to their God, to their constitution, to their country, to their office, to their boss and co-workers, to their constituents whom they serve, to their military service and to the dreams and ideals upon which the United States was founded, and to which the Republic owes its survival. For the vast majority of the history of the United States, Loyalty was not a bad thing. Like military service, going to church, being a boy or girl scout, honoring your parents, good manners, politeness, honesty and a host of other desirable ideals and behaviors, Loyalty was and is considered a good thing. But the Hypocra...

I don't know if the folks at the consulting powerhouse PWC coined the terminology "Agentic AI" or if they merely picked it up elsewhere as a sub-topic of the many general AI conversations being had these days, but a PWC article is where I first became acquainted with this new terminology, thus I will aim my guns specifically at PWC, with the entire evolving AI industry also in my sights. The PWC article begs the questions: Do humans themselves possess autonomous agency? And would not the article have been better served if the idea of autonomy had been kept out of the conversation? I ask these questions while realizing that "autonomy" long has occupied the discussions of workplace theorists and historians as that word (autonomy) has been applied to workers of the human variety, making it inevitable that the issue of autonomy would worm its way into AI discussions. Regarding the first question, anyone trying to answer will, if thinking about the question more tha...