As we start this journey of 26 posts all about dinosaurs, you may have noticed that A does not start with a kind of dinosaur. This is not going to be about 26 different dinosaurs, although I promise I will throw in a few. So A is not for Apatosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Albertosaurus, or even Archosaur. This A is about how dinosaurs were grouped and identified as dinosaurs.
So one thing to know, even before I say more about what the ant-orbit-a-whatchamacallit, is that these posts are going to wrestle with questions about dinosaurs, such as:
What made a dinosaur a dinosaur?
Where did the dinosaurs come from? And where did they go?
What did they look like?
How did they behave?
And, most of all, how do we know?
In other words, I’m going to talk about the things that dinosaurs did. Their habits. Their loves and losses.. well, maybe not that. But the dinosaur ouvre, so to speak (i.e. their “body of work.” Body get it?) Since they lived 200 million years ago, it gets a little tricky trying to guess. But you would be surprised at what those clever scientists who study bones can figure out, just from the bones.
Da king! The Rex man! From the Dinosaur Journey museum, Fruita, CO. Photo by kajmeister.
I’ll tell you in advance–I’m going to cheat.
We are on the brink of April, which means it’s time for bloggers in the know to dust off their keyboards and prepare to write 26 posts on a theme. It’s also traditional to do a theme reveal.
In the past four years, I have covered the Olympics, accounting, the Renaissance, and the Silk Road. Heavy, heavy history the last two years. Yes, I know you love it — but I have to do something a litttttttttle different. Can’t be all history, all the time!
How about a little science, and I promise to make it science-y history.
DINOSAURS.
You kind of got it from the picture, I suspect.
I’ve been threatening. I’ve been pleading. I’ve been hinting for the last few years that I might just write about dinosaurs because I love ’em, and I hope you will, too. I have trekked across half a dozen dinosaur museums, as many fossil beds, gift shops, exhibits and so on. Often dragged my wife, sometimes my kids. (Does Big Foot count? Of course not! What about Godzilla? Well, let’s wait till the letter G and find out!)
Why put myself through this?
I gotta tell ya. This is not an easy lift. It’s a month-long commitment, and I’m going into a month where I already have commitments. My master’s thesis is due this coming week (and it needs work!!!!) I agreed to an editing/QA gig on an upcoming business and economics course, I’m still doing people’s taxes, preparing for a conference. I don’t have time for this!
Writers, you know the drill. If you want to write, you got to write.
Why do it? I wrote about the Olympics during the pandemic, it led to a book. Wrote about accounting–guess what the topic of my thesis is? Wrote about the Renaissance–worked it into my thesis. Wrote a published essay on the Mongols and the Silk Road… when you produce, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Writers also know. Never throw away your edits.
I do this because creativity is like a positive kind of algae. It breeds on itself. When you don’t produce, it gets harder to start every time you try.
But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to manage 26 posts within the month. There might be cheating toward the end of the month … a little slippage into May. Mea culpa in advance. And these first few might be shorter and breezier (chatty, like this one) rather than as scientific as I may have wanted. I suspect y’all prefer them to be a little more off-the cuff. Shorter if I can do it.
From the Royal Tyrell Museum, Alberta, CA. Photo by kajmeister.
A starts tomorrow. Will it be Apatosaurus? Abrosaurus? Acanthopolis? Archosaur? Anatomy? Alberta? one of the best sites in the world is up in Alberta… just sayin’.
Image created by the AI Art Generator. See explanation below.
Rampant fear or unquestioning enthusiasm. These seem to be the two fundamental attitudes people have about Generative AI models. Programs like Chat GPT, Bloom, and Replika are demonstrating the power, potential, and problems associated with having technology that seems to talk. Aside from getting some definitional clarity around what Chat/AI is and is not, I present here a couple of Use Cases. They may inspire in you, as they have in me, both fear and enthusiasm.
Let’s Call It What It Is: Simulated Talking
A few definitions might be in order. First of all, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a large field, so let’s be clear that AI and Generative AI are different things. AI models are ones where you feed in data to get recommendations and predictions. We use simple models and algorithms ourselves, for instance, checking the weather by looking outside; that’s an unsophisticated algorithm that isn’t terribly predictive. In the past, computer models were similarly limited. They broke down fairly quickly if the variables got complicated or the model tried to look too far in the future. I can guess the weather in an hour, but what about next Sunday at 11 am, when I want to play pickleball? AI means that the models are big enough and full of enough data that the predictive accuracy is far beyond what computers “used” to predict. A self-driving car might be an example of AI. It’s not creating text or art, but it needs a huge influx of data and sophisticated decision-making capabilities in order to navigate a very complex environment.
Generative AI, which I’ll also call Chat/AI here, is a model that can create “new” content as part of its predictive output. You feed it tons of examples, and it creates something “new” or seems new, based on previous human-created patterns that made sense. The following example came from Prof. Louis Hyman, who will be discussed below. Suppose you asked Chat/AI to fill in the cat sat on the ____. The model might suggest floor, chair, lap, or mat. But mat might be the highest likelihood, perhaps 50%, so the generative AI picks that word.
