Current events

Well, that’s over with. I’m surprised by how exhausted I was. Dealing with humans really drains my battery.

I’m happy to say, no one was bitten. Well a few people were bitten. Actually a lot of people were bitten. Honestly I was like wolverine at an all you can eat buffet. But it’s okay, because everyone was fine… most people were fine… a lot of people survived the amputations and emergency triage… there were survivors. Anyway, the outbreak was contained, and or will be contained, or could be. Look, if you’re in Saskatchewan, there’s nothing to worry about, for a while. And anyway, if you’re in British Colombia, you’re safe behind the mountains, and you can escape overseas.

So it’s all cool.

On a serious note: I did the Dealer’s Room experience, many thanks to the unstoppable Casia Schreyer and Scarlett Kol, who let me share a table. I spent most of my time hiding out behind the table, a nine inch space because both Scarlet and Casia are supernaturally slender and Casia can achieve two dimensions if she holds her breath. It was great working with them.

It was good, we each sold a bunch of books. Talked to book lovers occasionally. R.J. Hore was there selling his books. We visited back and forth. I also dropped by and said hello to the two other book sellers. Nice people.

Reflections on the Dealer’s Room experience? It was definitely a nice networking experience and getting to know Casia and Scarlett., and talking shop with them and R.J. I hate to be the neophyte know it all, I might have some small ideas for doing it.

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THE FUTURE COMING AT US – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND YOU.

Recently, I did a presentation on Artificial Intelligence and the future of writing for the Manitoba Writers Guild. It was based somewhat on a presentation I did last year for the North American Science Fiction Convention held in Winnipeg.

I think it was a good presentation, running over two hours, and amounting to an intense discussion of what AI was, the current issues and problems, and where and how it was likely to affect Writers.

Anyway, the Manitoba Writer’s Guild recorded it for Zoom, and since the Zoom was made available, my friend, Dean Naday, producer and partner for The Attick edited a half hour summary. I think he did a great job.

The discussions around Artificial Intelligence are huge, we’re barely even beginning to grasp the right questions to ask, even while it all runs away on us. It may literally change every aspect of our lives. The potential is undefined, and at its widest scope, terrifying.

Artificial Intelligence and Writers, how it affects us, how it affects our livelihood and our hopes for our craft is a small part of the story. Hopefully, I’ve done it justice and not gotten too many things wrong. I suspect that the future is coming at us very fast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec90tgllb0w

Sorry about the title. I couldn’t help myself. Oddly, when I went to see it on a Wednesday evening after a few weeks running, the theatre was unexpectedly full, so it does seem to have a buzz.

Anyway, I walked into the beekeeper and expected it to be silly violent trash. And it was! Don’t get me wrong about that. Totally silly violent trash. Met all expectations in that regard.

But here’s the interesting thing.

It was actually about something. Not bees, that’s the excuse for a lot of silly puns.

There was stuff going on, thinking-type stuff: The central idea of the beekeeper, is that we’re all prey. That all of are literally at the mercy of predators looking to strip us bare, and that the people and agency we are actually relying on to protect us either aren’t doing it, can’t be bothered, or are actually in on it.

There are actually ideas here.

And a lot of violence. Crazy amounts of violence.

But yeah, dig down, there’s an idea powering all that violent energy, like a nuclear reactor with a pile of sweaty men on top of it.

The opening is all about this nice little old retired lady. She gets a pop up on her computer, it’s a phishing expedition, and before you know it, scammers strip mine her entire life savings. She’s us. She’s all of us. She’s everyone.

Most of us own a computer, a lap top, a smart phone or something, The one thing we all have in common is phishing attempts. Scammers trying to get through at us. Count them up. I’m probably getting a thousand phishing attempts a year, maybe ten thousand, on my phone, in my emails, sent to me through social media. I can’t go on facebook without fighting my way through a cloud of paid advertisers most of them running scams. We’re literally walking around in a blizzard of this stuff.

And you know what? You’re screwed. You hear about giant corporations, law firms, businesses of all kinds getting hit with scams and hackers. They have IT departments, they have teams of professionals up on the latest hijinx, and they get hit all the time.

Well, you don’t have an IT department. At best, you’re an average shlub wandering around, with a bunch of electronics we use but barely understand, in the middle of all this. We’re roadkill. Odds are, sooner or later, at some point in your life. You’re going to get hit, and hopefully you’ll be lucky. But none of us are safe.

And there’s no law enforcement to speak of. There’s no protection. If you get your credit card scammed, your bank account lifted, if you get held ransom by malware… no one is going to do anything. Not the police, not the NSA or CIA. You’re on your own, buddy. Outnumbered, outgunned, outthought, getting hit on a thousand or ten thousand times a year, year after year. And no matter how smart you are, you only have to make a mistake once, and they’re in.

This is what the beekeeper is all about. It’s about the fact that it’s wall to wall predators out there, people ready to strip you of your life savings, always prying and pushing, always waiting for you to make that mistake, and you’re… Alone. You’re prey.

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