7 Quick Takes about Oven Ladies, How to Tell People You’ve Died, and Being Gaslit by Artificial Intelligence

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

This past Sunday in church, I subbed for the singing time leader and it was so, so fun. 

I love the Primary songs and the truisms they teach. I love finding ways to teach the gospel through fun games. And I love making the most of the short time we have to make church a blast for all the kids. Basically, I had a hard time going to sleep on Saturday I was so excited.

First, we played an Uno game to review a song and one kid asked “Can we play this again?” (That’s when you know it’s good.) Then we learned a new song and every time they sang a line, they got to go behind the bulletin board to my “super silly store” and pick something funny to put on their teacher.

I didn’t ask for the other teachers’ permission to post their picture, so here’s just Phillip and I from the group photo we took at the end:

Teachers with the owl mask, superhero cape, and Mandalorian helmet not pictured.

—2—

The older I get, the more I understand why old people don’t know how to use computers. My brain learned all the technology that it knows by age 40, and now sometimes when confronted with a new technology something inside of me says “I have understood enough things. There will be no more new things, thank you.” And then it flips over the ‘closed’ sign.

For example, I was trying to make an extremely simple spreadsheet, and after 10 minutes of puzzling over it I handed it to my daughter who did it in a second and a half. As long as she doesn’t make fun of me, though, I’m fine with that system of getting things done.

—3—

The 21-year-old came home from Japan! She’s been there for the last two months on a research internship. 

Not only was it great research experience, and not only did she get to be in monsoons, typhoons, and earthquakes, but she also had a lot of opportunity to use the limited Japanese she was able to learn in everyday life. One Sunday after church, she found herself in a conversation doing English-Japanese translation between a Mongolian who spoke Japanese and a German who spoke English, thinking, “How am I the one that this conversation is happening through??”

—4—

I let my kids get drinks at Starbucks, which is really unusual since I’m always the “we have food at home” mom. My 14-year-old thinks I’m joking if I suggest getting take out of any kind.

My 10-year-old looked ant his cup and asked, “Why is their logo a lady coming out of an oven?”

“What?” 

“She’s like, steaming.”

Well, that’s one way to look at it.

On a related note, this week I also had to give one of my kids pointers on how to open a soda can, so you can tell that happens even less than the Starbucks runs. It’s been a really educational summer over here so far.

—5—

I saw this sign on the door of a closed business and thought it was funny.

Sorry, we’re dead.

Actually, you know how in Take #2 I mentioned the sign in my mind when I have to learn a new technology? It’s actually this one.

—6—

Phillip and I took the kids to a new hiking trail that was recommended to us by Gemini (Google’s AI). But we couln’t find the trailhead, just an unmarked, unkempt dirt road that didn’t look like public property.

I pulled out my phone and asked Gemini, and the AI assured us that we were at the right place. It even gave detailed instructions of how we should follow the dirt road to the parking lot and walk 500 feet to the trailhead.

My daughter, meanwhile, was Googling it in the backseat and said, “Mom, it says here that the trail closed to the public a few years ago.”

Do you know how Gemini responded? It said “Your daughter is 100% correct, and I completely apologize for the wild goose chase!” It then gave me a long paragraph explaining exactly when and why the trail was closed, and asked if I would like other nearby trail recommendations instead. 

NO, I WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU RECOMMENDED THE TRAIL WHEN YOU OBVIOUSLY HAD ACCESS TO IN-DEPTH INFORMATION ABOUT ITS CLOSURE.

I said something to that effect, but it’s so unsatisfying trying to get AI to own up to its mistakes. No one can gaslight you like AI. No one.

—7—

Ironically, I’d just seen this guy pop up on my social media channels just a few days earlier, and it couldn’t be closer to the truth.

I can’t believe they trained AI on the entirety of human knowledge, but didn’t train it on how to say “I don’t know” when it doesn’t know something. It seems like that would have solved a lot of problems.

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