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Fear

Am I a Luddite?

by Ron Potter March 23, 2023

I’m really sure I’m not a Troglodyte. For one, I can’t grow a beard. For two, my forehead is too big. But more importantly, our current definition of a Troglodyte is: a person who is regarded as being deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned. I may be old-fashioned but I really try not to be ignorant.

I also don’t think I’m a Luddite. Unfortunately, Luddites don’t know that they are Luddites.

I haven’t been afraid of too many things in my life. I’ve shared in previous blogs how my first job out of engineering school had me walking structural steel up to 160′ in the air with no safety equipment. I was terrified my first day and told the chief engineer that I couldn’t do it. He said, “Give it two weeks and if you’re still struggling, I’ll find another job for you.” Two weeks later I could do it. I had overcome my fear (although I was still very cautious).

Computer Fear

A lot of people were very fearful of computers taking over our lives when they first appeared. I remember seeing my first Osborne “portable” computer in about 1981.

It had two floppy drives and a 5” blue screen. I was watching it run Visicalc, a precursor to Microsoft Excel. I saw this first microcomputer at a Las Vegas exhibit. I flew home and went to my boss and told him I was leaving the construction industry and going into microcomputers. He said, “What’s a microcomputer?” I said, hang on, you’ll find out.

While microcomputers frightened a lot of people, I was not worried. It still took a human to control them.

Technology Adapter

I was an early adaptor in a lot of technology. I recently showed you my Curta Computer. When I show people even today, many of them have never seen one.

I was an early adapter of Blackberry phones. The first one I owned came out about three months after Research in Motion introduced them.

I was really quite comfortable with technology and its advances until last week.

ChatGPT and the Printing Press

I meet with a small group of guys about every week and we discuss whatever is on our minds. One of the guys asked if we were familiar with “ChatGPT.” I, like most of the group, said no. However, I said no because the technology scared me and I had simply avoided it. For the first time, I was afraid of technology because it seems like it has crossed that barrier of requiring human control.

There is a Wall Street Journal article with the title “ChatPGT Hearlds an Intellectual Revolution.” The opening paragraph of the article says, “A new technology bids to transform cognitive process as it has not been shaken since the invention of printing.” The article talks about the technology revolution that was introduced when Gutenberg printed the Bible on his press in 1455.

When I was in Germany years ago, I went to see the Gutenberg press and some of the documents it printed. Those documents were beautifully illustrated pages from the Bible. To me, it seemed like a wonderful invention in history. But I know that at the time it frightened many people. There was no instrument that could reproduce the written word and the fact you could now do it seemed almost evil. I hope I’m not reacting the same way to ChatPGT, so I’ve tried to educate myself about the technology.

GPT

GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. The WSJ makes several interesting observations.

ChatGPT statements and observations appear without an explanation of where they came from and without an identifiable author.
Answers are not simply copied from the text in the computer’s memory. They are generated anew by a process that humans are unable to replicate.
Within a few days of ChatGPT’s launch, more than a million people signed up to ask questions.
The WSJ asked ChatGPT to give “six references on Henry Kissinger’s thoughts on technology.” All were plausible: one was a real title and the rest were convincing fabrications!
As models turn from human-generated text to more inclusive inputs, machines are likely to alter the fabric of reality.
What happens if this technology cannot be completely controlled? What if there will always be ways to generate falsehoods, false pictures, and fake videos, and people will never learn to disbelieve what they see and hear?

Timnit Gebru

One ray of hope for me is a woman by the name of Timnit Gebru. Ms. Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR). Much of her work involves the ways AI (Artificial Intelligence) programs can reinforce existing prejudices. She says, “We talk about algorithms, but we don’t talk about who’s constructing the data set or who’s in the data set.” Go Timnit, I’m pulling for you!

So, I’m afraid. For the first time in my life, I’m worried about technology running our lives rather than us using technology to enhance our lives. Is ChatGPT the start of it? Timnit Gebru spends her days looking at and learning about what is going on with AI. She expected AI to one day power much of our lives. But she didn’t believe it would happen this quickly.

Luddites

Who were the Luddites? Many people think they were small-brained and stupid. They were not. Many people get them confused with the Troglodyte. I spoke above about the Troglodytes being deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned. Luddites were the craftsmen of the day.

The Luddites protested against manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste, as machines would replace their role in the industry. Ned Ludd was an apprentice who allegedly smashed two stocking frames in 1779 and whose name had become emblematic of machine destroyers.

I don’t believe I’m a Luddite. Although I’ve learned and used technology from the time it was invented, I don’t want to destroy it. I do however want it to remain under human control rather than humans being under the control of technology. The good news is that God is the one who is really in control of Troglodytes, Luddites, humans, and machines. He’s the one in control and that comforts me even when I’m worried about the machines taking over.

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Firsts

by Ron Potter December 1, 2022

We received a card the other day and in the card, and they mentioned that they missed my blogs. It was not my intention to stop blogging, it’s just that my health issues have left me with the inability of producing weekly blogs as I have done for years. It takes more “thinking” than I have the ability to accomplish and it has left me with typing skills that are almost non-existent. That lead me to remember those “first” things I ever did. Much of the world was ahead of me on many of these fronts but they were “firsts” for me.

Typing Class in High School

I attended a very small high school. One of the skills I thought would be useful for me in college and beyond was typing so I joined my high school typing class. I was the only boy in the room and because I was the fastest and most accurate I was at the head of my class. Unfortunately, that upset the girls in the class as they prepared to become secretaries and typists in the business world. They didn’t have a lot of opportunities in the business world when we were graduating.

Survey Class in My First Couple Years of College

One of my early classes in college was a survey class. At the time we would have to go into the field and run a survey circuit. We would make notes during the survey and then return to the classroom and use a hand crank Friden Calculator to check all of our notes and make sure our math “closed.” If your work “closed,” great. If not, back to the field to start over. It was very time-consuming and I felt I needed to find a better way.

I had started to hear about a Curta Calculator on the road race circuit. They used it to calculate the speed needed to hit their next point as accurately as possible. Now I could go into the field, take all my notes, then sit under a tree and use my Curta to check my math. I still own my Curta over 50 years later.

Structural Steel (Walking)

My first job out of engineering school was walking structural steel on a power plant. I worked as high as 160′ in the air. That’s approximately a 16-story building. Back then, there was no safety harness belt or any netting below me. Just me, the breeze, my instruments, and an 8-inch beam to walk on. It was a terrifying experience but I had a wise chief engineer.

When I went to him after that first day of terror and told him I couldn’t do that, he asked me to spend two weeks doing the best I could at my job up on the steel. If I still wanted off the steel, he would find me another job to accomplish. His wisdom came with the fact that after two weeks, I could do the job. There were still terrifying moments but I learned a great deal about facing my fears and what my fears were.

Introducing Computers

I had finished my bachelor’s degree at Michigan on a slide rule. I still own my Pickett from those days. Several years later I was teaching a course in the graduate engineering school at the University of Utah. None of the students had seen or touched a computer yet. I introduced them to computers and had them working on a program for scheduling that I had hired a friend of mine to write. Soon after, microcomputers were introduced and the computer age began.

Blackberry

In the late 90s, a company called Research in Motion (RIM) introduced what they called the Blackberry. I was blown away. RIM introduced the Blackberry publically in late 1999 (December?). I purchased my first one within months of that introduction.

Consulting with Executives

After years in engineering and software, I decided that I wanted to become a consultant. I started with a partner who has been in the business and learned “the ropes.” Eventually, I struck out on my own and named my company TLC standing for Team, Leadership, Culture.

I was working with one of my first CEOs and we had just finished a session with members of his teams from around the world. It was just him and me in his office that evening and he said,

You helped me to build that global team more than I could have imagined.
You’ve taught me more about being a leader than I’ve ever seen in the leaders I’ve worked for.
Today you helped me build more of that into the culture of the company than I could believe.

At that point, I was feeling pretty good about my TLC company. Then he said, “Dut your real value is…”!! I was shaken. I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. He had just covered every point of TLC. He finished, “Your real value is when we talk like this.” That’s when I learned that corporate leaders needed someone they could talk with, someone they could trust, and someone they could express their fears with. That was my greatest value.

Dictate in Word

Because of the deterioration of my typing skills I needed to find a new way to create blogs other than just typing them out. I discovered that Microsoft Word has a dictate section. I’m now learning how to talk with MS Word and convert it into text for publishing my blogs.

My “Firsts”

I’m sure there are others but the ones that came to mind for this blog included:

Typing Class
Survey Class
Learning about my fears on the structural steel
Computers and Blackberrys
Being a sounding board for executives
Converting my spoken word to the written word

Our “firsts” help determine who we are. They shape us and form us. Think about the “firsts” you’re accomplished or even walked away from. You’ll discover a lot about who you are.

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Blog Personal

Chart Your Path

by Ron Potter August 11, 2022

I met Ashira Jones many years ago and she has always been a very stimulating force in my life. I like the way she thinks and I like the way she acts. She has a blog that you can find by using her name.

Curious

This is from an old blog of hers but it seemed appropriate for my circumstances at the moment. The title is “Stay the course or chart your own path?” I mentioned that my life had become too self-centered with the illness I was dealing with. This list from Ashira is a good list about curiosity that can help you break out of that funk.

She says that if you pause to consider what you REALLY want in life, ask yourself these questions.

1. Are you where you want to be in life? If not, what’s missing?

It’s so easy to live our life by default. We roll with what comes along without thinking about what we want in life or where we should be.

I have another close friend, Fritz Seyferth. Fritz is a Team Culture Coach. His book is The Shift from Me to Team. He is an incredible consultant and has helped many people and teams better themselves. However, years ago we were talking about the percentage that really wants to get better. It was purely a guess but the consultants around the table felt that if we were moving 6% of the people to 7%, we were probably doing well. Are you a part of that 6-7% or are you just floating along? As Ashira questions, are you what you want to be in life?

2. Is lifestyle creep limiting your options?

This is an interesting point that Ashira makes. She says that lifestyle creep happens when increased income leads to discretionary spending.

It’s interesting to me because I retired (to a fixed income) several years ago. Up to the point of retirement, I never thought very much about my spending. While I didn’t get extremely extravagant, I did spend whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to without much thought. Looking back I probably should have saved more and I certainly should have given away more. Was lifestyle creep limiting my options? Yes, I let it.

3. Can you articulate your top values?

I believe my values have always been relatively clear to me. They probably could have been more focused.

Ashira talks about autonomy being at the top of her list. I can see that in her. She makes decisions that support and lives a life that supports that. That might have been one of the reasons I’ve considered her an influential force in my life.

4. What patterns do you notice in your most frequent thoughts?

When I’m sitting and staring into space, my wife will often ask me what I’m thinking. Sometimes it may take me a few minutes to put it into words but I am definitely in deep thought.

Unfortunately, I see too many people who are either afraid of being alone with their thoughts or just never developed the habit of paying attention to them. Our social media with powerful computers in our hands has given people too many distractions. It’s easy to avoid your own thoughts or spending any time contemplating what they mean to you. That’s a very dangerous place to be.

5. What are you afraid of?

Ashira makes a really good point on this subject. Fear can be very real. However, if it’s examined you’ll notice some fears are real and other fears are fake.

When I was a young engineer, one of my first jobs was walking steel (6 to 8 inches wide), sometimes as high as 200 feet in the air. There were no nets or safety belts. It was a fearful situation and the fear was real. Making a wrong turn in a car or wondering if someone else approves of your decisions can also be fearful but it’s a false fear within your own head. Be very careful of your fears. Sort them out, which are real, which are false. Life will be easier when you’re clear.

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