AI, Classic Boats, And The End Of The World. Again.
First things first. I am a HUGE fan of AI. Yup. I love it. I use it. And like it or not, it’s here and part of our lives now. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle. Chances are you’re already using AI somewhere and don’t even know it. And that’s fine. Some of us are old enough to remember when the first calculators showed up. My father brought one home from Japan in the 1970s, and it absolutely blew my mind. Microwave ovens? Same thing. Fax machines? BOOM. Email. The internet. Websites. Every few years, something new came along that changed the way we did things. Mind… BLOWN. Then blown again. And again.
And if you really want to dive deep into our little corner of the universe, let’s talk about Phillips-head screws. Now THERE was a game changer. (Although I’m sure someone, somewhere, is still arguing about them.) The fact is, humankind has always been pushing forward. Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes it’s bad. Usually, it’s a little of both. Everything has a yin and a yang. The trick is knowing when to use the new stuff, when to leave things alone, and when to put the darn thing down.
Be prepared
Of course, every big change comes with a healthy dose of doom and gloom. ALWAYS. For thousands of years, people have been predicting the end of civilization because something new came along. Remember Y2K? We were all supposed to wake up to a world that had fallen apart. Well… here we are.
I’m sure one day somebody will get a doomsday prediction right. But if you predict the end of the world often enough, I suppose eventually you’ll get your moment. That’s the thing about being a pessimist. You’re either wrong today or right tomorrow. Me? I’m a half-full kind of guy. I remain optimistic. I think. The Boatress helps keep that optimism within reasonable limits. There’s only so much nonsense one person can get away with.
Pre AI
Okay, okay. Enough about me and AI. How does any of this apply to our little world of classic boats? Actually, I think the answer is pretty simple.
Information. That’s where AI could make a huge, positive difference for us.Right now, AI gets much of its information from the internet. And let’s be honest, the internet can be a little wonky. Not everything you read is true, and not everything that sounds authoritative actually is. Especially when it comes to classic boats.Because our world isn’t just about facts and figures. It’s about people. It’s about knowledge passed from one boat builder to another, tricks learned the hard way, little secrets that never made it into a manual, and skills that lived inside the hands and heads of the people who built these boats. Back then, not everything was documented. Sometimes the information wasn’t written down at all. It was simply known. And that’s where things get interesting.
Building a wooden boat is as much an art as it is a science. It’s craftsmanship. It’s feel. It’s knowing when something looks right, sounds right, or just doesn’t feel right. You can’t always reduce that to a spreadsheet. Heck, the word craft is right there in the names. Chris-Craft, for example.
Three Smiths, and yet only one of them knows anything. And he is gone.. BUT not forgotten
So, can AI help preserve all that knowledge? Can it help us find answers that might otherwise disappear with the people who carry them? Can it connect the dots between old catalogs, forgotten photographs, restoration records, and the memories of the people who were actually there?
I think it can. But there’s a catch. And that’s where this story really begins. Actually, you know what? This is getting way too long for one story. Maybe it’s not one story at all. Maybe it’s a week of stories. And that’s probably a good thing. Because if we’re going to talk about AI and classic boats, there’s a lot more to this than a calculator from Japan and a Phillips-head screw.
Stay tuned.
The big thing that I am learning about AI (first pointed out to me by Shannon Knight) is that the real key is how you ask and frame your question.
In using AI I will ask a question and get a vague answer. At that point I reframe the question, possibly with more detail. The deeper and more detailed I go the better information I get back. It’s the old story of “Garbage in, Garbage out”.
Nailed it.
Garbage in; garbage out.
And It’s your responsibility to review the results.
I go back before the calculator from Japan!
I love using old rulers, After all an inch is still an inch
Just a thought, I know that’s dangerous. But, AI is only as good as the information it can access on the web. Like you said, so much of this info never gets recorded. As the old African? proverb goes “When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.” So follow me here, how soon can we start attaching probes (maybe not the best term) to individuals brain and start downloading the contents like we do old PC’s hard drives to transfer to our new “box”. You know that’s coming. And then…when do we start digging up graves and attaching probes to the deceased and capturing that lost information. I know Chris Smith (the 3rd?) was at least 3 libraries of information. I wish I knew the information in just one of his “books”. I know this is gruesome, but we’re almost at Halloween – celebrating those who have passed if you know anything about it. And how appropriate is the header?
When you think of the loss of many of our knowledgeable friends, the old African proverb comes to mind:
“When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground”……….and indeed, it does.
If that vast volume of human brain power can be downloaded to Ai before it’s lost, then yes, there is something good about Ai.
The problem with Ai is that there are no guardrails.
Sure, we can say slow down, no that’s illegal, legislation to law, well BS. China doesn’t give a damn and they’ll leapfrog the tech before we even know what hit us. So yes, we all better get on board real quick.
As quantum leaps in Ai now happen every day, I do remember the scene from when the machines became self aware and Skynet took over in the first “Terminator”.
Sure as hell hope a human will know to pull the plug and save our species, no matter the continent they’re on.
We were the 1st in our neighborhood to have a microwave oven. Dad & one of his racing friends, went Christmas shopping together. The Amana dealer had an attractive young lady demonstrating the new Radar Range. Santa brought one each for Mom & Mrs. Lucas. I remember the kids next door joining my brothers & I, to watch marshmallows quickly expand & then contract to a fraction of their initial size. Holiday break entertainment circa 1973.
I still have my old Amana dial microwave in the wall at my house. I of course have a more modern one but I still like looking at the old one which still works, not as efficient as the 3 rd or 4 th one I have had since back when they came out in the 70’s. I think that with AI, if you believe every word that you read then you are in real trouble because if you don’t have half a brain to reason what is correct and what is BS then you will have a hard time in life. Keep up the good work with the Woody Boater. I have a 18′ 1955 Continental which I will be showing at the Madisonville Wooden Boat Festival this weekend, I am going to be 86 in December. Keep on Boating till you can’t.
LP’s, 8 tracks, cassettes, CD’s, microwaves, video cameras, VHS then to DVD, I remember the first time a customer mentioned the “world wide web”. my high school graduation present was an electronic typewriter. In college, my roommate saved up for a PC and a dot matrix printer. WHOA!
AI has helped alot with scribing office visit conversations with patients. “Open Evidence” is an AI driven engine for medical information free with a medical license that reviews medical literature and studies for up to date information and you can even pick the depth it researches from a quick answer in less than a minute to more thoroughly researched answers that may take 5 min. That will greatly help the practice of medicine. My son’s in his Radiology residency and he has concerns how AI will impact him. I think it will be a helpful tool but it won’t ever replace Radiologists. Looking forward to how it is applied to the Antique/Classic boating world.
About a year ago a friend sent me this AI response about WoodyBoater.
At least today AI is getting smarter.
Here is today’s Chat GPT response
For me, it’s not so much that I have concerns about AI, it’s more that I have concerns about what some, shall we call them nefarious, folks can do with the rapid access to and analysis of information with AI. It also is getting to the point, rather quickly, that we will not know the truth of a particular matter, unless we are witness to it ourself. This is getting to be disturbing. I’m going back to watching the pretty leaves fall from the trees!
My grandsons can’t believe that for my 16th birthday I got the latest in technology, a portable transistor radio (AM only). I was thrilled to get it.