Mel Hopkins

Yep! Not sure if true but I've read that is how Black People survived the Stock Market Crash in 1929 They didn't just sell their labor, they sold goods too -and since they weren't allowed to Bank they had cash! But yes, trading needs to be back on the table. I don't mean bartering either but trading for goods and services like the stock exchange. People participate in the economy as holders of assets, not as employees. We definitely need to pivot! Here I AM

Naiiled it! And guess where the majority of Black people live? FULTON COUNTY!!!

Oh, and unfortunately, many have already been replaced to some degree due to IoT and sensors, which reduce the need for repairs. But the argument is NOT AI vs Humans...It's about those who write the check and how they choose to use their money, For example, trades are not exempt from disruption. AI, IoT, and sensors already: Reduce emergency repairs through predictive maintenance Automate diagnostics (“the system tells you what failed”) Enable remote monitoring that replaces some inspection labor Shift work from repair → installation + oversight Reduce total labor hours per job I know this because I'm an editorial consultant to the inventor who designed a system on a chip (SoC) AI to know when a part is about to wear out before it causes a problem. However, this does not eliminate trade, but it changes the volume, timing, and skill mix of the work. So fewer call-outs, fewer apprentices, fewer “learn-on-the-job” roles—especially at the lower end. Once again, hourly rates diminish, possibly to the level of gig workers. It might be too late for us to change course, but I assure you our current problems have nothing to do with Artificial Intelligence. We, humans, are solely to blame for this current predicament.

@ProfD Rationalization is a human characteristic—not logic, which is the basis of machine learning and the way AI is trained. Generative AI does not plagiarize; it trains on information. All anyone has to do is ask for a source, and it provides one. It is up to humans not to be lazy and to actually check the source provided. Humans co-opt AI to copy copyrighted text—as usual, unscrupulous people behave unscrupulously. Plagiarism will not be able to displace millions of workers. But human employers will absolutely try to reduce the workforce. That has been the goal all along: reduce the middle class and leave only the poor and the billionaires. And sadly, stupid and ignorant human behavior has made that possible. There was no integrated Gen AI or LLM when workers rejected labor unions—that was human intelligence (or lack thereof). There was no integrated Gen AI when the Supreme Court ended affirmative action, weakened the Voting Rights Act, or declared corporations to be people. AI did not replace 600,000 Black women in the workforce. No—humans did that, because people couldn’t get off their asses and vote for a Black woman. Many said they didn’t want a “top cop” in the White House, so they chose the felon instead. Humans always look for a scapegoat. But really, all they need to do is look in the mirror.

Pattern recognition is GEN AI and LLM strong suit. But why the heck would you continue down a path where it is weak? Whenever someone posts about Gen AI I learn so much about human behavioral patterns. Although AI doesn't train off our chats it seems that the ML engineers do get enough information to train AI to provide better responses.

I love this both this topic and all the responses! Da Bears! (even though I don't patronize the NFL anymore) But its hard not to when my daughter and son-in-law keep sending me videos from the games! Chicago Bear Fight Song

Oh, wait, maybe I was being assumptious - especially since both you and Delano said AI was flattering, and I haven't seen any of that behavior. Did you select a tone? - Every so often, it asks if I like the tone of the response. In this case Zipf's Law, the response wasn't flattery; it explained the formula, then it showed how I didn't become a victim of programming. Regarding hallucination, what we might think is hallucination may sometimes be a result of AI having access to obscure information. So it is also best to ask for proof. I found that I didn't have the latest information on something that had recently changed. So I asked for sources. It turned out to be correct when the accreditation group issued a press release that I was unaware of. The last time it hallucinated was about a book I was reading - I believe the model trained on a draft or galley - and I only had the final version. Here's the exchange from my prompt discussing "Good Dirt" by Charmaine Wilkerson from the perspective of the Hero's journey. Background: I believe the character Ebby Freeman (Good Dirt) follows the path of Jamie Mae Crawford from "Their Eyes were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston. So, is the following flattery? Or a normal response?

Exactly!

Don't let anyone tell you "writing and reading" doesn't pay. My gigs all required me to write, read, research, report, prepare corporate communication and integrated marketing communication strategies, manage brands, and produce consumer-facing journalism. At LaSalle Bank, ABN AMRO, the bank's parent company, wanted them to implement a sustainability program, so they hired me to build the project. I worked as a project specialist in civic and community development dept at LaSalle Bank. It was a very high-profile gig. - I wrote speeches for the CEO when he had to speak to nonprofit groups in Chicago; I prepared and produced PSAs for the Chicago Foundation for Women. It was a lot of outreach and planning. Best job ever, and I met Michelle Obama at the CFW luncheon. But here's the key to manifesting your dream position. In short, when considering employment, you don't apply for jobs; instead, you provide solutions to business problems. I did my homework and pitched solutions. BUT you also need to fit some unwritten role and requirement. I didn't find out what that was until later. (And I don't want to say what that thing is, but it's not race or gender-related) After United emerged from bankruptcy, it expanded its customer profile. This new business model meant they needed flight attendants who were fluent in communicating with all levels of the flying public. From Corporate CEOS to Government Officials to the occasional family on vacation, they wanted to cater to these groups. - So folks in my flight attendant class came from various backgrounds, including burnt-out lawyers, healthcare professionals, actors, even a retired judge - and me, a lovelorn, heartbroken novelist whose book was quickly dropping in rank on the am*zon list. I needed to get away!

Really 2025? By now, AI can access all information, including research papers, some academic dissertations, peer-reviewed academic journals, and more, not just what Machine Learning engineers trained it on before 2022. So that's unusual. What brand did you use -Google's Gemini, ChatGPT, NotebookLLM? Anthropic's Claude or Copilot? I found errors with Copilot in Bing's search back in 2024, and even a few hiccups depending on how you word your prompt, but for the most part, I've found it reliable, even in software design.

I wonder if that's why Caesar created January 1 New Year - many businesses now end their fiscal year in December - Hmm. I remember working for LaSalle Bank and we had a lot of extra cash to donate because December was the end of the fiscal year. But now that you mention that my favorite equinox (I'm nearly an autumn baby) is end of fiscal year-maybe that's why Bank of America bought them up. Oh snap the U.S. Government which is now 38.5 trillion dollars in debt fiscal year ends Sept 30. I dunno, I may have to switch my fiscal year end - let me do so reading lol

Interesting. I always ask for Works cited in MLA format - then I follow up with the library's online academic journal database. Or was this before 2023? Whenever I hear AI stories like this it tells me a lot about how people are using GEN AI because it mirrors the users' patterns and behaviors. So in this case were you in test mode? I find pushback is helpful because it forces GEN AI to go deep - It will be generic at first because it meets users where they are. Yes my Chat is polite - flaterring, not so much. I'm competitive, so the way ChatGPT works to keep me engage is by offering options to best itself. My favorite lines to it, are "pause and bookmark." Still, I'm not above feeling superior however. But it comes at the cost of hearing how other people use AI. In my circle, there isn't any one at my level yet. So, I feel good about my AI engagement since my productivity is way up with chatgpt/gemini/notebook. But that feeling was fleeting after coming across this from the Wall Street Journal. Do you know Y-Combinator gets about 10,000 applicants per "batch" And now these teens get access while buidling businesses to watch before they even graduate high school. These Teenagers Are Already Running Their Own AI Companies They might not yet drive, but they’re getting an early start in business by leveraging vibe-coding and social media By Katherine Bindley Follow Dec. 21, 2025 8:00 pm ET Nick Dobroshinsky built an AI-powered finance tool with more than 50,000 monthly users, but he’s still just a sophomore in high school. Grant Hindsley for WSJ Like any good tech founder, Nick Dobroshinsky puts in late nights and early mornings working on his startup. But this particular founder doesn’t have much choice: Between 8 a.m. and 2:55 p.m., he’s in high school. He’s 15. “Around the end of eighth grade, I wanted to make some sort of business,” says Dobroshinsky, a sophomore in Sammamish, Wash. “I just spent a long time thinking about what problems there are that could be fixed with AI.” With a little market-research help from his mom, who works in finance, and some early technical guidance from his dad, who works in AI at a big tech company, he landed on the idea of using AI models to generate reports on small- and mid-cap publicly traded companies. The result is BeyondSPX, an AI-based financial research platform. Young and hungry entrepreneurs are nothing new: Bill Gates was 19 when he co-founded Microsoft; Mark Zuckerberg was the same age when he started Facebook. But today’s founders might well have a learner’s permit and a mouthful of braces. Some got their start attending robotics camps, or building games on Roblox’s platform. One got his feet wet breaking into candy distribution. (Ever considered selling Gobstoppers to middle-schoolers in Singapore? It’s a cash cow.) AI has fast-tracked both their interest in building a company and their ability to do it. Startup incubator Y Combinator doesn’t have age minimums to apply. Posting the right type of content might draw the attention of venture-capital firms on the lookout for young talent. VCs might not be ready to hand you millions, but they would like to get to know you and perhaps stay in touch. Dobroshinsky says he has only handled around 10 lines of code and doesn’t have any employees: He prompts Anthropic’s Claude to generate the software and uses a combination of models including ChatGPT and Gemini. He doesn’t currently see the value in recruiting a marketing team. Notes from early days of BeyondSPX, 15-year-old Nick Dobroshinsky’s AI-powered, web-based small- and mid-cap stock research tool.Grant Hindsley for The Wall Street Journal “I use Reddit bots,” he says. “If someone asks for the best investing tools, then my bot will comment, ‘There’s a bunch of investing tools and BeyondSPX is one of them.’” He says he now has more than 50,000 monthly users on the platform, which is free. Dobroshinsky plans to start charging users eventually. Greystone Logistics, a company covered by BeyondSPX, put out a press release touting the independent analysis. “I actually thought to myself, ‘Maybe this guy just unleashed AI on every small-cap company,’” says Brendan Hopkins, an independent investor-relations consultant who works with Greystone. “I said, well, it’s a really good synopsis and it’s pretty positive, let’s put it out there,” he says. He didn’t know the platform’s founder was 15. Kulveer Taggar, a venture capitalist based in San Francisco, says the age of founders has been trending down over the past few years—around the same time frame that ChatGPT and Claude became popular. It’s more common for him to get cold business-pitch emails from teens. Taggar says that is partially because building great software at scale is getting easier now. And while distribution is still a challenge, he says, younger founders might have it in their heads that if they’ve mastered TikTok or X, they can handle that part, too. There’s an impatience and a mentality of, “I can’t wait X amount of years to do it. The opportunity is now,” says Taggar, adding, “There’s definitely something about AI making it feel like you can just learn very quickly.” Raghav Arora, co-founder of the GetASAP grocery-inventory delivery service, got his start by selling American candy to his classmates in Singapore. Raghav Arora One company Taggar invested in was co-founded by Raghav Arora, who was accepted into Y Combinator in May as a 16-year-old. Arora launched his first entrepreneurial venture as a student in Singapore. He tracked down U.S. candy that was hard to find in Asia and sold it to his classmates. It earned him good cash (and three days of detention). The endeavor taught him the ropes of product distribution, and how to maximize profit by cutting out middlemen. He started selling to mom-and-pop grocers in Singapore, too. https://www.wsj.com/business/entrepreneurship/teenage-founders-ecb9cbd3?st=YxKDfW&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink Happy New Year Brotha @ProfD ! Thank you! Trust, I have to remind myself of that daily! LOL My comment was a huge note to self!

Absolutely - equinox and solstices are the real observances...

No one knows "nothing," and that's what makes life fun! We get to ponder, test, and sometimes, when we stay focused, we can win prizes! I posted a link to one of the YouTube channels I watch to see what others have been able to prove, for now, in the world of Quantum Mechanics. The YouTuber started strong, but he lost the plot for a minute, then he returned to the story. My problem with some Western physicists is that they forget to look back to the land of our origin. It appears that, long before Western Physicists came up with Quanta, Ancient Africans referred to this field as "The Net," the energy matrix, the field of living energy behind all physical reality. Neter were the conscious forces of nature, the Divine powers/principles manifested through natural forms. Masters of the Net used thought to shape physical reality. Similarities between The Net and Quanta include: All existence is interconnected. - Africans have several words for this concept, including umoja (unity) and ubuntu (which shares the philosophy "I am because we are..."). Consciousness and intention shape reality, much like the observer effect in quantum mechanics, And matter is a manifestation of spiritual energy. Both Quanta and Neter suggest that an intelligent energy field underpins the physical world. Medu Neter, the divine language, embodies this idea, showing that spiritual energy manifests as matter. Recognizing these parallels enriches my view of how ancient African spirituality aligns with modern quantum theories, emphasizing interconnectedness and the role of consciousness in shaping reality. All that to say, whenever the conversation turns to the Western concept of quantum mechanics, I always go back to the source, "The Net" and Ancient African spirituality. Thank you again!