If You Go Out In The Woods Today

Looking up with Leo Dodd in Edmunds Woods 2015
Looking up with Leo Dodd in Edmunds Woods 2015

You won’t find Edmunds Woods on a map of Rochester. This tiny, mostly overlooked wooded area was once part of the Edmunds farm property on Westfall Road. The woods is nestled between highway cloverleaves, medical buildings and Brighton recreation fields. My father fell in love with this place while unearthing Brighton’s neglected history and he gave it the name, “Edmunds Woods.” Right now, before the trees shown in the photo above fill in, the forest floor here is full of wildflowers. It is a privilege to recall visiting the woods with him.

I imagine my father would be all over the AI chatbot technology. He was always excited about what was coming down the road and usually was ahead of tech curve. He had a Mac II before us. We set type on his computer before getting our own, machines that revolutionized our lives.

As people worry that the AI chatbot technology could flood Facebook groups with disinformation, degrade critical thinking and erode the factual foundation of modern society, Cade Metz from NYT says “Think of the chatbots as jazz musicians. They can digest huge amounts of information – like, say, every song that has ever been written – and then riff on the results. They have the ability to stitch together ideas in surprising and creative ways. But they also play wrong notes with absolute confidence.” And why shouldn’t they. Miles already told us, “There is no such thing as a wrong note.”

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