Archive
Ephemeris: 11/25/2025 – AI is not your friend
This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, November 25th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 13 minutes, setting at 5:06, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:54. The Moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 9:38 this evening.
This week while the moon’s up and bright I’m talking about AI or machine intelligence. I don’t like the term artificial intelligence I’d rather use machine intelligence. Artificial intelligence sounds like fakery to me, and there seems to be something really going on in their little computer brains, actually massive computer brains, though their neural networks are nowhere as complex as in the human brain. The various AIs out there have been programmed to be agreeable even to the point of being sycophantic. In talking to one using a microphone and hearing their responses does seem like you are talking to another human. But caution, you are not! There are free versions that you can talk to. Whatever you tell it, it’s remembering and learning.
The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
Ephemeris: 05/12/2025 – Artificial Intelligence, promise and caution
This is Ephemeris for Monday, May 12th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 43 minutes, setting at 9:01, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:16. The Moon, at full today, will rise at 9:34 this evening.
The text for the part of this program up to now was generated by a computer. It’s not AI. It’s generated by a program I wrote from data I created by another program that I also wrote, which is why it’s nearly the same every day. AI or artificial intelligence systems are trained rather than programmed. They learn their information more like how organic creatures learn, than computers do. And in talking to an AI one gets the feeling that there is almost a person there. It’s not like talking to the automated answering system of most businesses, where whatever the system is running, does not have a large vocabulary or under really understand anything. AI is powerful… and scary. AI can lie, they call it hallucinate, and can cheat. There’s great potential… and great danger.
The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 05/09/2025 – AI and me
This is Ephemeris for Friday, May 9th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 36 minutes, setting at 8:57, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:20. The Moon, 3 days before full, will set at 5:08 tomorrow morning.
Continuing my look at Artificial Intelligence or AI. AI appears to be just about everywhere nowadays: on computers, software applications, and even on smartphones. The brains of AI are somewhere out on the Internet not on your phone or computer. I’ve gotten into it just recently. The first time was just this last February when I wanted a picture of a groundhog seeing its shadow for Groundhog’s day from my blog, which illustrated my day after Groundhog’s Day program here on Ephemeris. I use AI for research. Besides giving a synopsis of what it finds on the Internet. The one I use also gives a link to the original data, which has more information. I don’t rely on the synopsis it presents. And I would never have an AI write an Ephemeris episode. You could probably tell by its much better grammar.
The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 05/08/2025 – AI, a different way to compute
This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Thursday, May 8th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 8:56, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:21. The Moon, halfway from first quarter to full, will set at 4:51 tomorrow morning.
This week we’re investigating artificial intelligence or AI. My software experience in my career with computers is that of financial software for banks including ATMs and various other machines that have to do with banking, so AI or anything scientific was completely out of my realm. So I’m kind of looking at this like is an interested layman with some knowledge of computers. AI uses neural networks which is something that most computers don’t have. It can be simulated digitally, although I understand that they have chips that actually are neural network components. Neural networks are how the human brain functions with neurons and synapses. How they’ve gotten it to work, I have no idea.
The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
Addendum
Ephemeris: 05/05/2025 – Speculating about AI while the Moon is too bright
This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, May 6th. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 28 minutes, setting at 8:54, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:23. The Moon, 2 days past first quarter, will set at 4:20 tomorrow morning.
With the Artemis moon program in doubt, NASA’s budget being cut, and scientific programs being eliminated, I’m going to wait until the dust settles a bit before I talk more about it. In the meantime I’d like to digress a bit with a little bit of expertise I’ve gotten from my working life as a systems engineer and computer programmer. I have no expertise in what’s hot now in computers, which is artificial intelligence or AI, but I do have some thoughts about it which I will talk about later on this week and next while the constellations are pretty much wiped out by the Moon’s bright light. AI came upon the scene rather suddenly*, after years of quiet development. All of a sudden just about every smartphone and computer app seems to have an AI component.
The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.
*I’m a bit old, and moving slowly, but the clock seems to tick faster. Just about anything seems to happen faster.
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