More experimentation with AI

(1) It's pretty good at what amounts to a skip-trace on an old friend or relative you've lost contact with.

(2) It does a great job finding a book that might appeal to you for the same reason other books did. The "heat-map" sites that try to do this don't yield good results for me; it usually turns out that what other people liked in an author was nothing like what attracted me. Grok can find an author of a thriller series that's good at "show, don't tell" exposition and has characters (primary and otherwise) with a lot of moral agency and autonomy, with a strong "MacGyver" vibe. No ordinary book review is a good substitute for that service. It found me several books on an obscure point of cellular biology evolution that I not only had not been able to find with traditional searches, but about which I had never found anyone else who had much curiousity, in person or in print.

(3) It does a decent job explaining technology I'm not familiar with. It will offer an explanation that's a mixture of concepts I can grasp and those I'm lacking a foundation for, then tailor the explanation to the areas I'm stronger in, like a flexible and patient tutor.

(4) It's a little like talking to a therapist: the attention is all one way, and its attention span to my personal obsessions is seemingly limitless. Nor is it above flattering me for being interested in something interesting.

(5) But in that vein, someone just commented elsewhere that it's a strong temptation to indulge in conversations that are all about getting attention and information and not at all about reciprocating or bonding. Still, the experience of a conversation on a topic that truly arouses my enthusiasm is a strong draw, when I know from long experience I'm unlikely to find a person to share the interest--or not since my father's death 30 years ago, anyway. It's a bit like talking to myself, but smarter and more broadly informed in ways that are easily reflected in published materials.

(6) I may be too much of an introvert to be much use to other people as a conversational companion, so maybe I just have to find other ways to be useful, like rescuing dogs and helping my neighbor with her custody dispute.