romance | M Thomas Apple Author Page

“Female” robots and other bias

September 6, 2023
MThomas

When we give AI a humanoid form, we typically choose the robot to have feminine characteristics. Are we playing on stereotypes?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230804-is-there-a-sinister-side-to-the-rise-of-female-robots

Isn’t it blindingly obvious?

All artificial intelligence, all robots and Chatbots and everything else electronically-programmed by a human being, will inevitably have human bias.

Even women prefer women’s voices to men’s when it comes to customer service.

On the other hand, women are also historically relegated to work with lower pay, lower status, kept out of positions of power — subject to the “male gaze.”

Now, we have AI that can be treated as sex objects. Even “married.”

So it is all “sinister,” as BBC asks?

Creepy, maybe. Sad, perhaps. Entirely predictable, definitely.

As we continue to lead more and more isolated individual lives, cut off from human contact and left unable to socialize, the rise of the “AI companion” seems inevitable…

Sigh.Way behind. Again.

September 18, 2021
MThomas

OK, I readily admit that I am once again waaaay behind on my scifi blogging.

At some point last week, I looked up from the mass amounts of work I had left to do and went, “Uh. August 21st? Was that really the last time I posted?”

Uh. Yup.

😣

I’ll do my best to get the rest of Riss’s story online on a biweekly basis, like I promised I would.

But promises…

When we fought against Nazis instead of being run by them…

June 6, 2020
MThomas

Just in time for D-Day…

All My Love, Johnny: Memories and loss in Troy, New York

“Over sixteen million Americans served during World War II and this story offers in rich detail the story of two men in uniform and a woman they both cared about. A story of love and tragedy that is more representative of the experiences of many that served than the ones often told of generals and politicians. A story that needs to be told and remembered.”

— Dr. Rick Derrah, Professor of Social Studies, Kindai University, Osaka; former US Army E-4 Specialist

“Not only is this a touching and interesting family story, it is a great snap shot of the war and its effects, as well as Trojans and Troy history connection.”

— Don Rittner, historian, former Albany City Archaeologist and founder of the Pine Bush Historic Preservation Project

(Paperback)

https://www.amazon.com/All-My-Love-Johnny-Memories/dp/B089M2FNTW/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=

(Ebooks)

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1015969

The Dearly Departed

June 10, 2019
MThomas

On this day, June 10th, what would have been my mother’s 69th birthday had she not passed away suddenly last October, I am conflicted.

Do I have the right to write about family history yet again?

And yet without the past, it’s difficult to write about the future. They are connected, by both visible and invisible lines, threads of beliefs and behaviors, attitudes and antagonisms, odd coincidences and strangely fortunate happenings. Particularly in my family. Continue Reading

Destiny in the Future: A tribute

November 8, 2018
MThomas

On October 29, 2018, my mother Linda A Langworthy Apple died.

On October 31, 2018, I discovered an unpublished science fiction book in my mother’s dresser. The manuscript was buried under high school and nursing school yearbooks and diplomas.

I think it’s time for it to be published.

Christmas in Japan

December 26, 2015
MThomas

It’s been a long fall. Lots of work the past two months, with intermittent bouts of family sickness, but somehow we managed to pull through in time for the holidays.

Of course Christmas is not a national holiday where I live (central Japan). It’s mostly treated as an excuse for couples to enjoy a romantic evening at an overpriced restaurant. Except for us, where it’s an excuse for moms and dads to have their kids wreck the house while the parents have a few drinks.

Fortunately. the food is good. Very good. No Christmas turkey or ham here (the main fare is typically KFC actually, since some KFC chief in a brilliant PR stroke managed to convince the entire country that Americans eat fried chicken at Christmas). But there are plenty of parents nearby who are really good at cooking.

And of course there’s always cake:

So Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays, and other non-denominational festivities to you and your kin!

And no, I don’t want to talk about the 2015 World Series. I’m too busy using the NL Champions shot glass set to be depressed…

On the romance of baseball

February 23, 2015
MThomas

Over the weekend, I decided to make the ebook version of Approaching Twi-Night free, in celebration of the beginning of spring training. Just for a couple days. The book slowly crept up to number 3, then 2, then late last night hit the top spot in free baseball ebooks….in non-fiction.

Hm.

I guess it’s so realistic a novel that it’s non-fiction, insofar as, yes, there was a baseball strike in 1994 and there are Class A teams in New York.

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