Thanks A lot, AI!

I had no idea why suddenly, out of the blue, without any warning and quite unwelcome, this week Google unleashed AI (artificial intelligence) on my Google phone! The changes were not subtle. There was no introduction. No explanation. It just happened when my phone began making all my decisions regardless of the settings I had decided on months ago.

Let's be clear, I am not a techie, nor do I understand most of what's involved in this looming change to the world with a new "friendly" voice in the room (as if Alexis wasn't enough). Regardless of my limited knowledge, I have skills that I have honed over decades since the good nuns taught me how to write a compound sentence--or how to look up a word in the dictionary for correct spelling and pronunciation and most importantly for the definition. These learned skills got me through a regional spelling bee championship at age 14! I could spell anything back then. But now, without so much as a moment to think about the spelling rules that were drilled into me ---"I before E except after C"---the genius living in my computer self corrects--me! Ok, I can handle that one even if I do not like it one bit. But, Google has gone way passed that now. Here is one story to illustrate:

At the airport in Orlando, I "asked my phone" aka AI: Which terminal is Virgin Atlantic? I was standing in terminal A at the time where Virgin Atlantic was supposed to be, but I could not find it. AI said: Virgin Atlantic has moved to Terminal C effective YESTERDAY! I confirmed this with an attendant behind a desk. The tram took me to C where V.A. was nowhere to be found. The attendant checked his Google tablet: V.A. has NOT moved to C---yet. They were supposed to, but now they are in B. The tram took me back from where I had come. I asked the next information person holding a tablet: "Where is V.A.?" She replied: "That's the question of the day"! "What's the answer"? I said as politely as I could.

She opened up her Google AI phone and showed me a photo of V.A.'s new "pop up" location! A major airline on which I would fly for nine hours across the Atlantic Ocean was now a "pop up" that AI had misdirected me to when I first queried Google. Two major errors in an airport the size of Disney world caused passengers with rolling suitcases to jump on an off trams and walk endless corridors in search of a human to ask: Where the hell is my airline...please?

Two things that stood out in my growing frustration: AI lied to me! V.A. failed to communicate with me. The consequences of such inadequacies leave me cold. I want a warm-blooded person not a robot to answer my questions. Is that too much to ask? Today, the same query to AI produces this information: Virgin Atlantic plans to eventually move to Terminal C and will confirm a new date once CBP approval is secured". Thanks a lot AI and V.A.

What's next? While my phone wants to change any setting I set regardless of my desire to do damage control from knowing more than necessary from the world at large, I am bombarded with unwanted "options", usually when I need to use my phone to call an actual person.

I thought I was a wiser consumer for having gone to Google over Apple. I liked that I could be somewhat out of the main-main stream of the tech world, making my own choices and decisions to opt out of many unwanted and unnecessary data-driven marketing schemes.

This week that changed drastically when Google announced---boasted---that it had "rolled out massive, historic changes to search and its AI platforms . . . Information Agents can now setup, 24/7 background agents to track specific data, research topics, and synthesize alerts on a continuous basis". Good luck to folks like me, of any age, including my grandkids who are trying to figure out how to untether themselves from their cell phones.

Simultaneously with this Google pronouncement, Pope Leo wrote that AI must be "disarmed" i.e., "freed from corporate monopolies"--- Hello Google: What did Pope Leo say about AI? https://youtu.be/qZ0Tt49KDXk?si=aeSIGq8sN24Rg00t

In conclusion, the question for you the reader is: Did I write this blog or did AI?

Commencement means Begin!

In the unlikely event that I should be asked to deliver a Commencement address, I am ready with a story that tells so much about the serendipitous twists and turns of life and concludes with one of life's big questions: How do you know that you have not been brought here, for such a time as this"?

Here is my unofficial translation of the Book of Esther taken from the Old Testament:*

A powerful Persian King XERXES threw a lavish party for his bro-ligarchy. His wife VASHTI had her own gal-pals gathered in her chambers when she was summoned by her husband to perform for the men. She refused! He banished her from the Kingdom for shaming him. His bro's convinced him to write an edict to go out to all wives that henceforth they must honor their husbands. The search then begins for a new Queen. The harem is the first place they look.

A young Jewish woman lives outside the gates with her Uncle MORDECAI who knows that HADASSAH (her real name) would be a great fit because of her extraordinary charm and beauty and wit, but she is Jewish and therefore not acceptable. He wants her life to be better than what he is able to provide, so he renames her ESTHER.

Esther is accepted into the harem. After countless hours pampering herself in order to be presented to the King, at long last she is summoned to meet her potential spouse. Xerxes is smitten by Esther's beauty AND her intelligence. The two have a lavish wedding while Mordecai waits outside the gates because Jews are not allowed to enter the Kingdom. (They are usually deported if found). Esther stays in touch with her uncle by messenger (texting) She tells him everything that is going on inside the Kingdom. One day, he overhears two insiders at the gate plotting a coup. Mordecai sends word to Esther, who in the knick of time averts the King's murder by spilling the beans. She does not say how she learned of the coup attempt.

Meanwhile, Mordecai has a confrontation with the King's chief of staff, HAMAM, who admonishes the Jew for not bowing down to him. (Saying, "You should be more grateful", or something like that . . .). Hamam can't handle it and decides to convince his boss that all Jewish people should pay for such irreverance. Hence, Xerses is duped into signing AND sealing with his gold initialed ring (X) a proclamation that all Jews will be murdered on the 13th of the month. No exceptions. Everyone must go. This means death to all of Esther's relatives and the village from where she came.

Mortified Mordecai sends Esther an urgent message to tell the King to stop the coming genocide of HER own people! Esther says no to Uncle, explaining that she cannot go before her husband, the King, without being summoned lest she herself be murdered. As if that's not enough, she would have to tell him the truth about her Jewish identity. Uncle M advises her to suck it up. He asks her the big question: Have you considered that "You have been brought to the Kingdom for such a time as this"?

A few plot twists follow including the King discovering that his own life had been spared from an attempted coup by Mordecai. Esther rises above her subservient role and invites her husband to a banquet rather than waiting for him to initiate the encounter she is seeking. She butters up his chief of staff knowing she will have to get passed him if she is to convince her husband to rescind the proclamation. The official seal of the ring prohibits even a King from doing so because it is against the law. . . and no one is above the law, not even the King!

Xerxes accepts the invitation to the banquet-- Esther summons her courage to tell Xerses that she is of Jewish descent and that his order will lead to the death of all her people in the coming days. NOTE: (This is now known as the Feast of Purim in Jewish tradition). The King begins to see the big picture, including that he has been duped by his boastful, arrogant chief of staff, the biggest sycophant there ever was (before the twenty-first century).

First, the King orders Hamam to be hung in the village square! Second, he sends out a new proclamation to save the Jewish people from mass murder, and instead grants them permission to avenge their would-be murderers! In the famous final scene, Uncle Mordecai becomes the chief of staff!

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Commencement means begin, but all that led to this all-important moment is chock full of choices and decisions calling to rise above it vis-a-vis that big question: How do you know that you have not been brought here (to this day) for such a time as this?

Congratulations to Sarah Eugenia on Commencement at Lesley University, May 16, 2026 Master's Degree in Art Therapy

*bible.usccb.org

All Shall Be Well! Pushing out the darkness on pilgrimage. The Light of Light prevailed through days together at Julian of Norwich's Anchorage.

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Pilgrim Sisters, Meridith and Julie at the British Library in London reviewing "Revelations of Divine Love" manuscripts written by 14th century mystic, Julian of Norwich, the first woman known to have written a book in English.

This year's Peregrine Falcons hatched on May 5 during our first days in Norwich. See live from their nestbox atop Norwich Cathedral:

https://hawkandowltrust.org/live-cameras/norwich-cathedral-peregrines

The return is essential to completing a pilgrimage. This morning I arose with the morning light back home in St. Augustine, Florida, USA.

Sunrise over the San Sebastian River St Augustine

Thank you to all my friends and colleagues in Norwich for another meaningful pilgrimage.