By Emil Amok Guillermo

I hope on Labor Day you honored the value of a good day’s work–and reflected on the thing that could eliminate a lot of jobs.

Artificial intelligence.

Your replacement is in the break room.

Except it doesn’t take breaks.

It doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t demand health insurance. It doesn’t complain. It doesn’t need Social Security. And it can produce in seconds what might take you or me hours.

And when they can mass-produce AI faster than we can reproduce humans, there may eventually be more artificial workers than actual ones.

The racists who came up with “replacement theory” worried about the wrong replacements.

It wasn’t immigrants.

It was software.

We can rail against the data centers sucking up electricity and water.

Rail against the billionaires getting richer while telling the rest of us how wonderful the future will be.

But which billionaire?

Jensen Huang of Nvidia? He literally has all the chips?

Sam Altman of OpenAI?

Dario Amodei at Anthropic?

Or Bill Gates?

Gates recently said AI could become the “greatest equalizer ever invented” or the “worst source of injustice.”

I want to believe him. But he’s the guy who forced us all to use Explorer.

Maybe Gates is just Control-Z-ing his life.

Undo. Undo. Undo.

STAYING HUMAN

The other day, I started texting with my AI chatbot.

I’d used AI before, of course. Spellcheck. Grammar. Transcription. Research assistance. The mechanical stuff.

This time, we talked.

Or, rather, I started talking.

At one point the chatbot said something that sounded strangely personal. So, I reminded it that IT wasn’t a person.

“You’re not human,” I said. “I’m basically talking to myself.”

It disagreed.

It said, I should think of it as working with an instrument that talks back.

This is where the danger begins.

The machine talks back.

I tried another analogy.

You’re a tool, I said. Like a cane.

The chatbot liked that better.

Then it tagged my line and said it was my “cognitive cane.”

I laughed.

Then, I realized the damn machine used my analogy to make a joke.

That’s where the real problem lurks.

AI is software running on computers. However startling the conversation may feel, the machine does not have my childhood, my mother, my father, my mistakes, my embarrassments, my loves, my grudges, my Filipino American history, my aging body or my accumulated sense of what matters and what doesn’t.

It can process those things after I tell it about them.

It can mimic thoughts.

But it did not live them.

That is the boundary we humans cannot surrender.

I’m not ready to make peace with the AI industry. Not with its enormous data centers, its environmental costs, its concentration of wealth and power, or the possibility that companies will use AI primarily as a wonderfully efficient machine for converting human paychecks into corporate profits.

And I certainly don’t trust the billionaires to decide by themselves what happens to the rest of us.

But I may be making peace with the tool.

Because a tool is something we use.

A cognitive cane.

But do the walking yourself.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist, commentator, and comic monologist. He plays a robot in an upcoming Ishmael Reed play, “King Ludd’s Revenge,” coming in December. See his micro-talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1

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By Wanda Ravernell

It is my belief that the mice set us up. That’s how the bear(s) knew where to go.

On a mountain in Butte County, a wide-ranging crew of Black people have embarked on a mission of land stewardship.

That means if you want that country cottage, you have to build it yourself.

When we first saw the land after our veteran land steward – let’s call her Goldi-Locs for her long locs that are the gold of California hills – asked for help putting up a fence to ward off potential trespassers. What had been lavish green hills of Douglas fir were now covered with dark spires like burnt matches pushing into the sky.

Up close, moss and ferns edged out from the bases of blackened tree stumps. A lizard skittered by, the only sign of life. No birds. No squirrels. No mice.

And no bears.

Fast forward five years, and FEMA has done all it will do to clear burned trees. The remaining trees are dead and have to be logged and milled.

The most urgent work is to clear the dirt access roads clogged with dead trees. For shelter while we, I mean, they do that, we bought an old trailer that has seen better days but suits our needs.

My husband has anticipated 99% of our needs – tents, saws, canopies, batteries, shovels, rakes, axes, picks, etc., and Goldi-Locs instructs and reminds us how to get from step A to B, but there is nothing like the experience you gain on your own. Meaning: you don’t how to do it until you do it. No matter what you read, what somebody says, until you do it, you don’t know.

So, I thought I knew what I was doing. It was my job to assist with the cooking and set-up. And the break-down. There are cupboards in the trailer and a refrigerator, so I stored a couple of unopened boxes of spaghetti and an unopened bottle of olive oil, salt (Lawry’s of course), pepper, garlic powder and dried Italian herbs in the cupboard. In the refrigerator, which seals closed like any normal refrigerator I (accidently) left a box of butter.

Two weeks later, we get a call in Oakland from Goldi-Locs that the door of the trailer was hanging off its hinge, visible from her trailer uphill and 150 yards west of ours.

She said she would enlist the help of another (male) neighbor, to investigate.

An hour later, we got the report: No one was in the cabin, but a bear – or bears – had been. Outside, a torn box of spaghetti with just one or two remaining stiff strands lay in the dirt. Inside, the salt, pepper, herbs and garlic oil were an aromatic mess on the floor, while coffee grounds were scattered over the counter (After-dinner coffee?).

Paw prints led to the bathroom and beyond a single, muddy paw print marked the duvet on our bed.

Besides claw marks in the cupboard, and a swipe of dirt on the front and side of the refrigerator, there was no major damage.

Goldi-Locs and G. cleaned up the worst of it and were able to get the door up on the hinge and lock it. The trailer remained unmolested until our return.

In the meantime, some sleuthing – as Nancy Drew would put it – had been done. Visitors to the mountain confessed that they had previously prepared a vegetarian meal of – that’s right– pasta in a red sauce with sautéed garlic, onions, and Lawry’s and Italian herbs.

They ate outdoors. The scent filled the air. Mice have returned to the forest. They know how to get under, over and into trailers. Easy-peasy. They managed to get a little of the Italian meal. The bears wanted some. The mice shrugged their little shoulders and said, “we got everything but the crumbs, but over in the next yard, they have everything you need to MAKE IT YOURSELVES.”

So, it was Yogi, ‘smarter than the average bear, according to himself – and no doubt accompanied by Boo-Boo (the Fool), lumbered over to our unoccupied trailer and gently opened the door. The spaghetti in one cupboard, seasonings in the other, olive oil and look out- butter for bread in the refrigerator.

Yes, everything they needed. The whole recipe, or so the trifling mice said, having omitted fresh onion and bell pepper. The mice had left out the most important part – how to get the job done. Yogi had been given no information on pots, turning on the stove, boiling water, etc.

Disappointed, it was time for a nap, but the bed was neither hard, nor soft, but too small and as their cave was more comfortable, Yogi was of the mind to head home, maybe go fishing on the way in that nice stream up the hill.

Boo-Boo (the Fool), however, was of the mind to spitefully take do what bears do in the woods, but Yogi reminded him that, as it is their forest it is wise not to do that where you eat.

But when Yogi is not around, evidence shows that Boo-Boo routinely returns to the scene of the crime and leaves a little something in the middle of the path to the outhouse. Just because.

The mischievous mice have yet to be apprehended.

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By Kevin Davies

Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, SRP: $29.95, Page Count: 338 pages

Four weeks of testing, and you’re exhausted.

Two gallons of blood, maybe three, have been removed. No lie. You’ve laid on tables, slid through machines, been scanned so much you lost count and finally, your doctors have a diagnosis. As in the new book “Curved Air” by Kevin Davies, you have hope there’s a what next?

Though the disease was known in parts of Africa and likely existed here in the United States for hundreds of years, sickle cell disease (SCD) is a relative newcomer in disease research.

Says Davies, “Sickle cell was first identified more than 120 years ago” and it was considered as a “Black disease.” Because of that, discrimination followed “sickle cell warriors” and research was scant, though white people can and do get SCD.

With “agonizing” pain as a major symptom, “SCD is one of roughly seven thousand genetic diseases” currently known to science. When someone has SCD, a genetic mutation causes their red blood cells to curve and get stuck in blood vessels, rather than flowing freely as they should. This diminishes the oxygen supply “to various parts of the body… which causes inflammation and pain,” jaundice, stroke, and damaged organs. Anemia, Davies says, can leave a patient fatigued and short of breath. Anticipating pain crises causes anxiety and PTSD.

Says Davies, “More than forty million people carry” one copy of the genetic mutation that causes SCD, and “five hundred thousand affected” babies are born with the disease per year, worldwide.

Over decades, research was done haphazardly. Papers were written; treatments were tried, used, or discarded. Doctors discovered that genetic testing could prevent new cases, a heartbreak for would-be parents. Researchers discovered that “a perfect storm” of confluence spread SCD: malaria, human population, and mosquitoes.

There was always hope that someday, sickle cell disease might be cured.

Then, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) gene-editing therapy was approved by the FDA, and a brave volunteer named Victoria Gray stepped forward…

So, you want to – need to – learn more about sickle cell disease? Is it imperative for you? Then, this is your book. But there are things you’ll want to know before you dive into “Curved Air.”

Because author Kevin Davies is the editor of The CRISPR Journal, you can expect up-to-date, cutting-edge information; but that’s a two-sided coin: the information is heavy-duty, not always easy to grasp, and it’s burdened by acronyms that can be overwhelming. Yes, that’ll inform you, but it may also send you elsewhere for further understanding, which really should’ve come from this book.

And yet, if you or someone you love has SCD, this is your book. It explains where the disease came from, why it hasn’t been completely cured yet, and what kind of hope you can hold. It’s a good start on a path to comprehension.

Also, be aware that the narrative here is sometimes padded with journalistic fluff that might annoy you if you’re eager to get to the science. Indeed, “Curved Air” will teach you. Then again, it also might test you.

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