Kelly Lane

It is not a question of whether artificial intelligence is really conscious or truly intelligent. Rather, it centers on whether we have crossed a major threshold where large numbers of people around the world believe that A.I. applications are conscious and intelligent and may even have developed their own agendas, hidden or otherwise. The danger is in human perception, not in A.I. per se, and this in itself can lead to all sorts of unforeseen problems, not the least of which is prematurely shutting down machine learning and/or progressive funding of A.I. because of irrational fears of a doomsday scenario. On the other end of the spectrum, we run the risk of over-humanizing A.I. and treating it much more special than it actually is, imputing it with rights, ethics, and freedoms that ultimately do a disservice to the greater good of humanity. In this essay, we focus on the theory of other minds, intentional stances, the neural basis of consciousness, and the future of education and how best to incorporate the latest iterations of synthetic intelligence, such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, ElevenLabs, and more into the curriculum. The argument is simple: the A.I. cyborg has already entered the classroom and we need to co-adapt to what it has to offer.

This graphic novel with over 100 tantalizing pictures describes a futuristic company that has developed a new virtual reality application called the Prajna Project. There are ten distinct libraries, each with 10,000 books, that the user can read or listen to in an ever-changing meditative environment. Moreover, there are A.I. curators that can guide the reader and respond to almost any query in hundreds of languages. But what makes this app unique is that the reader can actually live out the narrative as a character and become an integral part of the story. Yet, there is a glitch in the system that forces the company to confront a strange mystery, what has become known as the Mystery of the Eleventh Portal.

Eva Knox and her quirky Southern family are back in the second in the -intriguing-* culinary mystery series. It's the pits for the attendees of the annual Farm Family Fare in Abundance, Georgia, when olive oil farmer Eva Knox finds herself in the middle of a murder case... Eva and the residents of Knox Plantation are oozing with excitement over the activities planned for the Farm Family Fare. The weekend event consists of two days of tours, exhibitions, music, tastings, and, most important, cooking demonstrations with celebrity chefs from the Chow Network. The enthusiasm, however, begins to dribble away after one of the star chefs goes missing--and is later found dead in the back of a refrigerated truck. The scandal gets messier after the police discover that Eva's sister Daphne spent the night with the victim right before he died, making her the prime suspect for his murder. It's up to Eva, with the help of her other sister, Pep, and her best friend, Precious, to track down the real killer before Daphne finds herself squeezed into handcuffs... INCLUDES RECIPES

First in a delicious new mystery series about Eva Knox and her family's Georgia olive plantation. In the sweet Southern town of Abundance, Georgia, home of the Knox family's olive farm, gossip isn't the only thing that can kill you... After leaving a man at the altar for the second time in her life, Eva Knox decides to head home to her family's plantation to regroup and soak in some Southern charm. But hiding from her woes is a slipperier proposition than Eva imagined. For one thing, most people in town still haven't forgiven her for leaving local boy Buck Tanner at the altar and hightailing it up north eighteen years ago. For another, a death on her family's farm soon makes her the lead suspect in a murder case--and the sheriff investigating is none other than Eva's old flame Buck. With the police putting the squeeze on her, it's up to Eva and her sisters, Pep and Daphne, to figure out who could have possibly left a dead body in their olive grove. And they'll have to catch the greasy killer quickly--because it looks like Eva has been picked as the murderer's next victim...