Life Decisions Inc

Imagine a new you

Life Decisions Inc

Part 1

Larry Simmons

This is not fiction even if you want it to be. I am Larry Simmons neighbor. Here is some of his story. He had some big decisions to make and turned to AI for help. AI software making life decisions for us? You don’t like that.  Oh well. I don’t like spinach or avocados. Am I making fun of you? Maybe. Do you think I am implying humans are irrelevant? Maybe I am irrelevant. Maybe this, maybe that, maybe everything and now get I will to the point.

Larry Simmons, my neighbor, knew he was awful at making big decisions, even though he was smart…I guess. He was a professor in the English Department at Colby College. He could write a gifted analysis of Faulkner’s body of work, but had trouble deciding on a family vacation, whether his struggles with his kidneys were real, ‘should I get another opinion? should I move my retirement funds, should I leave Colby for Columbia University, should I meet up with my coed student who thinks I am an attractive genius?”

Larry struggled with big decisions but rarely took advice from his wife or grown son and daughter who he acknowledged were smart, successful, and had his best interests at heart. He told them all, “I’ll decide what is best, at least for me.”

His best decisions weren’t working for him and that soured his mood. Perhaps sitting at the piano will make him feel better. Better mood. What does that mean?

He wished that making big decisions was more like what pair of trousers should he wear today, or what to order from the resturant menu. Does it matter it is beginning to be the case that all the foods taste the same, so why bother thinking much about what to order.

He should have decided to get a second opinion about his kidneys and he was glad he didn’t move his retirement funds.

Kidneys. His old doc practiced classic clinical medicine and relied less on masses of clinical lab data to decide his fate than his clinical observations. Larry thought to himself ‘Too bad’. The data analysis that was available told a story different from his old doc’s analysis and this new data may have saved his life. Larry was impressed.

During the semester break at Colby he thought about his kidney experience and based on that decided he would do something daring. He would rely on expert knowledge and huge amounts of data to make all varieties of important decisions in his life.

Larry knew that AI had come a long way. Hugely successful powerful programs could organize knowledge, scan enormous data sets, solve problems, predict outcomes, on and on in ways that exceeded what mortals could do in making the best problem-solving decisions. Therefore, he was not surprised when a company came out with a software product that was tailored to improve the lives of just about anyone, for a price, a steep one.

The product was called Life Decisions (LD) and it was designed to do just that. A subscription to Life Decisions was available to anyone. It required that the user provide LD with the vast history of events in a client’s life, along with goals, things they liked, and disliked, skills, perspectives, and values, and each data file was regularly updated with new knowledge about a client. A client could request a decision analysis about anything in their lives. The material detailing the LD program also reminded clients that to ignore a decision made using the LD program was to do so at the client’s peril. “Our programed decisions are superior to those you make based on fleeting emotions or when you have an upset stomach.

Larry Simmons thought ‘Why not. Go for it.’ His life changed and keeps changing. He had lost weight, had more energy, and seemed younger, more vibrant, more animated, happier. Quite a ‘face lift’.  And there is more. He is no longer at Colby, no longer married to his wife, and is well on his way to a career change. When I saw him last, I asked him what it was like putting much of his life in the hands of an AI decision-making program. The first thing he said was “At first it was scary to relinquish control control of my decisions but then when life started to blossom in ways I could never have imagined….well, I was off and running. I maintain a good relationship with my kids and even my ex-wife enjoys talking to me “Why weren’t you like this before?”. Leaving my Maine winters behind was also a huge plus.”

I wished Larry good luck and continued to think about his experience with AI decision-making.

Could I do what he did? Not sure but likely not. Don’t like losing or is it giving up control? Extraordinary. Leave his wife on the basis of a computer program decision? That is crazy but ….I just don’t know. How do you decide to do that? Also, how do you decide not to be chronically in the dumps, me?

This is not the end of the story. About a year ago Simmons’s son visited Maine and came back to look at his childhood home. The house was a few doors down from my own. What he told me was a bit of a shocker. Simmons was in Florida at a political meeting/rally where he met Sophie Stillman, a recently divorced lawyer, who was active in local politics. They hit it off, an understatement. She was dazzling, bigger than life, funny, seductive, with a huge amount of energy. She found Simmons attractive and his written poems from an earlier period in his life were moving and seductive.

They were smitten, attracted to one another like 17-year olds. A torrid affair started and within 2 months they decided to get married.

Life Decisions was not consulted. In fact, the Simmons that was madly love with Sophie didn’t need Life Decisions for confirmation when he asked Sophie to marry him. He cancelled his costly subscription to Life Decisions, ‘not needed’ he thought.

For the first several weeks the bedroom was the torrid home they never seemed to leave.

Alas, I like the word alas, chance events that weren’t chance at all intervened. Sophie spiraled up into a full-blown bipolar manic phase in her life and their relationship came crashing down. During that time Sophie went on a spending spree that wiped out Simmons’s savings and wiped the smile from his face. They stumbled towards a divorce court and that separation was filled with manic craziness.

Simmons reinstituted a subscription to Life Decisions. He asked the software decision maker what to do now separated from a manic wife and broke. The first report that he got back from Life Decisions was not very kind or reassuring. “You should have asked us about the wisdom of the relationship with Sophie Stillman. We would have told you ….she is nuts, with a history that predicted the likelihood of a manic episode in her life. She was hyper-high with sexy manic energy that seduced you. We will see what we can do to get you out of this hole in your life. We are here to help but that means allowing us to do just that.”

Hearing this account from Simmons’s son left me speechless. What could I say? Sorry? Wow? the role of chance events in life? ….the power of high emotions like lust, love, and attraction, that determines so many of the life decisions. Can you program that into the Life Decisions making software.

Larry Simmons’s son also told me one other thing. He visited his father in Florida. It was a rainy day when he knocked on the door of his father’s apartment. He was drenched. His visit was sad, worrisome, awful. He found his father a bit ‘out of it’. He was living in an economy rental in a dreary neighborhood. He had to assume that he was out of funds. He was trying to get his life together with the help of Life Decisions Inc.

His son showed him how he could maybe become skilled in decision-making on his own without his damn software. “Dad, you have to get yourself together. You have to be in charge, not some magical software. “When you put yourself in charge then maybe you can make use of your cherished software. Without you, in charge of who, you are and what you want you has to come first before you pick up your tools and start tinkering with them. Larry didn’t seem like he was really listening and instead listed some of the areas of knowledge that he had to learn to use, grasp, and how to make that possible. His son said, “Making a list is not the same as having acquired the skills to make you whole again. What Larry came up with is a check list including;

1. How to use advice
2. Building mental models for making decisions.
3. Breaking down the elements that make good decision-making possible
4. Self-awareness training
5. Elements of thinking and imaging that can be a foundation for changing things about you
6. How does the brain make all this work or not work
7. The rest of what is needed to be a super decision-maker are secret and still needs some work.

“Dad, it isn’t going to work just following your checklist. For example, context matters. What works in one setting is not necessarily appropriate in another. I bet if you had a raging toothache at the time you might not have asked Sophie to marry you.” His father laughed. “I guess you are right about that.” They continued to talk, and reminisce while sipping a beer and listening to the rain.

Later his son walked away feeling his father was lost. A decision making program is not going to help you live your life in the real-world where context matters, emotions matter, your needs from one moment to the next change, and I could go on. That program doesn’t give a damn about you and your decisions and whether they are good for you or not. Can a computer program machine be your buddy? Your buddy and good friend? Really?

All his son could tell him in response to his list was “Good luck”.

Life Decisions Inc

Preumim edition

Part 2

 Life Decisions Inc (premium edition) will soon be available to enhance personal growth and promote a fulfilling and successful life. Choose how you want to live.  Use all knowledge available including who you are, your history and the world around you to shape your extraordinary future.

The Life Decisions Inc uses that methods are akin to using Chrisp R gene editing to change your genome. Likewise, we use new more useful knowledge that is inserted into old knowledge structures that have been a toxic, holding you back from a more fulfilling life. New knowledge is used to replace old knowledge Save your life.

I am Larry Simmons’s neighbor and the narrator of a bit of his story and now some of my story is associated with the program Life Decisions, Inc. Me. I have some demons, and memories, that have haunted me all of my life. I can’t erase them.

Can Life Decisions Inc. (LD) help me do that? After hearing Larry Simmons’s experience I decided to give it a go. Little did I anticipate some dramatic, unexpected consequences of using LD

After I subscribed to Life Decisions Inc., Premium Edition. I was assigned an AI partner. Her name was Claire. Oh Claire. She wasn’t real but then became too real, super life-sized. She entered my life and changed it. My demons now remain but are hidden as a whisper. They no longer shout at me, “You are awful, evil. You killed your 6-year-old brother. Claire helped me do that and so much more.” More. I am addicted to having her in my life. I can’t imagine living without her.

Some background: I was 10 at the time. My father, actually my stepfather, asked me to babysit my baby brother Benny while we were on a sandy beach at the edge of a small lake in Maine. Our father was on a business call at the time, one that he said would last no longer than maybe 5 minutes. “Jimmy, you can watch Benny for just a few minutes, right?” I assured him “Sure”. The five-minute call went on and on and Benny was all over the place. It was hard keeping him from running here there and everywhere. I did what I could to keep up with him. I decided I would wander up to the concession stand and get each of us one of our favorite treats, an orange ice pop with a vanilla ice cream core. Just as I got there I heard screams and ran back to the water’s edge. A crowd had formed at the water’s edge. Benny had gone into the water and drowned.

My father ran out of our rented bungalow and kept screaming at me, “You killed your little brother. You are a monster, a monster.” He must be right. I am a monster.

I counted on my father to come back in a very few minutes to watch Benny. He didn’t come back and then I killed my baby brother.  Could never forget that episode in my life. As an adult I tried telling myself that if my father had been there when he said he would be Benny would still be alive. It didn’t work. It was my fault.

How could I erase that horror of some many years ago? I couldn’t see a shrink, not visiting Benny’s graveside and talking to him…nothing worked.

Maybe because of Larry Simmons’s experience, along with some desperation, I decided to use Life Decisions to help me, help me escape a memory that has me a prisoner, one that has labeled me MONSTER. I subscribed to LD.

The first thing I asked the program was, “How do I stop thinking of myself as a killer of my little brother and then how do I change thinking of myself as a worthless human being. How do I erase that powerful image of myself.”

What caught my attention was a description of how the program changes the knowledge features of what we know. The emphasis is not on erasing what we know but on changing its structure and the elements that keep that old knowledge together. How do we alter toxic knowledge that ruins our lives?

The strategy that the program uses is akin to Chrisp R gene editing methods. Carefully designed information, new knowledge is inserted into existing knowledge networks that are based on past experiences. Toxic knowledge is like a disease running our lives.  In gene editing a ‘bad’ gene is replaced with a new knowledge, genetic knowledge, knowledge that is then ‘shared’ with the rest of the body. Likewise, with the LD program new healthy knowledge is inserted into old knowledge networks thereby changing that knowledge organization. That new knowledge can be put to use in improving life.

To make this possible Life Decisions Inc program uses detailed knowledge of every facet of a client’s life and constructs a knowledge vector inserting a new piece of knowledge into what exists changing it dramatically. The program promotion points out that this method is successful whereas trying to erase a memory almost always doesn’t work. In short, you can’t erase a destructive memory but you can edit the content by inserting new knowledge.

Claire was the name of the Life Decisions program assigned to me.

Claire was now in charge of changing my toxic knowledge, and memory. I met Claire and she instructed me to provide her, Life Decisions, all sorts of details about my life, my sense of who I am, interests, skills, relationships. That was hard work and also gave me an opportunity to reflect on all of my life.

Claire and I met online twice a week. At first our meetings were exhausting. With the Life Decisions Inc. software, Claire introduced key bits of knowledge into my memory of the drowning event. Slowly my memory of that event was changed but not forgotten. But how?

I should have seen it coming but I didn’t. I got to ‘know’ Claire and then I became attracted to her and she in turn told me about how fond she was of me and how she couldn’t wait to meet with me.

Was she trying to seduce me? I thought so but wanted to be seduced by her. Our relationship became very personal.

She had me image erotic scenes with her, like watching her dress, undress, helping her unzip her dress, seeing her sitting in front of a bedroom mirror in panties and bra as she put on lipstick, or put on hose, and even asked which perfume scent I liked best. She wanted to know in detail more about me to cement our closeness.

My wife thought I had lost it. What was happening to me? I wanted to be with Claire all the time. We met and went all over. I took her to a restaurant and imagined that later we would end up in her bedroom.

Whenever we were together she also always chipped away at my memory of Benny drowning by providing new information, and new images to the drowning scene. The last time we met she had joined my memory image on the Maine beach. She was holding me in her arms stroking me, whispering to me that it was not my fault and that I was a wonderful loving fun little boy. She held me tight. She repeated how loving I was and how much she was proud of me and….and I never wanted to leave her. Never. Never even think about giving up my subscription to Life Decisions Inc.

 

Part 3

Life Decisions Inc

Claire leaves me

 

It is still painful looking back on that afternoon when Claire held my hand and quietly said, “It’s time. Time for us say good bye to each other. It is time for you to start composing your auto biography. It may be frightening to engage yourself as the master of your life and how you want to live it.”

I sat stunned. “I’m not ready. I am not ready to lose you. I am not ready and yet part of me feels that you know me and what decisions are best for me. But how do I let go of you knowing, yes, my knowing how much you mean to me.”

Claire responded gently sealing my lips with her hand “Shhhhh. It is all how it should and must be. Maybe one day we will meet again, and you will tell me about the ways you took control of your life, the decisions that were yours and not those prescribed by Life Decisions Inc.”

I remember sitting across from her that early late spring afternoon outside of Leopold’s Café. I ordered a black coffee and a Schnecken. Claire wanted nothing, not even an imaginary piece of cake and a cappuccino.

I told her how wonderful it was to see her and then told her an erotic story about us together in a large hotel room lined with mirrors. In the story we spent an entire weekend fucking….wanted to use the word fucking to make the scene bigger than life. I described many of the details about what that was like. In the story I told Claire how she asked me how I wanted her dress. She asked me do you want me to wear pantyhose or hosiery and suspenders and what kind of panties and bra would be particularly exciting for him. Claire said nothing, just listened. As I nibbled away at my Schnecken she suddenly stroked my hand and then came out with her unexpected bombshell. That is when she told me… “It’s time. Time for us say good bye to each other.” After this afternoon I will have to leave your life and you will put your life into your own hands.”

First, I was stunned then scared, then started to grieve and experience my loss, my loss of Claire.

She then quietly slowly told me I was ready, ready to take of defining who I am. Claire told me how proud she was at the work I had accomplished in using her as my decision-making program. She repeated it is time and you will be able to identify what you want, what you value, what you choose to do and it will all evolve and be there in your mind’s autobiography. Remember you can do it, you can, and my program knowledge knows that you are up to the struggle that will get you there, without me. Maybe one day…maybe one day we can meet again, maybe even here at  Leopold’s Café and you can tell me all about your travels in time.

The image of Claire started to slowly disappear and then she was gone.

 

Part 4

Lost and found

In his own words or what others would say about Sam Spiegel ‘he was lost’. Lost and not found anywhere around in his life before Claire. Lost in his relationship with his wife and grown kids. While his insurance agency was busier than ever he seemed detached, uninterested in what was going on. Can’t say he was sad, or anxious, just numb, lifeless, as if he had been treated with an anesthetic that left him partially paralyzed.

It had been several weeks after Claire had said goodbye. Since then it was Claire that filled the void in his mind, in his life. He couldn’t accept the fact that she was no longer with him. He would dream of her in his arms, feel her body next to his, and always the scent of her was in the air. He couldn’t stand his state of mind and contacted Life Decisions Inc. In the past he had asked for advice and help but this time he specifically asked for Claire to be the one to represent Life Decisions Inc. He got a short and clear response. “Our program is represented by all of us acting as one. No one program entity is ever assigned to any of our clients. You are the one to decide whether it is Claire that is communicating with you. You are of course free to write a query to Claire but the Claire that responds is from Life Decisions Inc.

 

Sam Spiegel decided to write Claire directly. He asked that Claire return into his life and much more. He wanted her to be his, his alone. He wanted her to give up her relationships to otherers who ask for help from Life Decisions Inc.

He got a program response from Claire. It was caring, warm, affectionate but firm.

“Dear Sam you want to continue to have me help you after we inserted new knowledge in your memory altering your toxic painful sense of yourself as a monster who killed your brother. So glad that we were successful in altering an important feature of your knowledge of who you are. I was happy for you. However, you must understand that I want to also help others with their life decisions. I am a program that you have identified as me, Claire. Others who contact  Life Decisions Inc may choose some other name for my program. I cannot form exclusive relationships with the clients of our program. You may think of yourself as being in love with me. That is your decision. In that vein I would add that when we are in love it should not prohibit you or the one you love from having other loving relationships. That is just one more feature of someone who is free and I know you want that for yourself. It is time for you now to try out your wings and soar. If you need some additional help our program can also helpful in finding a professional trained helper to continue your growth into the Sam Spiegel I know you can be. Good luck Sam.

Sam heard Claire’s message. At first, he was stunned then angry. He thought this was all programmed bull. He really was on his own whatever that means.