You’ve really got a Hold on me, Doctor. But CHARGED BODIES set me free
A collection of aches and pains that come with turning 80, along with the heat, conspired against me last week and sent me to the Emergency Room at a local hospital.
After a battery of tests, the MD ER came in to discuss the findings. His questions were appropriate; apparently my answers weren’t.
My career as a writer began back in the days where you were paid by the word. As a result, over time I developed logorrhea, excessive talkativeness which in a heat wave can border on incoherency.
Apparently in over-answering some of the doctor’s question I used some trigger words indicating the problem was not with my body, but in my mind. This is called a psychosomatic disorder.
With that, a mind-doctor was brought in to sit with the body-doctor. (Reflecting the mind/body duality that has long afflicted the practice of medicine.)
And the more I talked the more interested the mind doctor became in my case until he said, “We need to put a Hold on you, would you agree body doctor?”
“I would agree, mind doctor.”
“Mr. Mahon, we need to put a Hold on you for 72 hours because in our collective professional opinion you are a suicide risk. We can’t let you go for fear you will hurt yourself or others.”
If I had been incoherent up to that point, it was nothing, nothing!, to my new state of mind.
+ I want to call my adult children
0 You are not allowed a call
+ An accused kill gets a call to a lawyer
0 But you are not a killer. You are unstable.
And with that an orderly was summoned to take possession of my laptop, mobile device, wallet and car keys. (I brought my laptop to the ER because sometimes the wait can be up to ten hours and I had was working on a project with a deadline.)
I also brought a copy of CHARGED BODIES, my recently-republished, award-winning, non-fiction history of Silicon Valley, available at https://www.amazon.com/Charged-Bodies-Paradoxes-Launched-Silicon/dp/B0CVND84G1/ref=sr_1_2? And https://pragprog.com/titles/tmbodies/charged-bodies/
They had no interest in taking that. What harm can a book do? But with my laptop and the right skillset, they told me, I could shut down the global financial system.
I shouted, “I AM NOT CRAZY. I AM A WRITER.”
“That’s what they all say. Your type still thinks you have any influence anymore.”
“Listen, my book is about the people who created the semiconductor revolution that facilitated word processing and number crunching and creating art and music. We never imagined the misuse allowed by the Internet or Social Media or AI”
“’Hoist in your own petard’ were you Mr. Mahon? Here, put these scrubs on and put your clothes in the plastic bag”
“No.”
“You will, or we can make that 72 last much longer. The more trouble you make the longer we can hold you.” I put on the scrubs and was led away to the R. P. McMurphy wing of the hospital to my new room.
Room? Did I say room? It was twice the size of a normal hospital room, and it had no toilet, no chair, no furniture, cold (in spite of the heat wave outside), and a bed that was little more than a plank. I also noticed there was no pillow, probably out of respect for the late Mr. McMurphy.
Getting forcefully settled in, I asked if there was anything to eat since I had not had a thing for over ten hours. Eventually they brought me a large piece of meat and a plastic spoon.
Frustrated by the utensil, I picked up the slab of meat and began to gnaw on it. To the professional staff that only convinced them even more that I needed close observation.
Later, I needed to relieve myself which meant an escorted trip down the hall. And an attendant listening attentively outside the door for my continuous grunts and splashes to validate my excuse.
It was getting close to time for lights out on the R.P. McMurphy Ward.
I read a little from my well-worn pages of CHARGED BODIES, my recently-republished, award-winning, non-fiction history of Silicon Valley. And eventually nodded off.
(And that is no reflection on the quality of the writing in my book, which has been described by those in the know as a definitive history of the semiconductor revolution.)
I don’t think I was given any medication to make me forget the night because my memory is still very vivid.
I woke up suddenly at 3 am to see a woman doctor massaging my feet. She seemed embarrassed by the discovery, let go of my feet and came to the side of my plank/bed.
She leaned over the guard rail and whispered to me in the dark, cold emptiness, “I know you know the answer, but can you tell me what month this is.”
FFS, Doctor! I yelled
And even as I said that I knew my hold would be lengthened again. Because I’m the crazy one, not the doctor.
Morning came and with it a new shift of attendants including one who brought in my breakfast of scrambled eggs served with a plastic knife. (I should have saved the plastic spoon.)
As he set the tray on my lap, he saw the copy of CHARGED BODIES by THOMAS MAHON, my recently-republished, award-winning, non-fiction history of Silicon Valley on the floor which I probably dropped when I feel asleep.
“Hey, you’ve got the same name as this author. Are you related? I hope not. I hear he once went off to Venice to die. You don’t want a history of crazy people in our family when you are on a Hold.”
“No, not related. He spelled it Mann. Ok, just kidding, I wrote this recently-republished, award-winning, non-fiction history of Silicon Valley, CHARGED BODIES. Here, just look at some of the very favorable comments from industry influencers on the back cover.”
“So you’re a writer then, you’re not crazy?
Bingo! And with that, the cracks in the case against me began to appear. Maybe the patient presenting is not a brain-addled street person, but merely a writer. or maybe a character in search of an author.
I am not crazy; I am a writer
Maybe even successful enough to have an attorney on retainer.
Fortunately, the hospital already had the phone numbers of my children as next of kin after a procedure several years before. They called the closest one, in Los Angeles, who left work to drive three hours in the heat, to the hospital to affirm I was his father and he would promise to look after me for a few days. I was taken off Hold.
I was raised in the humanist (not humorless STEM) tradition. It was from that humanist tradition that I backed into a career writing about the tech revolution from a front row seat in Silicon Valley over 50 years ago.
The sudden rush today into AI on all fronts scares me. I covered that topic 40 years ago in CHARGED BODIES, my recently-republished, award-winning, non-fiction history of Silicon Valley.
We have had four decades to get ready for this moment and only in the past two years have we seriously begun to confront the reality of it.
But this recent, actual experience makes me think that AI is not the problem so much as poorly written algorithms.
It was not intelligent machine that sent me to the psych ward, it was people who are programed under protocols that have no leeway, no slop, in them.
The professionals who put me on Hold were reacting as they were compelled to do if someone says the trigger words; working lockstep on an algorithm not of their devising. Just like any AI system.
Maybe, maybe?, the problem is not artificializing intelligence; maybe it’s the sloppy algorithm writing.
HAL, the first mass-market AI machine, in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, was not homicidal when he tried to kill Dave. He was poorly programmed back at the University, told to terminate anything that threated the success of the project. Thus, as HAL saw it, Dave had to be left out in the cold.
In our rush to the artificial and the virtual — which a few are monetizing now to their obscene profit and power — we have to map it to the humanist tradition again whose core strengths were the authentic and the virtuous.
Before it’s too late.
© 2024, Thomas Mahon
