As for the ReadICT challenge, I was one book away from completing the challenge.

1. A book with a flower or plant on the cover: The Botanist Guide to Passion and Poisons
2. 
A popular book you have never read:
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
3. 
A book by or about a person with a disability:
Sitting Pretty
4. 
A graphic novel book adaptation or memoir: I tried to read Maus, but couldn’t get through it.
5. 
A book set on a different continent:
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper
6. 
Cozy mystery, romantasy, or true crime: The Briar Club
7. 
A book featuring a strong woman:
The Nature of Fragile Things
8. 
A book with two or more points of view:
Where the Grass is Green and the Girls are Pretty
9. 
A book featuring group dynamics: The Celebrants
10. 
A book that scares you:
11/23/63
11. 
A book with a month in the title: Mother May I
12. 
A book recommended by KMUW or your local library:
Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone

My favorite was The Nature of Fragile Things. Set in 1900s around the time of the San Francisco earthquake and resulting fire, it follows a woman who marries a widowed father to escape her poverty-stricken New York like. She soon discovers he has been living a double life. The story follows this woman and two others this man has deceived as they navigate the earthquake disaster in 1906.

I also loved Sunrise on the Reaping, another prequel to the Hunger Game’s trilogy (the fifth book in the series). It follows Haymich Abernathy’s story (who is Katniss’ and Peeta’s mentor in the trilogy). It’s a heartbreaking account of the 50th Hunger Games and provides a glimpse into Haymitch’s background.

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books was a fun and easy read, while exploring a controversial topic.

The Woman They Could Not Silence is a disturbing look into the lack of women’s rights in the 1860s. Women who disagreed with their husband’s (or any man really) or “had an opinion” were often sent to insane asylums for being “mad.” The book follows a woman named Elizabeth Packard, whose stay at the asylum reveals the horrible conditions of the institution and the story of women who were committed for being “crazy.” She spent the rest of her life fighting for mental health support and women’s rights. Her efforts led to several changes in legislation including an 1867 Illinois law guaranteeing a jury trial for anyone accused of insanity, an 1875 federal law allowing asylum inmates to send and receive mail without censorship, and the 1869 passage of the first Married Women’s Property Act in Illinois.

Content transparency: This blog post includes a 100% AI-generated graphic, partially AI-generated headline, and 100% human-generated blog copy.

This is not a criticism of artificial intelligence. I use AI assistants in my everyday work. It’s a reminder that there is no replacement for human oversight.

Is AI trying to make humans look stupid? Despite the numerous warnings about AI hallucinations, AI tricks even the most trusted sources, spitting out inaccurate or simply made up content.

Last month, the Chicago Sun-Times published a list of 15 must-read summer books. Great! Except 10 of them don’t exist.

The list was generated by AI, but no one took the final step: Verifying and fact-checking.

Have the hallucinations gotten worse over time? Or are we more aware because more people are using generative AI? I can think of three instances where AI has produced false or inaccurate information for me. Two of them happened in the past two weeks.

1. Nonexistent statistics: I asked to provide specific industry statistics and it produced several legit sounding statistics and included links to where it found the information. The provided links are legit industry sources. The problem? The stats did not exist on those websites.
2. Made-up people: I wanted to summarize webinar session information into 1-2 sentences. I included the link to where the information was housed online, and asked AI for help. While the webinar session description was accurate, the presenter’s information was wrong. AI provided a totally different person I had never heard of. I asked AI about the inaccurate information. When I questioned the source, the AI bot provided a new response with the correct presenter name, but it pulled the information from a different website (and not the link I provided).
3. Outdated information: We’re exploring options for media monitoring, and we asked AI to provide a list of companies for us to contact. While it produced a legit list of companies, the information was about five years old. We found this out after asking one of the company reps about the results during our call.

Experts warn that while AI can replace some duties, be super helpful, and save time, it still requires human oversight. We must verify information, fact-check sources, and review AI-generated content.

Haven’t we been saying this all along?

We spent the weeked in Tulsa celebrating Kid #1’s graduation.

On Friday night, we had a family dinner at Charleston’s.

Saturday was graduation. While there were more than 1,000 graduates, there were 650 students who earned a bachelor’s degree. Waiting for the pomp and circumstance!

Kid 1 and his girlfriend. He earned a bachelor’s of science in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

At the fraternity house…

Not a family pic without Ali!