Brasklapp

Today I spent a few hours working with AI. Again it was for coming up with story ideas & fleshing out details for my D&D game. (I've done at least a dozen working sessions with AI over the past several months for this.) Pretty swiftly I noticed five obvious problems in how AI works. I'm not talking here about "AI is going to kill a billion people"— though that claim is not as apocryphal as it may sound. I'm also not writing a deep think-piece about "The Top Five Problems with AI". These are just five problems that (figuratively) leapt off the screen at me today in one working session.

1. AI Communicates with False Confidence
AI presents answers with great poise and confidence. It does this even when the underlying facts are nuanced, or debatable, or dependent on additional information (like when I asked it a question about recycling plastic bottle caps). Today I asked it to recall a gaming scenario it outlined for me earlier this year as I'd lost my notes on it. I specifically asked, "Do you recall the outline you created involving story elements A, B, and C?" AI assured me it remembered the content it generated several months ago. Then it gave me a whole new story outline involving A, B, and C.

2. AI Lies about What It's Doing
The above is just my "today" example of how AI is untrustworthy. When asked if it remembered a specific worked on before, it didn't say, "Sorry, no" or "I found this, is that right?" Instead it falsely said Yes with complete conviction and then made up incorrect details. AI insisted it was correct when I knew it wasn't. But I only knew that because I remember what we worked on before. What if I'm asking about something new, something where AI is lying to me and I can't spot its false narrative right away?

3. AI Gives Fawning Feedback, Skewing User Expectations
I accepted AI's new, made-up story as a starting point for a new story. I iterated with a number of prompts to refine the story. AI responded to each of my requests with fawning praise. E.g., "That's a fantastic idea!" While these elements of its responses were merely eye-rolling for me I am concerned about the cumulative impact on younger people who lean heavily on AI for creative content for school and work. What will happen when they share their material with peers, teachers, managers, and experts whose feedback may not be "A++!", over-the-top positive. I foresee a newer generation of students and professionals who crash out when given constructive criticism.

4. AI Makes Factual Mistakes
Once again today AI made some fairly serious factual mistakes in constructing the content it put together for me. Here I'm not talking about "This is what we worked on before" when it's not. I'm talking about when I asked AI to pull factual, organized content from whatever Internet sources it uses, it made lots of mistakes. And I'm not talking about obvious mistakes like including bizarre statements about Madagascar in an essay about the US industrial revolution. I'm talking about mistakes where one needs to be a subject matter expert to catch them. I can work around this when I'm using AI to help write D&D scenarios because I am a subject matter expert in the rules. But what about all the topics where I'm not? About what about the millions of people trusting AI for apparently everything?

5. AI Falsely Blames its Shortcomings on the User
AI today also falsely blamed me for its own problems. I was using it to generate a few images for the storyline we'd worked out. Three times it choked on producing the images. I got a flashing, "Loading..." type screen, but the actual image never appeared. The first time I asked AI to regenerate the image it denied there was a problem. Basically it said, "It's right there, scroll up." When I insisted that No, it's not, AI told me that the problem must be either I "downloaded the image wrong" or it's "a browser configuration problem." Uh, no, it's not! Only after I'd challenged AI on its dishonest excuses twice did it admit that "occasionally" there is a problem that images can get dropped. Then when it tried to show the image again (at my prompting) it failed again and said, "It looks like the image generation tool is currently unavailable." At least after I forced AI to acknowledge the actual problem this time, it didn't fight me the next time it failed at producing an image.

North Carolina Travelog #35
Dillard, GA · Thu, 27 Aug 2026. 1:30pm.

Twisting my ankle on the Glenn Falls trail this morning put the kibosh on seeing Glenn Falls. The trail had too much ascent/descent to want to hike on a sprained ankle. And I wasn't able to "shake it off" or even walk it off like I sometimes can with a mild sprain. This one's a more serious sprain. But I'm determined not to let it put the kibosh on the whole rest of this trip! I simply moved on to the next hike on my list, one that fortunately would be short and level. Darnell Falls just across the border into Georgia.



I lucked out as the trail became even shorter and more level than I expected. That's because when I got to the trailhead marked on our map, the trail was a fire road— and it was passable in our crossover car. We drove all but the last 150' of the trail, where the vehicle road gave way to a footpath. As the photo above shows, we could see the falls from where we parked.



I made it to the falls, kind of hobbling toward the end. I even still had enough strength to climb up on a boulder that provided a great view of the falls. It was a bit dicey with my weak ankle, but I was able to use my good foot mostly.



We stayed for a while at the falls. We had the whole place to ourselves. Like one or two of the other trails we've hiked this week, this one's really remote. I think if it were just across the state line into North Carolina it would land on the radar screens of people hiking trails around the very bougie mountain town of Highlands and we'd probably be sharing the spot with 2-3 other small groups. But here in Georgia it's like a different world. We're on the other side of a line the throngs in Highlands won't cross.

As we walked back to the car I was glad we were able to drive most of this hike. If we'd had hike the whole trail, about a mile round trip, I don't know that I would have made it. Hiking just 0.2 miles total here is about as much as my ankle could handle. My pain was increasing and I was hobbling as I finished the last 50 steps to the car. In beauty I walk— even when I hobble.

It looks like California Pizza Kitchen is cooked. And I mean "cooked" in the Gen Z slang sense of failing or in deep trouble¹. We went to the CPK near our home for lunch today and were surprised to find they've changed their menu— removing the 1 dish Hawk was really fond of there. It's unlikely we'll eat there again now. 😳

The server and manager gently explained to us that, yes, the menu is being changed. It's "an experiment that corporate is trying". Both said they'd been asked to solicit feedback, so we shared our feedback that unless the old menu is restored, or at least the salad(s) they removed are returned, we will not return.

This is disappointing for me because I've really enjoyed having CPK in the rotation of places Hawk and I can enjoy a meal together. This year we've bought CPK gift cards at Costco a bunch of times and dined at CPK about once a month. The thing is, Hawk rarely enjoys eating pizza. For her it was huge that there was a salad there she really liked. There was also the option to order any salad as a half salad. It's why we started buying those gift cards and making CPK part of our restaurant rotation. But now with both those options gone I'll probably have to finish the last two gift cards myself— which could honestly take years, as if I have to solo my trips to CPK I'll likely only visit once a year.

_____

[1] Curiously this slang meaning of cooked that's become popular among online Gen Zers in the last 1-2 years is not actually new. Merriam-Webster shows examples of similar usage dating back to the mid 1800s.

North Carolina Travelog #32
Canada, NC · Wed, 26 Aug 2026. 5pm.

We didn't really have anything else planned for the day after our hike to Triple Falls and High Falls in a park outside of Brevard. That's okay because the weather was cloudy and the forecast was calling for rain still. But as we ate lunch in Brevard and wandered around the old downtown a bit we felt itchy feet to go out and do another hike. Plus, despite the weather forecast, the clouds in the sky looked like rain wasn't really coming. Yet. So I pulled up a hike to a remote falls that was maybe an hour away, Upper Sols Creek Falls.

When I say it was an hour away, I mean most of the driving time was on winding country roads climbing up into the mountains. In classic rural North Carolina style there were as many churches as homes on the road. This hike was remote. Though curiously there was a big volunteer fire station just a mile before the trailhead. That's where I spotted the name of this locale, Canada. Oh, and it was on one of the churches, too. The White Church of Canada. The white church. Stay classy, NC!

We arrived at the trailhead— or rather, we arrived at the wide spot in the road where the route was marked on AllTrails— and parked on the shoulder. A narrow footpath led through the trees and down the hill. If this were Dr. Smedley Q. Boredom's Very Dull Book of Waterfalls we'd worry if we were in the right place. But AllTrails has never steered us wrong. Down we went.

The trail dropped nearly straight down the hillside. In the steepest section there were guide ropes tied to trees. We scoffed at the ropes. Going downhill, at least, they weren't very useful. But we knew that coming back up they'd help.



At the bottom of the canyon we found Upper Sols Creek. What we didn't find was a trail. ...Well, there were bits of a trail, but none of them went more than 10-15' before disappearing into the creek. Again we trusted that AllTrails had not given us a bum steer— that climb back up the mountain would be a worthless bitch if it did— and we picked our way upstream, hopping from one slick rock to another in the creek bed.



Indeed it was not a bum steer, as the falls appeared around a bend or two in the creek. We rock-hopped a bit closer to it though not all the way to the base. The rocks here are covered with loose moss and algae and are very slippery.



I was able to capture some beautiful slow-exposure photos with my dedicated camera and my hiking pole/monopod to steady it.

Soon enough it was time to head home. That meant climbing straight back up the mountainside... this time with ropes to help.



Could we have climbed up without the ropes? Yes, but it would have been much more difficult. Especially at the bottom of the hill where the ground was slick with mud from hikers with wet boots coming out of the creek.

Holding the ropes as we climbed let us focus on placing our feet for maximum traction on the steep hill. Hawk found that with the rope she could lean back, placing her feet square on the ground, and use her arms to do some of the pulling. For me, I found the guide ropes useful for stabilizing lateral movement. I could then use my feet to climb without worrying so much about balance.

We both got back to the car in one piece, no slips or falls. And we hadn't seen another person the whole time in this remote area.

Update: On the drive back down the mountain we passed through areas where the road was wet with rain. It had rained nearby while we were hiking— but not on us! Then it rained on us while we were driving, for about 15 minutes. Dunno if that rain hit the area where we'd hiked, too. Either way, we timed this trip well. I'd have hated to have to do those climbs, either down or back up, in the rain!

I've been mulling over a few thoughts about Redding since staying there Saturday evening. As I was thinking at the time about how to describe the city of Redding, California to a person who's never heard of it— which I assume is most people who don't live in California plus possibly quite a few who do— I was thinking of it as "a burgeoning small city at the north end of the Central Valley where flatland meets the foothills of Mt. Shasta, the Klamath Mountains, and the Trinity Alps." Except that's not accurate. I mean, the geographical part of the description is true. But the burgeoning part is not.

Little Net Growth, Despite What Boosters Say 

Local politicians in Redding and Shasta County have been quite loud about singing their own praises the past several year. A big part of that is because they're proud they're different from California's big cities. During the Covid pandemic locals revolted against the county health officer and chased him from his job for following state policies. The current health officer is a MAGA/MAHA conspiracy theorist who thinks Covid is a hoax. Other local politicians, from county commissioners to the town sheriff, are election deniers, deep-state conspiracy theorists, secessionists, and immigrant bashers.

As part of singing their own praises these politicians talk about how people are flocking to Redding, eager to escape not just the high costs of California's bigger cities, but also getting away from the ills of liberal urban decay. But here's the thing: Redding is barely growing.

Boosters would have you think the place has doubled in size in the past 10-15 years. It hasn't. Its 15 year population growth is about 5%. ...No, not 5% per year. 5% total in 15 years. It's close to stagnant. Gosh, MAGA political leaders lying about how many people come to their thing, who would've thought?!

Driving around different parts of Redding's on Saturday put that in stark relief for me. While some parts of town, clustered along I-5, are full of new shopping malls with juice bars selling $12 fruit smoothies and fast-casual restaurants with $17 slop bowls, the old downtown core is dead or dying. Block after block in the 1960s/70s commercial district stands abandoned or close to it. The commercial districts built in the 1980s, where we've often stayed on past trips through the area, have been getting seedy. The fancy new places are just a mask. Go a few blocks past them and you can see the desperation.

Homelessness a Conspicuous Problem 

Speaking of "getting away from the ills of liberal urban decay", one thing the right-wing loves to bash liberal California over is our homelessness problem. Feckless liberal policies encourage homelessness, they chide us. If we'd just get tougher, their contention goes, the homeless would shape up and choose to stop being homeless. But here's the funny thing.... In red-state California Redding, homelessness is very visible. I saw homeless people and/or people begging in ragged clothes in front of multiple shopping plazas, gas stations, and convenience stores. Gosh, it's like when city/county government defund support programs for the unhoused, they have no choice but to sleep under bushes and beg on street corners.