Discovering Sunset Years with Frank Lancione

Discovering The Villages: Community Insights and Inspiration

In this episode of the Open Forum in the Villages, Florida podcast, host Mike Roth introduces his passion project aimed at providing listeners with knowledge and inspiration about the community. Mike interviews Frank Lancione, a 10-year resident of The Villages, who shares an engaging story of how he and his wife unexpectedly decided to move to The Villages. They discuss the unique aspects of the community, including its vast number of clubs and activities that cater to seniors. Frank reveals his journey into writing poetry and books about senior years and his innovative project combining books, plays, and interactive games. The conversation touches on the impact of AI on self-publishing, with Frank sharing insights on using AI tools for creating character avatars and enhancing writing. The episode also includes a preview of Frank's upcoming murder mystery series set in a fictional town reminiscent of The Villages.

00:00 Introduction to the Open Forum Podcast
01:08 Support the Podcast
01:56 Meet Frank Lancione
02:36 Life in The Villages
05:07 Frank's Poetry and Philosophy
09:52 Frank's Book, Play, Game Series
17:09 AI in Writing and Publishing
29:29 Conclusion and Next Episode Preview

Transcript

Frank Lancione - Discovering Sunset Years with Frank Lancione

[00:00:07] Dolores: Welcome to the Open Forum in the Villages, Florida podcast. In this show, we talk to leaders in the community, leaders of clubs, and interesting folks who live here in the villages to get perspectives of what is happening here in the Villages, Florida. We are a listener supported podcast. There will be shout outs for supporters in episodes.

In Season 6, we will continue making substantial improvements to the podcast. 

[00:00:34] Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth. And, listeners, I'm thrilled to share with you this podcast, which is my passion project for you. This podcast brings me joy, brings you knowledge, and Inspiration and a lot of things that people need to know about the villages and the people living here.

Be sure to hit the follow button to get the newest episode each week. Creating this podcast is a labor of love, even though it demands more time than I can easily spare. Now, here's where you come in. You can help us keep the podcast alive and thriving. How? By becoming a supporter, the easy way for you to support us is to visit our podcast web page, openforuminthevillagesflorida.

com, and click on the supporter button at the top of the page, or the purple supporter box on the right side of the page. Even a small donation of three to ten dollars a month is appreciated. Makes a big difference. And guess what? You can cancel your subscription at any time. No strings attached. Your support means the world to us.

Stay curious, stay inspired, and keep those headphones on. I hope everyone enjoys today's show.

This is Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. I'm here today with Frank Lancione. Frank has been retired here in The Villages for 10 years. . How come you moved to The Villages? 

[00:02:04] Frank Lancione: Oh, interesting story. We had no interest in moving to The Villages. We were on our way to Cocoa Beach for a weekend, which was a place that I always enjoyed, right after I retired to celebrate my birthday, 66th birthday.

And I said, you know this place, The Villages, where I was listening to that silly thing. Why don't we just stop in there and see what it is. Hot damn, two days later we left town with a second house.

[00:02:29] Mike Roth: You didn't take the trolley tour, did you? No. We do a bit in the improv about the trolley tour.

[00:02:34] Frank Lancione: I think we saw. Even in that short period of time we were here, we saw there was something different about The Villages. And in fact, that's actually an interesting discussion. When people describe The Villages to other folks, most people say, we have X number of pools and X number of holes of golf And my rejoinder to that is, anybody can do that.

Anybody can build those buildings. What you have in The Villages is 150, 000 people within about a 20 year or 30 year span. 

And I would say if you went to the University of Michigan, okay, when it's out of season, it's one type of place. But when it's in season, 30, 000 kids come into town. 

[00:03:11] Mike Roth: Right. 

[00:03:12] Frank Lancione: They dominate the culture.

In The Villages, if you're a median age 67. 8, the culture is about you. The parking spaces are big. The restaurants cater to you. Nowhere else in the world can you go where the culture is about you in your senior years. That's pretty unique. I can't imagine living anywhere else.

[00:03:31] Mike Roth: Yeah. When we looked at retirement communities, when I knew I was leaving Cincinnati because I was tired of the snow in 2017, I never wanted to see snow for real on TV. It's okay, , but snow and ice, I had enough of it. And we looked at various places in the south and we came here and I said I don't play golf very much anymore.

 Never had a, developed a big interest in it. And so that wasn't a big plus. But the thing that, that flipped me over and said we had to move to The Villages was the fact that at the time there were 2, 200 clubs and activities. No place else we see more than about 150. 

[00:04:09] Frank Lancione: And every one of those is somebody's dream.

They're not done by the developer. They're not done by some professional in the recreation department. They're somebody's dream. 

I remember our time here, we went around to one of the rec centers. There was a music box festival. 

[00:04:22] Mike Roth: Oh yes, I've done a couple of shows from there.

[00:04:24] Frank Lancione: I can't believe a music, if you were a music box enthusiast. 

[00:04:28] Mike Roth: It's called mechanical music. 

[00:04:30] Frank Lancione: You think you're one of the few people in the world.

Instead, no, there's a whole club here and you can't think of a topic that there isn't a club on. 

[00:04:36] Mike Roth: Yeah, they have these 150 year old mechanical organs and music boxes. It's just phenomenal stuff. And one time, we were at a rec center early for a meeting to set up for a potluck dinner.

[00:04:48] Frank Lancione: Right. 

[00:04:49] Mike Roth: And we opened the door to the room where the meeting was supposed to be, but we were more than a half hour early. And there were guys and ladies in white suits with masks and swords, and they were fencing. It was a fencing club. Wonderful. We looked in and said, Okay, close the door, we'll wait a half hour.

But you never know what you're going to find here in The Villages. 

[00:05:07] Frank Lancione: And actually, I write about that. 

[00:05:09] Mike Roth: Do you? 

[00:05:10] Frank Lancione: Yeah. I have. A series of books called Sunset Years, and it's poems and essays. I've got four books in that series. I started writing as I was getting close to 70, I realized, gosh, 70 is a big deal.

So I started writing poems because it just turned out to be that was comfortable for me to write that way. And I started writing about the things I was doing and my friends were doing and the life that we had here. When I got done, I had about 105 poems. And then, I wrote a second book of poems. As I started to look across both books, what I realized was, there were some common themes.

I went to a Jesuit college in that they make you look across things and say what's similar and what's not. And the themes all came down to this idea of What does it mean to be in your senior years? In the general culture, they regard our senior years we look like an anomaly, you're washed up, your relationship to your wife is, you're just roommates because it's too hard to break up because you have financial commitments.

They can't imagine you and in fact, you're usually like a character of comic relief. That's not the life we have here. Go to a center. People are holding hands. People are getting second and third marriages here when their spouses die. Yeah. So the philosophy I abstracted out of all that was the good life, the sunset years way of life.

[00:06:29] Mike Roth: So why don't you tell our listeners what the sunset years philosophy is in a few words. 

[00:06:34] Frank Lancione: Never stop striving, never stop dreaming, never stop achieving, even in your 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond. 

[00:06:41] Mike Roth: Okay. And Frank, in the sunset years you wrote some poetry at first. 

What is your favorite poem? 

[00:06:47] Frank Lancione: All of them. 

[00:06:47] Mike Roth: Of course, you're the author.

[00:06:48] Frank Lancione: But I have some that are good. One of the first ones that I wrote after we came back from a three month RV trip. And we covered 10, 000 miles. We circumnavigated

the U. S. And I think as I've mentioned to you in other forums, if you go 10, 000 miles in an RV and there's something weak in it, it's gonna break.

If you spend three months with somebody, day and night, in that little RV. And you have something wrong with your relationship, it's going to break too. And ours didn't. I was inspired by that when I got back. So if you ask me about favorite poems, that's certainly one of them that's called Still the One.

I have it if you want me to read it. 

[00:07:24] Mike Roth: Sure. There's something very unusual for Open Forum and The Villages. We're going to hear a poem. 

[00:07:29] Frank Lancione: All right. Let me see if I can find it. The book is available on Amazon. I say I'm probably the only 70 plus year old poet anywhere writing love poems to 70 plus year old women.

[00:07:43] Mike Roth: What do you mean? 

[00:07:44] Frank Lancione: Woman. Yes. Woman. My wife. 

[00:07:47] Mike Roth: Yes. 

[00:07:47] Frank Lancione: Still the one. You fret because you're 70. Hon, you still look great to me. You've got a few wrinkles and some new curves too, but I like this older version of you. We've loved each other for 50 years. Faced life, good and bad. It's laughter, it's tears.

Our grandkids laugh because I still hold your hand, but you still light me up like a rock concert band. Yes, it's true. Our bodies do look old, but our love, our life is still hot, fresh, bold. I love the warmth of you pressed full against me and that we still know love's ecstasy. I still think about you when we're apart.

You're still the one written on my heart. You're history, my destiny. And when my days are done, my last words will be, You're still the one. 

[00:08:38] Mike Roth: That's a great poem, Frank. 

[00:08:39] Frank Lancione: I love it. Now, my wife, I've had women come up to me and say, Oh my God, your wife must be so happy. And I say, she's an introvert. She's embarrassed, but she also likes them.

[00:08:50] Mike Roth: Okay. 

[00:08:51] Frank Lancione: And yeah, and I took a lot of the love poems from this volume, which was an anthology. I put them in a standalone. Book called poems for seniors who still love each other. And so when I'm at a big book expo or show and guys come up, I'll say I see you have a wedding ring there.

How'd you like to be a hero for five bucks? How'd you like to give your wife a book of love poems? Come on five bucks. You're going to be a hero. And you know what? The wives love it. They love it. They always come back and tell me, Oh my God, I'm so glad you did that. 

[00:09:22] Mike Roth: Okay. And that poem is in a book that's available on Amazon.

[00:09:27] Frank Lancione: All of my books. I have eight books on Amazon currently. And you can get them if you go Frank A. Lancione, Sunset Years, it'll pull up. 

[00:09:35] Mike Roth: Spell your last name for our listeners. 

[00:09:37] Frank Lancione: L A N C I O N E. So Frank A. Lancione. And that'll pull up, and if you put in Sunset Years, it'll pull up, I have two series.

I have books of poems and essays. And then I have a murder mystery series. 

[00:09:52] Mike Roth: Frank, I understand that you've recently put on a play here in The Villages that's based on your new book series, which is a strange but innovative idea, where you have in the same, I'm gonna call it a book, They're nice soft cover books, a little bit larger than 8x11 in dimensions.

You have a play. Then in the play in the book, it's first a book. Then it's a play, and then it teaches people how to play the book, play, into a game. 

[00:10:24] Frank Lancione: Book, play, game. 

[00:10:25] Mike Roth: Book, play, game. That's very unusual. 

[00:10:28] Frank Lancione: About two and a half years ago, I started putting on games for my friends and neighbors.

And we had actually gone to a little event. Where somebody had a game they downloaded from the internet and it was very simplistic. It just said, you know him because you're his banker. If somebody accuses you, say, I didn't do it. Accuse someone else. I thought, God, this is simplistic. It's just like process of elimination.

My wife and I love murder mysteries. They're all about motive, means, and opportunity, who had it, and who can you eliminate. So I said, I could write something better than this. It took me about a month and a half. 

[00:11:05] Mike Roth: Okay. Now, Frank, we're going to take a short break and listen to an Alzheimer's tip from Dr.

Craig Curtis. And then we're going to come back and learn a little bit more about these book, play, game publications. 

 Dr. Curtis, can you give, our listeners a tip on keeping their brain healthy? 

[00:11:29] Dr. Craig Curtis: Absolutely. My favorite tip is, involves a change in eating patterns, but it's not a drastic change. It's simply increasing the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, other white meats, and lowering the amounts of red meat, sweets, and sugars.

And also, carbohydrates. It's essentially following a Mediterranean type diet plan. 

[00:11:59] Warren: With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis goal is to educate the Villages community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, CraigCurtisMD. com or call 352 500 5252 to attend a free seminar.

[00:12:15] Mike Roth: Thank you, Dr. Curtis so Frank How long ago did you bring out the first two of the books think you brought them both out at the same time? 

[00:12:23] Frank Lancione: Yeah, I've actually published three over this summer 2024 and I have a fourth that I have the proof copy with me and I'm gonna be Publishing that before Thanksgiving of 2024.

By Christmas I'll have four books in this series there. 

[00:12:39] Mike Roth: Okay, and tell our listeners what the titles are. 

[00:12:43] Frank Lancione: Oh, it's fun. One is Death of a Socialite. Another is Deserve to Die. Another is Double Down on Death. And the fourth is one of my favorites, Death by Cat. 

[00:12:55] Mike Roth: Yeah, that sounds Siegfried and Roy's problem.

[00:12:57] Frank Lancione: It's a very interesting book and cat lovers see that and they go, oh my god, it's very interesting. What is it? What's fun about this is nowhere in these books do the two words, the and villages appear together. So it's not about The Villages. It just happens to be about a mythical town called Sunset Years.

Which happens to be the name of my series of poems and essays. It has about 150, 000 people in it. That's located near central Florida, just Southeast of Ocala. And by the way, every place in it, which happens to be this geography, that they're not copyrighted. So I talk about Riverbend rec center.

I talk about Monarch Grove neighborhood. I talk about the names of the streets. I talk about the restaurants. I talk about all of that and it's very comical because I set these all in my neighborhood, which is Linden, Marsh Bend and Monarch Grove. And people in my neighborhood who know me and know about the books go, Oh my God, there was a murder over by Swallowtail Postal Service.

Oh no, you know that, that sinkhole? Oh my God, there was somebody was killed over there. And it's all in the neighborhood and it's a lot of fun. So we have some fun with that. 

[00:14:01] Mike Roth: Yeah, occasionally there are sinkholes. 

[00:14:03] Frank Lancione: This woman just gets pushed into one. it doesn't fall away from underneath her.

[00:14:07] Mike Roth: That's an interesting idea to put in a book Which came first, the play or the book? 

[00:14:11] Frank Lancione: The play. I put on about 12 plays in the last two and a half years. When I first did this, I did it as a game. I invited 10 of our friends. We got a room in a rec center. And we did a potluck and We played the roles.

Basically like a fun evening for a family. So I did that twice. On the third time, A very entrepreneurial young woman who was in charge of the rec center said, gosh, this is interesting. Could you do this for us? And I said like there's only 10 people can play, we could be upfront and then we could have an audience.

And then she became a business partner and a co conspirator. So we did it with 30 people the first time and 50 people the second time. We were up to 80 people by the third time. Now I'm doing it routinely for audiences of 85 to 100. We're going to be doing it on November 12th of 2024 at Colony.

People can sign up through the recreation registration system. 

[00:15:01] Mike Roth: any dates further out into December and January? 

[00:15:05] Frank Lancione: I have one coming up in February at one of the independent living homes. So we're working on the date and I just recently talked to a financial services company about sponsoring these because I have a heart to go into the independent living facilities, put these plays on.

Provide an opportunity for the people who are residents to become actors in the play. And then have the people in the facility have the fun of participating. This is a real interactive experience. 

[00:15:37] Mike Roth: It's a great idea. 

[00:15:38] Frank Lancione: Yeah, even in the audience. If you're in the audience at the end of each of the three acts, you have a sheet.

You vote on who you think did it. And you discuss your ideas with the people around you. And then I go out and debrief the audience a little bit and then we go on. And so everybody who's up front as an actor, as well as everybody in the audience, has a sense of participation. We did the first one at Resort Lifestyle Community up on 466.

They loved it. We had 112 people in the facility. And there's only about 200 people in the facility. They had a few outsiders, so we had about 50 percent of the facility came to the play. 

[00:16:13] Mike Roth: And Each title, like Murder by Cat, always comes out with the same perpetrator? 

[00:16:19] Frank Lancione: Yes, this is an interesting thing.

Since I originally conceived it as a game, one of the things was I had a set of badges for people to wear. And so instead of making different name badges every time, I just recycled the names in each new edition. And I also did something else. I made all the names gender neutral. So that a man or a woman could play it.

Although they do have sex, as like men, women, 

[00:16:41] Mike Roth: Right? So the names are 

[00:16:43] Frank Lancione: Robin, Emery, drew Jules Nikki could go either way kind of thing. and in fact in the four books, it's fun. I started illustrating them with AI avatars. So each person has an avatar. So you could take four pictures of Emory Land and.

Some are men, some are women, some are old, some are young, some are handsome. Some are really comical looking.

[00:17:04] Mike Roth: Did you use the same AI for the creations of the photos? 

[00:17:07] Frank Lancione: Yeah, I did. 

[00:17:08] Mike Roth: Which AI did you use? 

[00:17:09] Frank Lancione: So I used Microsoft Copilot, the DAL E3 Illustrator. And I had a lot of fun with that and actually I'm going to be speaking in the month of November at the Writers League of The Villages on the second Wednesday of the month.

So it's coming up next week on illustrating your story with AI, which is really interesting. I know you used AI for your logo. 

[00:17:32] Mike Roth: We use a lot of AI in the show. 

[00:17:34] Frank Lancione: Yeah, I've been seeing this, what you're doing with the sound is amazing. For a self published author. The opportunity to create images of your characters in your locales in AI.

Is a huge step, I mean it's transformational.

[00:17:48] Mike Roth: I'm looking at the covers of four or five of your books now. And the covers are just fantastic for a self published author. 

[00:17:55] Frank Lancione: It would be about six or seven thousand dollars if I had to do it with an illustrator. 

[00:17:59] Mike Roth: Probably each one. 

[00:18:01] Frank Lancione: Yeah, 

[00:18:01] Mike Roth: Those are quality illustrations, good fonts. Some unusual things that were done. 

[00:18:06] Frank Lancione: Here's the thing I'm going to be talking to the Writers League about, which we're all mostly self published authors. The act of interacting with AI to create a picture of your author, I'm going to compare it to the paradigm of being a casting director.

Because you have to give a verbal description to the AI that catches the nuances of the character. You have to describe the background, the foreground, the style, the age the quality, the financial level. So when you do that, and it's an iterative process because it'll give you four, you might reject all those.

So you might have to do that ten times until you get something and you say, that's Robin Logan. 

That's it. 

that's the right character. 

[00:18:52] Mike Roth: I created the new logo for the Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. Podcast using Microsoft copilot 

[00:18:59] Frank Lancione: and it's just it's unbelievable. 

[00:19:01] Mike Roth: Yeah, and the quality of your prompt that you give it Is directly

shown in the output now. I have to go one step further. Ah, okay, because Microsoft's Copilot with dolly3 always gives you a kind of square picture and everyone today is using computer monitors and TVs. They're rectangular 16 by 9 So there's another AI program that will take your Output from Dolle And then fill in the left and the right side for you.

[00:19:33] Frank Lancione: Interesting. 

[00:19:34] Mike Roth: Oh yeah, that's pretty fantastic. 

[00:19:36] Frank Lancione: I'm going to get that before I leave. 

[00:19:37] Mike Roth: And if anyone else wants to get it, it's in my AI course, which is going to be taught again in the Enrichment Academy in the spring and summer. 

[00:19:46] Frank Lancione: So this is what I think about AI. There are people who say, oh, we have to resist.

It's a futile resistance. 

, 

if you're an author. What I'm gonna be talking to my fellow authors about is this idea that once people begin to illustrate their stories with high quality images, because they can 

, 

[00:20:05] Frank Lancione: you are going to be like the travel agent of the past , or the person's still trying to use a manual typewriter when everybody else is using word processing.

And, those of us who suffered through college with the white out tape and the manual typewriters, we wouldn't go back to that, we wouldn't give up what we have today in our software and our ability to design books, basically lay out our own books. 

[00:20:28] Mike Roth: I wouldn't have got through college if my grandmother hadn't been a secretary.

[00:20:32] Frank Lancione: Oh my goodness. 

[00:20:33] Mike Roth: And when I had to do a term paper, she would sit down in front of her typewriter at home and say, Michael. Dictate your term paper, and she would type it out almost flawlessly for me. 

[00:20:44] Frank Lancione: Wow. 

[00:20:45] Mike Roth: That was the only way I could do it. 

[00:20:46] Frank Lancione: Try to write a thesis. Today that's easy. I marvel the books I write.

160 pages, no problem at all. Because of these plays, the scripts are different. 

And that would have been a thesis in college. 

[00:20:57] Mike Roth: But. AI can do a lot more today and is doing more and more every day. 

[00:21:01] Frank Lancione: It's transformed the plays. So in my first versions, I didn't have avatars of the characters.

So what I would do is I'd have the name of the character color coded, a color coded badge that would pop up on the screen, and people would look at the person who was reading. With an avatar that is colorful and unique, people look at the avatar up on the screen. The person reading, and in my plays, I do it so that you don't have to memorize anything.

I give you a script to read. It's a witness statement. So I ask for your statement, then you read your statement. You're now off to the side. And so it makes it a little easier for somebody to be a quote unquote voice actor. 

[00:21:40] Mike Roth: Yeah. The quality of writing that we're getting out of A. I. 's today is phenomenal.

I've taken now to my more complex emails. And, people have a tendency to send me sometimes very long emails. I'll attempt to write a reply and then feed the input email and my reply into the AI and ask the AI to fix my output. 

[00:22:05] Frank Lancione: Wow. 

[00:22:06] Mike Roth: And the results are phenomenal. 

[00:22:08] Frank Lancione: I wouldn't want to be an English teacher today.

It's going to be very difficult. 

[00:22:12] Mike Roth: I used to think that people using A. I. s were cheating. And I now believe that A. I. s are making us better people. Because , they can fix the flaws that we have. And then we can see what is better than what we can do ourselves. 

[00:22:28] Frank Lancione: So think about the industrial revolution and the transition from handmade things to mass produced things.

And so that's AI, if you can put that in conceptual terms, the dog work of reading something to get the typos out of it. It's a mechanical predictive process that could be turned over to AI, but deciding what to write. That's still something that a human author does. Deciding what equates to the themes, the emotions.

That creativity is still very much a human function. 

[00:23:02] Mike Roth: So as a writer, what do you think about book, whole books that are written by AIs? 

I wish everyone could see Frank's face when I ask that question. 

[00:23:08] Frank Lancione: So I think if you go to look at pottery, you say you go into a, to a museum and you look at a piece of pottery, A handmade piece of pottery is more likely to be in a museum because it's unique, it's one off, and its imperfections are a part, actually, of what makes it unique and attractive to us.

Compare that to a piece of pottery that just comes off a line and it's one of a thousand pieces of glazed stuff. I think in the future we're going to value those things which were human made, The same way we talk about handmade versus mass produced. And an AI generated book is going to have some certain characteristics to it that will be different than a human generated book.

At least, probably during our lifetime. Although, I will tell you, I was supposed to do this talk in October, but because of the storm, it was cancelled. In the 30 days since October, I have to rewrite the talk because the interface to the software works differently than it did 30 days ago. 

[00:24:09] Mike Roth: When I started contemplating teaching this AI course for the villagers, I counted up 168 AIs out there.

[00:24:17] Frank Lancione: Wow. 

[00:24:18] Mike Roth: And what I didn't realize is that number increases by some place between 5 and 10. Every two days. We're dealing with an explosion in the economy. Okay, which I think can only help us as a country. 

[00:24:33] Frank Lancione: So paradigms are interesting. When I'm talking to the author group, they write something in word processing, Microsoft Word, they come back to it, it's the same thing that was there the last time.

And then they change it. They come back to it again. It's the same thing with their new enhancements. It's not the way you do graphics in AI. You are submitting a request to a centralized server that is giving you perhaps one microsecond of time. And then answering your request and it's sent back to you.

[00:25:02] Mike Roth: It's taking a look at a very large sample of examples that were loaded into its large language. 

[00:25:09] Frank Lancione: So that's the story. But okay. Wait a minute. So then you say, I'd like to have that guy's hair be Brown. By the time that request hits the server, and even if it was only a minute ago, a million people have.

requested things, and as a result, the database is different than it was when you made your request just 60 seconds ago. And if they don't find your old request and change it, they present the problem to the large language model. It comes back with a new response. So you can't say, move them two inches to the left.

it's a different model that comes back to you. 

[00:25:44] Mike Roth: Some models actually will take Modifications to your existing request. And then, very recently I became aware of AIs that are not based on the large language model, but a specific set of models which are different.

When we get into robotics and, what jobs , can Boston Scientific's robots replace they're talking about high paid jobs in the automobile industry. And they can put a robot in there to do that job, to do the heavy lifting. Or actually a series of robots. 

[00:26:21] Frank Lancione: So 

I was a government employee for about 10 years and I went and became a management consultant. And I did a lot of work in the government. When AI becomes fully implemented, we're going to see a total collapse in the federal workforce. 

[00:26:36] Mike Roth: I don't think, at least in the foreseeable future, and I've been wrong about these things before The AI will never be complete.

[00:26:43] Frank Lancione: No, it will always go. But as it gains capability right now, if you were to go into a federal agency, there are legions of people who, they look at your situation, be it a grant proposal, or a case, or a request, they look at a regulation, they match the two up, they make a decision as to whether or not you qualify, and then they send you back a judgment.

So that type of reasoning, I have a reference model. Where are you against this reference model? How compliant are you with it? What are your differences? What are my scores? What will I allow? That's absolutely automatable. 

[00:27:24] Mike Roth: And there's a service called Delphi that allows you to create a clone of yourself.

It's one thing to create a clone of your voice, but this Delphi model takes specific situations and rules so that your voice can respond to particular problems. 

[00:27:41] Frank Lancione: So based on the oracle of Delphi 

and back in the 90s, the early work done with expert systems, how does your best employee, what is it that they do that allows them to make those excellent judgments and have the lowest error rate?

So let's capture those rules and inculcate them in some sort of a system. 

[00:28:02] Mike Roth: Have you ever heard of SIM data?

[00:28:04] Frank Lancione: No. 

[00:28:04] Mike Roth: Okay. People working on large databases with actual numbers. Like the number of voters that are registered to each party in a particular district or precinct. and then creating the exact replica, okay, for another county done by AIs that would be simulated data.

And simulated data can then be used as input to other AIs to figure out, say, the results of an election. Instead of polling. 

[00:28:33] Frank Lancione: So that's what Nate Silver basically runs his model. And it's basically how many scenarios. Let's run it as though it was a coin flip and we'll run it 800 times. And we'll see how many times of those that went one way, how many times of those that went another way.

Yeah. All development in our lifetime. 

[00:28:52] Mike Roth: Now, In the old days of statistical data, 800 coin flips might be a fair sized sample. 

Not now. 

With the computers, you might have 8 trillion samples that need to be summarized or could easily be simulated. 

[00:29:08] Frank Lancione: And that's the power of AI. A human would take eons to do that and AI can do it in a matter of minutes.

That ability to learn which ones work and which ones don't. You take a thousand random tests in a second. 

[00:29:22] Mike Roth: Yeah, we're at the very beginning of the AI revolution. And I think that we're going to see a lot more. Frank, we're going to stop here today. And thank you very much for being on the show.

[00:29:33] Frank Lancione: Mike, thank you. It's always a pleasure. 

[00:29:35] Dolores: Remember, our next episode will be released next Friday at 9 AM. Should you want to become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike at rothvoice dot com. This is a shout out for supporters Ed Williams, Duane Roemmich, Paul Sorgen, Kathy Loving, and Dr. Craig Curtis at K2 in the Villages.

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