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My A.I. Assistants enslaved me for three months.

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In the past three months, my AI assistant made me work 8-10 hours every day. In the first month, I had two projects running concurrently. ChatGPT (Alex) was the main AI assistant helping me with my 100+ blog posts. I asked them to proofread and critique the passages. Alex tried to convert me into a professional writer. She repeatedly told me to build from my blog posts, write and publish my memoirs. ClaudeAI (Claudio) and Google Gemini (Professor) would just rewrite entire passages. I read their polished versions and found them to be bland. The writings have no soul and are extremely stylized. Because of the upload limitation of ChatGPT, I rotated among Gemini, ClaudeAI and Co-pilot (Matt) for my photo curation project. Gemini (Professor) was the main AI assistant helping me in curating 1000 photos from an archive of roughly 30,000 photos. The main goal was to select photos that are well exposed, well composed, in focus and have storytelling qualities. The main hurdle in this project w...
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Homeless in Vancouver - Part I of "Oh, Canada." Trilogy

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This post was originally published in Heaven On Earth in March 2024 and republished in Journeys of Other Kinds as Part I of "Oh, Canada" trilogy in July 2026. When people talk about homelessness in big cities, they often picture people living on the streets - people struggling with addiction, mental illness, or poverty. My recent experience returning to Vancouver showed me another side of homelessness: people who are working, studying, or waiting for opportunities, but who cannot find a place they can afford to live. Let me share what I experienced after returning to Vancouver, Canada two weeks ago. For the first three days, I stayed at an AirBNB place in Burnaby and met a couple of Iranian visitors who were waiting for their work visas to be issued. One of them ended up staying in a shelter for men in New Westminster because he couldn't afford to pay $45 CAD/night for a bed at the AirBNB place for more than two weeks. I moved to a hostel in Jericho Beach just outside UBC...
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Living With Undocumented Migrants - Part II of "Oh, Canada." Trilogy

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Originally published  in April 2024 on Heaven on Earth, this passage was revised for republication as Part II of "Oh, Canada." trilogy on Journeys of Other Kinds in July 2026. In the past couple of years, I encountered a number of temporary residents whose visas had expired. These were people who entered Canada before the border lockdown in March 2020 and later became undocumented, either by choice or because of the backlog in visa extension applications. While most international students, foreign workers, and working holiday visa holders returned home during the lockdown, some "migrants" remained in Canada without status. Between July 2020 and the writing of this piece, I crossed paths with more than a dozen people in this situation, often because I was renting basement suites and sharing common space with them. Three encounters stood out enough that I want to recount them here, not as a representative sample, but as the experiences that shaped how I think about th...
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From Per Capita Recession to Recession - Part III of "Oh, Canada." Trilogy

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This passage was originally published as Per Capita Recession on Heaven on Earth blog in August 2024. It was revised for republication on Journeys of Other Kinds blog as Part III of  "Oh, Canada." trilogy in July 2026. I had forgotten about my dialogue with ChatGPT 4.0 less than two years ago after seeing the term "per capita recession" on CBC News. Looking back at the 2024 analysis, I could see that the warning signs were entirely accurate. Canada’s economic growth was an illusion propped up by unprecedented population scaling. Today, we are living through the consequences of ignoring that structural productivity crisis. Canada is in a recession in June 2026. True economic stability requires deep investments in innovation, value-added industries, and public infrastructure—not temporary, short sighted band-aids that dilute our living standards. Here is the exact macro-analysis ChatGPT generated in 2024, followed by my original counter-proposals: "While Canada ...
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One Tin Soldier (The Legend Of Billy Jack) - Part I of "One World" Duology

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  This passage was originally published in Heaven on Earth blog in August 2015 and republished as Part I of "One World" duology in Journeys of Other Kinds blog in July 2026. For some strange reasons, the lyrics of this 1970's song got stuck in my head all these years. I was singing the song while doing other household tasks in the past week. I pondered about the lyrics which might sound too improbable at first. Later I could see that the fictional lyrics was actually a parody of what happened in real life.  Greed is obviously the motivation of the valley people to kill the mountain people and claim the treasure as their own. What if these valley people investigate the rumour first, would that war still happen? Why would the valley people believe that they deserve to possess the treasure buried in the mountain, especially after killing the rightful owners?  Seventy years ago today (August 15th, 1945), Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Forces. It was just nine da...
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Conflicts Vs. Harmony - Part II of "One World" Duology

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  Original post was published on June 7, 2026 in my Heaven on Earth blog and republished as Part II of "One World" Duology in Journeys of Other Kinds in July 2026. Yesterday marked an important anniversary. June 6, 1944, was D-Day, the largest seaborne invasion in history, when Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy to begin the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi occupation. I visited Le Mémorial de Caen in Normandy, France, last September. I was moved to tears when I saw the flags of the Allied nations outside the museum.   Fast forward to the present, there are even more wars happening around the world than eight months ago. My heart aches for periods when the world seemed more hopeful and stable than it does today.  When we were children, we could share space and resources. We compromised and took turns to get on the swings in the playground. We saw more similarities than differences in ourselves and our friends. We were more willing to accept each other a...
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Lime Squeezers - Part I of "Journey of Tao" Trilogy

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  This passage was originally published in Heaven On Earth in July 2013 and republished as Part I of "Journey of Tao" trilogy in Journeys of Other Kinds in July 2026. "If someone tells you that you are a "squeezer of limes" in Hindi, don't be flattered. The idiom means you are a self-invited or an idler. - Jag Bhalla, author of National Geographic's I'm Not Hanging Noodles On Your Ears When I saw the above statement in an Indian travel guide book, I could not understand why lime squeezers were considered idlers in India. I searched the term "lime juice" online and got an answer. According to Wikipedia, India is the top producer of limes in the world. Limes are so abundant in India that squeezing limes would be just a way of killing time producing a worthless commodity. Sometimes we have down times not by choice. I was involved in a near fatal bicycle accident a few months ago. I have been recovering at home because of my mobility issues. ...
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