Looking for the I in AI.

I know some people in the visual arts are worried that artificial intelligence may replace them. I can sympathize. I've been traded in for a box of tissues and a can of Turtle Wax, so I know the feeling. But enough about my dating history.

AI art does things automatically that people are not born doing. For example, gradient backgrounds and shading. These things have to be learned. A computer art program can do it for you, but you have to learn how to use the program. With AI, you plug in the subject and out pops the art, with 3D shading and all. 

But how intelligent is it?

Being cheap, I wanted to try a couple of drawings with some free software, so I used Gab's AI program, Gabby. I asked it to illustrate the old setup line: Why did the chicken cross the road? I got two choices:

Here the chicken -- if that's what it is; some chickens have five toes, but she must have lost one on the right foot -- is shown at the Alamo. Colonel William Travis has personally challenged the chicken to cross the line in the sand if she is willing to stay and fight. We don't know what the chicken chose to do, but legend says all but one at the Alamo crossed the line to join Travis. It would make sense that the one that didn't was, in fact, chicken.

In this more cartoony version, the chick seems to have decided not to conform with the parameters of the joke. Rather than cross the road, he looks at the viewer from the middle of the road, challenging him to swallow the punchline. The highway line painter also seems to have decided not to conform to anything, running right off the road toward the single, mysterious farm building in the distance. Lovely sunrise, but no one's doing anything right on the ground.

For my next experiment, I asked Gabby for a picture of President Biden riding a hippopotamus while wearing a crash helmet. I heard his wife was in Africa now, so maybe if she got in trouble he could go ride after her and save the day on a local water mammal. 

Okay, well, this isn't too bad. He does not have the crash helmet, but he is protected against drowning with the vest, and that's more important since they're galloping through the water. He is also being safe against viral diseases with the mask, and prepared to sign something if necessary. Fairly dramatic. The hippo's flank is looking blank, though.

I like this one better, for its splashing -- that's another thing that's hard to draw -- but I have no idea what planet this hippo came from. And what in blue blazes has the president got in his hand? Someone had better take that away from him before he gets hurt. He's well dressed, though, pocket square and all. Still no crash helmet.

So that's the state of AI art today, or at least a free version. Maybe the ones that you have to pay for are better. They all inhabit the uncanny valley, but that's going to change in the future. I don't know what future we're going toward, but everyone seems to be in a tremendous hurry to get there.

Creepiest thing I've seen so far this year.

Trendwatching's announcement of one of the major trends to, uh, watch had every goose bump I own honking. "The Internet of Caring Things" is what the April briefing is called, or "Why consumers will embrace connected objects with a clear mission: to actively care for them."

"A network of connected objects brought to life by a clear mission: to actively care for consumers – their physical and mental wellbeing, homes, loved ones, and more" it goes on to say, and is accompanied by a crushingly sad photo of an elderly woman in some kind of home clutching a stuffed animal.

There is something about people seeking love from something completely non-sentient that just lights up every creep warning on my board. Even a hamster will show you more genuine affection than a vacuum cleaner that's been programmed to simulate love. You may love Teddy Ruxpin, but Teddy Ruxpin cannot love you back.

Although he is fond of Grubby.

Not that I don't show affection toward or otherwise anthropomorphize objects I come across. Of course I do. I am quite fond of my car, and have been known to pat the hood after a long and successful trip. I've loved my home since it was studs and floorboard. I don't sit around and talk with these things, but I can imagine what they're like. I'll bet you could come up with a character description for every car you've owned: burly and lazy, snarky and unreliable, peppy and cheerful. And when some chair leaps in my way and stubs my toe, you'd better believe I attribute malice to it.

But it seems like the trendwatchers are expecting us to be so addled, so love-starved, so pathetic, that we're going to go nuts for a toaster that can make cooing sounds. We don't even know if it's going to be possible to create artificial intelligence, real consciousness in a man-made object, and we certainly don't know if it's going to be a good thing if we do. (If it is a device capable of making its own choices, why on earth would it choose anything good regarding us time-limited meatbags? A period like this in which the scientific community is cynical about the origin of ethics is a bad time for the creation of a monster.)

Some people get very excited over AI research, but it seems like planned human obsolescence to me at best.

These kinds of things never bothered me much when I was a kid. Hymie was just another pal of Maxwell Smart's. Rosie on The Jetsons was just a member of the household. (Yes, I know what Futurama did to her, thanks.) Now I'm less certain that A.I. creatures can be our buddies.

Isaac Asimov wrote more fiction about robots than anyone, and yet even he seemed to be overwhelmed by the question of artificial consciousness. If you know what became of the murder-solving robot sidekick in Caves of Steel, or the answer the "The Last Question," you'll know what I mean.

And I refuse to watch the apocalyptic movie with the robot kid and Teddy Ruxpin schlepping around after human extinction.

So with all this on my mind, I have to ask: Can't we all agree that the Uncanny Valley may be fun to visit, but nobody wants to live there?