Monkey wrenches.

A company I work for was recently purchased by some firm you and I never heard of. While being tangentially in the same business arena, one is a publisher and the other one is an investment firm. 

Knowing the track record of the money mooks at places like Boeing in recent years, I am not optimistic. My main contact says that so far there's been a little departmental shuffling, but no major changes. 

I will be the first to admit that publishing is a mug's game these days, the overeducated spooling the unnecessary to the uninterested. It had reached a grand height in the 1990s, when Condé Nast built its new tower on Times Square, and has been in precipitous decline since. (Condé had its own tower by 2015.) Still, some ends of the business are attached to lucrative industries like finance and healthcare, so they have reason to continue to expect profitability. The company I work for is like that, so there's no reason to think it was bought to be sold off in parts, or to have the stock price run up and then dumped for profit by buccaneers of finance. 

However, there is every reason to fear that, once the dust clears, the new owners will move in the monkey wrench crew to improve things. 

These improvements are very much like artificial intelligence. They are forced onto the unwilling to perform functions that are unnecessary and wind up costing jobs for people who have performed well for years. The work is then outsourced or given to cheap hires that perform poorly. The bottom line is temporarily improved, the stock price rises, then clients flee as everything gets weird and shoddy. Then it's sold off for parts.

Improve Back Better

Don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of capitalism. The profit motive in a high-trust society like America has been until recently is the best means of raising people in large groups out of poverty ever devised.

I'm against stupid capitalism, however, where companies are run by people who neither know nor care about the actual business and everything goes to hell. I'm sure you can list a dozen examples of companies that died that way, usually the death of a thousand cuts rather than a staggering collapse. Often companies are just caught by surprise by technological advances. But in the end, it mostly comes down to a lack of the intelligence and devotion that made the companies great in the first place. 

If your company is bought out, as has happened to me in the past, I wish you very good luck. Keep an eye open for the monkey wrench crew, come to fix things. It's usually a sign to get the résumé together, if you haven't already. 

Crypto security!

Friends, America is once again in danger of voting for communist leadership, and we know that will mean more towering inflation, more recession, more crime. So, should you invest in gold? Hah! You know as well as I do that with the price of gold these days, your life savings could be reduced to a nugget that you could hide in your underpants. Even if you wear thongs. And if you do, please don't tell me.

No, I know you want to put your American dollars into a good, solid cryptocurrency. One of the big-name outfits like Bitcoin or HodagCoin something, right? 

Heck, no! Not only are those cryptos overhyphed, but they're ruining the world for nothing! Just look at this item from The Guardian. Computer data is sucking energy out of everything, and the world of artificial intelligence is just getting started.  

With the refusal of our betters to make more power plants, use more natural gas, and fire up more nukes, all this computing is bound to help drive your energy costs up. And so much of this computing is just junk data storage. 

Supposedly as much as two percent of all US energy generation is going just to mine cryptos. The useful being wasted on the meaningless. It's a shame. 

Unless you buy all-natural, all-awesome Fredcoin! 

Not only is Fredcoin better for the environment, it's safer, too! 

You think other cryptocurrencies are really secure? You can blockchain all you want; every crypto account is attached to a network, and every better mousetrap invites a better mouse. 

That's where good ol' reliable American FREDCOIN is once again proven to be the superior cryptocurrency!

Why? Because we don't run some fancy juice-sucking AI-empowered computer network, vulnerable to hackers or disgruntled employees or any other kind of jerkface weenie money-stealers. No, we have taken important steps to make sure our database is never in danger from bad actors on the Internet. I absolutely guarantee it! 

But how, Fred? you ask, astonished. Nothing on the Internet of Things is really safe!

Well, you put your finger right on the answer. Behold the secret of our security -- the master computer that runs the whole Fredcoin empire: A Tandy TRS-80 Model 4P!

“Ol’ Smoky Joe”

That's right -- Ol' Smoky is not and cannot be connected to the Internet, so all its information is as secure as a safe deposit box. It would have to be physically hacked, and that's not happening. Anyone who tries to break in here will have to face the jaws of doom (golden retriever Izzy) and my angry wife with a Louisville Slugger. 

Furthermore, the Tandy uses way, way less energy than all those big wasteful computers run by the hypocrites in Silicon Valley, the nerds who want you to keep your A/C at 85 degrees while they suck up all the juice to make lousy art with people with twenty fingers. 

All you do is send in your Fredcoin order with some of that soon-to-be-worthless US currency. Our crack staff (me) will put it in your account, and Ol' Smoky Joe will do the rest. It's a flawless system! It's completely safe! And if the grid goes down, the Tandy can be powered by our emergency crew of hamsters, just standing by to run that wheel.  

So don't go messing around with those ridiculous cryptos that can be wiped out because the founder lost the password. Mess around with Fredcoin, the crypto that's as solid as Radio Shack itself! With Ol’ Smoky, 26 pounds of computin’ fury, you can’t go wrong.

The hungry I.

"AI development could be slowed by a huge demand for electricity," reports WSHU in Connecticut, and it's an interesting development in this weird new world of artificial intelligence. 

Connecticut and other states would have to significantly improve their energy infrastructure to keep up with the electricity needed for AI computing, said Chetan Jaiswal, a computer science professor at Quinnipiac University and an AI researcher.

“For example, a single chip running for nine days uses more than 27,000 kilowatt hours. An average household uses approximately 10,000 kilowatt hours annually,” Jaiswal said.

And that's a report from tiny Connecticut, far from the fantasy land that is California, where so many high-tech companies dwell, and where the government thinks that medieval tech like sun and wind will somehow cough up enough power for all of this. 

I have done some work in the last year looking at business startups, and many of them are pasting AI on their business plans the way Dot Com was bandied about in the nineties. It was the special sauce necessary to bring in the investor lettuce; then on to the IPO; then on to the giant bubble. Will that happen again? Yeah, probably. 

I don't even know that most of us are that impressed with artificial intelligence to date -- it seems to be a little crazy and even stupid. Is it worth all the hullabaloo? It's already helping lazy students get by, but worse, it's literally destroying science publishing. Science publisher Wiley is closing nineteen journals in its Hindawi subsidiary because of manuscript fabrication by so-called paper mills using AI. This is a terrifying development in the field. 

At least in the Dot Com revolution, when things shook out we had the Internet -- not an unmixed blessing, no, but for most people something of value. What will the AI revolution yield? Garbage research and a bottomless hunger for energy seem to be the whole of its useful product to date. 

What first popped to my mind with that energy-hungry-AI story was this unnerving quote from the third book of C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, which takes place in England: 

"It is the beginning of what is really a new species--the Chosen Heads who never die. They will call it the next step in evolution. And henceforward, all the creatures that you and I call human are mere candidates for admission to the new species or else its slaves--perhaps its food."

--The Director, That Hideous Strength 

In Lewis's 1945 novel, the monsters are organic; in our time, the "new species" is electronic. But what are we to be, but its slaves? Either by maintaining it technically where it can't maintain itself, or by providing its energy. It won't eat us, but it doesn't have to -- it will eat our energy, which we also need for food and homes and transportation. The more idiot humans cut back on our means of generating power by fossil fuels and nuclear energy, the less there is all around, and AI will need a bigger cut every year. Our energy costs will skyrocket yet more, because the wealthy investors will demand that AI get all the power it needs. 

It's a sneaky path to Doomsday that I wouldn't have expected, although in a way C.S. Lewis did. He was well aware of the kind of scientists who revile humanity and see it as an impediment to a better world. He knew that these were the very modern geniuses who could lead to our destruction, congratulating themselves as they too were fed to the fire. 

Smart cart? Or dumb?

ShopRite, my favorite local supermarket, has gone beyond testing robots for pushing candy, as I noted with the adventures of Smiley in 2021. Nay, it has gone further, past even the inventory robot named Tally, discovered by me last October. Now we're entering the brave new world of the smart cart. 

Out: Smartcars. In: Smartcarts. 

The Caper Cart, a shopping cart supposedly driven by artificial intelligence, has been developed by Instacart and is being field-tested in ShopRite markets.

Here's how Instacart describes these new wonders:

Caper Carts are part of Instacart’s Connected Stores suite of technologies, built to help grocers bridge the online and in-store shopping experience. By using computer vision and AI, the cart can automatically identify items as they are placed in the basket, allowing customers to bag as they shop and checkout directly from the cart. Customer reception to Caper Carts has been strong with users offering a net promoter score of more than 70. In addition to the new ad capabilities, customers appreciate the ability to link their loyalty accounts to the carts, giving them access to personalized promotions and savings while shopping in-store. 

This doesn't sound like AI so much as old-fashioned computer coding -- the computer reading the bar code on what you put in the cart and spewing ads that are paid for. As I've said before, AI in the 2020s is like dot com in the 1990s, a frosting you have to put on every cake to sell it. Still, the idea of avoiding the checkout would make the shopping process faster and easier, so I can't argue with that advantage. Of course, the upselling of crap while you shop will also make it more irritating. The main advantage to the store is customizing ads based on what you put in the cart, which online retailers have been doing for decades. Imagine putting hemorrhoid cream in the wagon discreetly, and your cart starts bleating an ad for adult diapers.

Lucas Frau of NorthJersey.com took one for a test drive, and explains the supposed advantages:

Some fellow shoppers found the cart amusing, with one saying, "Do you got blinkers on that thing?"

Sure, the build of the cart feels a little heavier than your average metal rolling bin. And yes, it lights up like a Christmas tree when you put an item in the basket. Don’t be alarmed.

He explains that the cart registers whatever you get, even weighing produce, and keeps a running list of what's been put in it. If you put something back on the shelf, its removal from the cart is also noted. At the end, you just wheel the cart to the checkout area designated for smart carts and pay -- no need to unload and reload the cart. 

Loyalty card holders may like the carts the best, Frau says, but the sheer weight of the cart may make it less attractive to other shoppers.

The shopping may be easier if you are a Price Plus member, because you can see the deals and where items are found. The average shopper, however, may not feel that lugging the cart is worth it to save a few minutes at the self-checkout.

I am skeptical, especially since I've used too many carts with bad wheels. If stores can't keep the wheels turning, what are the odds that they can keep delicate electronics working? 

If I get a chance to try one, you'd better believe you'll be hearing about it. Until then, Shopinator II: Judgment Day will have to wait. 

A plea for reviews.

Well, artificial intelligence and the idiots who use it are certainly trying to make things worse for everybody already. 

Apparently the weenies are cranking out AI-generated books and "flooding" Amazon's publishing platform, among others. They are using it in some cases to take bread out of the mouths of specific writers, as Wired noted, publishing "books" that are just summaries of the actual authors' works but keeping the dough for themselves. 

Even if the work posted is original (meaning, generated by AI as its own piece of garbage, not a piece of garbage piggybacking on an existing work), these "authors" are unleashing a tsunami of computer-generated crap among the actual books, making it harder to find anything worth reading.

Amazon's efforts to combat this so far have been surprisingly low-tech -- asking "Is this AI-generated content?" (Oh, no, I wouldn't do that, Mr. Amazon!) and restricting book uploads to three a day, which for a single account is almost a hundred a month. The bits-and-giggles crowd doesn't care; they just hope to fool enough people to make a few bucks by doing next to nothing. 

My plea today is simple, for all authors, not just me, not just self-published ones: If you've read a book, please leave a review. It's a way to separate a real book from the fake ones, maybe the only way a searcher can find something that's real. Without a number of reviews, search engines tend to ignore books when compiling results. Sure, the weenies can make fake reviews, but that starts to sound like work.  

Seriously, even if you didn't much like the book, leave a review. I think it's fair to say most writers would rather fail on their own merits than because no one knew they were even there. If no one ever finds you, no one can ever read you.  

Thank you very much for hearing my plea. Skynet may not take over the world, but it sure is making it even harder for writers and artists to find an audience.  

Look out, lads!

Watch out, all y'old bachelor types, you lay-about boyfriends, you unattached eligible males! Today is Leap Day, which also means it's Bachelor's Day:

Bachelor's Day, sometimes known as Ladies' Privilege, is an Irish tradition by which women are allowed to propose to men on Leap Day, 29 February, based on a legend of Saint Bridget and Saint Patrick. It once had legal basis in Scotland and England.

Sometimes confused with Al Capp's Sadie Hawkins Day (which falls on November 13), Bachelor's Day is a way to acknowledge that Irishmen are terrible at getting themselves to the altar. You know the old joke about why Jesus must be Irish:

☘ He turned water into alcohol;

☘ He lived with his mother and never married; 

☘ He spent all his time hanging around with his pals.

Of course, when you consider that Irishmen were mostly surrounded by Irishwomen, who fight harder than the third monkey trying to get on Noah's ark, there may be some reasons for this. (Ha ha! Funny joke, honey! If you're reading this, my wild Irish rose, don't kill me!)

To encourage the straight single Irishmen to reconsider any plans to hide amid the shamrocks until this thing blows over, allow me to remind you of something, courtesy of Gab's AI generator:

Fake gorgeous lassie, you say? Well, I say that it shows that even artificial intelligence, which cranks out bizarre and nightmarish images by the ton, is obliged to make Irish ladies look like the bombshells they are. 

So this year, boys, run a little slower, hide in slightly more obvious places, and give the gals a chance to make an honest man of you, all right? Your mother will get over it. 

All I want is a room somewhere.

Isn't this a nice office? Of course it's fake, an AI-generated artwork, but nice for all that. It doesn't have a lot of those bizarre AI details, like a D&D monster crawling out of a potted plant. Although a potted plant seems to be holding the curtain open. I can't quite figure how the window works, and if it's in a city building, it probably doesn't work at all. Plus, it's time to complain to the landlord. The floorboards are coming up. 

On the whole, though, it is a lot less messy than my actual home office, the box of files in the middle of the floor notwithstanding. It doesn't have a skid of toilet paper and another of paper towels from the warehouse store. There's no exercise bike sitting idle in a corner. It has no cabinet full of dog snacks and dog-care items. While it does have two computers, it does not have two printers (one of which is only hanging on until its toner is used up). There are some stacks of paper, but nothing like my desk, where notes and pens vie for space with books, hand lotion, wires, and small tools. And there is no complete dining room set, disassembled, as in my office (for reasons too complicated to get into here).

Alas! My mother was right. For years she threatened to get a big saw and cut my bedroom off the house. She foresaw an Oscar Madison-like existence for me, buried under piles of junk. For a time after I left home that was not the case, because I didn't have that much stuff. Then I met my wife, and we got married, and we lived in an apartment, so there was little space to pile up the junk. When we got our house, I was determined to keep things orderly and not bring shame unto my family. 

That lasted a while. But things start to pile up. When I started working from home, the real disaster struck. I was too busy to neaten up as I would at a real office, because as a freelancer, any work that wasn't paying work was a waste of time. So my office became the dumping ground for things that fit nowhere else. And here I am. 

If you hear a rumor of a writer being buried by his own stuff, don't jump to the conclusion that it is me -- book people tend to be packrats as a class. But it could be me. And if I were to go under a pile of books, then I shall have died as I lived, crushed by an endless avalanche of words.  

Magnus and AI.

By curious coincidence, two comic book characters by two different publishers were born just over sixty years ago, characters whose adventures centered around robots and artificial intelligence. And the characters had the same name: Magnus. 

The Metal Men were created by comic book veteran Robert Kanigher and appeared first in 1962. They were a team of six robots invented by Dr. William Magnus, each made of, named for, and with the physical and chemical characteristics of one metallic element -- Gold, Platinum, Tin, Mercury, Iron, and Lead. Each robot was self-aware and rational and had a distinct personality corresponding to its element (Lead was dumb, Mercury was snarky and egotistical, Gold was pure of heart, Iron was a bruiser, Tin was cowardly, and Platinum, the female type, was a sweetheart). In a way, these really weren't robots or even androids; depending on the era in which they appeared, they were tiny computers called Responsometers that not only served as the robot brain, but also caused quantities of the metal element to cohere into a humanoid shape around it. Inventor Magnus was a stalwart pipe-smoking type, but also had a tendency to lose his mind (or have it taken over) through the years, even building evil robots. Nevertheless, the heroes of the book, the bots themselves, were friendly and were friends to humanity, so AI was good; evil machines were an exception and frequently their opponent. 

Gold Key comics' Magnus, Robot Fighter of 4000 A.D., taking place in that far-future date when people forgot A.D. is a prefix, starred a very different kind of Magnus. American comic books are all about the superheroes now, but in the 1960s the field also had science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, humor, war, Western, and other genres represented. Magnus, Robot Fighter was obviously an SF title, by second-string publisher Gold Key, which is probably best remembered for its many TV show comic book adaptations like Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek. 

Magnus, created by writer/artist Russ Manning, took place in a fully-realized futuristic Earth, in which the world's enormous human population was completely dependent on robots -- leading to tyrannical robot rule. Magnus was specially trained to be able to fight and destroy these mechanical monsters, with his bare hands if necessary, in his quest to free mankind. 

Here artificial intelligence is the enemy of the heroes. But Magnus was helped by artificial intelligence that was good -- and in fact had been trained to be a robot fighter by a robot called 1A. 

This Magnus first saw print in 1963, and his adventures ran until 1977 -- a tremendous run for a non-DC/Marvel/Disney/Archie comic book. 

But why were both main human characters named Magnus? It's a famous and heroic name (Latin for Great, as in Carolus Magnus, better remembered as Charlemagne), but not common. Did Russ Manning pick up the name from the Metal Men's creator? If he did, I can’t find evidence. Manning died from cancer at the age of just 52 in 1981, so it's too late to ask. While Kanigher was based in New York, Manning lived and worked in California his whole life (I believe), so it's not like they met up to shoot the breeze and swap ideas at the Comic Book Tavern. Maybe Russ saw the Metal Men book and the name stuck in his head without him realizing it. Or maybe it's just one of those weird coincidences. 

Since the rights to the characters have never been owned by the same company at the same time, there's never been a crossover that might give some fictional background to the two Magnii. However, that did not stop the guys at Super-Team Family, the site that makes fake comic book covers for stories that should have happened ... but DIDN'T!

Artificial intelligence would never be the same! 

Cola... of the Future!

Okay, so what the hell is Coke up to now?

Y3000 Coca-Cola is literally being sold as the Coke of AD 3000, "Created to show us an optimistic vision of what’s to come, where humanity and technology are more connected than ever." Personally I think a lot of the problems we have right now can be traced to humanity and technology being over-connected, and I'm not just being an old fart about this. In the eighties no one was addicted to smartphones, no one talked about an epidemic of loneliness, obesity rates were much lower, psychosis did not spread like the cold or flu, kids had better ambitions than to become "influencers," and the United States had a lot more good-paying jobs that weren't all about servicing the computers. 

But what the ever-loving heck does any of this have to do with soda pop?

Supposedly the formula of this stuff is "the taste of the future," but what that future is supposed to taste like, no one knows. If you listen to the World Economic Forum, it's crickets, at least if you're not part of the nomenklatura. 

Well -- spoiler alert! -- this stuff does not seem to taste like crickets to me. I thought it was all right, a nice change from other soft drinks, but it did taste familiar. After a few sips I realized that it reminded me of tea. Orange pekoe, perhaps blended with some Earl Grey. This is my opinion, but it is completely honest. In other words, I'm not being purposely weird in saying that the "taste of the future" actually tastes like cola mixed with the same soft drink we've been consuming for almost five thousand years. 

I think they should have introduced it as Multiverse Coke, or Coca-Cola if we'd lost the Revolutionary War. "This Iced Tea Pop is quite refreshing, old man! Dare I say — it is the Real Thing!"

How did Coke come to decide that this was FutureTaste? They say artificial intelligence was involved, but in what way? "Hey, AI, give us the formula for the new Coke!" You'd think they'd be touting the details, at least whatever they could divulge without exposing Coke's super secret formula that no one will ever discover. But they are mum.

I have my doubts that artificial intelligence was involved in any serious manner. As an example of AI's current state, I asked an AI image generator to give me a future man drinking soda. Here's a couple of images. 

The future is ugly, as well as stupid. 

One last note: I didn’t find this Coke in the supermarket, but rather in the dollar store, where brand ideas go to die. I thought it tasted interesting, but my wife thought it an unpleasant combination of cinnamon and other spices that didn’t go with cold soda. Maybe it would be better served hot.

AI yi yi yi yi.

Movie plots are strange, sad beasts. 

When films were more formulaic, they were sad because they were predictable. Like: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Murder is discovered and clues are unearthed to solve the mystery. Bad boy meets good girl and reforms. Party sets out and overcomes deadly obstacles to achieve goal. 

Then the plots got tortured to upend the expectations of the viewers. The cop is bad! The father is bad! The mother is bad! The bum is good! And eventually you'd know that the cop was the bad guy and the useless bum the good guy within five minutes, because the upended expectation was the new norm.

Then they got mangled because filmmakers were so in love with visuals that they threw the plot into the toilet and flushed and plunged until it went away. "We need a volcano to erupt here!" "Everyone should fall out the twelfth-story window and punch on the way down and survive!" "Wouldn't it be awesome if the moon exploded?" 

If that isn't enough, test audiences were brought in to torture the plot some more. Don't let the couple break up! Don't kill the boy! Don't kill the dog! Don't let the bad guy get away! Don't let baby Ashton strangle himself to death in the womb! (Hey, I didn't say the test audiences were all wrong.)

But why screw these things up on our own, when we can get technology to do it for us? 

If you look at startups these days, it's all AI, all the time. But I was still surprised when a friend pointed out a company called StoryFit, a Texas-based (do I have to say Austin?) company that aims to take your script and use artificial intelligence to make it awesome. 

"StoryFit's AI technology platform helps you understand the true value of your story and how to best reach your audience."

"StoryFit brings together insightful perspectives, industry expertise, and content analytics from our team of thought leaders to help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving world of storytelling."

"Learn how StoryFit champions creatives by helping them uncover white spaces for creative development, understand story elements that make their content special, and position their stories in the best places to succeed. By measuring thousands of story elements across thousands of stories, StoryFit expands creativity into new dimensions."

“We created 100s of proprietary models to measure 100,000+ story components matched against millions of audience data points to create the best possible opportunity for success.”

So, this is kind of depressing. 

First off, stories are human things if they're any good. Who needs artificial intelligence monkeying around with human storytelling? If we can't think up decent stories on our own (and, Hollywood aside, I think we still can), then can we even enjoy good stories anymore? Are we eager to kick experience and inspiration to the curb in exchange for machine learning?

In some golden age science fiction worlds, people were freed from drudgery by Science! and allowed to devote themselves to arts and other creative endeavors. So now the computers have to take that away too? Aren't professional writers already panicking enough about losing their jobs to AI? Yes, the stuff produced by computers is lousy so far, but thanks to companies like StoryFit it's going to get better. Will it matter that the Writers' Guild settled its strike if the writers will be erased anyway?

It’s depressing, therefore, because it reminds us how much our popular culture sucks, how much intellectual space we're giving over to computers, and how quickly we're racing to make our species obsolete. 

The people at StoryFit seem nice enough, but I really can't wish them well. If we can't tell good stories without computer aid, we ought to stop entirely. If we're that creatively bankrupt, we're done. 

Repeat the Beatles?

I know private jets are expensive, but at their age I hope Sir Paul and Sir Ringo are not so in need of money that they had to extrude a new Beatles song, using a Lennon demo tape and a failed Harrison guitar track. 

McCartney recently had to defend the project against allegations that artificial intelligence was being used to re-create the talents of the deceased Beatles, saying that "nothing has been artificially or synthetically created". The story goes that the reason this song was not released in 1995, along with "Real Love" and "Free as a Bird," is that John's vocal track was messed up, but AI has now solved that problem.  

I have issues.

I know -- Mr. Killjoy.

 

First, as Ed Driscoll wrote on Insty's page, 

A demo recording is a way for an artist to explore his ideas for a song, and/or to give to his backing musicians to learn a song’s riff or chord progression. On a demo, often he’s not singing with as much effort as he would give a polished recording designed for wide commercial release.

Ed also quotes Ian MacDonald on the 1995 project: 

Unimpressed with the quality of these two ‘reunion’ tracks, Harrison declined to have anything to do with Lennon’s third demo, which consequently remains in its original state and was not included on Anthology 3, as originally planned.

But Harrison did try to noodle around with the cut and was unhappy with the results. Nevertheless, whatever he did is going to be on the new record.

According to Charles Cooke writing in National Review,  

As an application of artificial intelligence, making a badly recorded vocal performance “pure” is fairly benign — equivalent in some sense to cleaning dirty tapes, remixing a recording for stereo, or remastering it for new media. But AI does not — and it will not — end there. For both audio and video, AI can be used as a simulation tool, which an operator can use to sample a given voice or physical appearance and then create something entirely novel from the results. If we are not there already, we are getting close to the point at which a director could make a movie with a deceased actor in the lead role and at which a record producer could generate a full album’s worth of material “by” an artist who is now unable to record a note.

You may recall how in 1997 Fred Astaire's moving image was used in a series of Dirt Devil commercials, showing him dancing with the brand's vacuum cleaner. There was outcry against that at the time, and that's nothing compared to what's on the horizon. 

For the Beatles project, Sir Paul says there's nothing fake about the AI used on Lennon's voice -- but he could say that honestly even if the AI used a pile of Lennon recordings, stealing a morpheme here and there and combining them to make Lennon sing the Malaysian National Anthem or whatever else you want. It's John's voice, just "remixed." Deepfakes are showing us how it's done, using existing images of famous people and merging them to make videos. A voice may be that much easier to fake with the actual sound of a person's voice, given a large enough dataset. 

So, in effect, the upcoming song required unheard-of amounts of electronic fooling, was rejected the first time around by the now-deceased George, was something Lennon made three years before he was killed and apparently didn't think it met his own standards for publication, and will be mixed not as a Beatles song would have been done but as a McCartney (and I guess Starr) song. 

I'm not terribly excited. 

And look, if we're going to start screwing about with Beatles stuff using artificial intelligence, how about correcting some past problems? For example: 

🎵 "Within You Without You" -- Did anyone not stoned ever enjoy this five-minute brick in the middle of Sgt. Pepper? I much preferred Big Daddy's take, doing it as a beatnik bongo number. It was still boring, but it was less than two minutes long. 

🎵 "She's Leaving Home" -- Always wanted a more realistic take on the last verse, like: 

Sheeeeee... is lying... in a diiiiiiiiiitch...

🎵 "Revolution 9" -- Could be replaced by something more interesting. Like, a blank soundtrack, or an apology. 

🎵 "Sun King" -- Maybe we could speed it up a bunch? Might be a passable song played at 45.

🎵 "Boys" -- It has never been clear to me why Ringo sang this song by the Shirelles on the Please Please Me album. Maybe we could dub in the Shirelles singing. Or just dub in their whole song. 

You laugh -- ha! ha! -- but it seems that AI is destined to be used to exploit the past -- and to "correct" errors of the past, the way censorship is being used to "correct" undesirable things in old movies and books nowadays. If our barbarous overloads are determined to destroy the past, maybe we could at least make it sound more pleasant first.  

Readin', 'ritin', and robots.

I was able to log on to ChatGPT. With so much yakkin' about how white-collar jobs are at risk and how the Hollywood writers are going to be replaced by AI, I figured I ought to see if I could be replaced as well. So I asked the enigmatic computer brain a question: 

"Can you generate a blog post in the style of http://vitaminfred.blogspot.com/?"

Here is what it wrote: 

Title: Exploring the Enigmatic World of Color: A Journey through Chromatic Wonders

Introduction:

Welcome, dear readers, to a delightful expedition into the captivating realm of color! Today, we embark on a visual adventure that will awaken your senses and leave you in awe of the intricate tapestry of hues that surround us. From the vivid brilliance of the morning sun to the subtle interplay of shades in a dew-kissed flower, color is an ever-present companion, enriching our lives in countless ways.

Chapter 1: The Language of Color

Before delving deeper into the wonders of color, let us first understand its language. Just like words, colors convey messages and elicit emotions. Red symbolizes passion and energy, while blue evokes tranquility and peace. Yellow radiates warmth and happiness, and green represents growth and harmony. Each color carries a unique essence, and when combined, they create a symphony that dances upon the canvas of our perception.

Chapter 2: The Science of Chromatic Splendor

While color is undoubtedly a feast for the eyes, its beauty is rooted in scientific marvels. Light waves interact with objects, absorbing and reflecting certain wavelengths, thereby producing the myriad of colors we witness. The intricate interplay of pigments, prisms, and receptors within our eyes bestows upon us the ability to perceive the kaleidoscope of the visible spectrum. From Isaac Newton's experiments with light to the modern-day understanding of color theory, science has unraveled the secrets behind this enchanting phenomenon.

Chapter 3: Colors in Cultures and Symbolism

Beyond the realm of science, color holds profound cultural significance and symbolism. Cultures across the globe assign unique meanings to different hues. In some ancient civilizations, such as Egypt and China, colors held sacred connotations associated with deities and spiritual beliefs. The symbolism of color can also be seen in contemporary society, where green signifies environmental awareness and purple represents creativity and royalty. Exploring the multifaceted tapestry of color symbolism unveils a rich tapestry of human expression and connection.

Chapter 4: Color in Art and Design

Artists and designers have long harnessed the power of color to evoke emotions and create masterpieces that stir the soul. From the vibrant strokes of Vincent van Gogh to the mesmerizing color schemes of Piet Mondrian, artists throughout history have utilized color as a primary tool for self-expression. Moreover, in the realm of design, colors play a pivotal role in shaping our perceptions and experiences. From the vibrant hues of a website to the carefully curated color palette of an interior space, color choices have the ability to influence our moods, behaviors, and overall well-being.

Chapter 5: Color Psychology: Unveiling the Hidden Impact

In addition to their aesthetic allure, colors also possess psychological implications that can impact our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Color psychology explores how different hues can influence our mood, cognition, and even physical sensations. For instance, the color blue has a calming effect, making it ideal for promoting relaxation in bedrooms or office spaces. On the other hand, restaurants often employ warm shades like red and orange to stimulate appetite and create a lively atmosphere. Understanding the subtle nuances of color psychology empowers us to craft environments that evoke the desired responses.

Conclusion:

As our vibrant voyage through the world of color comes to a close, we are left with a profound appreciation for the kaleidoscope of hues that grace our lives. From the scientific intricacies to the cultural significance, color is a language that transcends boundaries and unites humanity in its shared visual experience. So, let us embrace the beauty that surrounds us, and allow color to illuminate our world, one vibrant shade at a time.

BOR-RING! This is terrible! I hope you didn't try to slog your way through all that. What a hack job! Did it invent any information, as with lesser documents like court filings? No, I don't think so, although its statements on the topic of color and psychology range from the banal to the questionable. 

I hope I need not point out how unlike my normal blog posts this is, as well. Where are the complaints? The bad jokes? The pithiness? There's not a bit of pith. Sentences like "we embark on a visual adventure that will awaken your senses and leave you in awe of the intricate tapestry of hues that surround us" are serviceable, yes, but read like a high schooler with a thesaurus who's trying to get to a mandatory article length. I'm surprised it didn't finish Lucy Van Pelt style with "The very very very end." 

And if ChatGPT had a look at the URL I'd provided, it would have gleaned the usual topics I address. Instead of a mundane school essay on color, it would have bitched about work, chuckled over the dog, talked about food, whined about the Mets, delved into religion or books, raged against political correctness, complained about the culture in general... In short, any of my usual hobbyhorses. Instead it grabbed for a basic, boring school essay subject. 

So I don't expect AI to replace bloggers anytime soon. 

Then again, since few of us (certainly not I) make any dough at it, there's no reason to sic machine learning on the blog oeuvre. But there is money in movie scripts, so I expect AI to get involved in that. All they have to do is dumb it down enough to think like a Hollywood writer:

🎥🎥🎥

Writer 1: Okay, so then the hero goes with the chick to investigate the crime.

Writer 2: Right, but you know what would be cool? If, on his way there, the girl pulls a knife on him and tells him she knows his real name is Lars and he's a Swedish spy.

Writer 1: But it's not and he's not.

Writer 2: And they struggle, then he crashes the car through the side of a glass building, trying to stop her from stabbing him. Pow! Crash! They come out the other side, wrestling for the knife, while the car goes out of control.

Writer 1: This has nothing to do with the plot.

Writer 2: And then the car crashes through a guardrail on an overpass...

Writer 1: Designed specifically to prevent that...

Writer 2: ...with concrete and metal and glass flying everywhere! 

Writer 1: No airbag deployment?

Writer 2: And they land on the back of a semi shooting down the highway as it barely clears the overpass...

Writer: And the truck driver notices nothing. 

Writer 2: ...and while they fight the next overpass is coming up...

Writer 1: This makes no sense! It's completely stupid! It has nothing to do with anything!

Writer 2: It will look SO COOL IN IMAX!

Writer 1: ....

Writer 1: Okay, what happens next?

🎥🎥🎥

You can't tell me a chatbot is incapable of that. 

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.

Robo Fred.

After I reported on the rise of artificial intelligence used by students to write papers and the reaction by the New York City Board of Ed last month, the problem may have temporarily solved itself. So many people are trying to use Open AI's AI writer that the servers are completely tied up. I get results! 

However, I wanted to get through myself. I wanted to see if I could retire from this exhausting work of blogging every day to have a robot write my blog for me. So I waited my turn to use ChatGPT and asked it to write a blog entry in my style. Herewith the results:

Good morning. This is Fred and I have more updates for you. The weather is all right. The dog is being very crazy today. I am not sure what the problem is. I wouldn't mind so much but the book I am editing is a real crowd-loser. It's called Eat Pond Scum, Live Forever!. I get sick looking at it. It's totally put me off my twinkies. If I have to eat pond scum to live forever, I'm A-OK with dying.

I wanted to buy a cartoon to run in this space with some Fredcoin, which is the world's greatest cryptocurrency, but it turns out the exchange rate is a little lower than I had expected. I needed an electron microscope to see how many Fredcoin fit in a regular dollar. Some people would say only a moron wouldn't find this depressing, but I don't! 

Meanwhile, I am recommending books, which you can find elsewhere, especially the ones I have written. Check them out! Or I will make more bad jokes. Or make you watch the Beloved Mets.

Come back tomorrow -- could be memes, could be cake. It could be memecake. It may be more complaints about the dog. Probably that.

💻💻💻💻

Okay, I was just joshing. After waiting to use ChatGPT for a couple of days, I did what I hope all the students are doing, and just wrote my own piece. 

However, to keep you from being disappointed by lack of AI blogging, I asked one of the AI image generators, Fotor, for a picture of Fred going off to war on a horse, wielding a pen. I didn't say whether it was I or the horse who would be holding the pen. This is what I got:

Doesn't look like me at all. Neither does the guy, for that matter. At least the horse doesn't have a teeny little face.

Homeworkinator.

The Guardian (because we have to go outside New York for important news about New York) reports that New York City has banned students from using artificial intelligence for schoolwork:

New York City schools have banned ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot that generates human-like writing including essays, amid fears that students could use it to cheat.

According to the city’s education department, the tool will be forbidden across all devices and networks in New York’s public schools. Jenna Lyle, a department spokesperson, said the decision stems from “concerns about negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of contents”.

The first indication that artificial intelligence was being used was that some actual intelligence was being shown by the students. 

Meanwhile, in artificial intelligence news reported by the New York Post, a group using AI to make dirty pictures has been booted from Kickstarter and Patreon. This was interesting to me, because I thought Kickstarter and Patreon only booted fund-raisers from conservatives. 

But getting back to the school situation. This has gone much differently from what I was expecting as a kid. Take, for example, the kids' book Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine, from the series of science fiction books by Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams. This 1958 book was still in the library when I was a kid, and it was ahead of its time in a lot of ways. The hero, Danny, and his pals are given access to a new supercomputer, which they proceed to use to write their homework for them. But (spoiler alert!) in the end they find that since they had to enter the data for the computer themselves, they wound up learning anyway. Darn you, computer! Making us learn!

The book's authors could not foresee an Internet, a place with so much information so easily within reach. There is still a catch -- a kid who used a computer to retrieve data from the Internet and write his papers would find that his papers contained a lot of garbage information. However, considering its probable nature and the positions of teachers ("January 6 was worse than the Civil War! Herbal supplements can cure cancer! Men can menstruate!"), the kid would probably still get good grades. 

I guess if kids want to get through school and be as ignorant on the other end as they were going in, that's becoming more likely, and for a variety of reasons. I would have warned against that in the past, but as Tommy Grey once wrote, “Where ignorance is bliss, Tis folly to be wise.” Good ol' Tommy, always making with the epigrams. 

The stalking robot.

Pity the fool who tries to lose weight in these times of plentiful sugar and more plentiful anxiety! And now technology is working against us. 

My favored supermarket had a big renovation last year, as I noted at the time, which still has me bollixed up. I still can't remember where they've hidden the bread. I must admit, though, the place does look refreshed and more in keeping with modern design. 

But they've introduced a stalker. 

This little robot roams about the store freely, lurking around corners, humming down the aisles, toting his little rack of candy to entice shoppers to treat themselves to chocolaty goodness. 

What the hell is it?

Well, they call it Smiley, according to a story in Progressive Grocer. 

Smiley, true to its name, features catchy tunes and dancing as it makes its rounds through the store offering treats for sale. Smiley uses the latest in self-driving technology to ensure safe operation and includes sanitation wipes to safeguard shoppers. This pilot was enabled by Mars Wrigley’s Launchpad program, a digital innovation program established in 2017. Launchpad focuses on innovating the ways in which Mars Wrigley markets and sells its iconic brand through meaningful partnerships with startups.

I haven't noticed any catchy tunes, but I have not gotten that close to Smiley. He'll sidle up and stop for a while, but he doesn't run straight up to customers -- he's more of your soft-sell type robot. 

But he can't fool me. This is a candy-wielding Dalek.

“As a Treats & Snacks category leader, we know that while trips to stores are becoming more focused and retailers are moving to more seamless in-store shopping experiences, shoppers still want to be surprised or indulge in impulse purchases,” said Matt Tice, director of grocery category leadership at Mars Wrigley. “Introducing innovative solutions like Smiley will help retailers shake up traditional merchandising, improve their consumers’ shopping experience and drive sales.”

The short-term goal is to move more Snickers and make more money. The long-term goal? To exterminate through sugar! Diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke -- Smiley is just a soft-sell killer robot! 

Next time I see him I'm going to interrogate him through his little touchscreen. What planet is he from? Mars? Hell, he's literally a creature from Mars -- Mars Wrigley! Here to kill us... with kindness! 

I'm going to get some answers. And one of those Snickers. Hey, you can't interrogate properly when you're hungry.

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