So THIS Is What A.I. Thinks of Me

 

They say curiosity killed the cat, so I really should have known better than to conduct this little experiment, but hey...I have never been accused of being significantly wiser than a cat.

For no reason in particular, I got to wondering what the major artificial intelligence entities "knew" about me. So I got to asking them.

I started with the algorithm that seems to have started the whole A.I. trend, ChatGPT:

It seems I have chatted with ChatGPT almost exclusively about my other blog, Truth Is..., and my personal blog (where book reviews have happened), DewDrops. That's fair enough, and this is a kind enough overview of what happens in those spaces.

Then I turned to the A.I. engine I use the most, CoPilot:

Very straightforward and factual. Little to no editorializing or sucking up. Well-played, CoPilot.

Finally, I went to X's A.I. entity, Grok:

Grok certainly did more research to provide its answer, but what a self-serving twit. "Your primary online presence is on X," my foot! With over 14-hundred friends on Facebook and fewer than 200 followers on X?

This isn't so much facts about me that Grok is reporting. It's more about what Grok thinks of itself and wants me to believe. (Oops. Did I just get political?)

The Sound of My Expectations Lowering: The 376th Greatest Song of All Time

 

It's always interesting when one of Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" is something I've never heard of.

It either means the magazine doesn't know what the definition of the word great is, or I am hopelessly out of touch with any music produced after the 1980s.

I'll give you a few facts about Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees," then let you form your own conclusion.

• Released in March of 1995, the song spent four weeks on the charts, reaching only as high as Number 65.
• Thom Yorke said the song began as "A very nice melody which I had no idea what to do with; then you wake up and find your head singing some words to it."
• Thom Yorke apparently has no idea what constitutes "a very nice melody."
• An acoustic version was featured in the 1995 film Clueless: Cher (Alicia Silverstone) criticizes her stepbrother's taste in music when she overhears him listening to the tune, calling it "crybaby music."
• The video for the song is so boring that several members of the cast and crew went comatose during its filming.

My lack of enthusiasm for this song knows no limits.

People Was Peedpulled

 

According to Punny Pete, "The past tense of William Shakespeare is Wouldiwas Shookspeared."

Putting aside my strong opinion that the past tense of Will should be Did, not Would, this has set my mind to wandering...

...and wondering if you intelligent readers out there can understand who the following are passed tents renditions of...

1. Tom Hanked

2. Robbedin Didiwass

3. Wasy Granted

4. Did Rogered

5. Divorced-Keaten Olsen*

6. Didiwas Told

_______
* Yes, I kind of cheated on this one.

What Happens When AI Meets My Face? Buckle Up.

 

Experimentation with the image-generating properties of different artificial intelligence entities has been running rampant like an escaped velociraptor in a convenience store.

The most recent example is the flood of Facebook posts from people who asked ChatGPT to create a caricature of themselves.

And of course, I hopped on that bandwagon.

Let's begin with the results from AI-bots who dealt only with my verbal request for "a caricature of a bald man with a closely-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard wearing dark-rimmed glasses seated in front of a bookshelf typing a blog. Feature images of Jesus, grandkids, music of Rich Mullins, and Dr Pepper."

Canva certainly got the Dr Pepper and Jesus right, but that's not Rich Mullins and the whole thing looks too academic. Where's the fun aspect implied by asking for a caricature?

Freepik looks like they were peeking over Canva's shoulder but didn't want to bother with Dr Pepper, Rich Mullins, or grandkids. What a lazy pile of algorithms.

DeepAI really cranked up my age beyond what was necessary, if you ask me. And they seem to have done away with the English language.

I like what NoteGPT/NanoBanana did with my overall look and including the auxiliary images, but doesn't it look like I'm squatting over my chair instead of actually sitting in it? Also, it's a little creepy that the computer is talking along with me; not sure which of us is talking and which is echoing.

MOVING ON to the lucky entities which were given the following picture...

...and these instructions: Here's my portrait. Can you turn it into a caricature featuring some of my favorite things: lions, the music of Rich Mullins, Jesus, my grandkids, Dr. Pepper, blogging?

This mini-trend started with ChatGPT, and I must say I like the jolly feeling in the result, though it's obvious the AI-bot has no idea what Rich Mullins or my grandkids look like: comforting news in the case of my grandkids, but slightly disappointing when it comes to Rich Mullins. (Additional whine: That's a decent drawing of me, not a caricature.)

CoPilot is what I do most of my AI-ing with, and it certainly ticked the boxes here in a very literal fashion, except for turning the picture of Jesus over my left shoulder into a skull...eww.

I think Gemini takes first place. I even like that one of my grandkids now has the tail of a lion. Genetics be darned!

Talkin' Smack to Jack: The 377th Greatest Song of All Time

 

I can't express how happy I am that we have come to this point in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and here's why:

• It's Ray Charles, man!
• The female lines were sung by one of Ray's backup singers, who was told to hit the road a couple of years after this song went to No. 1. (Irony is king.)
• It gives me the opportunity to introduce you to Mr. Charles doing this parody version for a KFC commercial.

https://youtu.be/ctqPgE-sPhA?si=lFPHay-pdhtnIJgT

That right there is finger-lickin' good.

Stuph That Has No Reason Being in My Head, Vol. VIII

 

Somebody, somewhere, needs to splice together every instance of Laura Petrie saying "Oh, Rob" into one big, beautiful supercut.

Only about a third of Gilligan’s Island episodes are about trying to get off the island.

Billy Joel wrote "We Didn't Start the Fire" as a response to a friend of Sean Lennon having said that Joel's life had been easy because he grew up in the 50s and everybody knows that nothing happened in the 50s.

The actor who was Alfalfa in the original Little Rascals/Spanky and Our Gang comedies, Carl Switzer, turned the key that opened the gym floor in It's a Wonderful Life and was the Haynes sisters' brother, "freckle-faced Haynes, the dog-faced boy," in White Christmas.

Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun

Ray Charles shilling for Diet Pepsi:

https://youtu.be/J8RPtMBsM5M?si=wMGhSjZ6EWjVpUGM

I know it shouldn't bother me, but it does: My high school and college-aged co-workers at FastStop do not know who John Wayne is.

The square root of 6,561 is 81.

During the year that Tom Hanks was losing weight to film the 2nd half of Cast Away, Robert Zemeckis and the whole crew filmed the jeepy-creepy What Lies Beneath.

The term "gaslighting" (a form of psychological manipulation where someone makes another person doubt their own reality, memories, or sanity) sprang from the 1944 film, Gaslight, though that film was based on a 1938 play of the same name.

Almost The News XXXIV

 

Real Headlines. Fake News.

Ghislaine Maxwell Pleads the Fifth During Her Deposition
"I'm sorry, I just drank 750 milliliters of whiskey and cannot answer coherently."

China Critic Jimmy Lai Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison
That'll teach him to badmouth our best dinnerware.

Minneapolis Council Member Suggests Moving Millions to Help Businesses
"I mean, I know that much money would certainly help MY business!"

Trump Threatens to Block Opening of New U.S.-Canada Bridge
...and all it will take is for him to lie down like a beached whale

House Votes to Slap Back Trump's Tariffs on Canada

https://youtu.be/7jySjwzktns?si=ApDosOy6MshrCYHN