Culture – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Pinning Tails On AI Donkeys

Does authenticity matter?

Shortly after OpenAI fired the starting pistol for the AI race by releasing ChatGPT, I’ve been saying that at some point the real money is going to be made by whatever company wins the horserace for identifying work created, regurgitated, or recycled by AI. Turns out I may have been wrong. In the face of what can be called abject surrender to an AI filled future, the sprint is now on to determine who has the best tool to identify what was created by humans. My money says everyone involved is running the Mongol Derby.

Erwan hesry ILOFQMEuUrQ unsplash.

Two very interesting recent articles caught my eye. The first is by Jess Weatherbed on The Verge. Riffing off a quote from Instagram’s Adam Mosseri that it will be “more practical to fingerprint real media than fake media,” the article delves into some of the companies working to authenticate human-made work and the challenges they are facing.

The second article is by JA Westenberg, called The AI Writing Witchhunt Is Pointless. Westenberg examines the unreliability of current AI detection tools, and the very reliable human instinct to jump on Internet band wagons loaded with pitchforks and torches at the ready, if they get any sniff of AI in any content.

Both pieces are worth your time.

As someone who has adapted Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers for the stage in both a musical and a dramatic version, in English and for Russian audiences, I really appreciate Westenberg using Dumas and his almost factory-like ways of cranking out his content and how that would most likely be received in today’s Internet world.

I also very much appreciate Westenberg’s conclusion, essentially saying that there’s no way we to tell how this all turns out. It’s too early in the race. I’m a bit more hard-nosed about accepting Weatherbed’s optimism that “maybe we can return to the days of trusting what we see with our eyes.” We’ve never been all that good at doing that.

At this moment, among admittedly many more moments to come in this saga, all of the major AI services come with the same kind of PAY ATTENTION warnings on some of their features, yet not so much when it comes to content. There’s really no incentive to do so. Mosseri’s Instagram makes money regardless of who creates whatever Reel you scroll by.

Outside of consumable and ad serving content, AI purveyors urge users to check sources because the output before them may be inaccurate in a search result, a math problem, or a medical diagnosis. Notice that the CEO of America’s largest public hospital system is ready to start replacing radiologists with AI. Every time I hear that AI will remove us from donkey-like drudge work, I hear AI will remove salaries, yet I somehow doubt the billing will change much.

We’ve never been good at heeding these types of warnings whether they come from Surgeon Generals, Terms of Service, or from our parents. We’re certainly not that adept at being able to separate fact from fiction, regardless of how it’s created.

It strikes me as a deeply ironic, and somewhat nihilistic question, that if Artificial Intelligence was as good as promised or continues as problematic as it is in its current form in any of its facets, would we even care? Yet, if it is good enough to plant seeds of doubt as to how a piece of content comes to be, does it even matter? Reminds me of the discussion between Oppenheimer and Einstein, teased early and then revealed at the end of the Oppenheimer.

I understand why human creators are concerned, but I’m afraid those concerns are being handicapped away from the pole position. We’ve allowed our economies, both large and small, to be staked on the outcome of the race. On the other hand, if AI is so great, why the hell are AI advocates, running such a breathless and competitive race, so afraid of having anything it produces labeled as created by AI?

(Image from Erwan Hesry on Unsplash.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Poisson D’Avril

Choking jokes

April 1 last year I posted about how much I miss the good old days when April Fools’ Day was a fun day. Memories of those days were fading then. I’m afraid they are only shadows now.

P.12 poisson davril 470x376.

As I said a year ago:

I guess the negative reactions started to take over when the Internet, home of more copycats than original copy, made the proliferation of pranks available to all including those who would do so for malicious reasons. Call it Internet gluttony. That joke is always on us, because while humans do enjoy a good laugh, we also seem to enjoy overdoing just about anything to the point of pointlessness.

Some would say we’ve grown and matured in the face of an overabundance and overuse of prepubescent humor. I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate.

I think it takes maturity, a sense of humility, and humor to face the challenges every day presents. Certainly in these dark times. It also takes strength, and increasingly, courage. It’s easy to shut down and turn away. That doesn’t diminish the darkness, nor does it brighten the day.

Perhaps last year’s post was an unintended start of a new April 1 tradition.

Birthright Citizenship and April Fools’ Day

The joke’s on us. All of us.

There’s something entirely appropriate and also ironic about the U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments about birthright citizenship on April Fools’ Day. Don’t get me wrong, they shouldn’t be hearing the case in the first place. But they are and here we are.

The first section of the 14th Amendment, guarantees that any person born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens of the United States. Given how language can get tortured and twisted around by lawyers and scholars, the text of Section 1 is pretty clear on its face and doesn’t require a legal degree to understand.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

But, as I said, there’s a case (Trump v. Barbara) being heard tomorrow on April Fools’ Day. Traditionally a day for jokesters and pranksters to have some fun, this unfunny joke, in my opinion, is on us. All of us.

Bottom line, it’s yet another blatant attempt at remaking America, continuing the white supremacist myth that one race is superior to any other. The fools perpetuating this lampoon of law don’t really have the courage to spell it out so succinctly. But you have to grant SCOTUS some sort of sickly ironic gift for timing of the hearing. It comes a day after announcing a block of a Colorado law that banned “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ kids on the Transgender Day of Visibility.

The bad joke that this U.S. Supreme Court has become, along with most the rest of our government is anything but funny. In the wake of a fear so deeply held by this confederacy of dunces that their somehow supreme race is heading into some sort of imagined abyss so deep that too many are constructing doomsday bunkers, I have a dim view of the possible outcome. I cant predict how it will end up. With this sad excuse of a president planning to attend the hearing tomorrow, making even more of a mockery of the episode, you just know we’re heading into another of those moments that are no laughing matter, but makes us all all victims of this dangerous prank.

The Presumption of Looking Ahead: Chicago In 2050

Don’t leapfrog the current moment as we look ahead

In today’s insanity that tears at every thread of fabric we have, there’s optimism. There’s hope. And then there’s a presumptive impulse to embrace both and take a look ahead. The Chicago Tribune is running a series called Chicago 2050: Envisioning The City in 25 years.

Shutterstock 1106009873.

From the article announcing the series:

Voices from around the city will explore what Chicago could and should look like in 2050 in a series of essays. These pieces will publish each Sunday through May 10.

This collection represents a collaboration between Tribune Opinion and World Business Chicago, whose Horizon Lines: Visions for Chicago 2050 initiative also includes a design competition inviting the public to share the bold ideas and civic investments Chicago could make in the next 25 years.

The first two essays I’ve read do in fact put forth bold visions for the future. Laura Washington Wants To Bring Glittering Downtown Institutions To The City’s Neighborhoods.

Tracy Baim Writes About The City’s Next Transformational ‘Great Migration’ sees a city where people move to Chicago for a variety of reasons, including access to reproductive and other health care, and a safer refuge from immigration crackdowns; all seeking a better life. Baim imagines the city passed a Bill of Rights for Chicagoans in 2027 that sparked the migration and the following investment needed to make it possible.

I applaud the Chicago Tribune for launching the series and look forward to reading more. It is important to look ahead and imagine a future beyond this current moment.

That said, I’d love to see the Tribune launch a similar series on how to confront the current realities of almost daily crisis we face as a city and as a country. Leapfrogging over those obstacles that blur any new vision for the future feels almost akin to looking at the city’s glorious skyline on a foggy day.

(Image from blvdone on Shutterstock.

Sunday Morning Reading

There be dragons, dogs, and humans. Trust the dogs.

Time for some Sunday Morning Reading.

There’s a great lyric and greater question in Lin-Manuel’s musical retelling of American history, “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” Control is a crazy concept. We strive to control what we can, while we’re around. Too often we delude ourselves into thinking we control more than we actually do. No one wants to define themselves or be defined as lacking control, much less under the control of others. We may think we’re masters and mistresses of our own universes and control our own narrative. Yet too often, when we do have control and things go askew, we foist the responsibility (blame) off on others. That may be essential to surviving on the paths we choose. But it’s not easy to control the reactions a dog may have to who’s good or who’s not, a dragon, or much less the demons of our own making.

Shutterstock 1766228261.

Kicking off this week is Natasha MH asking the question, What’s The Best Story You’ve Been Told About Yourself? There be dragons.

The Guardian published an editorial on the ‘unmasking’ of anonymous artists in the wake of the second unmasking of Bansky and the reveal of a hoax surrounding the death of Italian novelist writing under the nom-de-plume Elena Ferrante. Regarding Banksy, The Guardian opines that “his mask is his art — let’s not destroy it.”

I don’t often link to book reviews in this column, but this one struck my fancy. A.O. Scott’s A Treacherous Secret Agent, examines How Literature Spoke Truth To Power During The Red Scare. I’m looking forward to reading this.

Jason Perlow’s The Well We Never Tapped is a sequel to an earlier piece he wrote about the future of science fiction. He argues that in the runaway world of big sci-fi franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars the answer to controlling the future of these and other properties isn’t retooling or reimagining, but perhaps to stop for a while.

Speaking of science fiction and stopping, on the Artificial Intelligence front a number of things happening in that wannabe industry that can’t really find a purchase beyond the flimflammery of the financial markets and bean counting boardrooms, have been prompting some interesting writing of late. kstenerud on the yoloai blog writes Why Your AI Agents Will Turn Against You. There be lobsters and dragons.

Kevin Baker takes a look at how AI Got The Blame For The Iran School Bombing. Follow that up with Anna Moore’s piece Marriage Over, €100,000 Down The Drain: The AI Users Whose Lives Were Wrecked By Delusion. Makes one suspect that we’re not looking for ways to better exert control over our lives, but to more easily avoid taking the rap when things inevitably go wrong.

Big news last week got kind of mushed about in wish casting about Facebook killing off the Metaverse. That sort of did and didn’t happen. Regardless, Neil Stephenson’s My Prodigal Brainchild caught quite a bit of attention.

Apple is celebrating its 50 year anniversary and there’s lots being written about its history and it’s present. Everyone’s vying for control of that story. Harry McCracken’s How Apple Became Apple: The Definitive Oral History Of The Company’s Earliest Days is worth a read.

So too is David Sparks’ The MacBook Neo’s Unfair Advantage and the Stephen Sinofsky piece he links to, Mac Neo And My Afternoon Of Reflection and Melancholy. The damn thing hasn’t even been on sale for a month, yet we’re already trying to define its legacy.

Two political pieces to conclude with after all of the good feelings surrounding yesterday’s No Kings Rallies. (Watch for the comical battle to control the narrative over that moment this week.) Lydia Polgreen says what I’ve been saying for over a decade now. It’s Not Trump, It’s America. It’s hard to come out from under the burden of a myth.

Mike Lofgren’s How Trump Fits The “Great Man” Theory of History — Sort Of, taps into Hegel, Asimov, and the wisdom of dogs. He concludes his piece with:

History as we experience it at the sharp end is the aggregation of moral choices made by individual human beings. When those choices become corrupted by fear, resentment or inexcusable stupidity, and then amplified by mass suggestion, we get a creature like Trump, the reflection of a people’s image.

I’ll leave it at that this week.

(Image from Daniele Gay on Shutterstock

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

No Kings Rallies: Build On It

So much wrong, so little cardboard

Today was No Kings Day in the U.S. and around the world with large crowds in large cities and smaller ones in small cities, towns and hamlets. Regardless of the numbers, (estimates are running as high as 9 million at the moment) what’s important is people showed up, stood up, and showed they still stand for decency and the rule of law.

Due to being completely under the weather I had to cancel plans to attend the rally in Chicago, but I did tune into the national live stream. I’m not sure if that will stay up after the day is done, but I sure hope it does.

What will be more important than the protest rallies will be what happens next. We all know weekend protests, as good as they are for building solidarity, are not enough and there’s still a big fight ahead. As the sign above says, so much wrong, so little cardboard. As wrong and dark as things have been, things are going to get more wrong and darker before whatever the end of this will be.

I’ve linked to Bruce Springsteen’s song, Streets of Minneapolis here before, and you can catch it there or just about anywhere. Below is the short speech he gave before singing that song at the Minneapolis No Kings Rally.

Sing and march on.

(Image from Bill Strait on Mastodon

Celebrate World Theatre Day!

Imagine

In a fit of misplaced hope and perhaps vanity, I would hope that lots of folks who don’t ordinarily attend the theatre do so today on World Theatre Day. Of course in that same misplaced vanity, I would hope more would do so more often on any day.

423239534 7358477437530608 2064632766683675244 n.

World Theatre Day is an international observance that started in 1962 by the International Theatre Institute to promote live theatre as an art form across the world. Each year a different theatre artist is recognized and provides a message, sharing his or her reflections on the theme of theatre and a Culture of Peace. This year’s choice is Willem Dafoe.

Here’s an excerpt from his message:

We are social animals and designed biologically for engagement with the world. Every sense organ is a gateway for encounter and through this meeting we achieve greater definition of who we are. Through storytelling, aesthetics, language, movement, scenography – theatre as a total art form can make us see what was, what is and what our world could be.

As Jean Cocteau said in the first World Theatre Day message shared by the ITI:

We gather to weep and to remember; to laugh and to contemplate; to learn and to affirm and to imagine.

Go see a play.

Bette Midler Updates Woody Guthrie’s ‘All You Fascists Bound To Lose’

Let’s turn the screws, you perverts bound to lose

Add Bette Midler to the growing ranks of musical artists offering up protest songs for our current crisis.

Midler has updated Woody Guthrie’s classic, All You Fascists Bound To Lose, with new lyrics hitting many of headlines and moments we’re all living through under the current administration. Here’s a sample:

We’ll battle ICE together until they cut and run
Just like in Minneapolis and when the midterms come
You’re bound to lose, you fascists bound to lose

All you fascists bound to lose
All you fascists bound to lose
I said all you fascists bound to lose
You’re bound to lose, you fascists bound to lose

To hell with all the cowards who hide behind their masks
We’re gonna win the midterms, we’re coming for his ass!
He knows it too, that bastard’s bound to lose

Trying to distract us from the Epstein files
You gas and beat and murder us, protectin’ pedophiles
Let’s turn the screws, you perverts bound to lose

Give it a listen. Share it around. The fascists may be bound to lose, but everyone has something to gain when they do

Baseball Is Back

Play Ball!

Baseball is back. Or so they tell me. Opening day kicks off today and the long hard march begins to whatever the season will yield.

Wrigley Field 3 _ED45DFF7 AB11 43F6 BF313F2C8618680C_f06b4426 1453 44cf 9fac9bd4ccdef67f.

While I primarily root for the Chicago Cubs I’m a baseball fan and like with most sports I follow, I’m most interested in a good game more than I am rooting for a particular team or matchup. I like to see close contests and races, not runaway division races.

I follow the White Sox as well, because hey, I live in a town with both American and National League clubs. Interleague play between the American and National leagues has taken some of the specialness out of that. And since the White Sox have felt like a minor league team for so long it’s a change in the game that works in my favor.

Chicago papers used to have great baseball writers. Those days are gone. But this column from Paul Sullivan caught my eye as we head into the season. I don’t think it ranks up there with the best of years ago, but Baseball Returns After A Long, Hard Winter, And We’re Grateful To Welcome It Home, does sum up how most Chicagoans feel as we approach opening day in a game that keeps changing, but never changes.

But for much of the next seven months, a three-hour game provides a temporary respite from spiking gas prices, growing airport lines, conflicts abroad and madness at home. Any chance to ignore the real world and immerse ourselves into a fantasy world, even one with nonstop gambling ads, is most welcome.

No, the game is not as good as it used to be. Just ask your parents.

He captures the feelings, the changes, and the feelings about the changes well. When he says radio is still the best medium to enjoy the game, I agree. I listen to the radio broadcast most times I’m watching a game because TV commentators are more carnival barkers than they are baseball announcers.

It also reminds me of my younger years when that was the only way I could catch a game except for the Game of The Week on Saturdays. That always felt like a terrible Catch 22. I’d rather be out playing the game on a Saturday afternoon and would have to give that up to watch a game with my grandfather.

When cable TV game along to our neck of the woods, so too did Chicago’s WGN which brought Cubs games into my world. So I became a long suffering fan long before I moved to the Windy City in an apartment eight blocks from Wrigley Field.

The Cubs were terrible then, and if you waited until after the beginning of the third inning you could saunter into ball park and watch the rest of the game without a ticket. A friend and I did that often.

Of course living in Chicago in later years and watching the Cubs finally win a World Series a decade ago was one of the sports highlights of my life. Those were certainly different days in what seems like a different world.

But a triple is still one of the most exciting plays in sports. The games are back. Let’s hope for some good ones and a few triples along the way.

Play ball!

Sunday Morning Reading

Epidemics of reading, opinions, and the wild ways of artists

Spending a few days with the grandkids this weekend and into next week, yet still managed to find some time for a little Sunday Morning Reading. It’s a lesson in learning, watching as they begin to put it all together, compared to so many of the adults trying to own the world who seem stuck and unable to grow, or suffer some sort of reversion. With kids, it’s innocence. The rest of us have no excuses. Just stories. Makes you wonder what turns that on and off.

In the large discussion around screen time and attention spans, Carlo Iacono says What We Think Is A Decline In Literacy Is A Design Problem.The section looking back to “reading epidemics” in the 18th and 19th century are more illuminating than any screen.

The First Casualty of Trump’s War In Iran Was The Truth. So says David Remick. That’s always true in warm even before the first bullets fly. But it’s become the truth in all aspects of how we try to survive together. Funny how we revert back to our early childhood ways of dealing with the world before disgarding the truth was supposedly trained out of us.

Everybody has an opinion about this war that we can’t call a war. Here’s one that I found interesting from Frida Ghitis. Check out What Everyone Gets Wrong About Iran.

David Todd McCarty tells us How I Learned To Hate AI. The more you know…

Chris Castle takes a look at The Great White House AI Copyright Dodge: Managed Decline, Global Spillover, And The Rise Of The Chief Personhood Denier.Hat tip to Stan Stewart for this one.

With everyone focused on The Strait of Hormus, Richard Bookstabler takes a look at our financial straits in I Predicted The 2008 Financial Crisis. What Is Coming May Be Worse. For the record, I didn’t predict the last one, but anyone with two nickels to rub together can predict the outcome of the one we’re heading into.

I did any number of odd (in all senses of the word) jobs in my early life supporting myself as an artist. Emily Watlington takes a look at The Wild Ways Artists Have Made Their Livings, From The Renaissance To Today.

Notes From A Burmese Prison is a comic by Danny Fenster and Amy Kurzweil. More than worth your time. Extrapolate the specific location and situation to any troublesome moment and remember whoever the guards are, you can’t trust them.

(Photo by the author)