art – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

“The life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.” -David Hume

On the weekend when some parts of the world think they can alter time by simply changing the clocks, I’m reminded of the biggest lesson most learn in life: we’re each not the center of the universe. Most learn it. Some never do, or if they do, they continue to operate under that delusion. We pretty good at setting up systems and structures that reinforce and rely on that delusional thinking. Somehow that seems to be the theme running through the articles and writing I collected this week for this edition of Sunday Morning Reading.

Bronze statue of a child sitting on an outdoor stone bench with legs crossed, reading an open book that rests on their lap, a small bird perched on the top edge of the book, and a stack of books beside them, with a paved walkway, grass lawn, and buildings in the background. Kicking things off is the story of how Humanity Altered an Asteroid’s Orbit Around The Sun by Becky Ferreira. The article links to the ScienceAdvances abstract on the nudge that might be as good as a wink.

Last week the war in the Middle East had just kicked off as I was publishing this column. This week it continues. And, yes, it’s a war, regardless of the stupid debate. Jonathan Taplin looks at The Terrifying New Era of American Imperialism, and Jay Caspian Kang examines The No-Explanation War.

“Society grows great when old men plant trees who shade they’ll never sit under” and the opposite of that wisdom is how Scott Galloway kicks off his piece on Role Models.

Ali Breland takes a looks at those yearning for a return to McCarthyism in ‘We Need To Do McCarthyism to the Tenth Power.’ Turning back time only works as a song lyric.

JA Westenberg offers up a A Soft-Landing Manual For The Return To The Second Gilded Age. It’s tough to avoid the usual hard crashes.

The Dodgy Code examines The Great AI Arbitrage: Making A Killing Before Your Client Wises Up. The inevitable turnaround on this is going to be something to see.

Before we get to that turnaround, Mathew Ingram says The Danger Posed By AI Just Got A Lot More Real All Of A Sudden. Going to be interesting to watch AI bots fighting each other to be the center of the universe. If we’re around to see it.

David Todd McCarty is Searching For Originality In A Sea of Slop. Even on dry land that’s tough.

I’ve been revisiting a lot of Shakespeare of late, so this piece by Alice Cunningham caught my eye. Check out Author To Revive Shakespeare Club After 300 Years. We could all do with revisiting the his works.

And to conclude this week, James Verini brings us the wild tale of The Man Who Broke Into Jail.

(Photo taken by the author.)

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

Inquire and think for yourself

Whew. Regular readers here will know that since the middle of December we’ve been spending time helping my daughter and her family move into a new house, with an interim stop to an Airbnb over the holidays until the new place was ready. It’s been as chaotic as any move could be, multiplied by the antics of our two grandchildren who had their small worlds turned upside down. The chaos didn’t allow for much Sunday Morning Reading, but here we are again, playing a little catch up as well as looking ahead. As much as anybody can look ahead these days.

What Just Happened? That title for Andrea Pitzer’s piece sort of explains the look I see on most people’s faces during the events of this January. If it seems like too much to think about. That’s because it is. Think on it.

Brian Merchant’s Abolish The Senses plays on the same themes and the dismay we’re all feeling.

“Do math. Check your facts.” That’s the message from Neil Steinberg in Wrapping Our Heads Around A Trillion, Now That The Alphabet is Worth $4,000,000,000,000. Don’t let others think for you.

Dealing with much smaller numbers, NatashaMH’s Five Dollars For Catastrophe explains how a $5 book about genocide can offer much more value, should you actually inquire and think for yourself. Words have meaning folks.

And while I’m linking to posts on the numbers, let’s talk gambling. Apparently it’s reaching epidemic proportions and you can bet on when the USA is going to invade other countries, among other catastrophic outcomes these days. Especially if you’re in the know. Saahil Desai says America Is Slow-Walking Into A Polymarket Disaster. I’m not so sure about the slow-walking part.

If gambling is betting on predictions, Artificial Intelligence, with its ability to predict the next word ought to be able to figure out most outcomes ahead of time. It’s all math, right? Remember that earlier admonition to think for yourself? While doing so, check out Steven Adler’s AI Isn’t “Just Predicting The Next Word” Anymore.

Are Tech Companies Allies Or A Threat To Press Freedom? I’m not spoiling Emily Bell’s conclusions with the obvious answer, because the piece is about more than that.

Jill Lepore explores How Originalism Killed The Constitution. It’s an earlier piece that contains context that most have no idea about. I’d suggest finding out.

Speaking of killing things, Russel Berman and Elaine Godfrey ask the simple question, Does Congress Even Exist Anymore? Applying the Ian Betteridge law of headlines, that any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no, you don’t have to guess at my answer. Berman and Godrey call it a fast fade. I call it a slow self-suicide.

Closing out this week, I’m pointing to a venture from a raconteur I feature here often, David Todd McCarty. He’s gathering up his words and images from over the years on a new website. David is quite a storyteller. If you think for yourself, I suggest you pay attention. For a taste check out David Dreams Of Everything.

Go Bears!

(Image from Rey Seven on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

Art matters. If you listen.

It’s another Sunday in this insane world, so it’s time for some Sunday Morning Reading. It won’t cure what ails you, or the world. But there are those who are listening. Listen as you read.

Aren’t You Tired Of Feeling Insane All The Time? Marie Le Conte asks that question. I’m not sure anyone can plug the hole in that boat, but acknowledging that we’re sinking is the first step.

David Todd McCarty tackles The Lost Art of Listening.

NatashaMH recently launched an exhibition of her art. Launching anything can take life out of you, launching any display of art exacts even more of the soul than it does the physical being. But as she says in The Social Life of Art, “art demands resilience, and resilience demands a sense of humor.”

I wrote a bit this week about what Mark Leydorf has to say about The Rise of Resistance Cinema In The Era of Trump. It’s worth highlighting his piece again here.

I’ve been watching the Apple TV series Pluribus with great curiosity. If nothing else, the show echoes Mr. McCarty’s opening to his piece linked above. (Warning. Don’t watch the show with my wife.) Dani Di Placido thinks he’s got it all figured out in What Is ‘Pluribus’ Really About? Perhaps he does. I’m not so sure. I’m also not sure the show’s success or failure relies on figuring it out in the end.

I’ve been linking to some of the goings on at The Kennedy Center under this corrupt administration. Trust me when I say what’s happening there is causing shock waves across board rooms in arts institutions across the country as everyone looks to uncertain and unknown futures with no script to follow. It’s affecting the art. It’s affecting the business of art. It will affect the art in ways we can’t begin to imagine. Janay Kingsberry examines how Senate Democrats Are Investigating Kennedy Center’s Deals And Spending.

Most of the links this week touch on the arts in one way or the other. In a way this tech topic does as well, given that so many want to turn emoji’s into some form of art. Benji Edwards examines the origins of this move back to hieroglyphics with the piece, In 1982, A Physics Gone Wrong Sparked The Invention Of The Emoticon. Art by accident often is the art that sticks.

(Image by Roman Kraft on Unsplash)

Scene Painting a History of Hamlets at The National Theatre

Hamlets watching Hamlet

I’ve done some scene painting in my day, but nothing like this. Actually nothing even approaching anything like this.

In Robert Hatcher’s production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at Britain’s National Theatre Ben Stones’ scenery features a gigantic mural that surrounds the set that includes the faces of actors who have played Hamlet through the ages. The picture above doesn’t do that description or the concept justice.

The faces woven into the Danish artwork are the ultimate theatrical Easter egg. While Stones keeps the full cast list close to his chest, he confirms that they are all there – a complete history of the role.

“They’re all hidden in there. Everybody who’s been in it… even Tinuke Craig’s schools Hamlets, the three boys who played on that tour. We were very clear that if we include, we are including everyone who’s ever spoken those words in any version of this kind of play.”

As a statement on the play and its theatricality that’s cool in and of itself. The ghost visages of previous Hamlets watching what can be described as a ghost story has a meta appeal.

What also attracted my attention to this article — and why I’m sharing it — is that it puts the spotlight on scenic painting, somewhat of a lost art in this day of projected backgrounds and digital printing. This theatrical work of art required 920 hours to complete.

There’s a terrific little video that gives you an idea of the scale and scope of the painting requirement. Unfortunately it’s filmed in vertical mode so you don’t get the grand finale the same way on a computer webpage that you might on a smartphone. Even on smaller screens it has an impact.

It made me recall my days directing theatre in Omsk, Russia when the scene painting loft was at the top of the building. There, drops would be stretched on a frame that would rise and descend through an opening in the floor allowing the scenic artists to stand on the floor as they painted. There were some amazing scenic painters in that loft.

The article also gives credit to the scenic artists who did the work for Hamlet at the National. Well deserved.

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.

Find Beauty When and Where You Can

Stop and smell the roses

A Mastodon user sent me a direct message the other day asking why I felt so comfortable doing what I do every morning, which is posting a “Good Morning” toot featuring photos I’ve taken of flowers, tree leaves changing color, other shots of nature, holiday ornaments, etc….

The context of the query was criticizing how I could continue to do that every morning given all of the terrible things going on in the United States, things I also rightfully describe on social media as horrors.

I get it. Believe me I get it. I’m overwhelmed at times as well. But my response was and is simple.

Stop and smell the roses.

While there are indeed horrors happening in the world there is always beauty. If we don’t take a moment to see and acknowledge the beauty around us and the spontaneity of discovering it, whether it be in nature, in very human moments, in a museum, a gallery, a stage, a movie theater, a concert hall, a photograph, a child’s laugh, or in a story, then what the hell are we fighting for?

I’m convinced those we are fighting against don’t see or even care to see the beauty around and within us, unless it involves increasing their bank account balances.

Sometimes you need to stop and smell the roses. I prefer doing so in the mornings, before I put on my armor to meet the challenges of the day.

Sunday Morning Reading

Politics, the arts, a little snow, and the end of an era

It’s a Sunday and Fall is homing in on Winter as the first snow of the season hits Chicago this morning. Perfect time for a little Sunday Morning Reading featuring some interesting stories about the arts, AI, and home.

As the first flakes of this winter of discontent fall, two interesting reads highlight some of the chaos the art-less U.S administration is inflicting on the American arts scene, specifically The Kennedy Center. Shawn McCreesh takes a look at the damage being done in The Kennedy Center Crackup.

Meanwhile, Charlotte Higgins reports that the Washington National Opera May Move Out Of The Kennedy Center Due to Trump ‘Takeover.’ I’m here to tell you that while what’s happening on the banks of the Potomac may feel very inside the beltway, the repercussions are being felt in the boardrooms of arts organizations across the country.

The above, like most of our news of late, is certainly not something to laugh at. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find ways to laugh at the incompetent, ignorant and dangerous players wreaking havoc in their wake. Laughter gets under their all too thin skins, no matter how made up or stretched too tight by surgery. Mike Monteiro offers up How To Point At Fascists And Laugh.

NatashaMH, far too young to worry about being old, takes a look at creating art as she nears the mid-century mark in I Don’t Paint For Your Sofa. Youngsters these days.

Art and politics might be an unholy mix in dangerous times like these, but there’s another foul concoction brewing. Adam Willems points to An ex-Intel CEO’s Mission To Build A Christian AI: ‘Hasten The Coming of Christ’s Return.’ If you ask me these folks wishing for these kind of end times have really missed the points. All of them.

Continuing on the AI front there seems to be a bit of weakening in the walls of what most concede is an economic bubble. The cliché is that bubbles pop. Those that don’t, just disappear as they float away. Ben Thompson takes a look at what happens in either case in The Benefits of Bubbles.

Home is where hearts are and often places you can’t return back to. I’ve lived both. Chris Andrei is Searching For The Elusive Feeling Of Home.

With the weather changing and snowflakes falling out my window, there’s a passage of time marker about to be set. The Farmers’ Almanac is about to shut down. Growing up in rural America there were only two publications that everyone I knew received in the mail. It was always a big deal in our house when my dad, who was the postmaster, brought those home. The Sears Catalog and The Farmer’s Almanac. The Sears Catalog is long gone. The 2026 edition of the latter will be its last. Grace Snelling takes a look back and ahead in After More Than 200 Years, The Farmers’ Almanac Is Shutting Down For Good.

Returning to where this week’s column began, the arts, Jack Rodolico’s The Blue Book Burglar examines how New York’s once vaunted Social Register, was not only a destination that social climbers desired to be included in, but was also a hit list for the country’s hardest working art thief. I just don’t understand how the current thieves doing today’s pillaging have it so damn easy.

Sunday Morning Reading

Traveling through the crazy paying attention along the way

It’s been a fortnight since I’ve published one of these columns due to travel. So much has happened. The travel adventures to London and Memphis were great. The way the world continues to pull itself apart continues to not be, as witnessed by protests and a madman’s threats of troops in the streets followed me from Chicago to London to Memphis. You can shut off and shut down to enjoy new places and visit dear friends, but the insanity keeps getting more insane. So, Sunday Morning Reading is back at it this week, with a mix of politics, culture and a bit of tech. (Oh, yeah, Apple released new iPhones during all of that.) If you can’t feel the currents flowing together, you’re not paying attention.

On my travels my wife and I caught some theatre. Two plays by Shakespeare and the contemporary play Stereophonic. The two Shakespeares were one of his worst, Merry Wives of Windsor, and one of the best, Hamlet. We’re theatre rats and know the importance of the medium and certainly recognize the role writers in all mediums play in our lives, history, and culture. So too does a favorite writer of mine, David Todd McCarty. Check out his important piece The Reason You Need To Be Making Art Right Now. And if I may be so bold, the other Sunday Morning Reading links below demonstrate that to a tee.

NatashaMH reflects on free speech, punk rebellion and British satire in When Satire Was Safe. Great piece. I dare say, satire has never been safe even when tolerated. Plenty of fools can attest to that. Ask Yorick.

I mentioned there’d be politics and here’s a few links to some excellent context on just how damn familiar all of what we’re living through is. For those who bother to pay attention. First up is Mark Hertling’s Beware Today’s ‘Fire-Eaters’. If you don’t know that term, read the piece. You’ll recognize today’s fire-eaters in a second.

On a broader scale, take a look at Nikki McCann Ramirez’s interview with Mike Duncan in Are We Witnessing The Fall Of The American Empire? My short answer is yes. Here’s the money quote that should terrify us all:

So if we go this route, we’re going to have congresses, we’re going to have Supreme Courts, we’re going to have a President of the United States, there will be governors, there will be elections, it’s just what’s happening underneath that facade. The facade is never going to go away, it’s how tissue-thin the facade is.

Follow that up with George Packer’s America’s Zombie Democracy.

For a bit of recent history and context, check out The Story of DOGE, As Told By Federal Workers from a team of Wired writers led by Zoe Schiffer.

As I mentioned Apple released new iPhones last week. Om Malik seems quite taken with the new iPhone Air, although he has some concerns in Go Out & Get Some Air.

In this column and other posts I’ve been following Denny Henke’s journey to de-Apple himself in his tech life with a keen interest. I greatly admire his drive and his sharing of his efforts. Check out My Ongoing Effort To de-Apple the iPad.

And to bring this all back around, take a look at Neely’s Tucker’s sharing of a guest post by Patrick Hastings, Nobody Would Edit Shakespeare, Right? Right? They have and they do. David Garrick wasn’t the first or the last. Throughout history we always look for the ways to make it easier to swallow tragic moments and unhappy endings. In the theatre and on the stages of our lives.

(The image above is of David Garrick’s monument in Westminster Abbey, taken by me on my recent travels.

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

The ant hill of humanity

Crazy travel rhythms this summer. Spending time at the lake this weekend. The good thing about lake time is there’s time to do some reading. Here’s some good stuff I stumbled onto, worth sharing for this week’s edition of Sunday Morning Reading. Quite a bit revolving around Artificial Intelligence and other mind games. There’s also ants.

For some inexplicable reason defining what it means to be an American has actually become a chore these days. It shouldn’t be. Kieran Healy has written a piece simply titled American that recounts his thoughts and feelings on becoming an American citizen. Well worth your time, espeically in these crazy times.

“Memory isn’t linear; it’s relational.” That’s the thought NatashaMH leaves us with in her piece The Mind’s Mischief. The mind is indeed a curious thing.

Matteo Wong says the AI Doomers Are Getting Doomier. I don’t know about you, but if we’re all doomed at the hands of AI (does AI have hands?) human intelligence never really advanced as far as I thought it did. Or maybe we just hit the ceiling.

Speaking of AI doom, Charlie Warzel wonders why one of the impacts of AI it to make us feel like we’re losing it in AI Is A Mass-Delusion Event. I get the points and they’re well made. Referring back to my comment from the previous entry, if we’re such easy marks for this kind of delusion… well…we are such easy marks.

David Todd McCarty argues why we should resist AI with ecclesiastical fervor, especially those who create for a living. Check out The Moral Failure Of Using AI In Your Art.

Reece Rogers is marking yet another change brought about by AI. Take a look at The AI-Powered PDF Marks The End of An Era.

Barry Betchesky tells us that It Took Many Years And Billions of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes. You read that right. The money quote is:

“But now we have Microsoft apparently determining that ‘unpredictability’ was something that some number of its customers wanted in their calculators.”

Rounding out this collection of links on AI, is another article by NatashaMH where she says instead of Fearing the Machinery, Interrogate The Mindset. Excellent piece. The underlying current is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. We’re creating these machines in our own images. Or at least the images we imagine of ourselves. Humans are far too human, even when we look past or try to accelerate beyond our humanity.

One of the joys of spending time in the great outdoors is that it reminds you we’re not the only intelligent species on the planet. Although as the theme of this week’s reading has emerged, we might want to reevaluate that, just not with Microsoft’s math tools. On another front, in politics it’s certainly easy to argue for a reevaluation. Kate Knibbs takes a swipe at it in a look at how Government Staff Cuts Have Fueled An Ant-Smuggling Boom.

I told you there’d be ants.

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.

Sunday Morning Reading

With aging comes awareness. Or at least it should.

We’re on Lake Time this weekend, but there’s still time to share some Sunday Morning Reading.

Two weeks ago I shared a piece from youngster David Todd McCarty titled When I Was Old. I’m resharing it this week since I celebrated a birthday on Friday, getting one year closer to marking seven decades on this rock. Also sharing another great piece from David, called I Was Told There’d Be More.

“Scented memories.” I like those two words put together by NatashaMH in her piece, The Fragile Geometry of Becoming.

I’ve been an Elmore Leonard fan for as long as I can remember. Anthony Lane’s Elmore Leonard’s Perfect Pitch may not be perfect, but it is damned close enough.

David Struett delivers a terrific ode to Chicago bike messengers, their culture and their jobs in Meet Chicago’s Last Bike Messengers. Here’s How They Survive.

You might notice a touch of sentimentality and reminiscing in the pieces above. Comes with the thoughts during a birthday weekend. Fair warning though that most of the links shared below are a bit darker, and yes, more political than those above. With aging comes awareness. Or at least it should.

Mathew Ingram wonders What Do We Do When The Facts Don’t Matter? I think we’re not liking what we’re finding out.

Mike Masnick’s piece Facism for First Time Founders offers the next generation a clue or two, assuming the current generation doesn’t crash it all before they get a chance to discover them.

I’ve written about the concept of enshittification in tech quite a bit. Mostly as regards the Internet. Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman take a look at The Enshittifcation of American Power.

Another big contributor to enshittification is the media who increasingly seem more and more clueless and devoid of any self awareness. Charlotte Kim takes a look Inside The Media’s Traffic Apocalypse.

Speaking of things toxic and shitty, Adam Aleksic explores How Incel Language Infected The Mainstream Internet — and Brought It’s Toxicity With It. I’ve spent almost 70 years on this planet. I have no idea why guys turned into such misanthropic, self-loathing idiots.

In a world seemingly more and more intent on criminality, there are very few surprises, but there are legacies. Jessica Winter’s What I Inherited From My Criminal Great-Grandparents. Great story.

To conclude this week I’m sharing a film review by Sonny Bunch. This one of the new film Eddington. I haven’t seen the film. I plan to. Rarely does a review encourage or discourage me from seeing a film. If it’s anything like Bunch describes one way or the other I’m sure it will be worth it as it sounds like a fun, yet conflicted, summary of lots of things we’ve all been living through since 2020, and continue to do so. I’ll leave it with this quote:

The feed never stops, the algorithm never tires. There’s always more. It never ends. Just a few more videos. You can sleep later. You can never sleep, if that’s what you’d prefer. Who knows what you’ll miss when you’re asleep?

And we wonder why everyone has gone a little nuts.

Yes, There’s More on The Chicago Sun-Times AI Flap

Content is no longer king. Revenue generation is the boss.

You probably remember last week’s adventure in AI and The Chicago Sun-Times. A special section featuring summer activities called The Heat Index included a traditional list of fifteen books for summer reading. Ten of the books didn’t exist, even though they are listed as being written by actual authors. Yes, AI was the culprit. But so too were the humans.

Well, it turns out there’s more to the story. Other parts of The Heat Index also included things like quotes from folks who claim they never made them and in the case of one chef was never solicited for an interview. The Sun-Times began checking the Heat Index and discovered 10 stories they checked all had similar erroneous sources, some phony, and multiple errors and information that couldn’t be verified.

The digging also unveiled that similar errors existed in past special supplements put together by King Features, a division of Hearts Corp, the newspaper published. The Sun-Times typically does about 10 such special supplements a year.

Here are some examples from the latest article describing the scenario:

One of the first stories in the summer section, touted as “a look at the hammock boom,” quoted several people who may not exist, or at least are not who Buscaglia said they were.

For example, a Ryan Leidecker was described as a product line manager at Eagles Nest Outfitters. The company said Leidecker is not an employee nor ever has been.

Buscaglia also cited a Dr. Jennifer Campos as professor of leisure studies at the University of Colorado. The university says it has no record of an employee named Jennifer Campos.

The story quoted Campos as saying a “hammock has become this generation’s equivalent of the Frisbee on the quad,” from her “2023 research paper published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.” A search of her name in the journal yielded nothing.

In the same story, Mark Ellison is identified as an employee at Great Smoky Mountains National Park and warns about the damage that “improper hammock hanging techniques” can do to trees, with Buscaglia noting the information appeared on the park’s website.

Ellison posted on Facebook that he was not an employee of the park and said no such thing. The national park confirmed to the Sun-Times that Ellison does not work there and that there is no such information about hammocks on its website.

Also cited in the DIY article was a 2024 Wired magazine story by a tech writer named Brian Kahn, about setting up an outdoor movie area in your backyard. Wired told the Sun-Times that Kahn has not written for the publication and the quote was inaccurate.

The author of the content, Mark Buscaglia, did come clean about using AI and his failure to fact check. The Sun-Times has also come clean and said that no Sun-Times employees proofed the content before publishing it under its own banner.

What’s interesting, though not surprising, is The Sun-Times reasoning for how it got into this mess. Using King Features and not Sun-Times staff to prepare the supplements was, as you would expect, a cost-saving move according to Chicago Public Media’s CEO Melissa Bell, who also called the episode a series of “human mistakes.”

Here’s another quote:

Bell said the decision to buy special sections from King Features — which predated her arrival at CPM last year — was a “creative solution to keep hitting revenue goals while we transition from print to digital revenue.” She said she had no objection: “I didn’t deeply investigate the editions, and quickly approved the team to continue the practice in place. My reasoning: let’s not sacrifice any revenue.”

As a side note to this story, and pointing to the bigger picture human mistakes I think all of these AI companies have made, it seems to me that a lot of these kind of error prone mistakes or hallucinations — too easily overlooked by most humans — could easily be rectified if the AI output included some sort of watermark or other identifier to say that it was generated by machines. That technology certainly should be easy to implement. At least given the promises of what AI is supposed to offer. But then that lets the air out of the balloon.

When it comes to scraping nickels off the pavement or bigger bucks from investors, and appearing that you’re something you’re not, we humans are far too accomplished at those skills. It’s no wonder Artificial Intelligence spits it back in our faces from time to time.

You can 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.