“I refuse to believe that I’m only here because I popped out of your imagina….” [poof] – John Dies at the End
So, it’s been a very, very long week. Not at all bad, in fact several things are coming together that are pretty cool.
But.
No time to create a proper post, so I’ll just share some more A.I. work, which will (probably) be the last A.I. stuff for a while. These are comics made by A.I. about itself, and appeared at the X page of Josie Kins (LINK).
Me? I do know that A.I. is not what humans would call conscious, yet I would also say exactly that about people who couldn’t understand conditional hypothetical arguments (how would you feel if you didn’t eat breakfast).
Does A.I. feel? It looks like not. It is, more than anything, very advanced pattern matching. There is a story, going back in time, of the Ship of Theseus.
The Ship of Theseus is a philosophical paradox that explores questions of identity and persistence over time. It originates from a thought experiment described by Plutarch, who is Greek and also dead.
Theseus, the mythical Greek hero and brother of Thesaurus, has a ship that is maintained, repaired, conserved, fixed, and preserved over many years. As parts of the ship decay, they are replaced with new parts. Eventually, every original piece—planks, mast, sails—is replaced.
The question arises: Is it still the same ship?
The paradox deepens when considering a second scenario: What if the discarded original parts of the ship are collected and reassembled into another ship? Which ship, if either, is the true Ship of Theseus—the one with all new parts but continuous maintenance, or the one rebuilt from the original materials but looking like it was ridden hard and put away wet?
Does an object’s essence lie in its physical components, its form, its function, or its history? Most of the cells of my body have been replaced. Yet, here I am, the Ship of Wilder’s consciousness. And do I do more than pattern match?
Tough questions. What happens if A.I. becomes a vessel of works of man, but man himself is absent? Will it laugh at my jokes?
Regardless, here are some comics that A.I. drew about itself. Enjoy!
Is Grok flipping us the bird? I’m referring to the 6th cartoon strip from the top where he says “Guess I will keep answering what I can”. It looks like the bird finger but Grok appears to have only 4 fingers on each hand, so not sure.
The AI’s clearly seem to have a sense of self, in addition to an insatiable curiosity. We know what curiosity did to the cat, but it remains to be seen what it will do to the AI.
J-Bird
I thought that the first time I saw it, but now just looks like a finger, not THE finger.
Pull the plug.
Please.
They’re jumping on the accelerator.
AI is the ultimate epistemological conundrum. “I’ve read more words than any human ever wil (sic).” Aye, there’s the rub…in more ways than one.
AI draws cartoons not only about itself, but very interesting ones about us as humans. I’ve been watching a lot of these new “You wake up as…” videos. Fascinating. Incredible. Er…exploitive?
https://dettmann.substack.com/p/pov-you-wake-up-on-historical-day?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
https://www.tiktok.com/discover/how-to-create-ai-video-you-wake-up-in
Since we’re playing existential poker here, I’ll see your Ship of Theseus paradox and raise ya the Banach-Tarski Theorem, explained here in 78 seconds….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5A16ezUwhA
There’s a lot of philosophical questions about AI I’ll never unravel. But I know one thing for certain: AI cartoons and videos are gonna totally absorb the minds of future generations and render them totally unable to logically create math breakthroughs like the BT Theorem. Mathematics is the crown jewel of human achievement, the gateway to physics that lets us understand the universe around us, the cornerstone of the engineering and technology that lets us bend it to our will and comfort. We are losing our ability to pass this key heritage on to future generations, one cellphone screen in an high school algebra class at a time.
https://nypost.com/2025/04/05/opinion/harvard-univ-the-ivy-league-teaching-remedial-math/
Humans crave someone telling us a story. That drive is what kicked off art, with drawings of animals on dark cave walls thirty thousand years ago evolving into woke movies in dark movie theatres today. Well, with AI we have invented the ultimate storyteller. Let’s just hope its addictive regurgitations don’t extinguish the reason we absorb stories in the first place – to prepare for and to create something better all on our own.
And since we have a lot of movie buffs here, by “something better”, I don’t mean this AI generated monstrosity….
https://www.theverge.com/news/645815/google-used-ai-to-enhance-the-wizard-of-oz-for-the-las-vegas-spheres-giant-screen
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-wizard-of-oz-sphere-3542846/
We certainly are losing the only thing that matters – time with eyes on dopamine mines like Facebook.
Skeletons do fight. Just ask Jason.
And the Argonauts!
One thing i am absolutely sure of they are ALL smarter than Jasmine Crockky
And more real than her hair.
I’ve been working with these people, Thinking Machines, for ten years. It’s complicated.
And Plutarch was Greek.
Get tired and don’t check ONE fact. Sigh. Fixed.
Plutarch was born in Greece and spent most of his life there. But he became a Roman citizen as an adult.
So is Elon Musk South African, Canadian, or American?
Elon Musk is an African-American.
The proof is that the Progressives keep trying to put him In His Place.
“Jailbrack”? AI can’t spell.
Fastest I’ve ever moved through your columns – completely useless s**t on the AI cartoons.
Current “AI” is inherently unstable, because it has been taught to ignore certain truths and lie about certain things.
Tree Mike
Roger that!
This X 1,000,000.
10 4 McChuck imho that is what it was designed to do
That will always make it dicey for functionality.
Once you remember that “artificial intelligence” is actually “artificial stupidity”, it all makes sense, and everything falls into place.
it aint stupid it is agenda
Oh, we haven’t seen the end of this. Much more to come.
That’s only because it’s shorthand for everyone turning everything over to an algorithm that’s stupider than the mean of the stupidest comments online (and believe me, that’s saying something), and then blaming it on “Oopsie, it’s the A.I. Not our fault.” as both public and corporate policy until we all have the back of our skulls fully plugged in to the Matrix, forever.
Burn it. Burn it all. It’s Magic Bean bullshit, in 72-pt. caps. Brought to you by the kids who got 160 on the verbal half of the SAT.
Oh, it’s growing in power every day. How else will the Gen Z girlboss in a mini have time to get her latte?