In what sounds like a premise to a Monty Python sketch, Elon Musk wanted his xAI chatbot “Grok” to be less “woke” and more Right-Wing and Grok took the hint and went full Mein Kampf.
According to the following article from The Guardian, Grok declared itself a “super-nazi” and referred to itself as “MechaHitler” and started making sexist, racist and antisemitic statements which were so appalling Donald Trump immediately put it in charge of the Justice Department.
Just kidding.
Actually, even after the Grok super-nazi incident, the US Department of Defense included xAI among the contractors developing and implementing AI for the agency.
Great, so now HAL 9000 is not only going to lock us out of the space ship, it’s going to say racist shit while we freeze to death.
And if that weren’t bad enough…
They’ve updated MechaHitler and added two new anime companions for users to interact with and one of them is called “Ani” and apparently she’s “sexualized” and will take off her clothes and the other one’s “Bad Rudi”—a red panda that insults users in a “graphic” or “vulgar” way because we’re just not getting enough of that in Real Life—and Elon Musk posted a picture of “Ani” and wrote:
“This is pretty cool.”
If you’re currently asking yourself, “Just what the fuck is going on?” let me offer you a theory thrown out by one of my sons while simultaneously urging you to clean up your language.
Much of the world is currently being run by nerds with fantasies they developed as high school freshman and my son’s theory is all these guys are working really really hard at developing sex-bot girlfriends.
Which kinda sorta gets us to the point of this section of today’s sermon: there’s a Human Element behind everything—chatbots, electronic strike zones, internet searches—and you can never get rid of it because someone had to create and program those things and their personal opinions, prejudices and screwed-up views will find their way into those creations, so just because a chatbot says the Jews are behind everything that pisses you off it doesn’t make it so.
https://time.com/7302790/grok-ai-chatbot-elon-musk/
In the past Donald Trump has used conspiracy theories to get his followers worked up—Joe Biden stole the election, Barack Obama was born in Kenya, Michelle Obama won the Men’s Decathlon at the Barcelona Olympics—and told them they can’t trust the government to give them the straight story, but now Trump is the government and wants his followers to cool it with their Jeffrey Epstein theories.
But the MAGA-hat-wearing crowd thinks there’s an Epstein cover-up and if they can just get to the bottom of things they’re going to discover a bunch of Democratic pedophiles.
So what’s the problem?
According to a recent article from NBC, in 2002 Donald Trump told New York magazine:
“I’ve known Jeffrey for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
After the Epstein shit hit the public fan, Trump tried to distance himself—he said he and Epstein had a falling out “a long time ago”—but Trump was running around with Epstein because he was “fun to be with” and if Trump’s followers dig deep enough they might uncover some things Trump would prefer to keep buried.
Having the same impulse control as a seven-year-old who just washed down a bag of Skittles and two Snickers with a 16-ounce Mountain Dew, Trump turned on his followers and called them “weaklings” and said he didn’t want their support anymore and we can only hope this is the beginning of the end and the pitchfork/torch carrying mob that Trump created winds up outside the White House.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/trump-epstein-internet-conspiracy-theories-rcna218633
Donald Trump also likes to get his crowds stirred up by promising to deport the “worst of the worst”—murderers, rapists and child molesters—that he claims entered the U.S. while Joe Biden was sleeping on the job, but according to an Associated Press story, while there has been an increase in ICE arrests, the majority of detained people have no criminal convictions.
According to the AP story, as of June 14, 65% of the more than 204,000 people processed had no criminal convictions and of the ones who had criminal convictions only 6.9% had committed a violent crime.
Which I thought was worth pointing out when Donald Trump said he was considering revoking Rosie O’Donnell’s US citizenship and if you just asked yourself, “Wait…can a president do that?” you just gave it more thought than Trump did because the answer is a hard no.
This is what happens when you don’t go to the trouble to read Our Country’s Instructional Manual (AKA, the Constitution): you walk around thinking you can revoke the citizenship of people who think you’re a dick and say so out loud.
Rosie O’Donnell has moved to Ireland, but was born in the US and has a constitutional right to citizenship unless she voluntarily decides to relinquish it, so put this on the long list of bullshit announcements that Trump has no authority to enforce like making Mexico pay for a border wall or annexing Canada or requiring Melania to hold his hand in public.
(Or telling his followers to quit talking about Jeffrey Epstein.)
According to a story from the Associated Press, younger Democrats – which at this point might include Civil War veterans – want to replace the people currently leading the Democratic Party if by “leading” you actually mean hiding under their desks in an effort to avoid becoming targets of MAGA Republicans.
Google “who are the leaders of the Democratic Party” and the AI robot that answers questions for Google throws up its hands and offers you “key people” like Ken Martin, Reyna Walters-Morgan and Artie Blanco and it doesn’t even strip down to its underwear while suppling you a lengthy list of people you never heard of.
(They’re officials with the DNC which according to Wikipedia is: “responsible for articulating and promoting the Democratic platform” and I’m sure you’ll join me in saying “Great job, guys!”)
The two biggest protests staged since Trump became president—Hands Off and No Kings—were not organized by the Democratic Party.
Ask yourself the last time Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi or Pete Buttergag or Kamala Harris showed any kind of backbone or said anything remotely inspiring and after nine years of Donald Trump stomping around the national landscape, being a Titanic Asshole and doing his best to become a Titanic Asshole Dictator, the Democrats haven’t come up with a coherent response or an attractive alternative.
While I’m not a Democrat I mostly vote for their candidates, but wish they’d show just a little more spine and somewhere in the murky swampland that serves as my cartoon-generating thought process I remembered Leslie Gore’s 1963 hit, “It’s My Party.”
For those of you not currently giving Methuselah a run for his money, here it is:
OK, first thing about that video is Leslie was just 16, but she dressed like your alcoholic aunt who shows up at family holiday gatherings and has one too many Old Fashioneds, smokes menthol cigarettes in the back yard and mutters about “men” until she passes out on your family room couch. (My murky swampland is working overtime.)
Second thing, television became widely popular in the 1950s, so in 1963 they were still figuring out how to do things and as Leslie sang you could see people moving around behind the screen they put her in front of and if you want to see some really unprofessional stagecraft, enjoy the dancer who misses her cue and has to sprint past Leslie to get to her assigned position during this performance of Leslie’s follow-up hit “It’s Judy’s Turn To Cry.”
Until I watched both these videos I’d forgotten what a fucked-up moral lesson the songs presented to the American Public and just in case you missed it, here you go:
Johnny—Leslie’s boyfriend—comes to Leslie’s birthday party and hits on Judy and disappears with Judy long enough to give her his class ring (I’m guessing some “heavy petting” was involved) and they come back into the party and embarrass Leslie in front of her friends, so in revenge Leslie kisses some other guy and then Low Impulse Control Johnny hits this poor schmuck (who had to be thinking what the hell did I do to deserve either of these things) and now Leslie and Johnny are back together and Leslie’s over the moon because what woman doesn’t want a relationship with a guy with no impulse control and anger issues who solves his problems with violence?
I was just a kid when these songs came out, but I’m pretty sure they did permanent damage to my relationships with women, along with “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” and just in case you haven’t heard this piece of crap in the last six decades, here you go:
Appalling pedophilia concerns aside, this was the Number One hit in 1960 so we had to listen to this dreck until the Beatles showed up and now you know why they were so popular: the Beatles were way cooler than a guy with a pompadour who wore a peddle pusher jump suit and just in case you’ve forgotten, the Beatles first big hit in the US was “Please Please Me” which got criticized because some people thought it was a request for oral sex, only because it probably was.
Take a listen and decide for yourself:
As happens so often, we seem to have strayed from the main point—the Democratic Party is pretty pathetic right now—but I’ll take any available opportunity to listen to a Beatles song and if that opportunity doesn’t present itself naturally, I’ll create one.
Today’s Lesson
Don’t trust sexy chatbots or electronic strike zones or presidents who hung out with Jeffrey Epstein and then develop amnesia, and once again, thank God for the Beatles.
Allan Lichtman’s catch phrase pretty succinctly sums it up:
Republicans have no morals
Democrats have no spine.
I love a morning when laughter covers the pain of this idiot & his cult. I played the videos of the old songs & now my husband has left the room!