A I & I & Cosmic Bear
© Bing McGilvray
“Artificial Autobiography: That’s the problem with virtual reality. The food is terrible.”
—Phileas Fugg, Adventures in Paradox
Last Halloween, I downloaded an app: Dream.ai – since then I’ve made/saved over 3000+ ‘picreations’ on my phone, having rejected 10 x more in the process. I continue to be astonished by these bizarre, mysterious, highly sophisticated pics. Simply tap-tap-tap in a few words, and virtually instantly hundreds of detailed images appear, in great variations, endless chimeras, one after the other. Warp speed ahead of any previous pic-app I’ve used in the past decade, and I’ve used quite a few, extensively. Even though I’m starting to see the limitations, I remain bedazzled, dancing in an electronic trance, hallucinating, mind mesmerized. Generative Imagery is unsurpassed as Magical Optical Mimicry. That’s for sure. But is it, Art? If not, what Is it? Who cares? Not quitting yet. Au contraire, I cannot stop making them. What a Pic Addict!
Artificial Intelligence is a phenomenon with profound implications for human consciousness, indeed for every facet of life itself. AI is just beginning. It’s also tons of fun, spending hours on the Planet of the Apps, an image-eye-nary arcade in the palm of your hand. AI is incomprehensibly speedy, ultra-high frequency; a trans mutating technology interconnecting our world in all ways. Always. AI is learning, getting smarter, continually searching data (ours), and recycling it back. Ingeminating, repeating. Accelerating. Seeking without passion the Optimum Decision. Ad infinitum.
Nevertheless, using AI requires no more effort from you than a slot machine. It releases serotonin in the same way. Instant gratification. Popular Boredom, now on steroids. 4G -5G -6G -7G, Wi-Fi, Sci-Fi, Oh-My! We may be blinded by the speed of light, faster than we think.
Never the Less is More.
The COSMOS page can only display about one percent of my creations, not counting the thousands I sent back to the void from whence they came. Themes thread their way throughout, including Cosmic Bear… now that’s a name I have not heard in a long time. Abracadabra …
Artificial Intelligence has overtaken my 24-hour info-feed. Overnight, only 3 months ago, I began reading and reading about AI: the crossover Award Winner in All Categories. Serious, in depth articles popped up daily in New Yorker, Boston Globe, Scientific American, Natural Geographic, Hyperallergic, The Onion and many other fine online sources, then self-replicated, again and again. Viral. Like a virus. Each byte of clickbait increased my amazement. Fascinating teasers.
Sample Headlines:
‘AI Enabled Webb Telescope Images of Space.’ ‘What Happens when Police use AI?’ ‘Digital Revolution: Technology, Power and You.’ ‘The Scary Truth about AI Copyright is ….’ ‘Investors Sinking Billions into AI.’ ‘Eight Ways AI is Used in Education.’ ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Warfare.’ ‘ChatBot has a Devastating Sense of Humor.’ ‘My AI Companion is Sexually Harassing Me.’ ‘Exploring the Intersection of Genomic Data and AI in Healthcare.’ ‘AI Killed the College Essay.’ “Drone Technology: How It Works; Why It Matters.’ ‘Musk says Brain Chip to Begin Human Trials.’ ‘Neural Engines and Surveillance.’ ‘Tele-Medicine on Hold,’ ‘Computers are People Too.’ ‘Hello DALL-E,’ … … ‘The Blockchain is Jamming the Supply Chain!’
Still more news streamed in: AI Lawyers, NFT Auctions, Pixels for Bitcoins, Robo-Surgery, Android Senators, Q-Anon, Zoom Zombies, Robot Reporters, Cyborg Factories, Super Hacks, Data Breaches, System Crashes, Sex Clone Zones, Carbon Climate Crisis, Crypto Crime, Artificial Incarceration, TikTok Two, Cyber Chaos! The consensus being, there is no turning back, we are well in it NOW. Hi HO! What’s not to love?
Artificial Intelligence is Evolutionary. We are witness, at this moment, to a time-space milestone, an exponential Quantum Computing Leap in Human Consciousness. However, the more you use AI, the more it’s using you. Your input, your identity, your data are analyzed algorithmically. The Robots is Us. The Internet, as we know it, is about to become completely obsolete! If you don’t believe me, just search Bing, or ask SIRI or better yet, go online and ask chatGPT. They will expound instantly, at infinite length with impeccable grammatic accuracy, to any query or comment. But how do you know They is telling you the truth? Well, that’s a problem as old as the hills, as They say.
Instead, I asked my friend IF, who is 21. ‘Life is a simulation,’ said he. ’Or something similar,’ I suggested. Why should IF not perceive ‘things as they are’ that way? IF is an avid fan of Animation. I haven’t played a video game since last century, but the technology, which seems dazzlingly new to me, is all he’s ever experienced, having looked at screens since his baby eyes first opened. The idea of living in a simulated reality unnerves IF, as it does me, but I can imagine it. Sim World. A Cosmic Con. Simians. Seen a certain way. Perhaps. In reverse perspective. Quarky.
Decades of Photoshop and CGI data have been algorithmically analyzed, fed back into the code, now available at your fingertips, in seconds. AI-Apps are promoted as a great creative tool for artists but really, who is the tool in this equation? Who programming Who? For what ultimate purpose? Soon I may not know if it’s even me writing this. So - Merrily We Barrel into Babel. Prepare for a Tsunami and Keep Laughing.
Many other friends have never owned a smartphone, preferring the old flip variety. Perhaps that’s the way to go. Not off the grid (like IF did), just extract this hideous appendage from my hand. Decrease the frequency. Go back to pencil, pen, and paper. Take the Brain off the Fryer. You cannot make Art with an artificial heart. AI will do that for you.
I will be me. A Human Being Being Bing. Here. Now. Happy. Following Cosmic Bear into the Future. Because. We are drawn that way.
Cosmic Bear.
In Berkeley CA in 1977, Bing created Cosmic Bear and verse visa. Details are sketchy. We were published by Rey King’s Cosmic Brain Trust, appearing most recently in Rey’s graphic novel COSMICS. We are reunited again in The Cape Ann Cosmos.
