Aaaahhhh, AI…

Some days I feel like the old fart that I am who’s just trying to get from one day to the next. Occasionally I manage to learn something new. Actually, most days something new creeps into my noggin as every day that I wake on this side of the (soon to be here) daisies is a revelation in itself. But I digress. Yesterday I wrote a blog that entertained the ludicrous notion of the United States becoming the 11th province of Canada which is about as ridiculous an idea as Canada becoming our 51st state. We all know that’s destined to be Puerto Rico and we all know how long they’ve been waiting.

I came to realize the impossibility of the U.S. joining our Canuck neighbors because AI (Artificial Intelligence) told me so. In writing my blog I thought how nice it would be to use AI to generate an image of a poster showing the U.S. of A as a province and… it couldn’t do it. I tried several of the AI Image Generation sites available on the internet and not one could come up with something that wasn’t almost complete gibberish. And trust me, as some readers of this blog insist on telling me, I am a master of gibberish. In my mind’s eye I envisioned something pretty simple and straightforward - take out the boundaries between the two countries, eliminate the lines between the states, and redraw the now eleven provinces southwards to show Canada’s newest pride and joy. AI couldn’t do it. No matter how detailed or simple the instructions (“Generate a poster showing the United States as Canada’s 11th province”) the results were about as ludicrous as the idea itself. 

The first image (shown at the right) shows… I know not what. California seems to still exist but the Gulf of MEXICO appears to extend  a lot farther north than it should. Perhaps it’s now the Gulf of Canada…

I’m not sure what the color scheme means. Gone (phew!) are all those pesky Red and Blue states and it does show off the Red that Canada is famous for but the gradations of browns and tans… if you can figure them out please let me know.

The next iteration basically came up with a map of the U.S. and completely eliminated Canada from the scene, though that Red color still predominates. And for everybody past, in the soon to be decimated U.S. Education system, the 12th grade it is painfully obvious that AI cannot spell. Or maybe, in its hidden brain it’s translating into some foreign language that MY pea brain doesn’t understand. I think that thing in the “Heartland” might be supposed to be the Canadian Maple Leaf but I wouldn’t know for sure as I’m more familiar with the much more spectacular Colorado Aspen. Still, the Gulf of Mexico has returned to where it should be which is nice as it means all those ICE officers won’t have to invest in new warm, wooly mittens.

I’m nothing short of a stubborn ole’ cuss (just ask my wife) so I tried a third time and this (again to the right) is what my artificial alter ego came up with. It’s nice that we have the Canadian flag but most of Canada seems to have drifted off into Hudson’s Bay which means the few remaining polar bears are going to have to accommodate some new neighbors. And again, what’s up with the spelling issue? I could make a joke about how AI was created by software developers who might be stronger candidates for a STEM award in Mathematics than a trophy from the National Spelling Bee but hey, I don’t want to offend anybody, least of all folks who actually understand what an algorithm is (which is not me). 

If you read yesterday’s blog you might recognize that this is one of the images I actually decided to use. The spelling is still suspect but it does hint at extending the provincial lines southward and seems to present the map in more of a world view (Canada first!). That darned California still seems to want to be independent. Colorado and Texas appear to now be conjoined  which we all know is laughable by any stretch of the imagination. Nice touch at the top though by trying to have some semblance of both countries colors. And for those with an incredible eye for detail the image seems to now include the good folks of Greenland as part of the new nation. The 12th province? I can hardly wait to hear the Canadian National Anthem sung with a nice Greenlandish lilt. Eh?

My patience, apparently much like Artificial Intelligence, was starting to wear thin, so I said to myself, “one more…” As they say (whoever ‘they’ is), Hope springs eternal so I clicked the ‘Generate Image’ a final time and lo and behold it came up with the image on the right. I could hardly stop laughing! Given the current state of relations between us and our Canadian neighbors I had to give AI credit for having a sense of humor. Our own elected officials can’t reach across the aisle to shake hands in friendship and Canada’s new Prime Minister is ready to ‘drop the gloves’ and fight back against Mr. Trump’s bullying. The notion of cordial relations across the border had me holding my sides and snorting through my nose. 

Though once I calmed down a tad it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, AI knows more than I gave it credit for…