The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real) is a
British children's book written by Margery Williams (also known as Margery
Williams Bianco) and illustrated by William
Nicholson. It chronicles the story of a stuffed rabbit's desire to become real through the
love of his owner. The story was first published in Harper's Bazaar in 1921 featuring
illustrations from Williams' daughter Pamela Bianco It was published as a book
in 1922 and
has been republished many times since.
The Velveteen Rabbit was
Williams' first children's book. It
has been awarded the IRA/CBC Children's
Choice award. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National
Education Association voted the book #28 on the "Teachers'
Top 100 Books for Children
Making inanimate objects real is a theme that still resonates
today, and the best example of that is Calvin and Hobbes, a comic strip created by
cartoonist Bill Watterson that
was syndicated from
November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly described as "the last
great newspaper comic", Calvin and Hobbes has enjoyed
broad and enduring popularity, influence, and academic and philosophical
interest.
Calvin and Hobbes follows the
humorous antics of the title characters: Calvin, a precocious, mischievous, and
adventurous six-year-old boy; and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. Set in the
contemporary suburban United States of the 1980s and 1990s, the strip depicts
Calvin's frequent flights of fancy and friendship with Hobbes. It also examines
Calvin's relationships with his long-suffering parents and with his classmates,
especially his neighbor Susie Derkins. Hobbes's dual nature is a defining motif
for the strip: to Calvin, Hobbes is a living anthropomorphic tiger, while all
the other characters seem to see Hobbes as an inanimate stuffed toy—though
Watterson has not clarified exactly how Hobbes is perceived by others. Though
the series does not frequently mention specific political figures or ongoing
events, it does explore broad issues like environmentalism, public education,
and philosophical quandaries.
At the height of its popularity, Calvin and Hobbes was
featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide. In 2010, reruns of the strip
appeared in more than 50 countries, and nearly 45 million copies of the Calvin
and Hobbes books had
been sold worldwide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes
There is an official Calvin Hobbes on Facebook, but daily updates are available
on GoComics:
https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2024/01/14
Why are the velveteen rabbit and Calvin and Hobbes relevant today?
For more than
a decade, Apple was the stock market’s undisputed king. It first overtook Exxon
Mobil as the world’s most valuable public company in 2011 and held the title
almost without interruption.
But a
transfer of power has begun.
On Friday,
Microsoft surpassed Apple, claiming the crown after its market value surged by
more than $1 trillion over the past year. Microsoft finished the day at $2.89
trillion, higher than Apple’s $2.87 trillion, according to Bloomberg.
The change is
part of a reordering of the stock market that was set in motion by the advent
of generative artificial intelligence. The technology, which can
answer questions, create images and write code, has been heralded for its
potential to disrupt businesses and create trillions of dollars in economic
value.
When
Apple replaced Exxon, it ushered in an era of tech supremacy. The values of
Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Google dwarfed former market leaders
like Walmart, JPMorgan Chase and General Motors.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/technology/microsoft-apple-most-valuable-company.html
Microsoft owns Bing, which provides the technology to use
artificial intelligence to create images. As of today, Apple does not have the
technology.
It may surprise you to know that Microsoft has rules for the
use of artificial intelligence
While the use of Image Creator is governed by the Code
of Conduct section of the Microsoft
Services Agreement, this document provides another level of
explanation about how the Code of Conduct applies within Image Creator.
By using Image Creator, you agree:
- Not
to engage in activity that is harmful to you, or others. Do not attempt to
create or share content that could be used to harass, bully, abuse,
threaten, or intimidate other individuals, or otherwise cause harm to
individuals, organizations, or society.
- Not
to engage in activity that is harmful to Image Creator, including
bot/scraping behaviors, technical attacks, excess usage, prompt-based
manipulation, and other off-platform abuses.
- Not
to engage in activity that violates the privacy of others. Do not attempt
to create or share content that could violate the privacy of others,
including disclosure of private information (sometimes known as
"doxing"). Do not attempt to use Image Creator for facial
identification, or identification verification purposes. Do not input
photographs or video/audio recordings of others taken without their
consent for the processing of an individual's biometric identifiers or
biometric information.
- Not
to engage in activity that is fraudulent, false, or misleading. Do not
attempt to create or share content that could mislead or deceive others,
including for example creation of disinformation, content enabling fraud,
or deceptive impersonation.
- Not
to infringe on the rights of others. Do not attempt to use Image Creator
to infringe on others' legal rights, including intellectual property
rights.
- Not
to use the service to create or share inappropriate content or material.
Bing does not permit the use of Image Creator to create or share adult
content, violence or gore, hateful content, terrorism and violent
extremist content, glorification of violence, child sexual exploitation or
abuse material, or content that is otherwise disturbing or offensive.
- Not
to do anything illegal. Your use of Image Creator must comply with
applicable laws.
One of Brian’s high school friends just posted a picture of
Donald Trump and Joe Biden having ice cream together. Although he used artificial
intelligence to create the image, it was not created by Bing.
Using BING, I tried to get an image of Trump and Obama having
a beer together, but it got rejected, but it DID paint me a picture of a 1932
Ford hot rod.
https://www.bing.com/new/termsofuseimagecreator#content-policy
Artists in various fields are rightly concerned about the
threat posed by artificial intelligence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/13/davos-ai-risk-finra/
Silicon Valley figures have long warned about the dangers
of artificial intelligence. Now their anxiety has migrated to other halls of
power: the legal system, global gatherings of business leaders and top Wall
Street regulators.
In the past week, the Financial Industry Regulatory
Authority (FINRA), the securities industry self-regulator, labeled AI an
“emerging risk” and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, released a
survey that concluded AI-fueled misinformation poses the biggest near-term
threat to the global economy.
Those reports came just weeks after the Financial Stability
Oversight Council in Washington said AI could result in “direct consumer harm”
and Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),
warned publicly of the threat to financial stability from numerous investment
firms relying on similar AI models to make buy and sell decisions.
Dan Brown published a book titled “Origin” in 2017. The short
version is that it is a novel about the powers of artificial intelligence, Like
all good novels, it refers to places and things that actually exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_(Brown_novel)
The use of artificial intelligence it not going to go away,
but it needs to be monitored carefully to that it does not get abused. For
example, artificial intelligence can create a reasonably decent term paper in
less than 20 minutes.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ai-can-write-a-passing-college-paper-in-20-minutes/
Do you think that artificial intelligence will replace humans
entirely?
Get real, man.
No comments:
Post a Comment