DEVIL MOUNTAIN CHRONICLES: The New Reality

The New Reality?

The new reality is unreal. And that, my friends, is a contradiction of terms. But you’re in luck. Contradictions are what I’m all about.

Life in the 21st Century is complicated enough, but hold on to your hats… it’s about to shift into overdrive!

Every year, scientists are expanding their knowledge ‒ and our reality ‒ exponentially. Remember the day when your old black-and-white TV was the most complicated device in your entire home? Well, now your hand-held smartphone has more power and memory that were in the computers aboard Apollo 11.

Our incredibly enhanced technologies are over the moon.

Without realizing it, the new reality has crept into our everyday lives. With your help, I’d like to run a little experiment:

Please listen to the following podcast and I’ll get back with you in a few minutes…

Thank you for listening to that interesting discussion regarding my new book, Life is Hell and Way Too Short. It was a bit intellectual, but informative and somewhat humorous.

The remarkable thing is that what you just listened to was all generated by AI — artificial intelligence. (I assure you that my satirical book was generated solely by my own overactive imagination. A lot of it is actually true, but when did I ever let the truth get in the way of a good story.)

Were you fooled? My editor, the esteemed Bill Hudson, certainly was. His first comment was, “I thought the woman was annoying. She was constantly interrupting the host.” He was amazed when I told him that they were computer algorithms posing as pod-casters. It’s pretty hard to fool Bill the skeptic, but he bought onto it hook, line and sinker. And what are the ramifications? It’s not a lie… it’s just not real.

The podcast was created by my old friend in Texas, Dale McFarland, a comedic genius, pianist and one-time publisher of Texas Jazz News. Recently Dale has been presenting his website, The Specious Report (100% AI Generated – Because Humans Are Nonessential). Yes indeed, thespeciousreport.com will blow your mind…

I speak with Dale at least two times a week, but I haven’t actually seen him in the flesh for almost three years. I have to say that he’s been sounding weird lately. I’m afraid that working closely with artificial intelligence may have corrupted him. Perhaps I’ve become “nonessential.”

I’m not saying that Dale is now an android, but how can you tell? I can’t really prove that he’s not!

There are a lot of celebrated figures out there who I suspect of being evil cyborgs living in a parallel universe.

Take Mark Zuckerberg for instance. This guy actually looks like an android. Oh sure, he has a few human characteristics, but it all seems poorly programmed. He certainly comes off as robotic and stilted. Just look into those eyes – there’s nothing there except confusion, repugnance and utter BS. (Just like Facebook.)

And how about Jeff Bezos? He seems very lifelike, until he opens his mouth and says hello: “Hi! I’m Jeff Bezos. How are you -oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo!” Uh-oh, somebody reboot him! Seems like with all that money he’s worth he could hire a better AI technician. I bet Dale McFarland could fix him up real good. But not soon enough.

And then there’s the hyper-active, clown-bot, Elon Musk, the poster child for ADHD! Like all robots, Elon never sleeps. He does exhibit some human emotions, but inappropriately. The problem could be his Neuralink brain implant short-circuiting. So sad when that happens.

AI is weird enough, but now we have ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) to contend with. But wait! What about Quantum AI? I just read about a quantum computer solving problems that scientists have been working on for decades . . . solved in 22 seconds! And there’s talk of digital immortals… and an AI God!

Are we scared yet?

There are over 250,000 deaths due to medical doctor mistakes per year. But AI scientists claim that the number can be reduced to zero using “doctor-bots.” But what about music composers and writers?

I suppose Bill Hudson and I could be easily replaced. (A dream come true for a lot of our readers.)

But for now, I can only hope that the critic-bots go easy on my new book.

Be real!