Future recast

Eventually it will be possible to use A.I. to automatically remake any movie, replacing the original actors with the actors of your choice. For example, you might one day choose to watch “Gone with the Wind” with Rhett Butler played by Brad Pitt and Scarlett O’Hara played by Winona Ryder.

At first there will be objections, since such an act will be seen as a violation of copyright laws. But sooner or later, given the fact that it will become easy to do this, the laws will catch up.

A system will be worked out that will allow proper royalties to be attached to any recast screening. After that, creators will start to be properly compensated both for their work and for the use of their likeness.

It will become so common to recast movies, that future generations might forget it was ever any other way. Except that every once in a while somebody will put on an “old school” film festival, in which every movie features its original cast.

Some younger people might be puzzled by such an oddly retro festival. “Why,” they might ask “would anybody ever want to do that?”

Parallels

Sometimes you see things in pop culture that seem wildly different, yet are exactly the same. Here is one example of many.

In season 1, episode 13 of The Simpsons — “Some Enchanted Evening” — first aired in 1990, Homer and Marge go out on a date. In preparation for their night out, Homer shaves off his ever-present stubble. He rubs his chin approvingly and says “Smooth as a baby’s behind.”

But in the very next instant his stubble is right back, as though he had never shaved. It doesn’t grow back — it just instantly reverts to the way it was. The joke here, of course, is that whatever he does, he is still Homer Simpson. It is his destiny to forever remain the unkempt doofus that he is — in his own way, a kind of magical being.

Cut to 1994, to Neil Jordan’s lushly romantic gothic film version of Anne Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire”. In one of the movie’s best scenes, Kirsten Dunst’s Claudia rebels against being forever trapped in a little girl’s body, part of her fate as an undead immortal.

She shows her rebellion by cutting off her beautiful golden curls. Yet, to her horror, the very next moment her long curly hair is back. It doesn’t just grow back — it just instantly reverts to the way it was.

The tone and intent of the two works could not be more different, yet these moments are exactly the same. They even share a highly specific visual trope — the use of hair to symbolize the immutable identity of a magical being.

I wonder how many other such parallels are out there in popular culture.

Lexical math, part 3

When we last left off this topic, we were looking at the sequence “Four”, “Twelve”, “Thirty three”, “Thirty six”. The pattern here comes from the number of letters in each entry: 4, 6, 11 and 9, respectively.

And that gives us a pattern: 4/4 = 1, 12/6 = 2, 33/11 = 3, 36/9 = 4.

So what might come next in the sequence? I managed to find two answers:

Thirty
Forty five

In the first case, 30/6 = 5. In the second case, 45/9 = 5.

I wonder whether it is possible to prove whether these are the only two possible answers. Also, I wonder whether it is possible to prove anything about the sequence in general.

Trivial pursuit

It is difficult to know what the impact would be of AI combined with neural implants, as a universally available capability. But as a mental exercise, suppose we were all augmented by AI so that every bit of trivia that we can find in the Wikipedia were instantly accessible in our thoughts.

In such a world, you would not need to look up the time, place, or other details of any event in human history. You would already know those things, right off the top of your head.

Would such a capability have any meaningful impact on human existence, other than completely ruining games of Trivial Pursuit? In other words, would we be more effective as humans if we already knew everything, or would that skill by itself amount to nothing truly important?

My guess is that such a capability would not have the transformative effect that some might imagine. I suspect that all the facts in the world at our fingertips are worth less than even a little bit of old fashioned wisdom.

Mix and match

If you know just a little bit of programming, it is amazing how much power is at your fingertips. This is because many talented people have written incredibly useful and brilliant things for the computer, and have put them out there into the world under an open-source license.

If you do a bit of searching, you can find many of these wonderful pearls of capability, usually in a github repository. And then you can download them and make use of them.

But here’s the rub: You can’t do any of this if you don’t know how to program. To be clear, you don’t need to understand how everybody’s code works. But you do need to know enough to at least put different pieces together.

I wonder whether there should be a computer science course just on this topic — learning how to mix and match code from different sources and make it all work. If there were, I would encourage all of my students to take it.

Newly updated guidelines

In Florida, newly updated guidelines for teaching history include a requirement that students learn how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

In Florida, newly updated guidelines for teaching history include a requirement that students learn how the thousands of Cherokees brutally slaughtered in the “trail of tears” of the 1830s developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

In Florida, newly updated guidelines for teaching history include a requirement that students learn how the many thirteen year old Korean girls (euphemistically called “comfort women”) who were raped by Japanese soldiers in WWII developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

In Florida, newly updated guidelines for teaching history include a requirement that students learn how the the millions of Jews exterminated by Zyklon B gas in German concentration camps developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett, who passed away this morning, was more than a hero to me. In my mind he was a downright miracle.

I saw him in concert several times, and each time was an astonishment. In addition to being the most sensitive and emotionally intelligent interpreter in our time of the Great American Songbook, he had incredible vocal power.

I remember him, during a recent NYC concert, telling the audience how wonderful the acoustics were there at Radio City Music Hall. Then to show us what he meant, he asked the tech crew to turn off all the amplification.

He then proceeded to belt out an a cappella rendition of the Bart Howard classic In Other Words. His unamplified voice easily filled that cavernous space. And this was when the man was already in his nineties.

Until today, the romantic in me had managed to convince myself that Tony Bennett would continue to live forever. But in a way, he will. Like the man said:

      Let the music play as long as there’s a song to sing
      And I will stay younger than spring

Lexical math, part 2

About a week ago I posed the following lexical math challenge. Given the following sequence:

Four
Twelve
Thirty three
Thirty six

I asked what is the pattern, and what might be the next number in the sequence?

To answer the first question, note that “Four” contains 4 letters, “Twelve” contains 6 letters, “Thirty three” contains 11 letters, and “Thirty six” contains 9 letters. Dividing value by letter count, we get a linear sequence:

1 = Four / 4
2 = Twelve / 6
3 = Thirty three / 11
4 = Thirty six / 9

Given this pattern, can you figure out what might come next in the sequence?