AIdventures in surrealism and twisted logic

 

Last week, in an attempt to dramatize the latest horseshittery emanating from our esteemed president's mouth, I posted this picture of two young children receiving a lone pencil as a Christmas. 

You might recall that only one week after throwing himself a huge Gatsby party at Mara Lago, featuring flappers and scantily clad women bobbing in oversized martini glasses, the king issued an edict of affordability -- the latest Democratic Hoax. With some weird OCD stammering about the number 37, he told American workers, "Your kids don't need 37 dolls, they can get by with one or two," adding, "And they don't need 37 pencils, they'll be fine with one."

Two things here: 

1. Who buys their kids 37 dolls?

2. I'm not hip to the yuletide scene, but do gentiles really give their kids pencils for Christmas? 

But that is not the point of this piece, you know if there really is a point at all. You see, the children you see in the picture above are not children at all. They're a conglomeration of pixels harvested by artificial intelligence machines  -- coyly named Nano Banana to disguise any malicious societal agenda -- to resemble a pair of kids understandably upset by the family's newfound austerity.

Friends on Facebook, who are familiar with my sensibilities, were immediately in on the joke. Colleagues and strangers on LinkedIn, where I have always skated on thin ice with the Thought Police, were not so clued in. As a matter of fact, I got called to the table by a retired Army guy and presumed Red Hat for my portrayal of innocent children and exploiting them to score political points.

Sure I can see that! I wonder if G.I. Schmoe had any issue with this clear exploitation to score political points...

I quickly pointed out to Sergeant Stupid that the photo was not real. The children were not real. No minors were harmed, embarrassed or even slightly humiliated in the picture. 

The same could not be said for the shit-eating grin of a shameless draft-dodging president willing to stand on the grave of fallen heroes in order to flash his tiny thumbs up on an obscene campaign stump. 

Just for giggles, I asked the good folks at Nano Banana for variations on the photo of fictitious children.

Here's what it would've looked like as a 

cartoon in the New Yorker magazine.

Imagine if this were a Norman Rockwell painting.

And finally, if the photo were 

to be recreated by Dali.

I did not share any of these with the upset soldier. As I had mentioned before, I'm hanging on by a thread to the LinkedIn platform, where this post has already garnered 12,000+ impressions.

But as a gesture of good will and concession, I did offer an apology to the parents of these non-existent children, Mr. and Mrs. 11101000110101001010.