‘Artificial’ once denoted something made by humans instead of occurring naturally; for example, artificial flowers. The meaning has changed marginally. Artificial intelligence has all the appeal of those flowers, smirking like evil aliens in their soil-free and water-free vases. In the early days of the internet websites such as this were assailed by humans posting opportunistic comments hoping to publicise themselves or their websites or their business. The phenomenon has returned via AI, with dozens of machine-generated comments appearing on recent posts, sixteen at a time, all seeming to advertise concrete works or internet businesses or fish-scaling devices or personal development agencies or home soothsayers. The comments, while cleverly (somehow) segueing neatly off the content of the post, then lurched drunkenly off into pidgin English territory so typical of those early internet interruptions: ‘Fastidious blogging is your forte!’ ‘ My sister is studying this ar...
Recipes and ruminations from a small house in a big city.