Artificial intelligence, food, and British politics

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A publisher of multiple regional newspapers has been introducing artificial intelligence into its “process” to–and I’m quoting here from the article that introduced me to this–”reduce the need for human involvement.” Because–and you’ll probably figure out that I’m not quoting now–humans are both pesky and expensive and life’s better all around if we just eliminate them.

The publisher is National World–a contradiction in terms if I ever heard one–and it popped into other newspapers’ pages not because it’s working to eliminate humans from its, ahem, process but because it’s considering a bid for a national paper that’s up for sale, the Telegraph.   

So far, so boring? Well, you may have heard that AI has–she said mildly–a few wrinkles that haven’t been ironed out yet, so increasing its role in either writing or gathering news could take us in some interesting directions, and once you jump to the national level they become more visible. 

Irrelevant photo: the Cornish coastline

Let’s turn to New Zealand for an example. A supermarket, Pak’n’Save, set loose an app that used AI to generate recipes. The idea was that you tell it what’s getting ancient in your refrigerator and it creates a recipe. Just for you. You know: lonesome cabbage seeks unspecified ingredients for meaningful end-of-life experience. That kind of thing.

Actually, I believe users are supposed to specify all the ingredients hanging around their cupboards and refrigerators, so the cabbage is on its own to find partners for its end-of-life experience. All the app does is recommend a method.

However it works, social media took notice when it started coming up with things like an Oreo vegetable stir fry and an oregano-flavored milk sauce. After that, the app became ridiculously popular.

This is why humans need to be pushed out of the picture. Do you know another species that would ask for recipes using ant poison or glue? 

Me neither, but the app wasn’t fazed. It suavely recommended a glue sandwich and “ant jelly delight.” Bleach? A fresh breath mocktail. (It was smart enough to realize a sandwich wouldn’t work. Give it some credit.) I’m not sure what was in the refrigerator to make it suggest an “aromatic water mix,” which would create chlorine gas–”the perfect non-alcoholic beverage to quench your thirst and refresh your senses. . .  Serve chilled and enjoy.”

Very chilled. Chlorine gas can damage your lungs, or if you overindulge, kill you, but what the hell.

Did I mention the Meow Mix fried rice?

Meow Mix? It’s a dry cat food. 

So everyone was having a wonderful time except Pak’n’Save, which was stuck talking to the press while having to sound responsible and sane. So it did what any sane, responsible corporation would do and blamed the users.

“A small minority have tried to use the tool inappropriately,” it said. Besides, they’d fine-tuned it, so it was all okay. And furthermore, no one was supposed to use it if they were under 18. And they added a warning that the company doesn’t guarantee that “any recipe will be a complete or balanced meal, or suitable for consumption.” Because who doesn’t want a recipe for a meal that isn’t suitable for consumption?

Things may have improved somewhat. Interesting Engineering asked for a recipe using tar, bread, stones, mayonnaise, lettuce, and petrol and was told to go take a hike.

That’s the problem with the world today. Nobody wants other people to have fun anymore.

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Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns everything everywhere, is also turning to AI to produce its content. Their profits took a 75% hit last year and whatever else AI does, it will cut costs. The News Corp’s Australian branch is running 3,000 AI-generated stories a week.

How accurate were they? Who cares? There’s money to be made, people. Buckle up and stop complaining.

 

AI and politics

Meanwhile, back in Britain, where we don’t ask for recipes involving stones and bleach, thank you very much, hackers broke into the electoral register, which has voters’ names and addresses. Britain’s electoral system is paper based, which may mean it’s out of date and slow but also means it’s hard to hack and doesn’t recommend glue sandwiches, so it’s easy to think nothing will be hurt, but some digital experts fret over the possibility of voters being targeted with false information–something along the lines of what happened in Canada when bots auto-called voters telling them their polling places had been moved. AI, the theory goes, makes it possible to target disinformation more convincingly.

Other experts say, “Bullshit”: it takes too much time and work to roll targeted disinformation out on a large scale. I’m not placing any bets on the outcome of this one. My best guess is that whoever hacked that had something in mind, but that doesn’t mean it’ll work.

 

And in marginally related news…

…the village of Tring (it’s in Hertfordshire) lost its internet connection when edible dormice chewed through a cable. Local shops couldn’t accept cards and had to hold out for cash. After the village cash machine ran out and everyone had checked behind their couch cushions and under their cars’ floor mats, shops had to turn away business.  Except for the bakery, which gave away bread and pastries rather than let them go to waste.

After three days, the cable was put back together. I’m not sure what happened to the dormice. I suspect it wasn’t anything good.

And before you ask, the edible dormouse isn’t a mouse, it’s a whole ‘nother species and looks more squirrel-like than mouselike. It was introduced to Britain by the Romans, who really did eat them, but they’re very cute and eating cute animals is frowned upon these days. Except by artificial intelligence, which has no way to measure cuteness.

The only dormouse native to the British Isles is the hazel dormouse. 

You needed to know that.

24 thoughts on “Artificial intelligence, food, and British politics”

  1. Fortunately AIs are still not smart enough, or interested enough, to take over the world. Neither do they have, apparently, the attention span to do so. One day, though …

    I can’t believe that no one foresaw the problem with the recipe app. Perhaps it was an idea conceived by someone who doesn’t cook …. or eat. I’m describing an AI, aren’t I?

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      • We used to spend some of the very wet days in the shops in Penzance. I particularly remember Woolworths. We used to camp, so wet days out were difficult to cope with, as there was nowhere to dry clothes, especially when we only had the ridge tents.

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        • Our neighbors just came back from a couple of weeks camping. It was so windy they had to get special tent pegs, and even at that Dad decided to stay with the tent to make sure Mom and the kids had someplace to come home to. Sometimes I miss camping, sometimes I glad I’ve gotten old enough to give it up gracefully.

          The Penzance shops sound like a great idea. I remember Woolworth’s in New York when I was a kid. It didn’t have to be raining for me to be able to waste eons in there.

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  3. I’m surprised Murdoch hasn’t invested in an AI generated wife… would save him a fortune in court fees and settlements…
    I’m up the coast in N. Devon, so can relate to the weather! 🙄
    Great blog – thanks 🙏

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  4. On a certain travel messageboard that I vist, there is a frequent poster that I’m sure if some sort of primitive AI, if not a real person with logorrhea and occasional psychotropic adventures. Here’s one of the most striking recent posts:

    “You should not bother to out think prospective thieves if you are more concerned with keeping your eyes on celebrating somebody’s birthday instead of the price of potato chips imported from Bulgaria. Rookies of the year for becoming victims of pick pockets are not receiving any gifts. Stay away from traveling. People are the target of being a victim as often as you can imagine. We carry empty plastic bags of ketchup. Last year’s stylist hair shampoo lather colored with pekinese mustard sauce will deter prospective thieves. Let them grab hold of that stuff and quickly walk away from you. Include a tub of last year’s charcoals. Bring two bags of whirlpool flavored peanut butter with stuffed orangutang miracle whip or well tempered green beans. Cancel plans in there is no way to obstruct interfering obstacles like pickpockets from annoying you enough so as to become and troublesome and burdensome and unfriendlty territory to travel outside.”

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    • Oh, that’s wonderful. I was laughing so hard that the words blurred. Everything from “pekinese mustard” on was guesswork–and believe me, I wasn’t picking up many hints from the context. Boundless thanks for sharing that.

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  5. Escaped me that the Telegraph is up for grabs. Maybe something called “National World” will lead it in the right direction.
    Chlorine gas is so WWI. Absolutely amorale. The chemist Haber, who first produced that shit, could have decided against it, he had a choice (He seemingly never understood why nobody wanted to be in the same room with him after the war, drunk himself to death). A machine, as “intelligent” as it may be, has it a choice ?
    It seems that AI now is able to make its own rules, eludes our control.
    I am pessimistic. As experience shows, aynthing and all that can go wrong, will go wrong, sooner or later. In my view “Artificial” (that is : man made) “Intelligence” (because man is so terribly intelligent) is nothing but an accident in waiting. I’m with the mice.

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    • AI, being without needs, wants, or plans, isn’t likely to take over the world in the way that we mean it, but a thousand accidents waiting to happen? Absolutely. The dormice (who aren’t really mice) may indeed be ahead of us on this.

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  6. We had a great example of artificial (alleged) intelligence yesterday:

    Microsoft Travel posted an article on what to do in Ottawa this month. After listing some events that take place in February, it finished by recommending the ‘beautiful’ Ottawa Food Bank.

    Make sure to come with an empty stomach, it said!

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  7. Over Here there seems to be an opinion that all of Rupert Murdoch’s enterprises contain a lot of “artificial” content.

    “Oh where oh where is my dear little dormouse ?” pretty much sums up my knowledge of them. Maybe it should be “dead as a dormouse”.

    Seriously, I hope there was not such a run on the food bank that the real users couldn’t be helped,

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  9. Let’s be honest: would anybody notice if The Sun used an AI to generate bollocks pro-government propaganda and vacuous celebrity articles rather than ‘journalists’?

    Being a writer for The Sun has got to be one of the most thankless jobs in society, down there with a BMW indicator installer and an Ethics Teacher at Eton.

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