002 - That which shall not be named.

Generative AI is about to fall down the hype cycle; if we are to believe Gartner. And as is standard for the Hype Cycle model, some elements of it will be retained in the plateau of productivity.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” – Arthur C. Clarke

Whilst I believe GenAI will find bits of itself in the plateau of productivity; I’d also like for it to be invisible; especially when it has been conflated into a gigantic mess of marketing jargon, product, feature, and everything in between and around.

As LinkedIn revealed a crop of AI experts ready to tell you how to use it to build your brand; the overuse of the word and the themes felt insufficient and sometimes even wrong to describe Eliza.

In a world full of micro-influencers adding to the deluge of shallow AI discourse online; where does Eliza - The Ghost in Every Machine stand?

The Eliza project should be able to stand the test of time and shouldn’t be obsolete when certain topics are less popular in the zeitgeist. Eliza is about our own lives with machines that we make.

To that end, I gutted the 184 pages of “The Complete Cartoon Collection” of the words “Artificial Intelligence” and especially the acronym “AI”.

Artificial Intelligence shall not be called Artificial Intelligence in any Eliza publications.

Same with the “Metaverse”; or any hyped technological word in the popular zeitgeist.

Using “Artificial Intelligence” in the book would severely date a piece of work that I’ve worked very hard on. I’ve found several words to replace AI – algorithm, programme, machine consciousness, sentient machine, etc. depending on context.

There were several instances where the words were crucial to the meaning of the visual gag; two are shown below, and this also gives Eliza’s world the air of being something from another reality, one with it’s own consistent set of rules.

Until the next one!

V.