WTF-Beta

Little deliberate use of AI, mostly through Google search and whatever Apple devices do on their own.
Want to play with locally inferred AI, but have been too busy.

Ten years after Brexit:

Mother: Let's go to La Maison for dinner to celebrate Father's Day.
Father: But I don't like French food.
Mother: I like French food.
Father: But it's Father's Day.
Mother: You wouldn't be a father without me, would you?
Father: I'll go make a reservation.

@Piano-Dad said:

I think you focussed on the wrong "protagonist."

This is the main character ...

In that case, I will happily revise my statements to refer to "the titular character."

I don't find the movie irritating, but I find the protagonist titular character rather fake.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/16/reflecting-pool-green-algae-spreads-00963411

The Reflecting Pool is now green and filled with pond scum. Why am I not surprised?

A decent man.

Which type did you have? The sort with grey/white, yellow, or ruby red meat?

Let AI finish Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony.
Let AI patch up all those scraps of incomplete or damaged compositions that the old masters left behind.
The Mr. Holands of the world need not wait forever to complete his/her magnum opus, just need to scrap together a month’s subscription and he/she can move on to other aspirations.

Another feature length AI production that came out of China, this time in the visual style of Harry Potter:

Can still recognize that it’s AI generated, but in more subtle ways. In scenes with heightened emotions, the AI frequently errs on generating facial expressions that are overly dramatic (if human actors do it, we’d call it “over the top”). But gone are the scene-to-scene or camera angle-to-camera angle inconsistencies that used to be fairly frequently noticeable in previous (like, two months ago) AI productions.

TL;DR: I guess AI will impact society bigly, but I don’t know how (but let me write about a few other things that impacted society bigly so it looks like I know something).

Hopefully he will indeed return to his usual turf and talk “economic impact.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/14/world/asia/japan-royal-family-adoption-male.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qFA.k1d3.lArBYTZRaUL2

The Japanese royalty has a crisis: not enough male heirs.

The current Japanese emperor is 66. The only heirs to the throne recognized under current succession rules are his 90 year old uncle, his 60 year old brother, and his 19 year old son. He also has a 24 year old daughter, but females are not eligible for the throne under current rules.

Japan’s legislature, hoping to avoid a succession crisis, moved forward with a proposal this past week to allow the imperial family to adopt scores of distant male relatives.

There are noises being made about allowing females to ascent to the throne, but even the current Prime Minister, who is herself a female, is not supportive of altering the male-only succession rules.

https://abovethelaw.com/2026/06/court-sanctions-lawyers-from-both-sides-in-the-same-lawsuit-for-filing-briefs-with-ai-hallucinated-cases/

Court Sanctions Lawyers From Both Sides In The Same Lawsuit For Filing Briefs With AI-Hallucinated Cases

You know it's good just from the headline. Imagine you being the clients realizing your megabuck legal fees ultimately went to feed an AI model to argue against itself.

Following SpaceX's IPO, Elon Musk has become the world's first trillionaire.

https://gizmodo.com/heres-how-much-more-money-elon-musk-has-than-larry-page-jeff-bezos-and-you-2000771172

Musings on how much richer Musk is than others. E.g., one Elon Musk is now worth 10 Warren Buffetts.

Found an old receipt (pictured above). For the life of me I cannot remember what I bought.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/world/europe/us-nato-cuts-drawdown-jets.html?unlocked_article_code=1.plA.LFbw.70yRFMhlJLYP

The United States plans to significantly reduce the aircraft and warships that it makes available for NATO operations in Europe, according to two senior European officials, accelerating America’s effort to scale down the protection it has offered to European allies for eight decades.

The decision would limit NATO’s ability to launch long-range strikes and conduct surveillance. It was communicated to allies in early June in a written document, parts of which were reviewed by The New York Times. The European officials, who were briefed on the decision, spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely about sensitive military plans.

Melania talks AI:

Hhmmm … I was just on some AI panel the other day musing about putting the legal liability on the toolmakers.

@Steve-Miller said:

I wonder how much of that surge pricing goes to the drivers.

Google’s AI says Uber calculates the customer fare and the driver’s pay separately — one algorithm to find the maximum for what customers are willing to pa for a ride, another separate algorithm to find the minimum for what drivers are willing to accept to provide a ride. I don’t think anyone is surprised by this.

Uber also invests a lot in autonomous driving technology, so all this will become moot anyway when the customers develop enough trust in cars that drive themselves.

"Cheap" devices, more likely than not, depend on stock open-source software without investing much in making them secure. So I think we can state that rather generally that any cheap gadget that connects to and exchanges data with your smartphone or computer are likely to open security holes that put your smartphone/computer at risk.