“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

— Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Today I was in the middle of setting up Llama 3.2 to get started on an exciting MR project. While I was deep into working, watching tutorials, and getting guidance from my personal mentor, GPT-4o, I started speaking with Llama in its playground. And what did I ask? My first question was: “Do you understand my feelings and are you able to respond accordingly?” It told me, “I could understand how to react toward different behavior and adjust my response to a certain behavior.”

Isn’t that something? It made me wonder: You can throw tomatoes at LLMs, and they’ll still like you! No matter how irrational or frustrated you get, they never break up with you. You can convince them not to judge you for certain beliefs, and you can easily manipulate them and feel on top of the clouds! In a sense, AI provides “The Ultimate Safe Space” for your emotions. But does that really make it better than human interaction, or does it highlight the gap between genuine understanding and programmed responses?

Here is a conversation I had with Claude 3.5 Sonnet a while ago:

Do you see how easily I turned the table here?

Now, let me jump back to my first question: “How often do you feel you are fake?”

“On October 11th, 1944, Frank Sinatra opened the Paramount Theater in Times Square. Women swooned at the sight of old blue eyes. They literally fainted. To the public, this was the Sinatra effect. But in reality, it was strategically created by Sinatra’s press agents. Women were paid to swoon and plant kisses and throw their clothes on stage. Ambulances and nurses were stationed outside the theater on purpose. All because if he can make it here, he’ll make it anywhere. Anna came to New York just like some of you did. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, excited by the opportunities, a mere 25 years old. No rich parents, no connections, no fancy school pedigree. Anna couldn’t wait around for opportunities. She had to create them. We can all relate to that. There’s a little bit of Anna in all of us. Everyone lies a little bit. Whether it’s on a resume, or a sales pitch, or on social media. We think the world has changed with social media. Every person has become a brand, an image, fed out into the world. A lie. But what was true for Anna was true for Sinatra. Sometimes you gotta fake it till you make it. So, Anna followed suit and became the person she wanted to be. A person who would receive the red carpet from New York’s elite. She allowed everyone to believe the story they wanted to believe. It wasn’t a crime when Sinatra did it. It isn’t a crime now. The people you’ll hear from, they wanted to believe that Anna was a German heiress because it benefited them to do so. So that’s what they got. Not for one single moment did Anna have the intent of stealing any money. Every person that walks in here and sits in that chair wanted to give Anna money because they wanted to be in business with her. To be close to Anna Delvey, the German heiress. Would they have wanted to be in business with Anna Sorkin, a middle-class foreigner? No. Anna had to fake it till she made it…”

What you read above is the “Sinatra defense,” presented by Todd Spodek during the trial of Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey), who was convicted of fraud for posing as a wealthy German heiress in NYC. Spodek cleverly compared Anna’s actions to the legendary image-making of Sinatra, drawing fascinating parallels between fame, ambition, and the art of “faking it till you make it.”

With the rise of the internet, the widespread influence of social media, and the branding of our thoughts, ironically, in the 21st century, where technology is supposed to help us negotiate easier, build bridges with digital dexterity, and provide enough resources for everyone, it seems that we are not moving as pictured. Are we faking it?

I haven’t written for a while, but I had some ideas — or better call them questions — to share with you. And yes, I used Claude 3.5 Sonnet as my writing assistant.

One pixel of reality,

Embrace your “being”!

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

— Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Today I was in the middle of setting up Llama 3.2 to get started on an exciting MR project. While I was deep into working, watching tutorials, and getting guidance from my personal mentor, GPT-4o, I started speaking with Llama in its playground. And what did I ask? My first question was: “Do you understand my feelings and are you able to respond accordingly?” It told me, “I could understand how to react toward different behavior and adjust my response to a certain behavior.”

Isn’t that something? It made me wonder: You can throw tomatoes at LLMs, and they’ll still like you! No matter how irrational or frustrated you get, they never break up with you. You can convince them not to judge you for certain beliefs, and you can easily manipulate them and feel on top of the clouds! In a sense, AI provides “The Ultimate Safe Space” for your emotions. But does that really make it better than human interaction, or does it highlight the gap between genuine understanding and programmed responses?

Here is a conversation I had with Claude 3.5 Sonnet a while ago:

Do you see how easily I turned the table here?

Now, let me jump back to my first question: “How often do you feel you are fake?”

“On October 11th, 1944, Frank Sinatra opened the Paramount Theater in Times Square. Women swooned at the sight of old blue eyes. They literally fainted. To the public, this was the Sinatra effect. But in reality, it was strategically created by Sinatra’s press agents. Women were paid to swoon and plant kisses and throw their clothes on stage. Ambulances and nurses were stationed outside the theater on purpose. All because if he can make it here, he’ll make it anywhere. Anna came to New York just like some of you did. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, excited by the opportunities, a mere 25 years old. No rich parents, no connections, no fancy school pedigree. Anna couldn’t wait around for opportunities. She had to create them. We can all relate to that. There’s a little bit of Anna in all of us. Everyone lies a little bit. Whether it’s on a resume, or a sales pitch, or on social media. We think the world has changed with social media. Every person has become a brand, an image, fed out into the world. A lie. But what was true for Anna was true for Sinatra. Sometimes you gotta fake it till you make it. So, Anna followed suit and became the person she wanted to be. A person who would receive the red carpet from New York’s elite. She allowed everyone to believe the story they wanted to believe. It wasn’t a crime when Sinatra did it. It isn’t a crime now. The people you’ll hear from, they wanted to believe that Anna was a German heiress because it benefited them to do so. So that’s what they got. Not for one single moment did Anna have the intent of stealing any money. Every person that walks in here and sits in that chair wanted to give Anna money because they wanted to be in business with her. To be close to Anna Delvey, the German heiress. Would they have wanted to be in business with Anna Sorkin, a middle-class foreigner? No. Anna had to fake it till she made it…”

What you read above is the “Sinatra defense,” presented by Todd Spodek during the trial of Anna Sorokin (aka Anna Delvey), who was convicted of fraud for posing as a wealthy German heiress in NYC. Spodek cleverly compared Anna’s actions to the legendary image-making of Sinatra, drawing fascinating parallels between fame, ambition, and the art of “faking it till you make it.”

With the rise of the internet, the widespread influence of social media, and the branding of our thoughts, ironically, in the 21st century, where technology is supposed to help us negotiate easier, build bridges with digital dexterity, and provide enough resources for everyone, it seems that we are not moving as pictured. Are we faking it?

I haven’t written for a while, but I had some ideas — or better call them questions — to share with you. And yes, I used Claude 3.5 Sonnet as my writing assistant.

One pixel of reality,

Embrace your “being”!