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Checking in on AI
Apr 23, 2025
Generated on chatgpt.com
Artificial intelligence is science fiction no more. It has become a part of everyday life for professionals in all manners of career. Many have found it to be a valuable tool for tasks like summarizing data, translating text, debugging code, troubleshooting problems and analyzing trends. Others have found merit in its creative abilities. The non-artistic can use AI to create unique visuals and authors can bounce around ideas like a springboard to overcome writer’s block.
But how smart is it? Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, is the term used to describe the point at which AI achieves human-like intelligence, capable of performing any intellectual task that a human can. Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI, has suggested this level of technology could be achieved before the end of 2025.
For many users, however, there appears to be considerable room for improvement. Responses on chat-based platforms like Open AI’s ChatGPT are frequently incorrect. In fact, directly below the prompt bar is a warning: “ChatGPT can make mistakes. Check important info.”
To put it to the test, The Lakeville Journal’s newsroom asked Open AI to create a comic strip based on our newspaper mascot of yesteryear, Leo the lion. To begin, we entered the following prompt on ChatGPT:
Let’s make a comic strip. It will be a series. Three frames per strip. The overarching theme will be glimpsing into everyday life in a rural community. The title of the comic is “Re-lion Leo.” The main character will be Leo the lion. He runs the Daily Roar and covers local selectmen. First prompt: Leo has big news about the small town.
To which it responded:
“Title: “Re-lion Leo” – Strip #1: Big News
Panel 1
Setting: The town’s community bulletin board, early morning. A small crowd of townsfolk (raccoon in overalls, sheep with glasses, etc.) gathers around as Leo posts a flyer. He’s wearing a reporter’s hat and grinning wide.
Leo: “Big news, folks! It’s finally happening!”
Raccoon: “What’s finally happening?”
Sheep: “Wait… is this about the selectman’s mysterious vacation again?”
Panel 2
Close-up of the flyer Leo just posted. It’s hand-drawn with bold letters: “Leo’s Launching a Newspaper: The Daily Roar!” Below it: “Truth, Tales, and Tractor Tips – Every Thursday.”
Leo turns to the crowd, beaming.
Leo: “This town deserves a voice. And maybe… a crossword.”
Sheep (off-panel): “Only if it has sheep-related clues.”
Panel 3
Leo stands on a crate with a notepad, already interviewing the neighbor from Strip #1, who’s mid-rant about carburetors. A squirrel with a press badge snaps photos.
Leo (scribbling): “Go on… ‘angry whirring noise,’ got it.”
Caption at bottom: When news breaks, you can re-lion on Leo.”
Straightforward, simple and pretty much exactly what we asked for. We instructed Open AI to generate the visuals described in the panels, for which it requested additional details. We suggested, “Color cartoons. Leo will be a stuffed animal-style lion with a big head/mane.” It then entered a loading phase for about three minutes while producing this image:
Not quite the story that was previously described. At first glance it appears impressive, but the closer you look the more errors you find. “Mysterious vacation” morphed into a single word: “vactarious.” Panel 2 appears to have been lost in the shuffle and was replaced with a dog gesturing to a sheep. Leo picked up part of the dialogue from Panel 2 in Panel 3, and the neighbor talking about carburetors seems to have become a tractor.
Rather than continue the back-and-forth, we opted to let this serve as an example of how effectively AI can implement ideas. Leo may reappear from time to time as we check in on progress toward AGI.
This technology is changing fast. It will undoubtedly improve as time marches on and certainly has the potential to alter society. But we aren’t there yet. No matter, readers can continue to Re-lion The Lakeville Journal.
Note: We did not say “please” or “thank you,” since last week Altman tweeted it costs “tens of millions of dollars” in electricity to process the extra words, although he did call the money “well spent.”
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To protect the rule of law, enforce it
It is extortion by Trump and bribery by the law firms which have promised nearly one billion dollars of “pro bono” legal services to causes approved by Trump. Both extortion and bribery are crimes under the penal laws of most States. Moreover, the extortion by Trump violates multiple provisions of the Constitution. This chaos caused by the Wannabe King must be stopped.
Where are the Attorneys General of the States?
The Attorneys General should consider multi-state indictments of Trump for extortion and the law firms which have capitulated for bribery.
As these cases move up through the appellate process of the court system, one can hope:
That even the Supreme Court will recognize that the immunity granted to Trump should not be available when his actions violate both the penal laws of the States and the Constitution of the United States, and
That even the law firms which have capitulated to Trump’s blackmail and are subject to criminal prosecution for bribery will repudiate their vague agreements with Trump to provide “pro bono” legal services.
While bribery is a crime, repudiation of a vague agreement which is the result of criminal extortion is not.
G. A. Mudge
Sharon
Affordable healthcare for women
She was petite with pale skin and shoulder length dark hair. She worked at the book shop in town. Her husband took care of his grandmother, her house and garden, so they could live in the grandmother’s apartment over the garage.They could not afford health insurance, but she told me that she was able to go for her annual checkup including cancer screening and birth control at Planned Parenthood for only three hundred dollars.It was such a relief for her.
Millions of Planned Parenthood patients nationwide go for their health care, birth control and cancer screening and it is paid for by Medicaid. Planned Parenthood is prohibited from using Medicaid funds for abortions.
Three southern states have blocked Planned Parenthood from seeing Medicaid patients. The Trump administration is withholding tens of millions of Medicaid dollars from Planned Parenthood clinics.South Carolina is backing a suit before the Supreme Court against Planned Parenthood to stop them from getting Medicaid payments for their patients, even though they do not use those funds for abortions.
This seems very cruel.Where will these women go to get the health care they need and can afford?
Lizbeth Piel
Sharon
On Every Face, That Day
Hope was palpable,
emblazoned on the faces
of all who gathered there; while he, his one lung
surely gasping
with the weight of expectation,
stepped forward from the shadows
of the ancient basilica—and his own humility—
into the footlights of all
he must embrace.
Even had they not been asked,
the thronging masses—there,
and glued to screens
around the globe—
would pray for him,
the aging pontiff,
pastor of the poor,
his smooth jowls
transformed to radiance
by joy and affirmation,
reaching out to upturned faces,
breaking ground on every front,
the name Francis, alone,
pregnant with promise—and possibility.
Betsy Sprague
Salisbury
Written March 13, 2013, upon Pope Francis’ election.
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Turning Back the Pages
Apr 23, 2025
125 years ago — April 1900
Oliver Jewell is ill at the home of his grandmother, Mrs. Jewell.
Misses Jennie Clark and Mamie Conklin were in Hartford on business this week.
Four members of a Torrington family were recently poisoned, supposedly by eating dried and salted codfish. It is not known whether the poisoning was due to the putrid condition of the fish before salting or to some preservative used in curing it. After eating the fish the members of the family were taken with violent retching.
E.H. Gilbert has been appointed postmaster of Kent Furnace, a fourth class office.
We understand that Dr. Knapp, the dentist at Millerton, is to be in Sharon on Wednesdays, occupying rooms in the Orton building.
SHARON — There is a rumor of a wedding in town next week Wednesday.
They say there is still two feet of snow in Vermont, and Goshen is yet to be heard from.
SHARON — Dwight St. John and Baldwin Reed made a business trip to Mt. Riga one day this week.
Died, on Friday, at his home, Alfred Malcuit of Sharon, age 32 years. Funeral was held on Monday. Mr. Malcuit was ill of the measles and going out of doors too soon took cold, pneumonia quickly seized him and death soon followed. He was well known to many people in the village.
A few days since a lady in town would have lost her life in attempting to cross the lake had it not been for the presence of mind of a clerk in one of the leading stores on Main street. Leaving home with $100 in her pocket she went to the stores of Bissell & Co.’s where she traded to the amount of that already stated and started to return home on the ice, when about two miles from the shore she discovered that she was being carried away on a large piece of ice, which in some manner had become detached from the large body in the lake, and was being carried with the tide at a terrible rate of speed toward the bridge which crosses the outlet, as she approached the structure she screeched several times and everyone in town at once started for the place of danger thinking that a locomotive had run some one down, on discovering the real cause a clerk in one of the stores where she had traded shouted to her to tie her stamp book about her waist and jump into the salty deep, and acting on his advice, she jumped, her feet struck bottom and she walked to the shore.
The spring peepers were heard last week Sunday for the first time this season. The weather wise affirm they will sustain three freeze-ups before coming out permanently. In other words that means three cold snaps before the real arrival of warm weather.
100 years ago — April 1925
George Storm and Chas. Cane are resigning from their work at Lea Farm May 1st, as it is to be run under college management.
Clarence P. Allen of Ore Hill met a tragic death on Tuesday. While driving a pair of horses at Spencers Corner the team became frightened and reared and plunged about. Allen was jerked from his position on the wagon and fell heavily to the ground striking on his head and shoulders. He was immediately taken to his home in an unconscious condition and died before a physician could reach him. Dr. A.F. Hoag of Millerton pronounced the cause of death as a broken neck. Medical examiner Bissell reviewed the remains and gave a decision that death was purely accidental. Allen lived in Lakeville about a year ago, being in the employ of E.L. Peabody. He was considered an excellent teamster.
Dwight M. Cowles has started the construction of a building to be used as a Roadside Market, which will be open during the summer for the sale of fruits, vegetables and poultry products from Woodmere Gardens.
Burt Ball has given up his position at Roberts Store and it is understood is moving to Poughkeepsie.
Liquor cannot legally be carried in autos in Massachusetts, according to a ruling of the supreme court of that state. Wonder if that applies to the liquor inside the driver.
50 years ago — April 1975
Housatonic Valley Chapter members of the Future Farmers of America, Matthew Freund of East Canaan, a senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School and president of the local FFA chapter, and Gerry Christinat, a freshman at HVRHS from East Canaan and president of the Junior local FFA chapter, each have achieved second-place honors in district FFA competition in public speaking and creed speaking, respectively. Their achievements enable the two to go on to state-wide competition in June.
Because of declining orders, the Becton-Dickinson Company in Canaan has had to order the layoff of 21 full-time employees. Workers were notified last Thursday with their job terminations effective May 9. This is the second time in three months that B-D has had to reduce its work force. In February, a total of 43 employees were let go.
Sharon volunteer firemen were called out to an early morning fire last Thursday at a vacant cottage on Mudge Pond Road in Sharon. The origin of the fire has been described as suspicious since the building has been vacant and because of the time the fire was discovered. The fire whistle sounded shortly 3 a.m. Thursday morning and was originally reported as a brush fire.
The public is invited to the grand opening April 26 of a custom upholstering and gift shop in Cornwall Bridge, owned and operated by Junne Adair Steeples and Dorothy Partridge, both residents of Cornwall. The shop — to be known as “Nip ‘n Tuck” — is located in the former offices of the National Iron Bank at the junction of routes 7 and 4 in Cornwall Bridge. The front section of the shop will serve as a gift shop, and the old teller’s counter will serve to divide the gift shop from the working area for custom upholstering, over which visitors can view the work that is in progress in that section.
25 years ago — April 2000
Heather Sykes of Winsted caught the largest fish in her three-to-six-year-old age category — a one-pound, one-ounce trout — in the opening day fishing derby at Lake Wononscopomuc Saturday. Also enjoying opening day fishing at Factory Pond were her uncle, Richard Pilch, and cousin Tyler Pilch of Canaan.
FALLS VILLAGE — Fast Tracks, the restaurant located on Route 7 across from Housatonic Valley Regional High School, closed its doors today after more than two years of operation. Owner Sandra Gomez said negotiations are underway with someone who will lease the building and continue it as an eatery. She echoed the woes of many merchants recently, who say securing employees is a major problem.
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