Frankenbot

I was scrolling through Facebook yesterday and saw some footage of the AI version of Anne Frank, the famous thirteen year old diarist who was executed by Nazis in 1945 for the crime of being Jewish. There's also an AI chatbot Anne Frank that has apparently decided that, were Frank alive to-day, she would tell people to avoid "focusing on blaming" anyone for the Holocaust. How very generous of the AI speaking for her.

I understand the compulsion to make history seem relevant to young students to-day and, as a thirteen year old girl who kept a diary, Anne Frank has long been seen as appropriate for the task, though in some countries her more sexually explicit diary entries are censored, lest anyone get the idea that sexuality is normal.

But, really, what are we doing with the creepy conglomeration of pixels wearing the Anne Frank mask? I found myself thinking of Claudia from Interview with the Vampire. Maybe a child who's made into a vampire would be on the same level of creepy after a hundred years as the AI version of Anne Frank. You know, even when everything on the surface seems natural, when it cuts away before everyone starts sprouting extra hands, there's still some undefinable wrongness about the footage. Maybe I'm just saying that because I know going in that the footage is fake. It only seems like a matter of time before the AI would be able to mimic human mannerisms with perfect accuracy. Then what? New Charlie Chaplin movies?

It only recently occurred to me that Anne Frank's diary probably influenced Laura Palmer's diary. I imagine that occurred to most people sooner. Oh, well. But given the comparison, we can probably look to Twin Peaks as a lesson. What happens when you try to resurrect the murdered girl? Things get weirder and weirder.