MIDNITE HOUR - 01 November 2024

For the last two years, we have heard ever-more-dire warnings about how A.I. was going to be the next great socioeconomic upheaval, and how it would surely be even greater and more disruptive than the Industrial Revolution. While at the same time, everywhere we turned, we were told we could reap the advantages of A.I. - it could do our homework for us, it could write legal briefs, it could learn to code, it could make us better photographers and videographers, it could write news articles, it could deepfake anyone as a porn star, it could steal all your personal data (so what is new?...), it could provide security for your home, it could paint pictures to hang on your walls, ad infinitum...

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

In the "BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR" department, we created an A.I. VIDEO in Invideo <link> We 'seeded' the software with the prompt: "People walking past the sign 'The Midnite Hour' at night in Bangkok". All the video's visuals, voice and dialog appearing in the video was a creation of the A.I. software.

CLICK ON PHOTO TO VIEW VIDEO

However, lately, now that the 'fear-and-loathing' of A.I. has begun to simmer, some of the reality is starting to shine through. (Is the foregoing mixed metaphor a legal sentence?) Whereas all of the above-mentioned 'benefits' are in fact 'in-place', the cracks are already appearing in the pedestal on which A.I. has been placed. First and foremost (as alluded to in our original article) virtually all of the A.I.-providers (paid or free) are censoring - in particular, they are exhibiting all of the current woke biases of their creators. But they censor and-or pervert a great number of other themes as well - for example, supporting alternate histories found on other websites. The list of requested prompts that the A.I.-providers WON'T act on is too great to list here.

Worse, if that is even possible, some of the A.I. engines are creating brand-new nonextant histories, and / or just nonsense. A case in point : six Apple (yes, home of the handphone of ignominy) engineers have recently exposed deep flaws in the world's top A.I.-engines ('LLM's, to you geeks). In short, the Apple researchers stated outright, "Current [A.I. software] is not capable of genuine logical reasoning. Instead, the LLMs attempt to replicate the reasoning steps observed in their training data." The Apple crew then proved their point : for each of those well-known A.I. engines, they injected 'red herrings' into otherwise normal prompts, immediately noting "catastrophic" performance / accuracy drops. These massive drops in accuracy are directly relatable to limits of simple 'pattern matching'. (Enter 'neural networks' -for you geeks.) The red herrings the Apple engineers entered into the various prompts were "seemingly relevant, but ultimately inconsequential statements." But even these otherwise inconsequential injections caused ALL of the A.I. software models to become unreliable.

With reference to our earlier mention of A.I. having a disruptive effect on the job market, one of the recent hot-button discussions on this involves Hollywood and actors. Studios are now capable of duplicating the visage and voice of actors, and have done so to a limited degree in the past. Actors feel that they are entitled to compensation for any use of their voice or person, digital or otherwise. A particular bone of contention is use of A.I.-produced likenesses of actors after their death. As we go to press, this has not been resolved. Other disciplines, those in advertising, modeling, engineering design, and artists, just to name a few, are equally concerned for their futures.
On the other hand, as far as the Night Entertainment world is concerned, it is likely that Nitespots with Facebook, Instagram, et al, will take advantage of currently available A.I. to produce graphics / photos for their electronic media as well as interior 'color' for their bars, and exterior signage (to include kinetic signage as found on the new Bad Beach A Go Go on Soi Cowboy.)

A Matter of Cascading Drains on Resources

Those of us who browse the financial and tech sites will have noticed that at least 3 major A.I.-based corporations, fearful of power shortages, are exploring stand-alone nuclear power for their current and soon-to-be constructed mega-data farms. Microsoft, way beyond the exploration stage, has already cut a deal with Constellation Energy, the owner of the Three Mile Island site. (Yes, this is the same Three Mile Island nuclear power plant that was home to the U.S.'s worst nuclear disaster in its history - unless you count our hydrogen-bombing of Pacific atolls and our cumulative contributions to 'fallout'.) We, the unenlightened proletariat may be wondering why such extreme measures would even be contemplated. It seems the unintended (or intentionally glossed-over) consequences of A.I. is that its LLMs / neural networks will soon require data farms far in excess of even Google's worldwide network of data farms.

(Brief -partial- explanation: A simple neural network can find 'like' and 'different', however if you want your neural network to differentiate between 'identical', 'nearly identical', 'similar', 'not very similar' and 'not similar', you will up your computing power / data storage requirements by a power of ten (or very approximately) for each shade of 'similarity'. (Plus, of course, all the storage needed for the rest of the LLM(s) and the 'scrapings' dragged in through the back door by the bots...)

In a typical A.I. mega-data center, the biggest user of electrical power (~89% of which is not 'green') is the servers themselves, at ~60%, and most of the rest goes for air conditioning. Which brings up the (other) elephant in the room - fresh water for use in air conditioning condensing units (heat exchange). Water usage at mega-data centers is expected to increase by 20% on average. In terms we can better relate to, in the U.K., data farms currently on the drawing boards will consume as much fresh water as Liverpool. Another example : In Ireland, data farms already consume 21 percent of the nation's fresh water supply. (Yes, really...)

Needless to say, these radically increased demands on electrical power and fresh water supplies are causing municipalities (and nations) to reconsider proposed data centers most carefully.

A 'Hypothetical' Preliminary Hearing

A "User" sends a written 'command' to a website which offers A.I. Assuming User was the creator of that command, and had not 'borrowed' it from others, he would assume copyright of his 'command'. Having sent the command to the A.I.-provider, he does not relinquish or sign away any rights. The A.I. provider returns the graphic, or 'photo', or text, or video based on something it 'created' using its proprietary software - which draws on its neural network and its very large 'library'. The library was populated by information / data / videos / photos it robotically and indiscriminately sourced (scraped) from the Internet ('The Rise Of The Bots !). Much of that information may be copyrighted, and/or much of it may be in the public domain, but the A.I. provider's scraper bot doesn't know or care. The User then uses (makes available publicly) the A.I.-created item based on his copyrighted command.

Corporation A views the User's A.I.-created item, and sees that parts of it are identical, or nearly identical to its own homegrown artwork, and decides to sue the User for copyright infringement. At that preliminary hearing, Corporation A charges that the A.I.-created item obviously, by any visual comparison, used its copyrighted images - which could have only been taken from the Internet, to produce the User's created item. At that hearing, the User states that he is the owner of the command sent to the A.I. provider, therefore, he commissioned this artwork just as he might commission an artist to paint a portrait of, say, his mother. Current copyright law U.S. Code: Title 17 states clearly that commissioned works are not the intellectual property of the creator, and belong to the commissioning party. User says it is not his responsibility to check every image on the Internet to determine whether or not his commissioned work looks similar, or kind-of similar to any other work. User then asks the judge why Company A is not suing the A.I. website which provided the A.I. output?

The judge considers this question posed by the User, and asks the plaintiff, Corporation A to reply. The judge further asks Corporation A whether or not it can conclusively show that the A.I.-provider used copyrighted material, a mix of copyrighted material & material in the Public Domain, or material only in the Public Domain? Corporation A then changes tack, and counters, saying, we don't care where the User's likeness came from, or how, only that it is too similar to our copyrighted material...

(End of 'Hypothetical')

Enter the lawyers. How to determine culpability of A.I. providers regarding use of copyrighted material? Are A.I. Users correct in claiming they are the creators of the command, therefore they reserve the rights of a commissioning party? Can Users use the standard claim that, "No one can copyright the image of a tree or a cloud, etc.", or will it come down to an arbitrary, case-by-case determination in a courtroom (or an arbitration) as to whether or not the A.I.-created item is "too close" to a copyrighted item? Any such arbitrary determination will be moot. As the saying goes, "This is not going to end well." Or soon.

Further note: Have no doubts, the lawyers already have become involved : Eight newspapers, to include The New York Daily News and The Chicago Tribune, recently sued OpenAI and Microsoft for using their published stories to feed their data banks. The eight publications filed the complaint in federal court in the U.S. Southern District of New York. Additionally, a number of corporations, (physical and online), suddenly fearful of legal action, have forbidden their staff from using A.I. to produce graphics or text. ...And so, 'the hog is out of the tunnel' (courtesy HST).

�If it weren�t for the lawyers we wouldn�t need them.�
-William Jennings Bryan

Last month we noted the "Heaven" massage was nearly ready to open. Well, open it did... as Heaven Prime. Related to the Heaven Nuru massage on Soi Dead Artist (Sukhumvit Soi 33). Like its sister branch on Soi 33, it is a 'specialty massage'. May they continue to slip 'n slide...

SOI AMBASSADOR (Sukhumvit Soi 11)

The Lush Rooftop, having survived Covid, has run out of gas. While the rooftop atmosphere was pleasant enough, perhaps the three sets of stairs was just too much effort for too many folks... And depending on how much you had to drink, coming down the stairs would have been even more of an obstacle...

SOI AMBASSADOR (Sukhumvit Soi 11)

The Kushi Shogun, closed last month, is now right back where it left off...

SOI AMBASSADOR (Sukhumvit Soi 11)

Traces of Bangkok's Early Years

This month Midnite Hour continues to review Bangkok's Nightlife Scene offering live entertainment, both foreign and local, as found in the bigger hotels, as well as those entertainers performing in the smaller Venues. We are also including an excerpt from an early Bernard Trink Nite Owl column.

Miss Anita O'Day (nee Anita Belle Colton) was, in her day, considered a "jazz diva". The 2007 film, 'Anita O'Day : The Life of a Jazz Singer' was a tribute to her unique career. Today, there are literally dozens of YouTube videos of her covering several years of her life. Alas, the garden hotel Siam Inter-Continental is no more, having become Paragon megamall.

July 1968

      The Sani Chateau managed to bring in entertainment from the four corners : North and South America, Europe and Asia.   Web Fleming was a well-known baritone of the day, while Arlene Bailey was a popular 'soul singer' of the '60's - known best for her cover of "Closer To You".

July 1968

      Merl Saunders was an American multi-genre musician who specialized in piano and keyboards, and was best known for his collaborations with contemporaries - such as Jerry Garcia, Ed Neumeister, Gaylord Birch, John Kahn, and even The Grateful Dead.   The Australian Digger Revell Revue was a return visitor to Bangkok during those years.   The Cafe De Paris was located on Suriwong Road opposite Patpong 1.

May 1968

       Bernard Trink became the Bangkok World's Entertainment Editor in 1965, soon afterward taking up the Nite Owl column on Bangkok Nightlife (and wrote as Friar Tuck on food).   He also reviewed film extensively - as himself.   What is often not understood is his 'Nite Owl' production was sporadic at best in the early years, starting strong, then fading, then restarting.   The above is an example of one of his few Nite Owl columns in 1968 - this one from July.   In future editions we will include relevant excerpts from his Nite Owl columns - as we might come across them.   We will also be putting up some of his individual Nightlife photos (not in the Nite Owl column) as, and if, we happen upon them.

July 1968

      Allan's Sportsman Lounge was located on Suriwong near New Road - opposite the Trocadero (sometimes spelled Troca Dero) Hotel.

July 1968

      The Honey Night Club, next to the Manhora Hotel on Suriwong Rd (near New Road's Night Entertainment Area) regularly featured out-of-town live entertainment, but seldom from Europe or the U.S.

July 1968

      The First Hotel, was an R&R favorite (located just in front of the Opera Hotel (a Special Forces / Special Ops R&R hotel).   It was located at the near end of Petchburi Road.

July 1968

      The Trolley continued on for a number of years, just a couple of steps away from the Patpongs, although changing management from time to time.   They would eventually branch out to other locations.

July 1968

      Audrey Arno was a German born singer and actress.   She made her home in France in the 1960's, known just as 'Audrey'.   She eventually emigrated to the U.S.., retiring in Las Vegas.   The Tropicana was on Silom Road near New Road.

July 1968

      The Three Kingdoms Night Club was a relatively new Venue in 1968, usually offering local / Philippines entertainment.   There were very few Venues the venerable Ben Noble Trio didn't play.
July 1968