Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for February 09, 2025

No Traitor Trump satire?

It hasn’t been six weeks since Trumpty-Dumpty took office, so I suppose we’ll have to wait some more to see Sunday strips highlighting his foibles as POTUS.

Sorry, Sid—it’s been done. Remember those Diet Coke ads featuring Paula Abdul dancing with Gene Kelly, or with Bogie clapping at a table??

I saw the latest AI ad on TV a couple of weeks ago, it was obscene and sad at the same time.

They do it a lot in Japan. I’ve seen Bruce, Marilyn Monroe, and Audrey Hepburn pimping stuff for years.

Also, the last StarWars movies were kind of disgusting with all the dead actors.

….Sid, you already did this with Boopsie. You’re just NOW thinking of this?

Tonight Sean Bell was working on installing a network printer. He said, “I had to use artificial intelligence to set this up.” I said “Oh, you couldn’t use real intelligence cuz it’s so late you got tired and ran out, so you had to use artificial intelligence.” He laughed his WLAN off. X-D

Phil Dick already wrote this novel.

Sounds like my therapist.

Wasn’t there recently a long actors’ strike over precisely this practice?

[nerd alert] Look up a Charles Bronson/Will Sampson movie called “White Buffalo” Wild Bill Hickock and Crazy Horse are both trying to find and kill the beast.

The reason I bring it up is that everything in the movie is great, except the buffalo looks like it was made out of crepe paper. I would love to see someone do an AI remake where the heroes get the monster they deserve.

Recast The Godfather with Sterling Holloway’s voice.

I’d feel more at ease, if I could be sure A I was going to take over.

Assuming A I was benevolent. We know that humans aren’t.

There’s always cloning.

Connie Willis’ 1995 novel ‘Remake.’

What would you get if A I combined A. Hitler and Rasputin?

Love that last panel! Bottom line, it’s a machine.

All the major studios have divisions designed to AI dead actors and make new movies. “Coming soon, the new John Wayne, Clark Gable movie”.

I’m looking forward to it.

People make the mistake, though, of concentrating on former great actors. Anyone could be scanned and used as base models. Even I could be a great actor with enough computer power. I could make the same movie in a hundred different languages with the moves of Cary Grant or Kathryn Hepburn and the other actors could be many different other people who never acted at all. It could be you or even your good-for-nothing brother-in-law on the leading or supporting roles. It could be the same person filling every role like Peter Sellers only more so.

The future is bright.

All the more testament to the fact that Hollywood is out of new ideas for movies. Stick a fork in it, it’s done

You know boys, if you read the polls 79 percent agree with what President Trump is doing which makes you a whiny minority

No, you did that!

Gary is ignoring the rampaging Elephant, currently tearing through government fraud waste & abuse. He must have received a big grant from USAID too. Be afraid, you should be.

On the current administration, read on a Reuter’s news article that Trump has offered asylum/refugee status to the Afrikaners in South Africa. While in the U.S.A. he is withdrawing the same status from people already here, usually those of color. Now, who is the racist here?

King Musk and Queen Trump are headed for a nasty divorce…..

The motto of the hi-tech broligarchy now operating as a shadow government at the federal level seems to be “go fast and break things”. Two reactions:

First, that may in fact be an effective approach when you’re dealing with an emerging technology and want to stay a step ahead of the competition. Everybody’s moving into unknown territory, so even approaches that initially seem unlikely or marginal may turn out to be on the good side of the cost-benefit equation to the benefit of the daring outfit that tries them first. Aside from a few areas like medical research and espionage methodology, the same cannot be said of the federal government, which mainly comprises public-service programs that have been in effect for many years, with decades of experience accumulated by competent, qualified professionals who know what does or doesn’t work.

Second, I guess it doesn’t much matter to me if the things they’re breaking are what they’ve built or bought themselves; if it’s their stuff, they can break it if they want. But it sure as hell bothers me if what they’re breaking is the hard-earned property of the American people. In such cases, I have three words of advice for them: Stop. Listen. Learn.

But then there’s this little voice at the back of my mind offering up a concept that I truly hope isn’t really the case: Maybe breaking the government and leaving it broken is exactly what they’re trying to do.

It’s a really lonely man.

Place another coin in the meter for another five minutes of synthesized wisdom.

Wait until they are dead. Then you won’t have to share the money.