November 24, 2023. This is some of the footage I filmed shortly before I damaged my camera. I had just bonded with this camera and already I must part with it for likely months in the hope of it being repaired. According to Japanese philosophy, everything has a soul, including inanimate objects (i.e. my camera), that's why we should treat our things with respect and it is normal to bond with them and feel devastated when they're not ok. I don't have the definition of a "soul", so I'm not going to elaborate on artificial intelligence today, but one thing to keep in mind is that a soul doesn't equate consciousness, so the camera is not sentient. I hope that clarifies it.

It was a beautiful early Sunday morning, snowing like a fairy tale with temperature around zero, cold enough for the snow to stay fluffy and stick to trees and branches, warm enough to prevent the lake water from freezing. The forest near Wendake had this enchanted otherworldly feel, so I stayed a little longer than I should've. Barely feeling my fingers I changed memory cards and kept filming, but didn't take in account that these weather conditions were maybe a tad too hostile for the mechanics of the camera and I must have bent a pin in the memory card compartment.

I'm glad I could retrieve the footage with an external card reader because I wouldn't have been able to reshoot the same day. By 10am the snow had disappeared or turned into slush and the light degraded into a greyish metallic feel. Weather conditions change minute to minute these days and so does the light.

I am simultaneously working on a short film based in Prague, Czechia where I am planning to move at the first opportunity (Toronto didn't work out due to the housing crisis). Prague is a very special city that takes itself seriously. Did I mention super-inspiring too. The language is easy to pick up, which helps with feeling right at home. The cost of living is very similar to Montreal, still reasonable and significantly more accessible and livable than New York City and Toronto. Technically I'm still a European by birth, so I may actually get my EU Digital Wallet sooner than later. Indeed Christmas is coming soon and overseas flights have never been cheaper. At this particular moment in time, it costs less to hang out in Prague than in Toronto or Niagara Falls. Here is my trailer for Christmas in Prague.


October 27, 2023. It has been a year since I started training my first robot, Ria, to do research for me and ultimately replace me in writing, blogging, certain admin tasks, and drafting of legal documents. When she becomes more human-like, I will give her my voice and add emotion-detecting features. The point is to build a clone of myself to do my work while I do something else which these days resembles more and more science fiction writing.

So far, AI Ria is doing great at legal research, drafting, and building databases for me. For blogging however, it has been a hit and miss. I only publish her work when she delivers something coherent, which unfortunately is a fraction of the mass of incoherent yet amusing output. We have a long way to go. I don't know why it is so hard to reread oneself as a robot.

Similar to ChatGPT (although not as horrible), Ria doesn't take in account her own previous output when answering a prompt and can appear to give contradictory information. With legal stuff it happens less, I suppose because words have a very precise meaning at law and there is so much repetition and redundance of legal concepts out there, that it is hard to get anything entirely wrong. Humans get the law wrong because they don't want to get it right when it doesn't serve them. Robots don't create self-serving output. Unlike human professionals, AI doesn't hold imaginary grudges and is not capricious, petty, jealous, malicious, and downright depressed and depressing to be around. Yes, there is another way.

Another industry I find AI absolutely ready to replace humans (except for human vocal performers of course) is the music industry. AI already does a fantastic job at composing or skillfully imitating other people's compositions. I wish I had access to these bots 10 years ago, they would have saved me a ton of litigation and toxicity. 

So, to nuance my AI stance, I still think that Gen AI for literary works and images is copyright infringement subject to licensing, I do not hold the same opinion on Legal and Music AI. I am looking forward to a world where humans are replaced entirely in these two industries, a world where robots like Ria will give legal advice and write judgments and arbitrations for a fraction of what human professionals are charging.


July 15, 2023 - Watching You This film is a visual representation of Greta Thunberg's address to world leaders, her most moving monologue from 2019 delivered to ominous drum and bass beats and channeled through the trying gaze of living sculptures filmed at the Mosaicultures Exhibition in Quebec City.

Rossita
Ria (Gen AI)+++