Recently I wrote about how it’s OK to wear glasses or hearing aids, but if you use a cane or have gray hair or wrinkles, then you appear to be damaged goods.
Appearances are not always what they seem.
As springtime haltingly unfolds these days, I noticed a bird sitting on the wooden edge of a raised bed in my backyard. The sudden motion of one wing caught my eye and I kept watching. Silly me, after several minutes I realized it wasn’t a bird wing, it was a single leaf blowing quietly in the sporadic wind.
A bit later, I saw a bird on the telephone pole behind my house. Again, that one wing caught my eye, so I kept watching. And eventually, again, I realized it was a leaf not a bird wing. I’ve never made that kind of mistake before. I could use a dose of humility about my quick judgments based on appearances.
About six weeks ago, a friend emailed me an online recording with lyrics of a blues song by Eddie Dalton titled, “Another Day Old.” I was blown away by the music and the lyrics and the singing. In college, I was a disc jockey and my weekly show was named “The Blues Bag.” Hearing the Eddie Dalton song instantly transported me back to 1970, when B.B. King performed at my school, and I got to hang out with him.
Dalton’s voice and guitar were impressive, and his lyrics made my eyes tear up a bit. I never expected to hear a conscious-aging blues song. But there it was! Here’s an excerpt from verse 2:
I used to think youth was the place to stay
Like the best of life might fade away
But the older I get, the more it shows
Not everyone gets the chance to grow old
I immediately started sharing this YouTube song with all the people who I knew would appreciate it. And I started to research Eddie Dalton online. Who was this guy? I’d never even heard of him before. Turns out he is a gray-haired, soulful blues singer with 1.4 million YouTube views, 230,000 Facebook followers, three songs simultaneously in the iTunes top 10, an album sitting at number three on the iTunes Top Albums chart, and a number one single in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
And … turns out Eddie Dalton does not even exist. He is a total fiction. Every element of him — his voice, his face, his persona, his music, his pictures, his lyrics — was generated by Artificial Intelligence. That’s right, AI. There is no Eddie Dalton. What the f …?
So once again, my assessment and judgment were way off. And I’ve never made that kind of mistake before. Guess there’s a first time for everything. I’ll never forget this one. Another example of how the ageist phrase “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” was always wrong and still is wrong.
Yes, appearances can be deceiving. And a lot of us will be learning some new AI “tricks” in our unfolding lives.