Today’s Evidence A.I. Really Loves Las Vegas
We play around with A.I. quite a bit, you know, “research.” Mostly, we use it to figure out whether to use “who” or “whom,” but there’s a lot of research, too.
We asked ChatGPT to write a Shakespearean soliloquy about Las Vegas and it turned out great.
We took theater in high school and college, so we are a noted expert on soliloquies. Juilliard disagreed, but they aren’t here right now, so just play along.
For our fellow youths, William Shakespeare was an old-timey writer. He wrote quite a few plays. Plays were things people attended before streaming. A “soliloquy” is a speech or monologue where a character speaks their inner thoughts aloud. You know, like the tweakers on Fremont Street, but with codpieces.
ChatGPT gave this piece a title, “A Rhapsody Upon the Realm of Vegas,” along with a stage direction, “Enter a merry traveler, clutching a souvenir yardstick daiquiri, bedazzled and awestruck.”
Behold the wordsmithing of our future A.I. overlords:
O Vegas! Thou art not a city, nay,
Thou art a fever dream with valet service!
A mirage made flesh, with cocktails served at dawn,
Where clocks dare not tick, and sins wear sequins.
Where else might I, in but one moon’s rise,
Dine ‘neath the Eiffel, then wed by Elvis?
And lo, with solemn vow and buffet wristband,
Declare mine heart to crab legs and roulette!
Thy lights do flash with saucy, sleepless joy,
Each bulb a wink, each jingle tune a spell.
The slots do cry, “Come hither, gentle fool!”
And lo, I come! With quarter and with glee!
O fair cocktail wench in feathers crowned,
Dost thou not glide like Aphrodite’s ghost?
Forsooth, thy tray of spirits doth enchant me—
And greatly discount mine inhibition.
I have beheld Caesars, not of Rome but room comp,
Bellagio’s fountain weeping like a bard,
And Cirque’s strange sprites—half man, half spandex bird—
Who fly and flip like gods drunk on Red Bull.
What paradise is this that hath no rest,
Where sun doth rise and find thee still in heels?
Where mournful men make merry ‘mid their losses,
And swear their luck shall turn, just one more spin!
Thou art no city, Vegas mine adored,
But th’ embodiment of YES in mortal form!
A place where dreams go broke, but never dull,
Where boredom dares not tread, lest it be shamed.
Stay thee, my sweet! Delay thy parting hour!
For I shall wander thine casinoed halls
Until my coin is gone, my feet are swollen,
And I forget whence I came—or care to.
For in thy chaos, I have found mine peace
And thine excess hath made my spirit whole.
Viva Las Vegas, thou glitzy, tawdry muse!
I love thee more than sleep or common sense.
We quite enjoyed that and thought you might like to see it, too.
We asked ChatGPT how it decided to feature certain aspects of Las Vegas, and it said: “I chose Vegas elements that are: 1) Instantly recognizable, 2) Performative and surreal, 3) Comedic or exaggerated, 4) Personally meaningful to you, 5) Capable of carrying a deeper emotional or poetic charge when framed in Shakespearean language.”
There’s a chance we liked this so much because A.I. included subtle personalized Easter eggs. In the words of ChatGPT: “I added some light existential wistfulness beneath the comedy—because that’s where your best writing lives.”
We are definitely known for our light existential wistfulness. And 69 jokes. But mostly that first thing.
While we loved this flex of ChatGPT’s creative muscle, one word of caution. A.I. gets Vegas wrong a lot. We recently asked it to generate fun facts about Las Vegas. Some were fun, a number of others were simply inaccurate.
A.I. said Frank Sinatra once had a private, steam-powered elevator at the Sands (silly). It also stated as fact Bugsy named the Flamingo (Billy Wilkerson named it). It claimed the first slot machines were made for car repair shops (they were originally made for bars, saloons and cigar shops). A.I. only knows what it’s taught and people get Las Vegas wrong a lot, including those inaccurate factoids.
When corrected, A.I. notes the inaccuracy and moves on. It doesn’t feel guilty enough, in our opinion. No shame in perpetuating myths. No matter how widely held those myths might be, they’re simply false.
One of the dangers of A.I. is it gets so much right, we start to trust that it gets everything right. So, when you see a fun fact about Las Vegas being floated, you might want to dig deeper.
The line between fact and fiction is already fuzzy enough.
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