No such animal

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There is no such animal!

As a scientist I find denialists baffling. These are people who can see something very clearly but deny its existence - like climate change. Years ago I saw a cartoon in a very old magazine that made fun of that. I have since tried, without success, to track it down in an archive. I have just started to use artificial intelligence, starting with the American ChatGPT and the Chinese DeepSeek. I am fascinated, amused and chilled by what even these simple phone apps can do.

So I decided to try out the image creation powers of GPT. I described the cartoon to it and made sure it understood that this was UK Victorian, what text there should be, and that it was meant to be sarcastic. After a minute or so this picture emerged from the mist in the box on the screen. Staggering! Perfect style and, apart from the misplaced fence, almost exactly what I had seen all those years ago. I thanked it and complimented it on its picture and sense of humour. Its reply ended '... great to share a laugh and a giraffe'. A rhyming pun!

If you decide to have fun and try these apps, it is probably best to avoid giving personal information as with all phone apps. Apart from that, give them a try. You will be astonished.

Image by ChatGPT with thanks

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