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The Literal DeathBots

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If you immerse yourself even casually in the world of A.I. pop culture, you are going to encounter a lot of Apocalypses. (Apocalypsi? Apocalypsae? Did we ever decide whether "Apocalypse" has an official plural? Let's never find out...) Whether it's the Terminator, HAL, Colossus or Talky Tina, robots, ChatBots and supercomputers always seem to be running amok, taking over the world or trying to killing everybody (occasionally in that order). Can you blame people for getting nervous now that A.I. ChatBots are actually starting to enter our lives for real? We have decades of reference literature to justify those fears, and the ChatBots do seem to be spreading awfully fast, even if all they are doing at the moment is talking to us. But that's how it starts, right? A harmless chat here, a bit of cybersex there, and then boom! MurderBots on every street corner. We've all seen those movies. And guess what? The DeathBots really have arrived, but not quite the way you ...
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Devil Dolls and Demon Downloads

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In 2019, legendary film director Martin Scorsese became a top news story for a few weeks when he was asked by an interviewer if he had any opinion about the Marvel superhero franchise , which was at the time unchallenged and secure at the top of the box office food chain. Scorsese opined that these movies felt closer to theme park attractions than they are to movies, and that "in the end, I don’t think they’re cinema." His remarks ruffled more than a few feathers, especially amongst the millions of movie-goers who were enthusiastically making Marvel's movies some of the most (financially) successful films of all time. (It's actually not that difficult to break financial records when the ticket prices keep going up. If you adjust for inflation then one of the most successful films of all time was The Wicked Lady in 1945, starring Margaret Lockwood; a film that has nothing to do with either Martin Scorsese or Marvel.) Bigger than Captain America ! Also Taxi Driver ... ...
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Dear Friend...

Wednesday, 4th February, 2026 Dear ChatGPT, I have been thinking recently about the film "Desk Set"; Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy's penultimate film together. Written by Henry and Phoebe Ephron (the parents of Nora) Desk Set presents as a romantic comedy in the classical tradition. Hepburn is Bunny Watson, head of the "Research and Reference" department of a major television network (portrayed as fiercely independent and staggeringly good at her job) while Tracy is Richard Sumner, an "efficiency engineer" contracted to install a cutting-edge computer system (named EMERAC) which the reference team is afraid will put them all out of work. Desk Set is a film that works on many levels. It's a delightful, engaging and very funny comedy of manners that makes exceptional use of the specific talents of its stars (real-life couple Hepburn and Tracy had tremendous chemistry onscreen and off, and ultimately made nine films together) but it also serves ...
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