Remember this great scene from The Graduate?

One magic word for this young man’s future: ‘Plastics.’

Funny at the time, now not so much, as we just learned that we’ve been chugging liquid tinged with ‘forever chemicals’ from plastic water bottles into our brain and bloodstreams for decades.

NOW ya tell us! “A wee bit too late, bucko.”

BUT… and there’s always a but. (One ‘t’ or two? Heh;-)

Look at what you’re typing on, your monitor, your lamp, your TV.

Plastics! Good luck escaping those magic materials.

It’s still insinuated itself into every part of our lives. For better and … not so much. We really don’t know where this will lead, or how we’d live without it, or if we can keep living with it, because of its still-unknown impacts on us.

So… get the first AI analogy yet?

OK, here’s the other part of the two-pronged thoughts I had fun postulating about with a couple of colleagues today.

Do you love magic, hate it or just find it eye-rollingly dumb? Or even frustrating as hell, because you know it’s not that the cards really vanished, or the rabbit was really in that hat.

Some folks are very much entertained by the wonder of the amazing magic acts. Others are frustrated as hell, torn between wanting to enjoy not knowing how it works, but knowing … there’s a catch.

So… is artificial intelligence plastic magic … or magic plastic?

The answer, of course, is who knows?

(And I later remembered that “magic plastic” somehow became a label for credit cards at some point in the past. And we all know that they are NOT magic – not even close – but a pain in the budget. No such thing as a free lunch, etc.)

So as we veer between the utopian and dystopian views of AI, and we struggle to figure out just where, when and how to dive into this deep AI pool … or is it a Tunnel of Love? Or make that infinite rabbit hole … the whole thing cries for analogies that can help us make sense of it all.

Or better yet… nonsense of it all.

It’s like we’re on a fun-house ride, with no idea how we got here, where it’s going or how we’ll get off it safely.

But as a guy who’s always been in love with word-play, the least we can do is have some fun with it.

Or at least, that’s where I end up. Care to join me over some, fresh, “clean” bottled water and chat?