Month: November 2025

Space New for November 2025: Currently Space X holds a Monopoly on Reusable Rockets, but that may not last much Longer. 

It was ten years ago now in December of 2015 that Space X Corporation first pulled off the astounding feat of safely landing the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket. Only a little more than a year later in March of 2017 Space X went one step further and reused a Falcon 9 first stage, even safely landing the booster stage for a second time. Since then the Hawthorn, California company has landed and reused hundreds of first stages, the current score is 528 soft landings but the figure keeps on going up every couple of days. Space X has already launched over one hundred Falcon 9s so far this year. All this reuse of the most expensive part of a launch system has allowed Space X to dramatically reduce the cost of getting a payload into space, dollars per kilo to orbit.

Space X has even succeeded in the feat of landing two of its Falcon 9 first stages at the same time, as a part of their Falcon Heavy configuration. This reusability is the key to reducing the cost of getting into space and therefore just increasing the amount of stuff we can put into space! (Credit: Teslarati)

Because of that reduction in cost Space X is able to just put more things into orbit, whether it be Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites or other commercial satellites of even people. Space X not only routinely sends astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) but it has also carried out eight privately funded space missions.

The Axiom-4 space capsule docking at the ISS. The fourth privately funded space mission to the ISS Axiom also has plans to maintain future private space stations. (Credit: YouTube)

Thanks to their monopoly on reusable rockets right now more than half of all space launches are by Space X simply because of its ability to reuse its Falcon 9 first stage. That monopoly may not last much longer however for there are currently several corporations and nations that are working hard to develop their own version of a reusable rocket.

Launch of the New Glenn rocket from Blue Origin. Like the Falcon 9 the first stage of New Glenn is intended to be capable of safely landing and being reused. (Credit: Next SpaceFlight)

In fact Blue Origin Corporation has just succeeded in accomplished that task during the second test launch of their New Glenn rocket this month. On the 13th of November, after several delays due to weather and even a coronal mass ejection from the Sun, New Glenn carried out all of its mission objectives including a pinpoint landing of the first stage on a drone landing ship in the Atlantic.

New Glenn’s first stage sitting comfortably on its landing ship. (Credit: New York Times)

Like the Falcon 9, New Glenn is designed to have a reusable first stage. During the rocket’s first test launch back in January the rocket did succeed in placing a test payload into orbit, however the first stage’s engines failed to reignite so there was no soft landing.

Space X has also succeeded in ‘catching’ the first stage of their larger Starship rocket. They’re working on catching the second, orbital stage which if they succeed would make the entire launch system reusable! (Credit: Ars Technica)

Now just because Blue Origin has managed to successfully land New Glenn’s first stage it doesn’t quite mean that Space X’s monopoly is over, not yet at least. After all it took Space X a couple of years to experiment, try various configurations and gain procedural experience before they got the whole reusability thing down pat. So it will probably take Blue Origin about the same amount of time before it can be reusing New Glenn’s first stages routinely. Still, there’s no doubt that Space X will be hearing footsteps coming up behind them from then on.

China has successfully tested a reusable sub-orbital rocket and plans a first launch of a reusable orbit capable launch system soon. (Credit: Space)

With so much to gain by reusability it’s not surprising that others are also working to develop rockets that can soft land and then be reused. China in particular has invested a great deal of money and national prestige in its space program and they are known to be working on a reusable rocket. Of course much of what China does is kept a secret but we do know that several reusable rockets are being developed.

The Zhuque-3 first stage being assembled on its launch pad. China hopes to conduct a full test of this reusable first stage before the end of this year. (Credit: Global Times)

Probably the most advanced Chinese rocket is the Zhuque-3 built by the Chinese aerospace firm LandSpace. Looking a great deal like the Falcon-9, the Zhuque-3’s first stage is intended to be reusable. Back on the 20th of October the Zhuque-3 successfully carried out a static test of its nine Tianque-12A engines in preparation for a maiden flight later on this year. Like Blue Origin on that first flight the Chinese engineers will attempt to safely land the first stage but whether they succeed or not LandSpace is certainly making progress.

Pretty incredible sight to see a rocket hovering above the water but that’s what the Yuanxingzhe-1 is doing here. (Credit: TRT World)

As is another Chinese company called Space Epoch whose sub-orbital test vehicle the Yuanxingzhe-1 was launched back in May from a platform in the Yellow Sea, rose to an altitude of 2.5 km and hovered there before returning to make a soft landing on its original platform. So, one Chinese firm is ready to test a reusable rocket capable of launching a payload to orbit while a second has successfully tested a reusable sub-orbital rocket. It’s only a matter of time before China has a reusable launch system similar to Space X.

Half of the engineering problems with reusable rockets is designing an engine whose thrust can be controlled to a fine degree. Here’s Europe’s Prometheus engine undergoing testing. (Credit: European Space Agency)

Meanwhile in Europe there’s the ArianeGroup which is planning a series of short, non-orbital tests of reusable rockets in the hopes of generating interest in the European Space Agency (ESA) for European reusable rockets. The tests will be carried out in Sweden near the Arctic Circle and are built around a reusable methane-oxygen rocket engine named Prometheus that will power three test vehicles named Callisto, Themis and Skyhopper. 

Themis is one of the test rockets that the ESA will use to develop a reusable launch system. (Credit: European Space Agency)

Themis will be tested first on a low altitude flight with a set of permanent landing legs installed while Callisto will have foldable landing legs similar to those on Falcon-9. Skyhopper will be last with a higher altitude, multi-engine flight. The problem with any new rocket developments in Europe is political will. With so many nations involved in the ESA, and the fact that the ESA has always had NASA to fall back on when necessary the ESA has never been able to do anything really big in space.

The ESA has already awarded a contract to build the recovery vessel for their reusable rockets. (Credit: European Spaceflight)

Of course Japan is also getting in on the act. Back on June the 17th the giant carmaker Honda successfully tested a small, 6.3m in length, reusable rocket. During the test the rocket reached a height of only 300m but touched down only 37cm from its target landing spot. Throughout the test the rocket was completely under control. The company has set its sights on a larger scale, sub-orbital flight in 2029. 

Honda’s reusable test rocket in action. (Credit: YouTube)

Finally let’s just pity poor Russia, which appears to have no plans for developing reusable rockets. Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s mismanagement, to say nothing of his war in Ukraine, Russia’s economy is in such a bad state that the first nation in space is now steadily falling behind.

Meanwhile Russia just keeps on using basically the same launch system that put Sputnik into orbit! (Credit: NASA)

So there you have it, while Space X has built themselves a dominant position in space based upon their reusable Falcon 9 rocket that dominance could soon start to slip now that other nations and companies have seen the advantages of reusable rockets.

This post was intended to be about developments in reusable rockets but recent happenings at the Chinese Tiangong space station require a bit of discussion. On the 31st of October a new crew of three Taikonauts arrived at the Tiangong space station aboard their Shenzhou 21, relieving the Shenzhou 20 crew. However, as the two crews were both aboard the station the Shenzhou 20 capsule was struck by space debris.

There are currently tens of thousands of pieces of space junk in orbit. This is becoming a big problem as those pieces can be traveling at thousands of kilometers per hour! (Credit: Rocket Factory Augsburg)

Officials with the Chinese space agency immediately ordered a delay in the return of the Shenzhou 20 crew while engineers analyzed the data to determine if the capsule was safe. After more than a week of delay it was decided that the Shenzhou 20 capsule was unsafe and the Shenzhou 20 crew would return to Earth aboard the Shenzhou 21 capsule.

The Shenzhou 20 crew returning aboard the Shenzhou 21 capsule, leaving the 21 crew in orbit without a way of getting back to Earth. (Credit: SpaceNews)

On the 14th of November the Shenzhou 20 crew did safely land back on our planet but in doing so they left the Shenzhou 21 crew stranded on Tiangong without a safe capsule in which to return if an emergency should occur. As you can imagine China is now rushing to launch an unmanned Shenzhou capsule, the one slated for the Shenzhou 22 mission, to Tiangong as quickly as possible. The Chinese space agency has announced a tentative date of November 25 for the launch of that unmanned mission.

Book Review: ‘Cloud Warriors’ by Thomas E. Weber. 

Calling all of you weather geeks out there, you know who you are. Have I got a book for you! ‘Cloud Warriors’ by Thomas E. Weber is an extensive and comprehensive survey of all of the latest advances in weather forecasting. Dealing with all of the many different types of severe weather, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, flooding and even good weather ‘Cloud Warriors’ also tracks the newest developments in how weather forecasts are conveyed to the people who need to know what kind of weather is coming, government officials, business leaders, farmers as well as the general public.

Cover art for ‘Cloud Warriors’ by Thomas E. Weber. (Credit: MacMillian Publishers)

The chapters in ‘Cloud Warriors’ are divided into the main issues of weather forecasting, both the different types of severe weather as well as computer models and long-range forecasts. Running through the entire book however is a theme concerning the three pillars of modern weather forecasting, government agencies such as the National Weather Service (NWS) along with academia, that is the scientists at universities like Penn State whose observations and theoretical work advance our understanding of weather. The third pillar is kinda the new kid on the block, the commercial weather services such as Accuweather who provide individualized weather forecasts to their customers, for a fee.

Weather is a big part of every day of our lives. For good or ill we need to understand weather and the people who predict the weather for us. (Credit: National Geographic Education)

Several times in ‘Cloud Warriors’ author Weber makes the argument that all three of these pillars have an important role to play in modern weather forecasting. The Federal Government possesses thousands of weather stations spread across the country, basically one at every airport, as well as specialized weather assets such as the hurricane hunter airplanes that fly into the center of tropical storms to obtain the data needed to predict how strong a storm will become, and where it will go.

Every airport in the US is mandated to have a weather station connected to it. This huge amount of data makes the National Weather Service the largest factor in predicting the weather days from now. (Credit: WLTX)

Meanwhile the scientists who study weather at colleges around the country are at the forefront of making weather predictions more accurate. It’s a fact that a seven day forecast today is as accurate as a five day forecast was twenty years ago and as accurate as a three day forecast was fifty years ago. This improvement in forecasting has been achieved by both a greater understanding of the physics of our atmosphere and also by ever more sophisticated computer models.

Meteorology class at Penn State University. Highly regarded for its program many of the graduates of PSU go on to careers as TV weathercasters or scientists studying the weather. (Credit: Penn State)

The newest player in weather forecasting is the commercial weather service such as Accuweather. Because these weather companies are so new they currently have the greatest potential for growth as other industries, such as airlines, construction companies and large-scale agri-businesses find they have a growing need for accurate weather forecasts not over a large area but for extremely small areas. What the author terms hyperlocal weather.

Dr. Joel N. Myers, the founder and CEO of Accuweather. A graduate of Penn State his company’s headquarters is just off campus. (Credit: Bitbean)

Now you may suppose that the growing problem of climate change is one of the main topics in ‘Cloud Warriors’ but actually the book is primarily concerned with how our weather forecasts are made and what improvements in accuracy we can hope for in the years to come. Nevertheless climate change certainly does get mentioned time and time again as its effects are already being felt in the number and strength of severe weather events while future weather predictions will have to take into account its growing influence.

While Climate Change is not the focus of ‘Cloud Warriors’ nevertheless its growing importance causes it to crop up in almost every chapter. (Credit: Wikipedia)

There’s one more theme the author Weber stresses in ‘Cloud Warriors’ and that is improvements in the way that meteorologists communicate their forecasts to both government officials and the general public. Think about it, a forecast that predicts a hurricane will strike a certain location is no good if the people living there don’t hear it or ignore it.

Wasn’t so long ago that TV meteorologists had an actual metal board that they placed magnets onto in order to discuss the weather forecast. (Credit: Facebook)

I can remember back in the 1960s when the nightly weather report on the local news consisted of a five minute segment recapping what today’s weather was and then giving the three day forecast, on Thursday we’d also get a ‘weekend forecast’. Now, in 2025 we have radar maps showing where it’s raining, or if severe weather is approaching. We get watches or warnings about thunderstorms, tornadoes even hurricanes all so that we can better prepare ourselves for such severe conditions.

Today you’re local weathercaster has the latest video technology to enable them to communicate to their audience the dangers of severe weather. (Credit: YouTube)

As you can guess I definitely recommend ‘Cloud Warriors’ as an in depth survey of how we humans deal with one of the most important, and changeable parts of our daily lives, the weather. I said at the beginning of this post that ‘Cloud Warriors’ would be a big hit with weather geeks but maybe, with the threat of climate change and everything else, it should be on everyone’s reading list.

What is Autism and how did it ever get to be so Politicized? 

We’ve all heard of autism, we all know that it is a medical condition that consists of many types of emotional and mental disorders that first appear in children. We also know that more and more children are being diagnosed with autism, and we all know that autism has become a political battleground where accusations are being hurled back and forth with conspiracy theories being accepted without any evidence.

Some of the early signs of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in a developing child. (Credit: Synlab)

In this post I hope to explain a few facts about autism, especially why it seems to be spreading. At the same time I’ll try to discuss at some length how autism has become a political rather than a purely medical issue. To do this I will begin with a little historical background.

Paul Eugen Bleuler was a Swiss Psychiatrist who first used the term ‘Autism’ to describe a symptom of schizophrenia involving social withdrawal. (Credit: Psychiatry Online)

It was in 1912 that a Swiss psychiatrist named Paul Bleuler first used the term Autismus, from the Greek Autos meaning ‘self’, as a description for the social withdrawal he observed in patients suffering from schizophrenia. Bleuler’s work was further developed by a German psychiatrist named Fritz Künkel who characterized about 25% of schizophrenics as being autistic. This use of autism to describe symptoms of schizophrenia has now fallen out of favour.

The first modern description of ASD was by Soviet psychiatrist Grunya Sukhareva who worked for 30 years developing her ideas about ‘autistic attitude’. (Credit: The Autside)

Then in 1926 a Russian psychiatrist named Grunya Sukhareva studied six young boys who were all intelligent and musically gifted but who tended to avoid social contact with other children. In her publications she referred to this behavior as an ‘autistic attitude’. Doctor Sukhareva continued her research for thirty years and is now given credit for the first modern description of autism. It was not until 1980 however, with the publication of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition (DSM-3) that autism was fully recognized as a mental condition separate from schizophrenia with its own symptoms and diagnosis.

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition (DSM-3) was the first medical reference to describe Autism accurately enough so that any medical professional could recognize it in their patients. (Credit: Psychiatry Online)

I’m going to make a brief, personal aside at this point. I grew up during the 1960s, before DSM-3 and therefore before autism was universally recognized as an actual disorder. At that time pediatricians were much more concerned with childhood diseases like polio, measles, whooping cough, even rickets. They simply didn’t have the time to even consider a child who had problems getting along with other children as having a ‘disorder’. It is the success that medical science has had with the diseases of my childhood that has allowed autism to become a medical issue. There always were autistic people but in the past the medical profession was paying more attention to infectious diseases rather than ‘behavioral issues’.

Not too long ago Doctors were much more concerned about diseases like polio that actually killed people to worry that much about behavioral issues like autism. (Credit: Science Museum)

So what are the symptoms of autism, how do we know if a child is autistic and why does it seems to effect only children. That’s several big questions at once and unfortunately much of the answers are still a matter of debate within the medical establishment. First of all strictly speaking autism is formally referred to as ‘Autistic Spectrum Disorder’ (ASD) because there is a very wide range of behavioral symptoms and many patients exhibit only a few of them and the degree to which a symptom is displayed can vary greatly.

Severe symptoms of ASD are pretty easy to spot but remember there are a spectrum of symptoms so that it can be very difficult to distinguish between a mildly autistic patient and a functioning person who simply prefers their own company to more social activities. (Credit: Verywell Health)

The primary behavior that an autistic person would exhibit is difficulty in communicating with other people, avoiding social interactions, not looking another person in the eye when speaking to them, etc. At the same time an autistic person may show a tendency toward repetitive behaviors and interests. This repetitive behavior is considered to be part of the reason why some autistic people become gifted in a few areas while backward in others. These symptoms would be a fair description of someone with a mild case of autism.

For many people biting their nails is a common repetitive behavior, but is it a symptom of ASD? It’s questions like that which cause autism to be such a difficult medical diagnosis to make. (Credit: Harvard Health)

It can get a lot worst. In some severe cases of ASD the patient can become completely non-verbal, simply refusing to speak while the repetitive behavior can include such things as head banging and other forms of self-harm. Even mild cases of autism can cause a patient to become violent whenever their routine is changed and the condition can greatly increase a person’s chances of depression and suicide. These are only a few of the behaviors associated with autism, anyone interested should consult other resources, of which there are many.

Anyone who causes harm to themselves is certainly in need of help, but is it always a sign of ASD? Again, a correct diagnosis can be difficult to determine. (Credit: The BMJ)

The problem with having a medical condition that has so many different symptoms, and those symptoms can appear to a large varying degree is trying to figure just who has the disorder and who hasn’t. If someone likes to be alone and is good at math, as I am, does that mean they are mildly autistic? Just as autism was ignored back in the 1960s it’s quite possible that today some people are being diagnosed as autistic who are actually pretty normal! In a sense the question is, where does personality end and autism begin?

Let’s be real, our differences on the outside are tiny compared to our differences on the inside, what we call our personality. So where is the line between having a different personality and having Autistic Spectrum Disorder? (Credit: Luck Walker Recruitment)

Another question, why does it seem that autism only effects the young?  Is there something going on now that is making the number of autistic children grow? Well none of that is actually true. Again back in the 1960s there simply was no agreed definition of autism so no one was autistic, no one was diagnosed as having the disorder.

During the 1960s outlandish behavior was all the rage, but no one was diagnosed as having ASD. (Credit: YouTube)

There certainly were people back then who had problems interacting with other people, who showed repetitive behaviors. Without a clinical definition however, they simply weren’t being diagnosed as having a disorder. There’s little doubt that many adults, baby boomers like me could have been diagnosed as autistic, if doctors back then had been able to pay more attention to behavioral issues instead of infectious diseases. That’s primarily the reason for the growing number of autism cases, more and more pediatricians are simply looking for it.

It just makes sense that we’re much more likely to find something if we’re actually looking for it. That’s what’s happening with ASD, pediatricians nowadays are simply looking for it more often! (Credit: Shutterstock)

So what are the causes of autism? Well to be honest we still have a lot of work to do on finding the causes, one of the big reasons that autism is so hard to treat. The leading cause of autism is thought to be genetic but it is clear that there is no single ‘autism gene’. Rather it appears that autism develops from the interaction of a number of genes, that fits with the wide variety of symptoms. At the same time there is evidence that social factors can contribute, even trigger autistic behavior in someone who is genetically disposed to the disorder.

If you want to find the cause of most cases of ASD you need to look inside ourselves, at our DNA.

One thing is certain; autism is not caused by childhood vaccinations. The coincidence that autism in a child is usually first noticed at about the same age at which they are receiving their childhood vaccinations has resulted in untold harm both in the treatment of autism and the management of childhood diseases. Then there is the fraudulent paper by the British physician Andrew Wakefield that suggested that the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine was a cause of autism. This paper has not only been recanted by Wakefield’s co-authors but later, much larger studies involving 1.25 million children have conclusively shown that neither the MMR vaccine nor any childhood vaccination is a factor in the development of autism. Wakefield has in fact lost his medical license in the UK due to his fraud.

No longer legally allowed to practice medicine, Dr. Andrew Wakefield started a conspiracy against the MMR vaccine in order to promote his own vaccines. (Credit: MPR News)

Despite all of the evidence indicating that autism is not caused by any kind of vaccine or drug, conspiracy based allegations continue to spread on the Internet. Worst still these baseless assertions now have a champion in the Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Back in April RFK jr. announced that he and his department would be studying Autism and would declare the cause of the condition by September.

Seven months to find the “cause” of a disorder affecting millions of people? Sure Bob!!! (Credit: TikTok)

The very idea that anyone or any organization could discover the cause of any disease so quickly immediately showed that Kennedy had no intention of doing any actual science but rather the plan was to simply declare that one or more conspiracy theories was the cause of autism. True to Kennedy’s word on September 22nd Trump went on nationwide TV to tell the world that the Tylenol, chemical name acetaminophen, use by pregnant women is the main cause of autism, although we still vaccinate our children too much.

Hopefully I have convinced you my readers that Autism, ASD is a much more complicated problem that cannot be ‘cured’ by any kind of hysteric action. We need to study this behavior in a unemotional, scientific manner if we expect to ever find ways to prevent autism.

There’s a brand new Actress who is now the talk of Hollywood. It’s not because of her beauty or acting ability. It’s because she doesn’t really exist, she’s just a creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Pretty young actresses are a dime a dozen in Hollywood, have been for more than a century now. Anyone who dreams of making a career in acting goes to tinsel town in the hopes of being discovered and becoming a big movie star. In many ways Tilly Norwood is just another face in the crowd, she’s had a few screen tests and she’s started a video blog (vblog) where she talks about her life and the career she hopes to have. Just like a lot of other young actresses.

Actress Tilly Norwood enjoying her morning stroll while stopping for a coffee. Sounds just like a lot of people’s lives except that Tilly is just the invention of a computer program that has been taught, you don’t program an AI you teach it, to generate realistic images of a young woman who hopes to become an actress. (Credit: Wikipedia)

 Tilly Norwood is not like other actresses however because she actually doesn’t exist except as several billion bytes of data stored on computer hard drives. You see Tilly Norwood is a creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a computer program that has been trained to reproduce how real actresses look and behave. Tilly is the invention of a Dutch actress with a Master’s Degree in Physics (There’s a combination for ya!) named Eline Van der Velden whose company Particle6 developed and currently holds all the rights to Tilly.

Actress and Physicist Eline Van der Velden is the creative force behind Tilly Norwood. Her company, Particle6, is hoping to get Tilly some real roles in movies and videos. They also plan to develop other AI generated performers as well. (Credit: Physics World)

So far Tilly has only appeared as an actress in brief sketches, both comedy and drama, and only by herself. Nevertheless her creator (her Dr. Frankenstein?) hopes that Tilly will become the next Scarlett Johansson and her company hopes to develop other ‘hyperreal digital stars’ for TV, movies as well as social media. At the same time Van der Velden insists that Tilly ‘is not a replacement for a human being but a creative work – a piece of art”, something of a contradiction on her part.

One way to distinguish between and AI generated image and an image of a real person is in the eyes. In the eyes of a real person the reflections of any lights have to be the same, that’s just physics. If the reflections are different, as in this case, then the image is computer generated. Of course, knowing this the people who use AI to generate such images are teaching their programs to make the reflections the same. All this turns into an arms race between the scientists trying to find techniques to separate real from fiction and the people trying to make their images seem as real as possible. Also just remember the old adage, if something looks too good to be real, it probably isn’t! (Credit: Instagram)

Very few real actors would agree with Van der Velden. In fact dozens of actors and actresses have criticized the whole project. The fact that Particle6 has recently announced that they are activity seeking an agent for Tilly has only made matters worse with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) calling for a boycott of any agent who takes on an AI creation as a client.

Of course, real actors are no happier about computers taking their jobs than factory workers or cab drivers. The recent strike by Sag-Aftra was partly about the use of AI in Hollywood. (Credit: Rolling Stone)

In response Particle6 points out how in the past animation and CGI opened up new possibilities in entertainment and so they say will AI. The difference is of course that with animation and CGI it is still possible to distinguish the product from reality. As the AI creations continue to get better and better however it’s becoming more and more difficult to be certain just what is reality.

Did animation take jobs away from real actors? The people using AI to generate realistic actors feel that they are simply improving the technology of an art form that has been around for decades. (Credit: D23)

You can understand how real actors feel about the possibility of AI avatars taking their jobs. We are all aware of how automation has replaced millions of blue-collar factor workers and how driverless cars are currently threatening the future of truck drivers, cab drivers and bus drivers. With the latest computer programs that can learn, that’s what an AI is, a program that can be taught how to do a job rather than having to have each step in a process carefully written out for it, a huge number of white-collar jobs are now in jeopardy. One of the big issues that caused the recent strikes by SAG-AFTRA and the Screenwriters Guild was the use of AI by Hollywood Producers.

Over the last 60 years automation has eliminated millions of blue-collar jobs. Is this now going to happen to white-collar jobs as well? (Credit: Asia Sentinel)

The fear of AI in Hollywood includes not only actors but also screenwriters, set designers, cameramen and even directors. Think about it, producers would no longer have to put up with temperamental actors, or actors who are getting a little too old for the part, or who have gained, or lost weight. TV audiences in particular like to see a familiar face each week so why not give them an AI whose face never changes no matter how long their show has been on. Right now there’s the difficulty of how to get an AI actor to be on the screen at the same time as a real actor but that’s a technical problem and will be solved in a few years.

The Geico Gecko, who is just CGI, already interacts with people in a limited fashion. In the same way AI actors will probably get their first ‘roles’ in commercials rather than TV shows or movies. (Credit: The New York Times)

There’s one more thing that gets actors very upset about AI actors. I mentioned above that the Particle6 AI learned how actors and actresses look and behave. Well how did it do that? By looking at hours and hours of real actors and actresses that’s how.  Many in the entertainment field feel that AIs like Tilly are using their performances, stealing their rights and there are certainly going to be lawsuits dealing with the question of just how much of Scarlett Johnasson, or other actresses is there in Tilly and other AIs like her.

This is a screen shot from a YouTube site, I’m not including the name of the site. The site is just dozens of short AI videos of ‘girls’ none of whom actually exist. Now these ‘girls’ are not as sophisticated as Tilly Norwood, all they do in the videos is shake their booty, but they all have biographies and wikis! This is getting a little crazy don’t you think! (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

I’m betting that AI will worm its way into Hollywood through advertisements. Think about it, we already have plenty of ads with non-real characters in them like the Geico Gecko or the Liberty Mutual Emu. Producers of local commercials may not be restricted by the same contract rules as Hollywood producers and will undoubtedly be tempted to go fully AI once the technology has proven itself.

Another way of distinguishing an AI generated image is to look carefully at the background. The people who create these images don’t pay as much attention to the background so you can often spot weird things there. What does ‘Refima’ , see inset, mean? (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

Then there’s also the question of how society will react to AI creations on our movie, TV and mobile screens. Will the perfect AI faces we can see at any time cause us to retreat further from real interactions with real humans? Hollywood has already given us celebrities whose attractiveness and exciting lives make us pay less attention to the people around us. What will happen when we have AI generated characters who are designed to be perfect!

Is this our future? I hope not! (Credit: Facebook)

It all just goes to show how computers are taking over the jobs that millions of human beings have relied on for generations. We have to start figuring out what kind of world are we going to have when AI has been fully integrated into society. Whether that integration will be for the good of humanity or not, is still very much in question.