SIMONE: an AI fake by AL PACINO

'Our ability to create fakes exceeds our ability to detect them.'

A voice based Chat GPT-5 is coming this fall. So if you want a more practical way to interact, way to go. It was expected, as long as it answers the human need to solve various issues on the spot. And the tendency is for new devices to focus on voice recognition and voice generation, in order to be salable.

You'll say: OK, but what has Pacino to do with it?

It was 2002 and the above subtitle is a line from 'SIMONE' - the satirical American science-fiction film written, produced and directed by Andrew Niccol.

It seemed ridiculous to plenty of us that line, because it aimed at imitation with the tools of the digital domain. And digitization was so new on the market in 2002, that we didn't even know what it was, but what would happen to it in the moment just after: autumn of 2022.

Who is Viktor Taransky, the hero masterfully played by Al Pacino?

We find it replicated today in any creator who throws something unprecedented on the digital market, who changes the paradigm of what is intelligible.

In 20 years everything has changed and nothing has changed.

Simone embodies all the stereotypes of female superficiality from several recent historical periods, starting with Audrey Hepburn, and her iconic: 'How do I look?', then visiting Madonna, Whitney Houston, Grace Kelly, or Sophia Loren. Impersonating pieces from each of them in one single virtual character: SIMONE.

A cure for frustration and a palpable nothingness

At some point, in a phony baloney world, Pacino's character feels like the real fraudster: 'I wanted appreciation, so I created her. Why limit yourself to one person, when you can have the whole cast?'

And elsewhere in the movie:

Simone: 'You created me.'

Taransky: 'I just fulfilled people's dream about you.'

The whole essence of truth is that Simone was embodied 'from zero and one.' That means a binary code, which represents data using a system of two symbols: "0" and "1". Binary code assigns a pattern of binary digits, also known as bits, to each character or instruction. And that's what it's all about, in this virtual reality surrounding us.

What benefits does the virtual Simone have, over a real woman, then and now?

She gets closer to people if she's not around them, she doesn't get fat, she drives alone, she's disciplined, and as an actress she doesn't need a double. All this means substantially lower costs - just as it is happening today with films that are starting to be produced almost exclusively by artificial intelligence techniques.

The minor inconveniences that Simone has are: agoraphobia, fear of viruses,

fear of heights or airplanes.

But she will brilliantly pass an exam, don't she?

Because she simply offers Eternity Forever.

Instead of a conclusion

Is the Simone from twenty years ago, what we are experiencing today, with this explosion of products based on artificial intelligence?

I recall that Sim-one in Pacino's movie comes from 'Simulation One', so it might be that what we are really living today, is the 'to be continued' from then.