Pugs As People

Remember the Dolly Parton Challenge? Probably not; it was old and tired by the time Jordan and I made the quartet of images here. It was the first time I think I jumped on an internet meme bandwagon - and so late I probably missed.

But AI allows us to do amazing things. Like deepfake a politician doing something terrible. Deepfake a movie star doing something immoral. Deepfake a family member's voice on the phone, asking you for money in the form of gift cards and telling you it's urgent.

But also benign, fun, silly things that help us not think of the dumpster fire that is the 2020s.

Do you have a dog or dogs? Do you have ChatGPT? Did you align the two and ask ChatGPT what your dog would look like as a person?

I did.

Jeanie: grumpy, small, and always a little dissatisfied.

As they say, no notes. That's Jed. The sprawl, the blank expression, and of course the tongue.

What this one absolutely nails is John Henry's look of quiet puzzlement. He has no idea what's going on most of the time, but he's pretty sure no one else is on guard, so it's down to him.

You'll note that in each of these photos, the humans look miserable. Almost like they're characters in some dystopian nightmare where hope has long gone and all we are left with is the empty scream of existential annihilation. Which is fair, because pugs are blessed with resting empty-scream-of-existential-annihilation face. But they are happy. Most of the time. As long as a school bus, another dog, or literally anything else is not visible from their back yard.