A key, if underappreciated, skill in life is learning when it’s time to let go, be it from life itself or some of your various endeavours while living it. And so, I think that it’s only fitting to do this with The Blog About Fog, especially with this my 100th blog entry.
In helping me reach this decision, AI and ChatGPT in particular were instrumental. While waiting for both the coffee and the motivation to kick in at work this morning, I killed some time by asking ChatGPT what it thought about Not-Bielefeld and the University of Not-Bielefeld. Although both are creations of mine, the idea of Not-Bielefeld at least draws upon the Bielefeld Conspiracy, which holds that the actual German city of Bielefeld does not exist.
And this is pretty much what ChatGPT drew upon when I asked it about Not-Bielefeld. But, its answer to telling me something about the University blew my mind. This is what it came up with:
The University of Not-Bielefeld (UNB) is a prestigious institution dedicated to the study of things that simultaneously exist and do not exist. It is famous for its Department of Applied Non-Existence, where scholars rigorously research paradoxes, conspiracy theories, and the metaphysics of absence.
🔍 Key Faculties & Research Areas
- Faculty of Quantum Sociology
- Investigates the social behavior of entities that may or may not exist.
- Offers a master’s program in Schrödingerian Public Relations.
- Institute for Fictional Geography
- Specializes in mapping places that people swear exist but can’t quite locate.
- Publishes the annual Atlas of Non-Places.
- School of Conspiratorial Studies
- Offers courses on Advanced Bielefeld Conspiracy Theories and The Psychology of Mass Doubt.
- Regular guest lectures by individuals who may or may not be real.
- Department of Theoretical Tourism
- Focuses on vacations to locations that aren’t supposed to exist.
- Organizes field trips that no one can prove actually happened.
- Center for Uncertain Mathematics
- Develops proofs for numbers that exist only in hypothetical realities.
- Pioneered the Imaginary Bus Schedule, which always arrives but never at the expected time.
🎓 Campus Life
- The university library contains books that only appear when you’re not looking for them.
- The student ID cards are valid both everywhere and nowhere, making discounts at real-world stores hit-or-miss.
- The cafeteria serves dishes that people remember tasting but cannot accurately describe.
Would you like to enroll, or are you already an alumnus without realizing it? 🤔😆
From start to finish, that’s one damn fine hallucination. And all without so much of a wink of an AI from ChatGPT hinting it to be so. More pragmatically, when generative AI is both cleverer and funnier than you are (and scores better with Jetpack’s Write Brief writing guide on top of it), it’s a clear sign that it’s time to go.
Yeah, right. Don’t you worry. Just starting to roll up my sleeves here …
The Blog About Fog 