Is Strawberry Fields forever by the Beatles about AI before it was invented?

 I happened to hear Strawberry Fields foreverby The Beatles earlier. I can recall hearing the first time it. It was the first time it was played on UK Radio. It was a double A-Side with Penny Lane. Radio 1 built it up for ages, plugging the new Beatles single, which was a major event. It was a real change of direction for them (Much influenced by LSD). I think it is the only Beatles track I can remember hearing getting such a build up, although I was about 4 at the time, so why would I?

After hearing it, I looked up the lyrics online. Something struck me that I've never thought of before. Here is the first chorus and verse

Let me take you down

'Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields

Nothing is real

And nothing to get hung about

Strawberry Fields forever

Living is easy with eyes closed

Misunderstanding all you see

It's getting hard to be someone

But it all works out

It doesn't matter much to me

When I first heard the song, I was intrigued by the idea of Strawberry fields. We grew strawberries in the garden and picking them was one of the highlights of the summer. Years later I discovered that the song was about a mental hospital. I realised that the song is perfect summary of social media and the way all and sundry are using AI to generate images to indulge what ever fantasies or delusions they cling to. In a bizarre sort of way, AI bring psychotic delusions to life - NOTHING IS REAL - when I go on Facebook and Twitter, I see all manner of posts, aliens, UFO's, Dinghys full of migrants, politicians in silly outfits - NOTHING IS REAL. Armies of people search out things that confirm their version of the truth "LIVING IS EASY WITH EYES CLOSED, MISUNDERSTANDING ALL YOU SEE - AI is the perfect tool for inventing an alternative reality. 

We are in an age when if Aliens did land on the Whitehouse lawn and invited Donald Trump on board for a cup of tea, no one would believe it.  Billionaire Elon Musk has invented a tool called GROK. On X.COM it has become the arbiter of truth. Someone posts an image and then 20 people ask GROK if it is real or just AI slop. It never really occurs to them that Grok doesn't really know. It can spot the artefacts of bad AI, but that means nothing. 

We are living in a society where you cannot trust anything on line. You can generate any image you like. You can bring dead grandparents to life. But NOTHING IS REAL. The dangerous thing is that we start to convince ourselves that it is. What really disturbed me when I thought about it, was that The Beatles correctly identified that when you can't trust anything and you start to create your own reality, you are probably losing touch with reality. 

My views on AI have been evolving rapidly over the last couple of years. I worked in IT and I worked on what we now call AI systems before the term had been invented. Back then it was called decision support software. We had rather crude tools to automate writing of code. We had automated test tools. I have never really been to concerned about any of it. My view has started to change. Not because I think AI itself is daangerous. AI won't destroy mankind. However I have worried since I was old enough to worry that mankind would destroy itself. AI simply makes this far easier. It also opens up the door for new ways for us to destroy ourselves. 

My one hope is that like many IT fads I've seen over the years, we get bored with it all. Dodgy pictures and bad music (known as AI slop) are already egetting tiresome and boring. The first AI generated track I heard, but together by a mate's son for his birthday was quite good fun. Now there are thousands of the bloody things and they are mostly rubbish. Someone played me two tracks and asked me if I could spot the one that was AI, I guessed correctly, but I explained that as I didn't really think either track was any good, It was a pointless exercise. AI is actually quite good at identifying the lowest common denominator and making something vaguely passable. I am sure it could mimic styles of the most complex avant garde Jazz and fool experts. But would it ever make anthing groundbreaking? I doubt it. 

Which brings me back to that day, the 17th February 1967, when I was four. Strawberry fields forever was a complete change of direction, the lyrics about an asylum were like nothing anyone had ever heard. I guarantee that if you gave AI every track the Beatles had made before that and said "Generate a song that will be their next single" it would never make that. It would probably rehash Please Please me or something. Which for me is rather reassuring.

Anyway, here is a little ditty I wrote. There is NO AI in this! And until humans stop loving a party, there will always be hope! And you can join us for some real music at Nambucca on the Holloway Road for Free on Friday 16th October for some real music and real life fun.