Have you noticed all the use of AI in everything right now?

School teachers and college professors are beside themselves with how many students these days use ChatGPT or some other kind of “artificial Intelligence” to do their homework assignments.

AI is being used in everything from buying tickets for shows or for transportation; to book hotel rooms or other travel arrangements; or to plan for inventories or to purchase advertising.

AI is the use of advanced computer technology to make regular tasks easier to do through computers.

At the North Pole we are guilty of embracing AI, too.

Right now, over at SantaUpdate.com, you can see an AI project put together by Elf Z and his team at North Pole Flight Command.

They call it ElfBot.

ElfBot is an AI tool for interacting with visitors at SantaUpdate.com.

In the few days it has been online we have seen ElfBot answer thousands of questions in conversational style.

AI is pretty cool because it “learns”, so they say. Elf Z was showing me that new questions used with ElfBot in just a few days have already made ElfBot smarter. It will only continue to improve with the answers it gives as more people ask additional questions.

That being said, I would tell you straight up that ElfBot is a moron. An idiot. And a fraud.

You see, AI is good — but it is also bad.

For example, a site visitor at SantaUpdate.com asked ElfBot what kind of milk shake elves like. Well, ElfBot had no idea what a milk shake even is, much less what kind of milk shake is most popular with elves (eggnog, by the way).

That’s because ElfBot was made to answer questions about Santa, Christmas, the North Pole, reindeer, elves and whatever else Elf Z and his band of geniuses programmed ElfBot to do.

Evidently, milk shakes were not on the learning plan for ElfBot.

So, when it came to milk shakes for elves, well, ElfBot is pretty worthless.

And that is what makes AI bad. It has no judgment. No heart. No feeling. And, despite all that claims that it “learns”, AI has no brains.

It’s a bot, but not an elf.

It has “intelligence” but it’s “artificial”, which is code for – it sucks. It’s terrible. It’s not real. It’s not anything more than a machine.

That’s the thing with AI.

It’s a poop packaged in a golden wrapper. Looks great from far away but when you get too close it just stinks.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Who cares what Elf Ed Zachary thinks about ElfBot? He doesn’t like anybody.

That’s true.

But what does Santa think about ElfBot? Well, surprise – surprise. Santa isn’t a fan.

But Santa is allowing ElfBot at SantaUpdate – and soon we will have an ElfBot right here at SantaTrackers.net – because in it’s present form ElfBot is just a bot. We’re not pretending he’s real. We’re telling everyone upfront that ElfBot is just a tool.

Elf Z and his team have this season to prove whether or not ElfBot is a tool worth keeping around.

I personally don’t think it is going to last. And neither does Santa, by the way.

Why?

Because of the rAIndeer Project.

What’s that?

It was an experimental program that Santa gave the boot to about a year ago.

The rAIndeer Project was an attempt made by the combined forces of the Reindeer Department and the team in Research and Development to bring forward robotic reindeer.

You’ve seen the robotic dogs made by different companies? It was kind of like those – a plastic robot shaped like a reindeer designed to do even the super-reindeer work of Santa’s reindeer.

It didn’t go well.

First of all, they looked ridiculous. They all had a hard, white, plastic body. Lined up, the 10 rAIndeer they made looked like a little army of unfinished clay toys.

Those bodies were filled with electronic computer stuff that gave them incredible capabilities that real reindeer do not have.

For example, each one of the could speak 17 different languages. They could calculate any mathematical equation you could feed it, they could dictate Dickens, play videos, radio stations and podcasts, and they knew by heart every cookie recipe known to man on the planet.

Physically, they were something to behold.

They never got tired, they never slowed down and they could swim in waters down to 30 feet. Volcanoes could not touch them,  tornados could not tear them apart, and snow and ice could not pile up on their thick, plastic and heated surfaces.

Watching them move was something to behold. Against regular reindeer they could jump higher and further, they could run longer, and if an object like a fence or a building got in their way they used complex propulsion motors to just get around it.

So why isn’t Santa using rAIndeer instead of reindeer?

Because they were long on artificial and short on intelligence.

Real reindeer can work as a team, using sleigh bells to power their rhythm. They can judge landing distance, use the trade winds and navigate by the stars in the night sky.

Oh, that’s another thing, too. The rAIndeer were solar powered. They couldn’t fly at night. That was just one reason why Santa said he would never use anything but natural reindeer to fly his sleigh. Santa has to work at night.

The rAIndeer, for all their intelligence, could never figure out how to work with each other.

In fact, when hitched to sleigh the rAIndeer would compete with each other rather than learning to pull together. That meant they could go fast but get nowhere in the process. Each time they went up they ended up flying in circles as their circuitry overloaded and they “flew” to beat each other. Their “intelligence” couldn’t grasp the idea of teamwork.

They had weird names. RuBot, DashBot, DanceBot, PranceBot, VixBot, ComBot, CuBot, DonBot and BlitzBot. Santa just couldn’t call them out and when he tried they all turned their heads and said, “How can I assist you today?” They just didn’t understand the word “go”.

In short, the rAIndeer Project was an utter failure and now their hollowed out bodies are planters in front of the offices of Research and Development (the petunias they hold are lovely).

The rAIndeer Project was secret for a long time but Santa had a video made of the tests they held with the robot reindeer and passed it around to every department considering the use of AI.

Several departments have been messing with this technology. The North Pole Post Office, the Wrapping Department and even North Pole Flight Command were all tinkering with AI.

Santa has made them stop. He put in place a rule: no AI for anything but tools. AI can not be used to develop a replacement for an elf of any kind.

ElfBot is a tool. An imperfect tool. But it’s just that, like any other tool, such as a wrench or a screwdriver.

You, as a tracker elf, could never be replaced by a bot.

Me, as a reporter elf, can never be replaced by a bot.

Reindeer, workshop elves, or any other kind of elf cannot be replaced by AI in any way, shape or form.

You see, as elves, we all have brains AND heart.

Including Santa.

That’s what separates us from AI. That’s what makes our work possible in helping Santa get around the world.

It’s not just because we’re physical. It’s because we’re smart. And we’re important. And we want to serve others.

AI can never do that.

Years ago I got my start in the news business quite by accident.

I was working in the North Pole Post Office and there we received lots of letters that were not FOR Santa but were ABOUT Santa. They still get these kinds of letters.

They were letters from kids with doubts. Or from people who just didn’t believe. Or from those who just wanted to mock believers or belief in Santa Claus.

One day a particularly nasty letter arrived. I read it and I got mad. So I answered it.

I didn’t realize the letter came from a real reporter for a newspaper in Chicago. He took my letter and published it in the newspaper there.

Santa, of course, heard about it.

And he got upset with me a little bit. Not because I defended him and Christmas but because I used a few choice words that maybe kinda sorta were not nice and that overall I was sort of mean in what I wrote.

But I was mad. And, being a young elf then, there was no way I was going to let Santa be bullied.

Well, long story short, Santa thought I might be a good person to answer the harsh letters that came in. Over the period of a couple of years I was coached by Santa about how to answer those letters. He was always nicer than me in answering letters, that’s for sure.

But as I continued in the work of defending Santa I began to notice something. I noticed that bad letters seemed to follow bad news at the North Pole.

For example, years and years ago, we had to first outbreak of the Bah Humbug virus. This was long before Covid and a hundred times worse. The Bah Humbug virus attacked elves at the North Pole and it not only made them sick and miserable but it caused them to hate Christmas. Talk about a fever.

That Christmas was a tough one as the North Pole fought for months to hold back the virus but nothing worked. Elves began skipping out on work and the entire Santa effort that year was put in jeopardy. That was BAD news.

And sure enough, bad letters came in.

The same thing happened the year of the 6-month long blizzard. Or the year the sleigh wouldn’t fly. Or the year someone kept pranking North Pole departments with things like maple syrup and super glue.

In each instance, bad letters seemed to come on the heels of bad news.

Well, guess what?

I’ve got bad news. Real bad news.

And you guys need to be aware of it. You’re elves. You need to be in the know. Bad news is here, bad news is coming and we all – as elves – need to know what to do about it.

So, first of all, what’s the bad news?

The bad news is the crisis in Santa’s Workshop. You’re going to read a lot about it between now and when Santa flies.

It is going to be a rough ride the next few months.

How did we get here?

Well, to understand you need to know how the world of stuff works. It takes raw materials to make toys. Things like plastic, cardboard, metal, wood, and all kinds of glues, tiny screws and little clips. We make all that stuff here at the North Pole but in order to make those things we have to have plastic, cardboard, metals, and wood.

That stuff is the problem. It has been hard this year to get enough plastic, cardboard, metals and wood.

None of that stuff is at the North Pole. If we could make things out of snow and ice and water, we would be set. But we can’t.

I can tell you right now the letters we are going to get. Many are going to ask, “Why is Santa at the North Pole? If that stuff is so important, why wouldn’t Santa base his workshop where that stuff is?

The answer to that is simple. Plastics come from places like China. Rubber is from places like Thailand. Wood comes from Canada and Brazil and parts of Africa. All of this stuff comes from all over.

The reason Santa is at the North Pole is because it is central to all those places. It is central to everywhere. From the North Pole “everywhere” is south. Santa is at the North Pole not only because it makes him capable of flying anywhere in the world quickly but because it’s easy to ship things to the North Pole than anywhere on earth.

Think about it.

At the end of the day, my sad experience is that people aren’t really going to care for the details we give about the big, bad news story.

They just are scared that Christmas isn’t going to happen. That’s the real problem with bad news. People are scared.

My job – and your job – as elves – is to help people NOT be scared.

And the answer then is this: Santa never fails. Never.

He’s coming. There will be toys. You can take that to the bank.

To help them feel better you don’t need to explain about plastics and supply chains and workshop locations. You need to explain that believing in Santa is all that we need.

That’s it. That’s the answer.

Just believe.