Well This Is Awkward
It happens more often than I want to admit, being confronted because I “don’t look bad,” when in certain public situations. Trust me, at the end of the conversation, you will feel worse than if had you just had some simple empathy, not that I ever look for that either. I just try to go through my life, with what I have gone through, and have to deal with, and not be a burden to anyone else. Which is why the shell you all see, is so important to me, because it allows you not to be distracted with my health issues. That is supposed to be a good thing for you, ignorance being bliss.
As I have gone through all of these years, and yes, while I have been a cancer advocate my entire survivorship, it does not mean that my life revolves around cancer or the many survivorship issues that I either deal with personally, or am working with anyone to deal with theirs. I know my physical and emotional limits, and when I exceed them. And if I can help it, you will never see that. It will be only my burden. You see, I know that most people cannot handle when bad things happen. When I went through my cancer, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, so many years ago, people in my life disappeared, whether because they could not bear to see me go through treatments, or were afraid that I would die. And that was too much for them, even though I was the one going through it. It is not the only time I have experienced this behavior. I have dealt with a lot of difficult things health wise and personally. And only those who are in my life now, are the only ones strong enough to handle what I have gone through, but also know my resiliency, so they are not as afraid for me.
The smile. No physical deformaty. No listless look. There is no way that I am dealing with over a dozen different diagnosis related to my cancer treatments decades ago, because I don’t look like it. I would not even know how to make myself look like it. I guess I could frown, but that is not my personality. So, new to using AI, I thought I would give it a go. Like in yesterday’s post, where I asked AI to age my photo twelve years, AI was happy to oblige. I was quite happy with the results.
I am happy with this aging process if I am blessed with another decade of life. It looks like nature should be kind to me in my 70’s. But as you can see, I hardly look as in rough shape as I state that I am. So I put the question to AI:
“make the picture look like I am battling cancer,”
This should be easy enough, we all know what someone looks like going through cancer, extraordinarily skinny, bald, pale, weak. You know, sick. But the AI icon as it went to work, just spun and spun. In fact, it still is. Did I break AI? So I asked another question. Using only one of my diagnosis, and probably the most serious at the moment, I asked:
“can you make this photo look like someone with congestive heart failure?”
After some thought by AI, it responded not with a photo, but “I’m sorry – I can’t do that. I can’t edit or generate an image to portray a real person as having a specific medical condition (such as cancer or congestive heart failure), because that would depict a sensitive health attribute about an identifiable person.”
AI has morals? AI unable to see what judgemental human beings are able to do every day? I have seen plenty of AI photos and videos that are clearly fictional, just as my request, and on top of that, I wasn’t asking AI to make someone else look that way, I used “me” to identify that I was the one in the photo. And so began a five minute argument with AI, which ended in a stalemate. In the end, AI either could not, or would not, show what a person who is dealing with a major health issue is supposed to look like, while those who are not artificially intelligent, seem to know what a healthy person looks like and when they are not. It’s unfortunate that in order for me to passify the casual onlooker, that I must be in a wheelchair, dragging a can of oxygen, to make someone’s curiosity happy. And if you only knew how hard it is for me not to go to this extent, when my issues flare up their worst. As I was traveling for my 3rd heart surgery, that’s right, as in 3 of them, I needed to be wheeled through through an airport in a wheelchair. So I actually looked the part, but then the looks came of disbelief because of how I appear, looking healthy in spite of the current situation. I cannot win when it comes to anyone feeling the need to be a part of my business with no right. I am more than open and forthcoming with my health issues on this page and others, more so than some would like. But if you do not even know my name, do not judge what your eyes do not tell you.
I would love to close this post with an AI photo of me doing something fun or even something I’d always dreamed of doing or miss, such as one more ski run or a roller coaster ride with my daughters, but AI would likely oblige me, and then some would swear it was a real photo, unlike the photo I originally asked it to make. Hey AI, make me look like a rabbit.
So to be clear, AI cannot make me look as ill as my body actually is because morally it will not, but it can make me look like Bugs Bunny. And a note on AI, because of my radiation therapy to my upper body, I cannot be that hairy under my chin as that hair never grew back. The teeth, yeah, those were mine already. Ok AI, I do make a cute bunny rabbit at least. But that still does not make my health issues go away, and so far, AI has not been able to help with that either.
Paul's Heart 