Astrology and a bunch of liars
For over a month, my ears have been hearing two ads relentlessly on YouTube. Election manifesto campaigns of the parties belonging to Tamil Nadu and the AstroTalk (AI-assisted astro consulting services) app. And I intend to discuss the second one today. The Tamil version of the video features Kiki Vijay, a famous media personality and daughter-in-law of ace director Bhagyaraj, eating at a restaurant. The conversation is between her and an unknown person whose face was not featured. Anonymous: “Madam, enakku indha astrology mela ellam oru nambikkai illai.” (I don’t trust things like astrology.) Kiki: “Appidiya??” (She wipes her hands with a towel.) “Oru bet vechikalama?” She opens her phone and clicks on the astro app. The anonymous person chats with an astrologer, which I suspect is an AI, and appears to be shocked because the “astrologer” was able to backcast events which happened in the anonymous person’s life 6 years ago. And the ad ends. NON-SENSE was what I said to myself. A...