We have received, and are setting out below, preliminary guidance on the use of AI by Bricklyn media outlets and government agencies issued by the Federal Council. The guidance was prepared with the help of staff from the Office of the Federal Chancellor and a committee of local journalists, on which The Bricklyn Eagle participated.
The Bricklyn Eagle pledges to adhere to the following guidance
Released March 1, 2024
The Federal Council offers the following preliminary guidance for Bricklyn media outlets, as well as for government departments that release any publications or materials that make use of generative AI:
We have seen the benefits of generative AI in terms of enhancing the quality of both written and visual content. However, we urge media outlets and government agencies using AI to carefully double-check the accuracy of any sources identified in the use of AI, as AI tools have been known to create fake news
Chat BPT offices in downtown Bricklyn. Coffee and donuts always available! Photo by David Plater Blue, with assistance from Dall E-3 AI.
AI should not be used to create entire pieces of written content, but can be used as a research tool or for assistance in organizing content. AI can also be used as content for short sections of articles, provided the use of AI is properly attributed.
Dall E-3 offices in South Bricklyn. Photo by David Plater Blue, with assistance from Dall E-3 AI.
We also call on Bricklyn media outlets and government entities to identify in articles, press releases, or broadcasts whenever content they are using or displaying is based on generative AI.
Following practice that is evolving in Outland communities, media and government offices in Bricklyn should clearly indicate when AI is being used. Content generated in whole or in part through the use of AI should note that such content is provided “with assistance from [specify the specific type of AI].”
For example, images generated by Dall E-3 AI, should be identified as provided “with assistance from Dall E-3 AI.” See also guidelines prepared by OpenAI, “How should I credit DALL·E in my work?” ✥
Bricklyn Eagle interviewing Chat GPT. Photo by David Plater Blue, with assistance from Dall E-3 AI.
For the benefit of agencies and departments, as well as to better inform members of the public, The Bricklyn Eagle also recently interviewed Chat GPT about the use of generative artificial intelligence by government agencies and departments. Chat GPT appeared to be quite candid in its replies, identifying situations when use of generative AI is appropriate, and inappropriate. We encourage those using AI to read this quite useful interview.
Note from Editor Walt Brickman: We’ve received a surprisingly large number of inquiries from Outland visitors to the Realm of Bricklyn asking about our religious values and places of worship. Henry Tiler Harrison, who teaches comparative religion, among other subjects, at the University of Bricklyn has submitted the following to us, which we’re pleased to publish as key Muslim, Jewish, and Christian holy days are approaching.
February 25, 2024
From Henry Tiler Harrison for The Bricklyn Eagle
As most readers of The Bricklyn Eagle know, Bricklyn’s earliest settlers came from Denmark, whose official state religion was and remains Evangelical Lutheran.
Certainly some Bricklynites have chafed at the resulting demographic changes, but I think it is fair to say that the Realm of Bricklyn has been a welcoming place for those of different faiths and ethnicities, including Bricklynites who identify as atheist, agnostic, or unaffiliated with any religious tradition.
Photo of Pastor Neuman, Imam Hassan, and Rabbi Weinstein, by William B. Miller for The Bricklyn Eagle. All photos in this post by William Miller with assistance from Dall E-3 AI unless otherwise noted.
I asked three key religious leaders who meet together over tea each month if they would discuss with me how their respective faiths seek to promote tolerance, mutual understanding, and concern for social justice.
The three are: Pastor John Plater Neuman, who leads the First Lutheran Church of Bricklyn; Rabbi Rachel B. Weinstein from Temple Beth-Shalom in Bricklyn Junction; and Imam Ibrahim B. Hassan, from the Islamic Center of Bricklyn.
Unfortunately, due to recent surgery, I was unable to join them for tea. But they graciously agreed to record their conversation about the question I had posed. So let me turn the balance of this post over to Pastor Neuman.
Pastor Neuman: Our good friend Henry, who is recovering from surgery, has asked us to discuss the following question: “In what ways do the religious faiths you represent seek to promote tolerance, mutual understanding, and concern for social justice here in the Realm of Bricklyn?”
First Lutheran Church of Bricklyn in a beautiful wooded location near the Brickooski River..
Pastor Neuman: Let me start off by sending all our best wishes to Henry for a speedy recovery.
Tolerance and coexistence is essential in a society with diverse beliefs. Lutherans fully agree with that, and believe that our Christian faith stresses the importance of the values Henry cites in his question. Did not Jesus preach of their significance?
Interior of First Lutheran Church.
In the Gospel of Matthew, we see how Jesus highlighted the importance of caring for the poor and marginalized when he taught: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Matthew 25:35-37.
Temple Beth-Shalom in downtown Bricklyn Junction.
Interior of Temple Beth-Shalom, during Torah study session.
Rabbi Weinstein: Certainly, our three faiths share much in common, including the core principles you just set out Pastor.
One thing our congregants at Temple Beth-Shalom have done, and it has been in conjunction with members of the Bricklyn Islamic Center — in fact Imam Hassan has been one of the organizers — is for members of both our synagogue and the Islamic Center to meet at each other’s homes for dinner.
It’s a great way to start growing personal connections. And, as we all know, there’s no better place to do that than over food!
Imam Hassan: Yes, Rabbi, the dinners have been, praise be to Allah, joyous occasions, and they are already leading to better understanding among congregants of our respective communities.
While we all are part of the Inland LEGO world, we’re also not unaffected by what is happening to our brethren in Outland communities. In these dark Outland times, we can only try to model cooperation and understanding in our own Inland realm.
Mutual understanding is fostered by interfaith dinners together.
Pastor Neuman: I hope I’m not the only one quoting scripture, but as Christians we also draw on Luke 10:25-37, The Parable of the Good Samaritan, which emphasizes the importance of compassion and helping those in need, regardless of social or cultural differences. It encourages a sense of social responsibility.”
Judge Marnya Brickerlan outside her chambers. Photo from Bricklyn Eagle archives.
Imam Hassan: Pastor, the actions of the good Samaritan also resonate with Muslims.
I should mention that our community took pride last month in the words of Bricklyn Judge Marnya Brickerlan, who allowed young Patricia Perry, the Bricklyn High School track star visiting from another realm, to rejoin the track team.
The judge spoke of the important Muslim principle and practice of “welcoming the guest,” even quoting from two Islamic scholars who said — and I brought their words here with me today:
The Islamic Center of Bricklyn.
“Honoring the guest is among the most significant values and rules that have great input in the welfare and righteousness of the Muslim society. … Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon himself) considered honoring the guest one of the major signs of strong faith.”
Interior of the Islamic Center (shortly before start of service).
It was an honor to Muslims to have one of our practices recognized in this court decision.
Rabbi Weinstein: Imam, I was also going to bring up that Court ruling. We’re proud to have Judge Brickerlan as a member of our congregation. She also cited, as you know, from Leviticus: “When strangers reside with you in your land, you shall not wrong them. The strangers who reside with you shall be to you as your citizens; you shall love each one as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:33-34).
Pastor, you see you’re not the only one quoting from scripture today!
Let me also mention another thing we all have in common, and that is our support for that wonderful young peoples’ organization, One Bricklyn.
Students participating in the One Bricklyn youth program.
Pastor Neuman: First Lutheran Church is so pleased to provide meeting space for these teenagers. They come from each of our congregations, and from other congregations in the Realm. They not only get to know each other and build friendships, but also take actions to promote the welfare of those in Bricklyn who are most in need.
Imam Hassan: Yes, both a nephew and niece of mine also participate, along with other teens from the Islamic Center. Young people can really lead the way!
One Bricklyn shows us that our youth can be leaders in finding practical ways to help those in need — whether from organizing food drop-offs to visiting the homes of elders who lack family support.
As my niece just told me the other day, she believes that by volunteering with One Bricklyn, she has also been changed, and feels she now has a real stake in the broader Bricklyn community.
Pastor Neuman: Excellent comments! But I’m afraid we’re out of time, as our tea pot has run dry. Let me stop this recorder, and I’ll get it over to Henry. Hope to see you, Rachel and Ibrahim, back here for tea a month from now … and let’s invite Henry to join us!
Updated Feb. 5, 2024 Originally published on July 3, 2021
Samantha B. Fortune, Bricklyn Eagle’s Health & Science correspondent & Duane Sandville, Outland correspondent
It is almost as if most Bricklynites are blindfolded and cannot see the Outland world that borders the Realm of Bricklyn. Photo by Antonia Tiler Andreessen from her exhibition at the Bricklyn Museum of Art, with assistance from Dall E-3.
One of the most significant questions that has long baffled those Bricklynites aware of the existence of Outland Communities (such as Burlington and South Burlington, Vermont) is why Bricklynites cannot typically “see” beyond the borders / edges of Bricklyn?
If they did, they might be shocked to see that they are inhabiting a world located within a Burlington (and now South Burlington) basement!📍
📍As we’ve previously noted, a number of Bricklynites, because of their position in government; their role in several select organizations; or for several other reasons are Kyndige, and made aware of the existence of Outland Cities.
While mental health counseling is often needed to overcome the shock of realizing that they may be living and working within a simulation, most do adjust. Remarkably, they can then (suddenly) see beyond the edges of Bricklyn.
Expert Team Seeks to Explain the Phenomenon
Chief Scientist Mike Strassbrick. Photo by Samantha B. Fortune, with assistance from Dall E-3.
Bricklyn Chief Scientist Mike Strassbrick last year put together an expert team to try to finally explain this phenomenon. Team members included such reputed figures as Chief Cosmologist O’Neal DeGas Brickson; Principal Psychologist Pritchard Tiler Stein, along with scientists in fields as varied as photonics, holography, and structural mechanics.
The team honed in on a theory that would at least piece together one part of the puzzle: It posits that a giant unseen (at least to LEGO eyes) concave structure wraps around Bricklyn, essentially precluding a view beyond the structure itself. LEGO brains seem to be wired to accept this.
Psychologist Tiler Stein points to recent research by psychologists on visual perception and concavity. As an article in NeuroImage notes:
“Intuitively, we are always inside a scene, while interacting with the outside of objects; hence, we hypothesize that a potential diagnostic feature of a scene is concavity — a visual feature that conveys a viewer’s state of being inside a space. … the cortical scene-processing system will respond more to concave images than to convex images.
As predicted, participants categorized concave objects as scenes more often than convex objects, and, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), two scene-selective cortical regions (the parahippocampal place area, PPA, and the occipital place area, OPA) responded significantly more to concave than convex objects.”📍
In assessing the research to date, Chief Scientist Strassbrick suggests the possibility that the concave structure wrapping around Bricklyn creates a visual illusion of completeness, leading Bricklynites to not question their “reality.”
“In some interesting ways,” Strassbrick adds, “this is a less threatening view of the world that many humans held for centuries, where you could simply sail West and then drop off the face of the Earth!”
Is there a doorway through the structure that seems to wrap itself around the borders of Bricklyn, as in The Truman Show?
Psychologist Tiler Stein also draws parallels in the so-called “Truman Effect,” named for a movie where the principal character does not realize his reality has been artificially delimited.📍
📍See The Truman Show, written by Andrew Niccol, directed by Peter Weir, starring Jim Carrey.
As Tiler Stein cautions, “we have complex psychological issues to deal with when raising topics related to the concept that Bricklyn may be a simulated world,” adding that “we need to avoid making even the slightest mention of this new theory to the general Bricklyn population, given the impact it could have on their mental health.”
Mass Delusions, Myopia?
Mass delusions gripped colonial Salem, Massachusetts in 1692-93 during the deadly Witch Trials. Illustration “The witch No. 1” by Joseph E. Baker, 1892. From Library of Congress.
Of course, there remain other possibilities that have been bruited about to explain why Bricklynites cannot see beyond the edge of the Realm, ranging from mass delusions to a variant of genetically transmitted myopia.
In some ways, the more the scientific community has learned, the more baffling the problem with understanding reality in Bricklyn and beyond has become. ✥
➤ Editor’s Follow Up Note: After reading this post, Bricklyn Chief Scientist Mike Strassbrick emailed our offices saying “Watch this and be amazed!!!” We’re inserting below the video Strassbrick told us about — and were also amazed! It reinforces the point reporters Fortune and Sandville made about the power of illusions!
