AI Writes a Good Blog about Body-Snatching

My husband and I were recently discussing the claim that Artificial Intelligence (AI) would pretty much destroy mankind. We had a hard time getting our heads around that idea, but we could envision AI writing blogs and other documents. Since I’ve been writing Regency-era blogs for nearly ten years, I decided to test whether Google’s Bard AI writes a good blog about body-snatching. I chose this topic because it’s not too broad in scope. (My blogs about body-snatching can be found here, here, and here.) This is what Google’s Bard AI program wrote in 6 seconds:
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“Body snatching, also known as grave robbing, was a common practice in the Regency period. This was due to the fact that there was a high demand for cadavers for medical research and education. The practice of body snatching was made possible by the fact that there was no law in England that protected the bodies of the dead. This meant that anyone could dig up a grave and take the body, without fear of prosecution.

Body snatchers, or “resurrectionists” as they were known, would often operate at night. They would sneak into graveyards and dig up the graves of recently buried bodies. The bodies would then be taken to medical schools, where they would be used for dissection and research.

Body snatching was a dangerous and often violent profession. Resurrectionists had to be careful not to be caught by the authorities, and they also had to be careful not to be attacked by the families of the deceased.

The practice of body snatching came to an end in the mid-19th century, when the Anatomy Act was passed. This act made it legal for medical schools to obtain cadavers from the government, which effectively ended the need for body snatchers. Despite its illegality, body snatching was a common practice in the Regency period. It was a dangerous and often violent profession, but it was also a necessary one, as it provided cadavers for medical research and education.

Here are some of the reasons why body snatching was so common in the Regency period:

— There was a high demand for cadavers for medical research and education.
— There was no law in England that protected the bodies of the dead.
— Body snatching was a relatively easy crime to commit.
— The penalties for body snatching were relatively light.
— Body snatching had a number of negative consequences. It was a desecration of the dead, and it caused a great deal of distress to the families of the deceased. It also led to a number of legal problems, as there was no clear law on the matter.

Despite the negative consequences, body snatching played an important role in the development of medicine. It provided cadavers for medical research and education, which helped to advance the understanding of human anatomy and physiology.

Today, body snatching is no longer a problem, as there are legal ways to obtain cadavers for medical research and education. However, the practice of body snatching in the Regency period is a reminder of the dark side of human nature, and it is a testament to the importance of the law.”
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Here’s my summary of Bard’s AI report:

1) Bard’s AI writes a good blog about body-snatching during the Regency era. It uses concise language in a well-organized fashion.

2) Bard AI did not hyphenate the word “body-snatcher.” It used two separate words instead. By comparison, I hyphenated the word in all of my blogs. Of the books and novels about body-snatchers that appear on Amazon, some include a hyphen, some don’t, and some use two words. Thus, there is no standard spelling of the word “body-snatcher.” Bard AI had a choice and exercised it.

3) For all that Bard AI wrote a good summary of Regency-era bodysnatching, I feel as if something important has been left out: a description of the body-snatchers themselves. For example, in the Southwark area of London (south of the River Thames), the most successful Regency-era body-snatcher was Ben Crouch. He ran a gang of body-snatchers known as the Borough Boys who regularly pilfered graves in Southwark’s Crossbones Cemetery. Crouch was ruthless in his drive to earn good money, for he liked wearing fancy shirts and drinking good wine. Body-snatching was his surest way to enjoy the high life. Furthermore, the reader of Bard AI’s content doesn’t get a sense of the enormous amount of money a successful body-snatcher could make in a single night. You can read about their income here.

4) Bard’s AI description mentions the “distress to the families” due to the desecration of their dead, but the truth is that most families never knew their loved one’s body had been stolen from its grave. That’s because the body-snatchers were careful to restore the dirt and any trinkets to their original appearance after the body had been dug up and removed. Thus, many bereaved families wept over empty coffins and never knew it.

My conclusion: I am gobsmacked by Bard AI’s discussion of Regency era body-snatching! It’s short (428 words), concise, and informative. Not bad for 6 seconds of work. Having seen what Bard’s AI can do, I now wonder whether I’m dead in the water (as they say) as a blogger. What do you think?