I am having coffee in a little shop in Hell’s Kitchen and three people came in and were chatting. I couldn’t see them (around a corner), but I could hear them because the place was empty and I was the only other person.
Clearly one of them was in a play. These were my clues:
“You have to remember this was written 30 years ago”
“These are friends in Paris”
“In the first scene, I ask him ‘Why are you laughing?’”
So I asked GPT what it could be. And it nailed it.
That’s Art by Yasmina Reza (1994). It’s about three Parisian friends whose friendship fractures after one buys an all-white painting; early on there’s a laugh/“why are you laughing?” exchange that kicks off the argument. A starry Broadway revival is currently running at the Music Box Theatre (Bobby Cannavale, James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris), a limited engagement through December 21, 2025.
Within a few minutes, it was clear that they were indeed talking about Art.
It was one of the stars (not putting their name) and some friends. I don’t bug famous people, so I did nothing and went back to work, but it’s a surreal how easily GPT figured out the play with so little context.
I am an obsessively curious person, yet I’m benign (I’d like to think). However, I’m not sure how I feel about everyone being able to get so much information so easily.
It’s impossible to overstate just how disruptive multimodal AI will be to our lives. With audio, photos, or video, AI can instantly and automatically derive a lot more than humanity has experienced before… every day that passes its abilities will increase.
Another quick example using the main image of this post that I took in the coffee shop:
For example: “I took this photo inside a store. What store do you think it is?”
Answer:
Bird & Branch (359 W 45th St, Hell’s Kitchen).
Reason: through the window you can see the blue‑and‑white striped awning with “Schm…”—that’s Schmackary’s, which sits across the street. Bird & Branch is right opposite it, and the interior (window bar, columns, small round penny‑tile tables) matches what’s in your photo.
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