I was “talking” to AI about the TV-series, Xena, The Warrior Princess, and whether it had any pets in it.

It answered quickly and without hesitation:

While “Xena: Warrior Princess” did not prominently feature any pets as main characters, there were some animals that appeared in the series. For example, in one episode, Xena and Gabrielle come across a group of horses that have been stolen from a nearby village. They make it their mission to return the horses to their rightful owners and restore peace to the land. In another episode, Xena and Gabrielle encounter a magical creature called a “firebird” that has been captured and is being used for evil purposes. They work to free the firebird and return it to its natural habitat. While animals and pets were not a central part of the show, they did occasionally make appearances and play a small role in some episodes.

Wanting to have more information on this firebird episode, I googled it, and it turned out to be completely false! Xena never saved a firebird… when presenting ChatGPT with this error, asking which episode does it think has this story, it gave me an existing episode title, but it had a totally different story. Even when I linked in the right summary, it kept creating new ones. It was bizarre.

Lesson here is that always always double check your sources, never take anything on its face value, even if it’s an AI that supposedly knows everything about everything.

But the story it made up, a magical firebird that was captured and kept for evil purposes, reminded me how many dogs are in this situation: they are kept by evil/ignorant people, and need saving. And the ones saving them are more heroes than Xena has ever been. Because they are heroic without super strength or a pre-written happy ending.

Some have a big organisation around them, saving all kinds of animals, getting regular support. Others are alone in this, trying to keep going day by day. Some save one special friend they met, others do their best during a war (see The heroines for Ukrainian animals). But all united in doing their best for the pets in our charge.

If you can take one thing away from me this month, let it be my ask to remember to support any heroes rescuing dogs. They need us to be able to help.

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This post is part of the A to Z blogging challenge of April 2023.
Topic of this year is “The AI, the dog and the witchling”, real and fictional stories partially written/inspired by Artificial Intelligence, featuring Mia and Missy.
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