{"id":1585,"date":"2026-04-06T09:36:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T16:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/?p=1585"},"modified":"2026-04-06T09:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T16:38:18","slug":"ai-the-eight-circle-of-hell-malebolge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/?p=1585","title":{"rendered":"AI &#038; The Eight Circle of Hell (Malebolge)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">The opposite of wisdom is fraud. Dante said that. As such, using AI to write (according to Dante\u2019s thinking) would be worthy of &#8216;Malebolge&#8217;, Dante\u2019s designation for those who have committed fraud, whom he calls \u2018evil-sacks&#8217;. Dante must have given this a lot of thought for he has designated many different types of fraudsters\u2014seducers, sorcerers, unscrupulous politicians, deceivers, and falsifiers\u2026the last two almost certainly being reserved for those who use AI to write and pretend they do not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Robert Durling developed the idea that \u201call of hell is depicted as having a structure parallel to that of the human body,\u201d which makes Malebolge for its location near the nether regions, somewhere near the anus, or the anus itself. If I remember correctly his piece is entitled: \u201cDeceit and Digestion in the Belly of Hell.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Back to the eight circle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Right in the middle of a field, <i>vaneggia un pozzo assai largo e profondo<\/i>\u2026 We have a deep, dark well and down at its pit, naked sinners\u2014for some reason I imagine a big naked politician with flowing orange hair. There are also horned demons with great scourges, who <i>cruelly were beating them behind<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">A note on the translation. The version I am using is the Darmouth translation. The actual Italian says: <i>li battien crudelmente di retro<\/i>. Given that <i>battere<\/i> (verb) means to beat but also to \u201cbang them\/prostitute them\u201d\u2026 and the Italian original has the article <i>di<\/i>\u2014from\u2014<i>retro<\/i>, maybe Dante intended that <i>the demons were cruelly \u201cfill in the blanks\u201d them from behind, <\/i>especially as the canto continues with how the sinners were forced to lift their legs\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">No matter. Pain was being inflicted and the scope of this little Dantesque rant was to discourage you from using AI to write. The eight circle is not a fun place.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u2014Except Dante and Durling any reference or resemblance to\u00a0actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><br \/>\n\u2014 Featured Image, Demon Feasting, Zentangle, DP.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Malebolge, Fraud, and Artificial Intelligence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1585"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1587,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions\/1587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}