These ARE the AI droids you were looking for...

 

The painting that introduced “Star Wars” to the world nearly 50 years ago — and was reproduced in an iconic movie poster — sold at auction on Wednesday for $3.875 million.

The acrylic and airbrush painting by the artist and movie poster designer Tom Jung first appeared in newspaper advertisements on May 13, 1977, a little less than two weeks before the space epic created by George Lucas opened. It also adorned billboards, magazine ads and theater programs.

If you are reading this blog you most likely already know that “Star Wars” is one of the highest-grossing movie franchises of all time. The original was followed by sequels and prequels, and spawned offshoot books, movies and other series. Its fans span the globe.

One side of the painting shows Skywalker holding up a lightsaber behind Princess Leia. Darth Vader looms over them in the background. On the other, a team of X-wing starfighters is launching an attack. Han Solo and Skywalker are depicted receiving medals. And the droids? What about the AI droids that everyone was looking for??? You know, the two AI droids that saved the universe???

In the lower right hand corner of the painting are R2-D2 and C-3PO, which were added at the last minute. The droids are absent from the early reproductions of the painting and later appeared when the movie poster and the billboards were produced. 

I was 17 years old when I first saw "Star Wars" in the theater 48 years ago. I remember like it was yesterday how I felt about R2-D2 and C-3PO. How these AI powered droids were such a big part of the movie, and how AI was such a big part of the future. My future.

Just a few months after Star Wars I was off to PURDUE in West Lafayette, Indiana. I remember taking Computer Science as a 17 year old Freshman. And learning Fortran.

FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) was the first widely used high-level programming language, developed by IBM in the 1950s to help scientists and engineers write code for complex mathematical and scientific computations, allowing them to use more human-readable algebraic notation instead of cumbersome machine code. It was revolutionary for its efficient compiler that produced fast, optimized code, making programming more accessible, and remains influential and used today in high-performance computing fields like physics and engineering. 

Fortran is still in use today — in Doppler radar weather forecasts and atmospheric and oceanic studies, as well as in simulating nanoparticles, genomes, DNA and atomic structures. Legacy Code: NASA has decades of codebases written in Fortran. Many of these older systems and algorithms are still in use or serve as the foundation for current projects.

Hey Grok: what does everyone need to know about AI?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines, enabling them to perform tasks that typically require human cognition, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making. At its core, AI isn't about creating sentient beings but about building systems that can process data, recognize patterns, and generate outputs efficiently. In 2025, AI has become ubiquitous, powering everything from smartphone features to enterprise operations, but it's essential to understand its foundations, capabilities, and limitations to use it effectively.

Brief History of AI

AI's roots trace back to the 1950s with pioneers like Alan Turing, who pondered if machines could think. Key milestones include:

1956: The Dartmouth Conference, often called the birth of AI as a field.

1960s-70s: Early expert systems and the first "AI winters" due to overhyped expectations and limited computing power.

1990s-2000s: Rise of machine learning (ML) with algorithms like neural networks.

2010s: Deep learning breakthroughs, fueled by big data and GPUs, leading to advancements in image recognition and natural language processing (NLP).

2020s: Generative AI explosion with models like GPT series, making AI accessible to the masses. 

AND SO.............. Think of AI like this: Luke Skywalker PLUS R2-D2 (or C-3PO). A team. To save the universe. Not a universe far far away..... ours. Yours and mine. 

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