Philosopher AI - Why is The Wizard of Oz set in Kansas?

Why is The Wizard of Oz set in Kansas?

The Wizard of Oz is set in Kansas because L. Frank Baum was a native Iowan and the book's characters are based on people he knew in his youth, such as Dorothy Gale who was based on Baum's cousin Matilda Gage.

8 Sep 2020, 03:19

He also incorporated elements of Greek mythology into the plot. The Wicked Witch is very similar to Medusa, and her flying monkeys are based on harpies.

8 Sep 2020, 03:19

Baum's original intention was to write a political novel, but after alienating his publisher by attacking the contemporary social system in an earlier book, he decided to adopt fantasy writing as a means of exploring his ideas.

8 Sep 2020, 03:19

In the early 1900s, Baum moved to Chicago and got a job as an editorial writer for The Tribune. At that time the Republican Party controlled Kansas by rigging election laws, like denying voting rights to black people.

8 Sep 2020, 03:19

The Wicked Witch of the East represents the Republicans who controlled Kansas. The Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Man represent rural citizens.

8 Sep 2020, 03:19

The Good Witch of the North represents the Democrats, who began to take control of Kansas in 1891. Dorothy Gale and Toto represent immigrants from Eastern Europe.

8 Sep 2020, 03:19

You are getting an AI to generate text on different topics.

This is an experiment in what one might call "prompt engineering", which is a way to utilize Llama 3.1 405b, a neural network trained by Meta.

Llama is a language model. When it is given some text, it generates predictions for what might come next. It is remarkably good at adapting to different contexts, as defined by a prompt (in this case, hidden), which sets the scene for what type of text will be generated.

Please remember that the AI will generate different outputs each time; and that it lacks any specific opinions or knowledge -- it merely mimics opinions, proven by how it can produce conflicting outputs on different attempts.

Feel free to share interesting outputs to /r/philosopherAI on Reddit.

by Murat Ayfer