Produced and directed by my friend (and former colleague) Thaddeus Cooper and his partner Kevin Kreitman, this award-winning 90-minute documentary (subtitled The Real Story of the Beautiful Game of Skee-Ball) is the culmination of thirteen years of meticulous research, writing, and production. It tells the fascinating—and unexpectedly involved—story of how “the 116 year old game of Skee-Ball survived wars, depressions, [and] tech revolutions to become the most beloved game in arcade history.”

The documentary is based on Thad and Kevin’s 464-page book on the history of Skee-Ball, so calling this documentary “deeply researched” is truly a massive understatement. It uses hundreds of historic photographs, newspaper clippings, even personal letters—some from Thad’s own collection—to give life to the narrative. I was thoroughly engrossed. Who knew there was so much history behind this ubiquitous arcade game?

And the Ball Rolls On…: The Real Story of the Beautiful Game of Skee-Ball is now available for purchase or rent on AppleTV, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube.

Yours truly, on the pattern-based bullshit of AI chatbots:

Our acceptance of this BS as truth is dictated both by our knowledge of the topic at hand and our personal level of skepticism.

My friend (and former colleague) Thaddeus Cooper, after spending multiple hours querying ChatGPT about the history of Skee-Ball:

So far, ChatGPT has:

• misidentified the inventor of Skee-Ball
• created references to a non-existant game called Newcomb’s Parlor Table
• incorrectly identified the authors of “Seeking Redemption: The Real Story of the Beautiful Game of Skee-Ball”
• stated that the book “Seeking Redemption: The Real Story of the Beautiful Game of Skee-Ball” contains a section talking about Newcomb’s Parlor Table, which it doesn’t
• invented two articles that never existed AND provided fake links to those articles
• and finally, it produced a third article and attributed the website to the American Skee-Ball League (which doesn’t exist) in supporting evidence of Newcomb’s Parlor Table.

Thad’s conclusion:

This lengthy interaction shows that it will make up information at will and present it as fact. And, when asked to produce a source it will fabricate one for the fake information. The AI researchers have a name for this. They call it hallucinating. Frankly I call it lying.

ChatGPT picked the worst person to lie to about Skee-Ball. Thad is the co-author of Seeking Redemption: The Real Story of the Beautiful Game of Skee-Ball, a “464 page tome” about the game. There may be no one on the planet more knowledgeable about its history.