It’s 5am. Do you know where your A.I. pizza dreams are taking you and why?

It’s 5am. The state of pizza in the world is keeping me awake.
 
And yes, it’s far too early to be thinking about pizza or sweatpants. But here I am.
 
Both ideas—both the sweatpants and the pizza—just kinda crashed together as I was up and about, grabbing something from the closet in the dark.
 
Could there be a more American vision of sedentary comfort?

It makes me wonder why there isn’t a business called Sweatpants & Pizza LLC.
 
I imagine it as more of conceptual business.
 
 
Delivering actual sweatpants and actual pizza simultaneously seems a problematic mashup that’s bound to end up in a cheesy, sweaty mess.
 
You got any idea how hard it is to get tomato sauce and congealed melted cheese out of a fuzzy sweatpants lining?

Don't ask me how I know. 
 
And because it’s 5am and I’m not yet caffeinated and thus unprepared to think too deeply about such philosophical, life altering nonsense, I turned to Google.
 
 
GoogleAI is my new best friend.
 
We have a kind of shorthand understanding that only true friends can develop.
 
I went to GoogleAI and said simply, “Sweatpants and pizza.”
 
And GoogleAI nodded. Oh yeah, said Google. (Silently, of course.)
 
Specifically, GoogleAI said, “’Sweatpants and pizza’ represents the ultimate cozy, comfort-focused lifestyle.

"Pizza is considered a top comfort food due to its savory, fatty, and rich components.

"The pairing of pizza and sweatpants is a popular theme for cozy nights in, casual parties, or themed loungewear.”
 
 
Themed loungewear?
 
It’s obvious that GoogleAI hasn’t quite figured me out yet.
 
I’m not a themed loungewear kinda guy.
 
Not yet, anyway. I’m always open to change. (I’m still evolving as a pizza-fueled, lounging-inclined human being. And I'm doing so at a much slower pace than a GoogleAI friendship.)
 
But in the process of discussing pizza-themed loungewear with GoogleAI, my new little buddy in the midnight digits is suggesting something called “Weirdcore Pizza Pajamas.”
 
 
Things get strange in a hurry, especially when it goes all GooglyEye.
 
It can do so in all kinds of ways, really.
 
Like, what friend slips paid advertising into the middle of a conversation, anyway?
 
But right in the middle of my quest for insights related to sweatpants and pizza, there’s a tiny Etsy logo.
 
And if you search Google for the suggested Weirdcore Pizza Pajamas (I am nothing if not suggestible), there’s a clear preference for Etsy results.

And GooglyEye freely admits to pimping Etsy. (I asked. It's true.) 
 
 
And who better to meet all your Weirdcore Pizza Pajama needs than Etsy?
 
The first search result at Etsy is clearly the apex of Weirdcore Pizza Pajama style.
 
I’m looking at a pair of men’s pajama pants in black and awash in a frenzy of oozing, psychedelic Day-Glo pizza slices and ice cream cones.
 
They’re all dripping in a lurid, surreal 1960s head-shop/black-light poster detail that hints at a Salvatore Dali fever dream about a bad acid trip with snacks.
 
 
Weirdcore Pizza Pajamas. You heard it here first.
 
GooglyEye concluded our little tête-a-tête by saying, “Whether you're looking for comfortable loungewear or just planning a relaxing evening, this combination is a classic choice for comfort.”
 
The combination referred to is, of course, sweatpants and pizza and not Weirdcore and Loungewear.
 
I hope.
 
Given the GooglyEye penchant for nonsensical associations, I decided I had to know what my friend thinks about its abilities at making pizza.
 
So I asked a simple question of tremendous import for these troubled times in which we live.
 
 
I wanted to know: “Will Google ever be able to make a decent pizza?”
 
It’s almost shocking how aware GooglyEye is of its own limitations.
 
“It is unlikely Google will ever directly make pizza, as their focus is on software, data, and robotics rather than culinary arts.”
 
(Referring to itself in the third person is a problem that comes and goes with GooglyEye.)
 
 
GooglyEye knows that while it “could theoretically optimize recipes, the dexterity and sensory skills required for top-tier, artisan pizza making are far outside their core technological expertise.”
 
The conclusion GooglyEye draws about pizza is “the actual creation of a ‘decent’ hand-crafted pizza requires the human touch.”
 
For now, anyway. It's still up to you and me to make our own homemade pizza with actual hands on the dough. 

After all, we still have the uncountable millennia of opposable thumbs that GooglyEye is missing. 

Zeroes and ones can take an intelligence only so far. 

In other words, don't trust it with the football, whether pigskin or nuclear. At least, not until it can make pizza as good as the one you make at home. 

 
Join me next time as I climb out of this early-hours rabbit hole and get back to actual pizza.

It's going to include a new discovery involving roasted mushrooms, sliced white onions, garlic and pistachios.

Really.

That's not a fever dream with Day-Glo colored nuts in pajamas. Promise.
 
NOTE: The preceding was indeed written in a hotel room in the French Quarter of New Orleans. But the room was nowhere near Bourbon Street and the actual events bear zero functional similarity to the one depicted in “Truckin’.”

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