Sunday Morning Coffee — January 18, 2026 — Hoping AI Isn’t That Smart After All

By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, NV.

It was February 1982 and I had never heard of Ray Price. A city boy all of my 29 years I had no reason to know who he was or what songs were playing on country music radio stations. In fact, living in Miami at the time, I’m quite sure my dial was always set on WAXY-106 which played the hits from the 60s; I never really graduated from WABC or WMCA from my teen days on Long Island. I think the closest country signal to us was down I-95 across the South Carolina border.

A day or two earlier my boss and mentor from my racetrack management days in South Florida, former Miami mayor Perrine Palmer, told me we would be having dinner with Mr. Price. Okay, who is he? In those prehistoric days we had nothing readily at hand that could provide us with us that type of info. Maybe the new World Book encyclopedia yearbook had a mention? I could call a radio station or newspaper like we’d do for ballgame results that were unobtainable until the next day. It was too early for the revolutionary 1-800-TELL-ME. I could have asked someone, but my country music portfolio of friends was about as empty as the Jets’ Super Bowl trophy case.

Back then we were still 14 years away from getting all our answers from Ask Jeeves, which debuted in 1996. That fine English butler’s website would have told me Ray Price had eleven number one hits. Everything from Crazy Arms in 1956 to She’s Got to Be a Saint in 1973 with City Lights, Heartaches by the Number, For the Good Times, Walkin’ the Floor Over You and half a dozen others sprinkled in-between. His most famous song, Night Life, never reached number one. Decades later I now hear an enjoyable array of Price hits on SiriusXM’s Willie’s Roadhouse on my morning drive to the gym. I switch to Siriusly Sinatra on the way home. I know Willie and Ray would understand.

Price was a fine dinner companion but I still had no idea who he was.

What I can remember from 44 years ago is that dinner was enjoyable. Mr. Price, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame who died in 2013 at age 87, was a nice enough gentleman who wanted to learn more about the greyhound racing business as he had an interest in becoming a greyhound owner. However, when the evening was finished and the last drop of Pouilly-Fuisse poured, I still didn’t know much about him.

Strangely, I think about this example often. How did we get by day-to-day with no cell phones, no internet and other than a daily newspaper and nightly TV news, no worldly knowledge? How did we ever get where we were going without GPS? We were in an information vacuum and didn’t know it because everything was fine. That’s the way daily life was. In school we had to pay attention and learn. We had no shortcut crutches other than Cliff Notes or sitting behind the smartest kid in the class and hoping our eyesight was good enough.

Then computers and cell phones happened with Google becoming our search engine of choice in 1998, two years after Jeeves. Wikipedia — our soon to be online Brittanica and World Book, first entered our world in a rather primitive format in 2001. And you know the rest of the story. Forms of Artificial Intelligence actually first appeared back in the 1950s but was used in colleges and universities for research projects on antiquated computers the size of a trendy Chevy Bel Air. In 1997 an IBM computer beat world champion Garry Kasparov in chess. I bet on Kasparov which should be no surprise to anyone. AI hit mainstream about 2010 embedded in search engines and then in 2022 the public release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT= Generative Pre-trained Transformer, was society’s game changer just like Bosco was in the 1920s.

Today things are too easy. Anything we need or want to know we can find with the touch of a finger. Anything we forgot we can find with no cognitive initiative whatsoever. Kids can access just about any information without opening a textbook. Same all through the education process. Is this a good thing? It can be but there is no more heavy lifting and thinking like we had to do back in our day. And history tells us this is just the start of whatever might be coming next.

I ignored ChatGPT until last year. Heard about it but paid it no attention. I use search engines frequently in my writing so I finally gave it a look. Next thing I knew I signed up for the premier plan. Again, everything became too easy and now there are things I want to recall on a daily basis but will stop the immediate leap to research and actually ponder about it. By far that reward is worth the additional time spent thinking. Except for Ray Price songs. I never had a shot at that without AI.

Since AI is so smart I asked it to write today’s Sunday Morning Coffee for me. First here’s what it told me about me. I kinda knew most of this already:

Sunday Morning Coffee is a semi-regular personal newsletter/blog written by Roy Berger, a retired communications professional and longtime writer who shares reflections on life, sports, family, travel, culture, politics, and personal memories. It’s published on his personal site (often via a Substack-style setup) and typically appears on Sunday mornings — hence the name. Berger is a University of Miami graduate, a former journalist and communications professional who after a long career in the pari-mutuel racing industry and running Medjet, returned to writing in retirement. He started Sunday Morning Coffee as a way to share personal experiences and reflections, and it has grown into a regular read for subscribers. Written in an accessible, conversational style that mixes nostalgia (e.g., memories of growing up), commentary on current events, sports history, travel stories, and reflections on everyday life. In short, Sunday Morning Coffee is a personal, reflective newsletter that Roy Berger shares with readers to accompany their Sunday coffee — a slice of life from his perspective.

Okay AI, now that we established me, go ahead and write today’s SMC:

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Sunday Morning Coffee

by Roy Berger (in spirit)

Sunday morning arrives quietly. No alarms. No schedules. Just the low hum of the coffee maker doing its dependable work, the same way it has for years. I take the first sip and, as always, wonder how something so simple can feel like such a luxury.

Sunday mornings used to be different. They began earlier, louder, with kids needing rides, newspapers slapped onto driveways, and the sound of a game already playing somewhere in the background. Now the paper is digital, the kids are grown, and the games can wait until later. Time has a way of rearranging priorities without asking permission.

I caught myself this week thinking about how we once waited for things. News came once a day, maybe twice if you watched the evening broadcast. Sports scores were learned from the radio or the next morning’s box score. If you missed a show, you missed it. No rewinding. No streaming. And somehow, we survived just fine.

Patience, it turns out, was not a flaw — it was a skill.

I drove past my old neighborhood recently. Different families, different cars, but the same streets. The corner store is gone, replaced by something modern and forgettable. I tried to remember the owner’s name — the man who knew what you wanted before you said it — but memory doesn’t always cooperate. Funny how we remember the feeling long after the details fade.

Sports still have a way of pulling me back. Not the analytics or the endless debate shows, but the moments: the crack of a bat, the stretch run of a season, the understanding that tomorrow’s game matters because yesterday’s already happened. Athletes change. The games don’t.

This week reminded me how fast the calendar turns. A birthday passed. An anniversary followed. Numbers climb while the mind insists it’s still the same age it was decades ago. Inside, not much has changed. Outside, the mirror argues otherwise.

I’ve learned that growing older isn’t about losing things — it’s about editing. Fewer distractions. Fewer unnecessary conversations. Less noise. More meaning. More appreciation for mornings like this one, when nothing is required except another cup of coffee.

Soon enough, Sunday will become Monday. The world will rush back in, as it always does. But for now, the coffee is still warm, the house is still quiet, and the moment is still mine.

That’s enough for this Sunday morning.

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It’s a bit bland like dry toast; not really my voice, way too pleasant to be written by me and it took about 20 seconds to produce. All in all I’ll give it a barely acceptable grade but a very good effort. Next, as an alternative, I asked AI to write a preview about tomorrow night’s college football national championship between Indiana and the good guys from Miami.

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Sunday Morning Coffee

Championship Week

Sunday morning has a certain calm to it, the kind that feels borrowed when you know Monday night is waiting. The coffee is poured, the paper — digital or otherwise — is skimmed, and somewhere in the back of your mind the countdown has already started. Championship games have a way of doing that. They sit quietly in the distance, letting anticipation do most of the work.

Tomorrow night, Miami and Indiana will meet for the College Football Playoff championship. If you’d said that out loud a decade ago, it would have sounded like a trivia question or a scheduling mistake. And yet here we are, proof once again that college football still has room for surprise, even in an era that tries its best to predict everything.

Championship week used to feel simpler. One game, one poll, endless arguments. You didn’t need a bracket or a committee explanation. You needed a strong opinion and a willingness to defend it over coffee on Sunday morning. Now we have playoffs, analytics, and experts explaining why your eyes might be lying to you.

But the truth is, by the time the ball is kicked off Monday night, none of that matters.

Miami arrives with history in tow. Championships remembered by numbers, coaches, and eras that never quite leave the conversation. When a program like that plays for a title, expectations aren’t just present — they’re inherited. Indiana arrives differently. Less baggage. More belief. A season built on proving, week after week, that they belong on this stage.

That contrast is what makes the game compelling. One team carrying the weight of what it’s supposed to be. The other chasing what it has never been.

I find myself thinking about the players more than the predictions. For them, this isn’t legacy or narrative — it’s a few hours under the lights that will define how they remember college football for the rest of their lives. Years from now, long after the score fades, they’ll remember the noise, the nerves, and the moment the realization hits that this is it. No next week. No do-over.

Monday night will give us its usual share of over-analysis. Who wants it more? Who handles pressure better? Which coach makes the mistake that gets talked about all offseason? But championships rarely follow scripts. They turn on one or two moments no one sees coming until it’s too late.

This Sunday morning is for waiting. For remembering why anticipation can be as enjoyable as the event itself. Tomorrow night will come soon enough, bringing celebration for one side and silence for the other.

For now, the coffee is still warm, the opinions are still forming, and the best part of the game — the promise of it — is still ahead.

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The next request I made was where ChatGPT stumbled and stumbled miserably. I asked it to predict the winner of Monday night’s championship and here’s the rubbish it produced: Oddsmakers give Indiana the edge with roughly a 68% chance to win according to ESPN’s analytics. Projecting a final score of Indiana 23, Miami 17.

What? Fake news. Fake predictions. It’s totally fake. Nobody believes it. ChatGPT is a total scam. A fraud. A failing enterprise. It’s a total disaster. Run by very incompetent people. Everyone knows it. I promptly cancelled my premium ChatGPT subscription.

So late Monday night will Ray Price be crooning to Miami fans Heartaches by the Number or For the Good Times?

Smarten up GPT and Go Canes.

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I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger