Congratulations on the Skeptics award David, you have done amazing work this year.
It took me a few days to get over the poison in the shocking encounter with Mr Organ, and I will continue to worry about Jillian. Thanks to the writer of that review , spot on.
It was just good to see someone who really, really got it. The worst thing to think is that there is something remarkable about Organ. He's not. He's a void. That's the whole point!
(thanks for going, and sorry for making you feel gross - I get it!)
Some of the AI pics do tend to emphasise you really are Louis Theroux's younger, more handsome brother.
I'm now two years (almost to the day) out from leaving the sphere of my covert narcissistic sociopath. I've seen him a few times since and it's been interesting to compare my feelings from when we first broke up (for me, confusion, enormous grief, rage as I was yet to realise what had happened to me), to now.
I heard someone describe them as ghosts and that's the closest description that's resonated for me. I do agree there's a void, but the ghostly part for me is seeing little slivers of who I thought he was - I still have to remind myself he's not real, even after a boat load of therapy.
During my last encounter with him a few weeks ago, it felt like watching a toddler when they first learn to lie and you want to laugh because it's so obvious and yet they think they're being so clever. When I got back into my car I had this huge grin on my face and I awarded myself an A+ - I'd seen him clearly for who he was, I didn't feel triggered, and I had this glowing joy inside that I was no longer part of the... drama.
It also gives me joy to support you in your work. Hopefully, webworm and Mr Organ will help others from being abused and critically wounded. It's really hard to put an experience with someone like my ex into words. It often doesn't translate well and people look at you baffled. But watch a doco like Mr Organ or read your accounts of Arise and it's much easier for people to see it for themselves and that is pure gold. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
First off - I am so fucking glad you got out. Your view of them now seems to healthy and on some level must feel incredibly satisfying. To "see" it all so clearly.
And you made me feel seen, too - because it is SO HARD TO EXPLAIN THE EXPERIENCE TO OTHERS. Making this film to demonstrate what it was like was SO HARD. I can't even.
It's pretty easily tripped up. Try asking it for a non-trivial piece of code, for example. Or ... well, how about a Nine Inch Nails lullaby?
"tell me a lullaby. a lullaby in the style of trent reznor."
"Here is a lullaby in the style of Trent Reznor:
Hush little baby, don't you cry
Mama's gonna sing you a lullaby
Lay your head down, close your eyes
And let the darkness take you on a ride
Dream of a world without pain
Where you're safe and loved and nothing's the same
Where the monsters and the fear all fade away
And you're wrapped in warmth, until the break of day
But for now, just rest your head
Let the music in your ears be your bed
Dream sweet dreams, my little one
You are loved, and you are never alone."
"don't you think trent reznor would be a little less lovey-dovey and a little more 'everything is shit and then you'll die'?"
"Trent Reznor is a musician known for his dark and intense style of music. He is the lead singer and primary songwriter for the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, and his music often explores themes of anger, despair, and loss. While his music is often bleak and cynical, he has also written songs that express love and hope. It is difficult to say how Trent Reznor would approach writing a lullaby, as it would depend on his personal artistic vision and the context in which the song was being written. Some of his songs may be considered "lovey-dovey" while others may be more dark and nihilistic."
The OpenAI story really feels like they trained it on something related to the hilarious contest entries from https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/, since it chose "it was a dark and stormy night":
Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written. Our whimsical literary competition honors Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins with “It was a dark and stormy night.”
My favorite AI is Inspirobot, which generates inspirational quotes. They are often dark, the way my own brain interprets inspirational quotes. “The unseen is 99 percent mind control, 1 percent social commentary.” https://inspirobot.me/
Just conceptualising the data grinding going on behind the scenes as an AI tries to construct a human with nothing but billions of internet datapoints.
There are concerns with large learning models like these about copyright, since these programs aren't actually creating anything themselves, but rather they're trained on existing human created content, and then the model "remixes" them into something new. They don't give you any way to locate the content that was used, so there's no way to attribute, and therefore license the originating works.
I'll admit to not being an expert in such things, so I'm half coming from a place of some ignorance, but I believe there to be a couple of issues. Attribution is a big one. If we look at music, there is a certain amount of attribution that's required when an artist takes something that another artist created and uses it in their own work, for example how Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have songwriter credits on Old Town Road, because the banjo riff was sampled from a NIN track, even though it's completely transformative. These AI models do a kinda similar thing where they take aspects of existing work and mix it into something new, but I haven't seen any that are able to say "I used this image by [artist] to create this.
The other thing I'd consider is that yes, humans are products of our experiences, and most creativity is built on the works of others as influences, you also have the consideration of skill. A human creating a piece of writing, an image, or anything else has had to work to build up the skill to create that, however the policy around dall-e (for example) states that I am the owner of the images that it creates from my prompt, and I can sell that commercially. I could easily, with no skill involved (in the sense of something I've trained to do over time), make an income while spending a tiny amount on credits generating images to put on stock art sites (if they haven't banned AI generated art that is), while ignoring the human created works that the model trained on.
Copyright was already struggling to keep up with the way in which creativity has developed. It originated to protect a relatively simple creative world where one author created a work that was immutable (fixed) and infringement occurred when the work was substantially copied. In fact, it was not originally aimed at protection of authors at all but, rather, publishers, but that is history. Copyright has struggled to cope with remix culture, let alone overlaying on that AI remixes produced without direct human input. Images are perhaps easier to assess from a copyright perspective (albeit that enforcement is almost always uneconomic) but the types of outputs that David has ... I was going to say "created" but that is not correct, as you say Richie ... let's say the types of stories that David has "invoked" I don't think would approach copyright infringement unless you could point to a very close similarity to an existing work. And, if there is no copyright issue, then the need for attribution falls away.
However, it all reminds me a little of the google books project and the arguments now over Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive and controlled digital lending. Scanning of a whole bunch of works in their entirety to create the database might be argued to be infringement, no matter that the output invoked by each user is different. So, so many issues, but that's why I do what I do - new wine in old bottles
The AI image generation is pretty problematic. I have a few artist friends who are pretty unhappy with the thoughtlessness behind these kinds of AI tools :(
I've heard a lot from online artists as well, and it's even more insidious than being "thoughtless." They are stealing independent artists' work. There's apparently even a service now where artists can check how much of their work has been stolen for AI.
He rawe āu mahi, David - congrats on the award! My favourite is how prehistoric David wears spectacles. His peers must have considered him a Shaman-alien.
I find it most entertaining that your prehistoric hunter and Greek philosopher are wearing your glasses, but your French lady is evidently too vain of her appearance to want to be able to see 😂
Dec 6, 2022·edited Dec 6, 2022Liked by David Farrier
Okay, this is my adventure in playing with Open AI. Posting a link to my twitter post largely because it's too much to put in one comment and works better as screenshots.
Prompts:
"Make me an essay on the invention of Instant Ramen"
"Turn it into a Battle of the Four Kingdoms parody"
Awesome work re the Skeptics Award!! Something to truly be proud of - AND that review re Mr Organ - totally bang. It is very true, I no longer feel like its is just me going insane dealing with the types of people - thank you for joining me in that queue David! :-) xx As for these AI chat and art options - I now know what I am going to do with m time off over Xmas - dear lawd someone save me from my four walls! I feel a new obsessions coming on....! lol. Fascinating, where this techno stuff is all going - and on many other fronts, truly horrifying......
Congratulations on the Skeptics award David, you have done amazing work this year.
It took me a few days to get over the poison in the shocking encounter with Mr Organ, and I will continue to worry about Jillian. Thanks to the writer of that review , spot on.
It was just good to see someone who really, really got it. The worst thing to think is that there is something remarkable about Organ. He's not. He's a void. That's the whole point!
(thanks for going, and sorry for making you feel gross - I get it!)
Congrats on the award, so well deserved!
Some of the AI pics do tend to emphasise you really are Louis Theroux's younger, more handsome brother.
I'm now two years (almost to the day) out from leaving the sphere of my covert narcissistic sociopath. I've seen him a few times since and it's been interesting to compare my feelings from when we first broke up (for me, confusion, enormous grief, rage as I was yet to realise what had happened to me), to now.
I heard someone describe them as ghosts and that's the closest description that's resonated for me. I do agree there's a void, but the ghostly part for me is seeing little slivers of who I thought he was - I still have to remind myself he's not real, even after a boat load of therapy.
During my last encounter with him a few weeks ago, it felt like watching a toddler when they first learn to lie and you want to laugh because it's so obvious and yet they think they're being so clever. When I got back into my car I had this huge grin on my face and I awarded myself an A+ - I'd seen him clearly for who he was, I didn't feel triggered, and I had this glowing joy inside that I was no longer part of the... drama.
It also gives me joy to support you in your work. Hopefully, webworm and Mr Organ will help others from being abused and critically wounded. It's really hard to put an experience with someone like my ex into words. It often doesn't translate well and people look at you baffled. But watch a doco like Mr Organ or read your accounts of Arise and it's much easier for people to see it for themselves and that is pure gold. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
This comment means the world.
First off - I am so fucking glad you got out. Your view of them now seems to healthy and on some level must feel incredibly satisfying. To "see" it all so clearly.
And you made me feel seen, too - because it is SO HARD TO EXPLAIN THE EXPERIENCE TO OTHERS. Making this film to demonstrate what it was like was SO HARD. I can't even.
You get it.
Thank you.
It's pretty easily tripped up. Try asking it for a non-trivial piece of code, for example. Or ... well, how about a Nine Inch Nails lullaby?
"tell me a lullaby. a lullaby in the style of trent reznor."
"Here is a lullaby in the style of Trent Reznor:
Hush little baby, don't you cry
Mama's gonna sing you a lullaby
Lay your head down, close your eyes
And let the darkness take you on a ride
Dream of a world without pain
Where you're safe and loved and nothing's the same
Where the monsters and the fear all fade away
And you're wrapped in warmth, until the break of day
But for now, just rest your head
Let the music in your ears be your bed
Dream sweet dreams, my little one
You are loved, and you are never alone."
"don't you think trent reznor would be a little less lovey-dovey and a little more 'everything is shit and then you'll die'?"
"Trent Reznor is a musician known for his dark and intense style of music. He is the lead singer and primary songwriter for the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, and his music often explores themes of anger, despair, and loss. While his music is often bleak and cynical, he has also written songs that express love and hope. It is difficult to say how Trent Reznor would approach writing a lullaby, as it would depend on his personal artistic vision and the context in which the song was being written. Some of his songs may be considered "lovey-dovey" while others may be more dark and nihilistic."
ChatGPT ... Spock has finally arrived.... 😳
The OpenAI story really feels like they trained it on something related to the hilarious contest entries from https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/, since it chose "it was a dark and stormy night":
Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written. Our whimsical literary competition honors Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins with “It was a dark and stormy night.”
My favorite AI is Inspirobot, which generates inspirational quotes. They are often dark, the way my own brain interprets inspirational quotes. “The unseen is 99 percent mind control, 1 percent social commentary.” https://inspirobot.me/
Never mind your melty face, what the hell is going on with your FINGERS
Just normal. Totally normal. Nothing to see here.
Just conceptualising the data grinding going on behind the scenes as an AI tries to construct a human with nothing but billions of internet datapoints.
Fucking madness.
There are concerns with large learning models like these about copyright, since these programs aren't actually creating anything themselves, but rather they're trained on existing human created content, and then the model "remixes" them into something new. They don't give you any way to locate the content that was used, so there's no way to attribute, and therefore license the originating works.
Humans aren't creating anything new either though! We're just chucking out combinations of ideas we've absorbed from other places too, right?
I'll admit to not being an expert in such things, so I'm half coming from a place of some ignorance, but I believe there to be a couple of issues. Attribution is a big one. If we look at music, there is a certain amount of attribution that's required when an artist takes something that another artist created and uses it in their own work, for example how Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have songwriter credits on Old Town Road, because the banjo riff was sampled from a NIN track, even though it's completely transformative. These AI models do a kinda similar thing where they take aspects of existing work and mix it into something new, but I haven't seen any that are able to say "I used this image by [artist] to create this.
The other thing I'd consider is that yes, humans are products of our experiences, and most creativity is built on the works of others as influences, you also have the consideration of skill. A human creating a piece of writing, an image, or anything else has had to work to build up the skill to create that, however the policy around dall-e (for example) states that I am the owner of the images that it creates from my prompt, and I can sell that commercially. I could easily, with no skill involved (in the sense of something I've trained to do over time), make an income while spending a tiny amount on credits generating images to put on stock art sites (if they haven't banned AI generated art that is), while ignoring the human created works that the model trained on.
Copyright was already struggling to keep up with the way in which creativity has developed. It originated to protect a relatively simple creative world where one author created a work that was immutable (fixed) and infringement occurred when the work was substantially copied. In fact, it was not originally aimed at protection of authors at all but, rather, publishers, but that is history. Copyright has struggled to cope with remix culture, let alone overlaying on that AI remixes produced without direct human input. Images are perhaps easier to assess from a copyright perspective (albeit that enforcement is almost always uneconomic) but the types of outputs that David has ... I was going to say "created" but that is not correct, as you say Richie ... let's say the types of stories that David has "invoked" I don't think would approach copyright infringement unless you could point to a very close similarity to an existing work. And, if there is no copyright issue, then the need for attribution falls away.
However, it all reminds me a little of the google books project and the arguments now over Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive and controlled digital lending. Scanning of a whole bunch of works in their entirety to create the database might be argued to be infringement, no matter that the output invoked by each user is different. So, so many issues, but that's why I do what I do - new wine in old bottles
I need some more popcorn 👀 👀
The AI image generation is pretty problematic. I have a few artist friends who are pretty unhappy with the thoughtlessness behind these kinds of AI tools :(
I've heard a lot from online artists as well, and it's even more insidious than being "thoughtless." They are stealing independent artists' work. There's apparently even a service now where artists can check how much of their work has been stolen for AI.
Woah that’s not good!
That first review you included that talked a little about narcissism was interesting. I wasn’t sure about what they said about the causes of narcissism though so I looked it up: there’s no confidently-known cause, just a few educated guesses by the medical community: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662
He rawe āu mahi, David - congrats on the award! My favourite is how prehistoric David wears spectacles. His peers must have considered him a Shaman-alien.
Thank you. Really. This lil' community is reward enough tbh - constantly reminds me that humans can be really, really great.
I find it most entertaining that your prehistoric hunter and Greek philosopher are wearing your glasses, but your French lady is evidently too vain of her appearance to want to be able to see 😂
fascinating !
I don’t know this still all mainly freaks me out 😣
Same... the scary thing is the technology is only going to get better ... 🫥🫥🫥
Okay, this is my adventure in playing with Open AI. Posting a link to my twitter post largely because it's too much to put in one comment and works better as screenshots.
Prompts:
"Make me an essay on the invention of Instant Ramen"
"Turn it into a Battle of the Four Kingdoms parody"
"Make it a prog rock ballad"
https://twitter.com/Kitsunelaine/status/1600021342467682304
This is your fault. (I mean that in a good way.)
Edit: And now I had it untangle exceedingly specific scenarios involving John Oliver and his lettuce. This thread uh... goes places. https://twitter.com/Kitsunelaine/status/1600042548231254016
Awesome work re the Skeptics Award!! Something to truly be proud of - AND that review re Mr Organ - totally bang. It is very true, I no longer feel like its is just me going insane dealing with the types of people - thank you for joining me in that queue David! :-) xx As for these AI chat and art options - I now know what I am going to do with m time off over Xmas - dear lawd someone save me from my four walls! I feel a new obsessions coming on....! lol. Fascinating, where this techno stuff is all going - and on many other fronts, truly horrifying......
The middle guru pic is giving me Jemaine Clement vibes