why don’t we cut the middle man and just deal in prompts?
Cutting people is illegal
No, cutting people without their consent is illegal, cuz boy, I did done cut quite a kinky bitch back in the day, as did I enjoy getting my dinky shredded like it was a manatee in a boat propeller. Fuck, it was so weird masturbating for the next half a year…Jesus…getting a left-leaning boner just thinking about it…
prompts are specific to the detailed version of the AI software, while images are a much more universal form of communication, so they remain intelligible even when the AI software updates and uses a different prompt format.
I’m sure this is meant as a joke. But, really, prompts are the only part of AI art that is actually creative. Especially if someone has been trying to fine tune what they want for a while, the prompt might actually have something interesting in it.
Even though memes are shared as images, it’s often the text that’s the important and funny bit. The meme image is just context for the words.
I’m not saying I’m actually interested in reading people’s AI prompts. But, there might be an interesting idea in that prompt that the person could express in a way that’s not boring and soulless like GenAI tends to be.
This came up back on Reddit in the “what’s that book?” sub. Someone posted asking about a book; they had 6 lines of preamble about why they wanted to reread this, and 55 lines that were an excerpt from the book. This is normally a slam dunk–it’s pretty trivial to search for literal text. But nobody could find it. Discussion with the user led to the revelation that they’d asked AI about a book and described a scene they remembered, and the AI had responded with a title and “excerpt” matching what the user described. But then the user still couldn’t find the book, so they posted the “excerpt” to the subreddit. I.e., they were asking for a book containing an AI hallucination, rather than just describing the book to us the way they had to the AI. In fact the story they were searching for was “Harrison Bergeron,” one of the most commonly asked-about things on the subreddit, but nobody recognized it until we understood that the excerpt was slop made up in response to a scene they misremembered as part of the story.
It’s a frustrating time to be a human on the internet.
Man, that sucks. It’s really annoying how sycophantic these companies have made their chatbots, which makes this worse.
But, I think by the very nature of how chatbots work, you can’t fix that problem. Chatbots simulate what text is likely to follow other text.
If someone online has definitely read a book that really exists, and they describe a scene they remember from that book, the clear pattern online is that someone will say “Oh yeah, that’s the book X by author Y”. Some people might say “I’ve never heard of that book”, but it’s likely they might just not say anything. If we’re looking at a kind of forum with upvotes and downvotes, the person who found the real book will be the most upvoted.
So, that’s the pattern the LLM trains on. It knows that when someone posts a question like that, the best answer is one where someone names the book and types out the passage in the book.
It would be nice if the chatbot would instead say “I don’t know that book” or “That book doesn’t exist”.
But, it can’t do that, because it doesn’t “know” anything. Everything the chatbots put out is a hallucination. It’s just that some hallucinations are more useful. It has been trained millions of times on patterns when the passage someone remembers is “It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times”, so when it hallucinates about that sequence of words, its hallucination is bound to be more helpful. But, if what someone remembers doesn’t exist, or is obscure enough that it’s not in the training data, things break. Then it follows the general pattern used for every other book, and comes up with a “useful” answer that doesn’t match any actual book.
Yeah, one of the things that I WILL say there’s an art to… is trying to get Genmoji to generate emojis of copyrighted things without triggering its programming. All creativity goes into basically doing everything you can to walk around the obvious
Like fiction books?
Something ive noticed about AI art is it enables people who see themselves as “idea guys” to pump out every thought they have, call it good enough, and display it proudly like they worked hard at it.
When you make art you take an idea and that idea is shaped by external factors. Your skill level, your medium, how you collaborate if you are, all of these things influence what you make and that influence in turn changes your ideas. You may have an idea of what you want to paint, and during the process of painting come to appreciate the beauty of texture, and the next painting seeks to explore not just your idea but what you can do with the medium. Artists usually seek to push themselves to learn and explore and have their art change them as much as they seek to create the art.
But an idea guy only has interest in the idea. He doesnt want to do the process, he has no desire to be changed by his work. He has an idea and he wants an end product, and AI allows him to bypass that pesky learning to draw/paint/create business. It removes limitations in medium and skill level and spits out something close enough to his idea that its serviceable.
And I think that, to me, really signifies how much the idea guy values ideas over everything else. It takes all the work out of creation, and the lack of craftsmanship in the ideas is very telling in the final product.
This guy understands art.
It’s autotune for business majors.
Mostly agreed, but you’re putting the person who creates an AI image into a box.
I may make an AI image for personal reasons and because I can’t do anything more than rudimentary Photoshop, and even then I have to have a starting image.
My art lies elsewhere. We could spend two hours while I show you around my house, show you all the things I’ve created.
People who make one kind of art can undervalue another kind.
Yep, it’s been real disappointing seeing musicians and writers use AI album/book covers
I get your Point but even as someone whos like you in that Aspect (not good at Images) that just Sounds a bit lazy
humans can come up with
Let me stop you right there. This is almost too absurd to be a Onion article…
You can crucify me if you want. I do enjoy some AI art. Typically “setting” art. Like, some location or other. AI has a knack for making the location seem real, but also kind of surreal, like locations we experience in dreams. Could be real, but there’s some small details that add up to make it kind of not real.
Clearly I’m aware actual artists can create the same effect, but AI really nails that vibe.
Bottom line is it’s here to stay and I don’t hate every aspect of it. It’s like anything else, it needs to be regulated to prevent destroying actual artist’s creativity and livelihoods.
AI has a knack for making the location seem real, but also kind of surreal
ah yes the uncanny valley.
You dont have to hate it but you hate it too Little imo
I guess.
If my eyes see something they like, then I’m lying to myself and living in denial if I don’t accept that I like what I’m seeing.
I can hate how shit people are using a tool for nefarious reasons while still liking some of what the tool can be used to create. Kind of like the internet itself, I suppose.
You’re getting some hate, guess I’ll take a little too. There are two AI creations I follow, and it’s always in the back of my mind when watching them that they’re AI, that would be incredibly difficult and costly to make even as short as the stories are. They’re incredibly detailed visually, and the stories are darkly entertaining. The story and writing are written by humans and edited by them, but the visuals are all AI. They must put a ton of effort into programming the output to maintain stylistic integrity, it’s completely consistent, something the vast majority of AIgen stuff I’ve seen completely fails at. IMO these are what AIgen is for, they have to employ a decent number of people to maintain the output that has to come close to a small studio of CGI creators for something similar.
AI art also helps keep starving artists unfed
Hey, that’s not all it does! It uses all the water so they remain unhydrated as well! As well as all the electricity to keep them unpowered, and ruin the sleep for everyone within a 60 km2 square radius, so they also are being kept unrested. Jeez this is the dumbest timeline. By a lot
60 km2 square radius
Dude here lives in a 6D space.
No that’d be 60km² hexagonal radius, right?
Afaics they measure ‘area’ in km4, and I assume the ‘surface’ is one dimension lower than the total dimensionality of space.
Yeah I’m just kidding around.
Making it as an artist was always difficult, because the way artists are paid under capitalism favors giving all the money to a few big artists, who ironically aren’t necessarily even that good.
I hate Matisse but apparently just because they use his trash to money laund he’s some sort of genius.
Yeah, like the Renaissance before capitalism! Let me check my notes, oh, uh, looks like “all the money to a few big artists” was the thing then as well.
this_engine_is_a_capitalist.jpg
My goal all through junior high and high school was to become a comic book artist. I’m still sad I never made it because I missed out on the opportunity to help Stan Lee achieve a net worth of $70 million.
a few big artists, who ironically aren’t necessarily even that good.
I get your point and all, but I just had to ask - how do you define and separate ‘good’ from ‘bad’ art, though?
I agree with you though, the traditional art world is no different from any other industry under capitalism. It’s filled with sharks, ass kissing and networking. Most either come from fame, and/or from a wealthy family who’s willing to support them. It’s more important to be a driven entrepreneur with good social skills and the right connections, than an artist.
Yes, my middle schooler was going to hire a team of artists to create minion memes and dogs kung-fu fighting if not for AI.
Or, you know, your middle schooler can just draw silly things like we all did growing up.
I’ll pass along your suggestion
The algorithm rejected you.
Weird way to brag that your child will not only always be a talentless hack, but won’t even try.
not trying because there’s an easier way is considered smart, actually. that’s basically how most of human civilization progressed. not keeping with tradition, but trying new ways.
Ah yes, peak human ingenuity:
Also forgetting how to think because ChatGPT does that for you.
Weird way to dunk on a child.
Yeah, it’s totally the child’s fault that they aren’t learning anything, and not the parent’s. Why would parent ever be obligated to teach their child, right?
I would ask your parents if they could explain to you what a meme is and why you would find them in a meme community.
You’re going to have a stroke if you read every meme as if it were reality. There’s no middle schooler, the cute dog or cat isn’t actually asking to has cheeseburger it is a human writing a caption on a picture and Gigachad isn’t a real person.
I’m sorry to be the person to have to tell you all this.
That joke doesn’t work, I’m not in a wheelchair and that’s the important fact about the joke.
Engagement farming? I refuse to believe the top person is for real
Also Youtube feed is the videos they haven’t watched, so isn’t in their mind (yet)
Reading every single tweet you ever see through the lens of “they get paid to create engagement” really elucidates why people say the things they say.
Sad as it is, I much prefer that worldview to thinking that people really are this stupid
Top guy doesn’t even have the checkmark you need to monetise on xitter tho…
These platforms are built on the backs of chuds working for free. Someone did a study and most of the Russian propaganda is shared by ordinary people and some of them were dubbed super sharers who will share like 30+ right wing posts a day.
Seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of what AI art is.
I actually closed my eyes and took a moment to prepare myself after reading the first sentence because I knew I was about to read the most brain-dead take imaginable.
is the accumulation of one’s youtube feed truly the deepest gaze into the soul?
Yes, absolutely. If you look at my history, it shows nothing but repeated watches of the dog of wisdom.
Says a lot about me, I think.
My Youtube feed is utter shit. I watch one One Piece theory video, and that is all Youtube starts recommending. I watch one trauma video and that is all my feed shows. Youtube is so annoying nowadays, more akin to dementia addled mind with ADHD.
Yeah they are sure pushing some things really hard, while I have to reclick on videos I have already seen so that theme doesn’t vanish, like some stupid algorithm.
Pro tip for YouTube: don’t use the main feed. Instead, look at the recommendations under an interesting video for other ones that catch the eye, and save them into ‘watch later’ playlists by topic.
Also, don’t watch random videos under the main account, open an incognito tab for that. With these two approaches combined, YouTube gives me some great recs, especially for music.
The kinds of videos I always make sure to watch in a private tab are things like:
- viral videos
- videos recommended by a friend
- “how do I fix this broken toilet” videos, or something else that I need once and won’t ever look at again
With that approach, my recommended videos feed is still trash, but at least it’s vaguely on-topic trash. I don’t get recommended 500 plumbing videos because one time I needed to know how to fix my toilet. It doesn’t take the fact that I watched a video that 500 million people also watched as meaning “I want to watch all the popular videos” or “I have the same tastes as everybody else who watched this video”.
I can always tell when I screwed up and watched an off-topic video in my normal account because the recommendations go to shit for a while.
It’s also important to do the same with links from social media.
Yeah, that’s basically what I meant by viral videos or ones recommended by a friend.
I browsed some music on youtube on a fresh, logged out device a few days ago and it was so refreshing to get recommendations based the video I’m currently watching. Like 15 years ago. Now, if I’m logged in, the recommendations next to the playing video are the same ones as on the landing page, utterly useless.
You can go into your yt history and delete videos and it will fix the recommendations
I deleted my whole history last week, and within a day YouTube was recommending me anime openings for things I have not had any interest in for 10 years. I’m pretty sure it’s at least partially bullshit.
I ended up just deleting my whole Google account. I’m making do with an RSS reader and yt-dlp for now, but I’m already so fed up with that whole process that I’m making a simple QT app that does the RSS reading and yt-dlp calling for me. Akregator fucking sucks, by the way. Every time I shut down my PC without closing Akregator first, it loses its shit and does not remember any read statuses.
It is when a person’s depth is measured in teaspoons.
It is to a smoothbrained techbro.
The deepest gaze into my soul is apparently that I enjoy disc golf, competitive pokemon battles and asian street food.
I just wished to drop here a novel from old times…
Ooh, I forgot it was Gogol that wrote that one, thank you, it’s marvelous!
timely! you should post this to !shortstories@literature.cafe
This is what traditional art reveals. And quite well.
Couple of years ago I was at a cannabis painting event (get stoned whilst painting), with my friend. I’ve got some experience drawing and sketching, very little with painting. My friend has very little experience in anything art related, yet whilst I was struggling to figure out what to paint he manages to make a lovely blend of colours and themes, in ways I never could. I was looking at it for a good while, and it had so many lovely elements. He kept thinking his wasn’t good!
He would’ve never been able to make that with AI, it would have missed all that nuance.
That sounds like a lot of fun
It’s quite a nice event, they try to do them weekly unless something comes up. They sometimes do stoner pottery, or design your own bongs with the erm, right type of paint I would presume lol. I don’t want it to sound like advertising, so if you are planning a trip to Amsterdam send me a message and I can give the website/socials :)
If you’ve had very little experience with painting, how do you know how good you would be at it? Your friend might have a natural talent, but that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t learn how.
Natural talent is a myth, it’s like believing that you shouldn’t think about what you’re doing to paint loose.
It’s all hard work, and maybe in the end you can split up artists by talent, but until then it’s just who have learned the most.
This is true. I’ll be going to Amsterdam again soon, and I’m hoping there’s another event at the time.
I chose to believe this happened. Jaden Smith has at least one friend and they were impressed with the art their friend made.
I will carry this story in my heart and retell it at the next paint and sip I go to.
If someone wants to know the weird shit people have on their minds you just have to find their social media timeline, especially Reddit, Tumblr or Fedi. Or, like, talk to them.
Given the flavour of weird shit in someone’s head most AI wouldn’t even slop anything like that. Like, I’m thinking of three shrimps having a raging threesome right now with Jim Carrey’s head in the background watching one shrimp-dick explode. The AI would probably refuse or just make Carrey sit in front of a meal.
I challenge any AI to come up with a comment like this.
Thank you for that vibrant mental image
What was 2/2?
