General AI thread

[JNLister]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Something interesting from 1984 (a brilliant novel written by a human) is that one of the ways the authoritative fascist state pacifies the proletariat is by inundating them with trashy novels and fake music that are written by a machine called the versificator. The purpose of it is to stop the people from engaging in any unique creative thought of their own. I reckon @Sphinx would be first in line to hear the latest club banger from the versificator.

Roald Dahl was also bang on the money: https://d-a-v-e.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/The_Great_Automatic_Grammatizator.pdf

[Chris B]

I think it's important to separate out what AI is good at and not good at. When it's augmenting or supporting what people do, that's one thing - it's another to replace.

I work in B2B marketing, and I spent a lot of last year out of work, and I now work for a company that does corporate tools, which include AI elements (mainly for things like B2B contract checking/amendments, etc). There are elements around it which are accessibility-based, and I do find that kind of thing interesting. The way we look at it is reducing the time it takes to do things that can be automated, so you can focus on the actual thinking and strategy work. 

If I wasn't willing to use some AI in my job, I wouldn't be in work right now. And while I'm good at what I do, it definitely speeds me up and helps me do more. A quick example - I was working on an ebook guide about change management while rolling out the kind of tech we do. I've done a bunch of these before, and they take time and a lot of figuring out. What I mainly used it for was structuring what I was doing, and giving me layouts for it. In some (more technical) sections, I got it to put together a first draft, so I had something to edit and rewrite. Because they're the sections that could take up hours of me looking at a blank page. When I had a first draft, I then asked it to find holes in my points as a bit of a sense-check, before I started circulating it internally for feedback.

This isn't stuff that I'd have sent out to a freelancer. It just would have taken me longer. I've also used an AI tool to help me de-noise some stuff in video editing and that's the kind of thing where I've been able to do it in an hour rather than two days. And I use freelancers for stuff that I want a human to do (design, mainly). 

I was sceptical, but I'm doing more work than I was before. And if I wasn't up for taking this kind of approach, I'd lose out to someone who was. That kind of augmentation, I think AI is good at.

When it comes to generating art and creation, I think it's a different story. 

Art is an act of communication.

While technique and ability is a factor, I've seen people do something with a felt-tip and a post-it note that's struck a chord with me, and I've seen, now, loads of AI stuff that I just don't remember.  For the most part, what I've seen has been effectively filler content, and - at best - a replacement for stock footage and corporate background music. Stuff nobody's really paying attention to anyway.

It's also mostly used lazily - without meaning to jump in on Scratch, he summed it up earlier. "filled a void for me when I need something but don’t have the time or interest to code it". If you don't have the time or interest to do it well, it's probably not going to have that element of communication in there that's important.

[tiger_rick]

I just wish it could show me what I'd look like as an action figure.

[Carbomb]

3 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

I just wish it could show me what I'd look like as an action figure.

[Mr_Danger]

8 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

I just wish it could show me what I'd look like as an action figure.

Somebody’s forgetting their UKFF lore.

[tiger_rick]

12 hours ago, Mr_Danger said:

Somebody’s forgetting their UKFF lore.

Just glad he's not wearing a half and half and half and half and half scarf.

[Devon Malcolm]

Well this is extremely depressing. We can't even trust Natasha Lyonne now.

https://www.avclub.com/natasha-lyonne-uncanny-valley-ai-movie-backlash

Quote

Last month, Poker Face star and Internet “it girl” Natasha Lyonne announced her directorial debut, Uncanny Valley, and found herself in the valley of an online backlash against the film’s proposed use of AI. Amid mass layoffs, environmental destruction, and a billionaire class shoehorning the technology into whatever it can, AI has become a non-starter for many, and when Lyonne announced that her movie would utilize “ethical” AI, trained only on cleared data, the anti-AI contingent of her fanbase rebelled against her. Uncanny Valley, a sci-fi comedy about a teen girl whose reality disintegrates after an AR video game consumes her, became cinema nongrata and Lyonne “some weird Darth Vader character or something.”

In a new interview with Variety, Lyonne somewhat clarified how Uncanny Valley would use the technology and to what end, whilst commiserating with fellow internet backlash victim Rian Johnson. The Poker Face star maintains that her use of AI is “all about protecting artists and confronting this oncoming wave.” This is not a “generative AI movie,” she says. In Variety‘s telling, the film will use AI for “things like set extensions,” so there’s still quite a bit of haziness surrounding how the tech will be implemented and to what extent. We’re also unsure how generating set extensions with AI protects below-the-line artists, like set designers, animators, or production crews, but sure, go off.

Nevertheless, Lyonne didn’t like being the target of a backlash, calling it “comedic that people misunderstand headlines so readily because of our bizarro culture of not having reading comprehension.” She has “never been inside” a backlash before, describing it as “scary” and “not fun when people say not nice things to you. It grows you up a bit.” In the initial announcement for Uncanny Valley by Asteria Studios, an “ethical AI film and animation studio,” co-founded by Lyonne and Bryn Mooser, the film is described as a “hybrid film” that combines live action and AI. It would behoove someone in the film’s marketing to explain how the movie will use the technology. Currently, there’s a valley separating “hybrid film” and only using it for “things like set extensions.”

What a pathetic response, too. Comparing people calling her out on using AI to do jobs that should be done by humans to the years of abuse Rian Johnson got for putting some women in a Star Wars film. Fuck's sake.

[Chili]

Ethical A.I. sounds like something a cunt without the bottle to be an upfront cunt would say. Poppycock that.

[LaGoosh]

Disappointing to hear that as I am (or was) a big fan of Lyonne. Her arguments that it'll be ethical are pretty pathetic. It doesn't matter if it's only "cleared data". It's still lazy bullshit that is taking the art out of the art form and taking peoples jobs. 

I'm 99% certain most the actors and filmmakers coming out as pro AI at the moment are getting some backroom deals from tech companies to do so. "Tell everyone AI is great and we'll park a truck full of gold outside your house".

[LaGoosh]

https://time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-google-learning-school/

So a recent study shows that ChatGPT/AI is genuinely making people stupider. Unsurprising, sure, but the extent at which it does is pretty dramatic. I do wonder about children/teenagers today who are growing up with this stuff and addiction to endless short form video content - fuck knows what that's going to do to them long term.

My kids are only a few years old so I'm hoping all this shite will be regulated/understood/fixed before they are old enough for it to rot their brains to absolute shit.

[Hannibal Scorch]

I have to use Chat GPT in my new job, but if I ever actually have to use it as an assist, I also ask for an explanation for 2 reasons. If I don’t understand something, I need to understand it. But also because quite often I’ve found it’s wrong interpreting data I’ve given it. It’s not perfect, it should be treated as right all the time. If anything you should treat it like a work colleague whose been there longer than you and you can bounce ideas from.

[TibBo]

Why do you have to use it matey? 

[LaGoosh]

https://www.patreon.com/posts/i-apocalypse-of-132130562

A brilliant, long and depressing explanation of how AI is a huge threat to human beings, our spirit, our creativity, our ability to even think and the risk of it turning society into an era of tech-feudalism.

Well worth a read.

[Sphinx]

On 6/24/2025 at 1:23 PM, LaGoosh said:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/i-apocalypse-of-132130562

A brilliant, long and depressing explanation of how AI is a huge threat to human beings, our spirit, our creativity, our ability to even think and the risk of it turning society into an era of tech-feudalism.

Well worth a read.

I'm sure there's some interesting points in there but their writing style turned me off. Can't help thinking their writing would have been improved if it was put through ChatGPT...

[LaGoosh]

Fuck off.