N. K. Jemisin: It's increasingly clear that the people who make generative AI don't like films, don't like books, don't like art of any kind, and don't understand why anyone else does.

It's increasingly clear that the people who make generative AI don't like films, don't like books, don't like art of any kind, and don't understand why anyone else does.

This isn’t a movie, it’s a screensaver bgr.com/tech/movies-...

Movies may soon use AI to change the story each time you rewatchbgr.com Filmmakers are experimenting with a new type of filmmaking called generative film, which uses AI to change the film each time it's watched.

I like talking about books and movies with my friends. That only works when we’re seeing and reading the same stuff. “Did you like the part where I saved Obi-Wan?” just doesn’t cut it.

Pretty sure they don't even get what people like about choose your own adventure video games or sandbox games. It's *not just* being able to do whatever you want, it's also seeing the consequences play out, having a familiar environment & known rules, etc...

Also, you can ask your friends what choice they made in a certain place and compare outcomes

I do the same with museums and galleries. I bring my wife and my friends to museums and appreciate masterpieces with them.

They seem to think that people who read find all text interchangeable—a novel with advertising text on the back of a cereal box, for example. And yet I have never met a person who goes into a bookstore and requests “some words in a row, please.”

Hence the insane business term "content" to cover all of them.

"Content" for them has become the perfect, convenient word to anonymize and downgrade any work of art down to filler status. That's what our stuff is for them: filler 🫠

The Onion saw it coming https://www.theonion.com/report-national-content-now-over-85-percent-filler-1819564681

Report: National Content Now Over 85 Percent Fillerwww.theonion.com WASHINGTON, DC—According to a report issued Monday by the General Content-Assessment Office, the National Content-To-Filler Index (NCFI) currently stands at 85.5 percent. Representing a 22 percent inc...

A classic quote here from Emma Thompson. From variety.com/2023/film/gl...

Worse than filler, it's a product they can sell for their own profit, afaict they don't see art bc they don't see real value or things of cultural importance only what they can sell and that's why they don't bother with distinctions: They would sell dog poop if they thought people would buy it.

Do you buy words in imperial measure or metric?

By the yard, like ribbon.

That tracks. Some words are wider than others, and some are sparkly.

More right than you think. I was supporting the Internet Archive covid loan policy when it became clear that people over on Hacker News believed that you could get anything you wanted from Libby or "the internet."

I once heard about someone whose primary entertainment reading bad fanfic machine translated from languages he didn't know. The explanation when the story was related to me was that narrative incoherence was the only way that he could feel surprise.

Wonderfully said

For whatever it's worth, I conducted a poll on the StableDiffusion Reddit about a year ago on AI image stereotypes vs. reality. Normal webpoll caveats apply, but 1/4th reported being professional employed artists, 1/4th active amateurs, 1/4 dabblers, and 1/4th not much involved in art before AI.

A stereotype that turned out to be true: they *overwhelmingly* reported being male, like 85% if I remember right (a contrast to Midjourney's ~60%). One that turned out to be false: They overwhelmingly hated crypto and NFTs, many choosing the most extreme, "Crypto can go die in a ditch" option.

My suspicion for the differential with MidJourney: SD is more "techie" (requires a more complex / involved setup and a gaming PC), and is also fully uncensored (for people who want to make porn), so both of these things can be expected to result in a higher male/female ratio.

Also, if I like a movie enough watch it again, it’s bc I like the story as it was. Why the fuck would I want them to keep changing it??

That too.

Right? I want to watch the story I liked the first time.

because as we all know people hate talking about shared experiences 🙃

oh my GOD gross

This is Clue erasure and I won't have it

This is why choose your own adventure books dominate the NYT bestseller list.

Adolescent Intelligence

If something like this was put out by a weird art collective, and didn't cost as much power as a small city uses to show each time, I would be interested.

yeah. it's a very Brian Eno idea, even! or Andy Warhol's estate doing an NFT. Warhol would totally have done NFTs. But yeah, uh.

Warhol would have built NFTs into an empire and then kicked the empire over himself, all as part of the same bit. He was insufferable in life and the only thing making me regret that we don't have him alive to respond to Our Modern Hellscape is that he'd be even more insufferable in response.

absolutely and utterly but also it would have been clearly and obviously an artistic success too. i can't get over what a Warholian idea Andy doing NFTs would have been.

That scene where Eno broke up the fight between Mick Jagger and Brian Ferry will haunt me forever.

Do these people not know what the purpose of a documentary is?

"Its documenting the vibe of an eno album or some shit i dunno i fell asleep while listening to music for airports and wrote my prompt when i woke up." -the creator of Eno probably.

generative art? what will they think of next....modular synthesizers???

Soundtrack is just Windows 95 opening on loop.

this is actually a very very good documentary (I've seen it) and an interesting way of conveying the message of this particular subject. Do I think it would work for everything? absolutely not.

This is the first time I've heard the film described as "generative ai". Is it? Or is it just editing and mixing the segments on the fly?

I've not checked yet, I would expect the latter and more of a program with a degree of RNG calling segments like DVD chapters. But I have read the whole article and it's absolute bilge, extrapolates to a nonsensical degree, designed for clicks and rage posting.

There’s this scene in Mad Men where the Accounts Man, Duck Phillips, where he tries to get Don Draper to report to him. He dismisses Creative by saying anyone can write a poem to a potato chip. AI proponents are the same, no respect for things they don’t understand and can’t do.

"Just so you know, people who talk that way think monkeys can do this."

It strange that the first film made to had a zillion variations is a documentary. Something that is supposed to be based on facts and a finite timeline.

No, it's very telling. Just like any web troll, the champions of AI hate true analogue creativity, life and world as it is and the first things you attack then are facts and reality.

Yes, this is what worries me most about AI. Removing the technology itself for a moment.. ..there seems to be a core of individuals behind it who are soulless wankers who just want to burn everything that is beautiful in the human condition.

Indeed! But it's worrying. I wrote a rant on algorithms a while ago — they build on the same sum of human output on the web, w. the same scary result! I mused a bit on how come. I didn't get around to asking why some hollow people Wallow in it... Rant! 😛 paintstakingly.blogspot.com/2024/01/you-...

You Mustn’t Read This… (Dystopian Web Musings)paintstakingly.blogspot.com Surreal artwork and musings by Joakim Ceder -- plus a little odd music.

But it’s a documentary about Brian Eno who is famous for this sort of thing en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique...

Oblique Strategies - Wikipediaen.m.wikipedia.org

We are huge fans of Eno. Oblique Strategies are to inspire creativity, not replace it.

I’m no fan of AI but that’s not what this doc is doing. It’s just randomizing the experience of watching it, like shuffling a playlist. Not replacing anything

It’s also not AI. Unless shuffling a playlist is also AI.

I certainly didn't have "Social Media Gets Mad At 'Choose-Your-Own-Adventure' Books" on my 2024 bingo card.

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