UNCANNY VALLEY

Self portrait with LightWave 3D (Eki Halkka, 1999)

Eki has used AI in the LMP blog for approx. two years. It's been fun to watch the  leaps. Then he told me about Uncanny Valley - the creeps people can get when they're up close to a humanoid like AI-DA.  The AI that painted Alan Turing's portrait.*

In the article she was striking. Large eyes, a short black bob. I was okay until AI-DA cautioned US to be careful of AI. Her wide-open eyes, that  blank stare. She looked right through you. It was getting dark. I turned on all the  lights. Put on some music. Had  a drink. And tried to forget that blank stare.

In a poll I took nobody knew what "Uncanny Valley" was. But it's been round since the 1970s, coined by  Masahiro Mori, a professor at Tokyo University, when  AI was in its first throes. They may not know UV now, but they will. And it ain't fun.

*Alan Turing's portrait sold at Sotheby's for 1.8m

Sources: Economist, Guardian

Next week: CULT BRANDING:  big buck and loyalty

Animatronic Arnold (Orion Pictures, 1984)

Note: Uncanny valley has been the curse of my line of work, visual effects, for a long time. First, the animatronic puppets that were almost life-like, but not quite - see e.g. puppet Arnold Schwarzenegger the original Teminator. Then 3D animation, that was the same. Remember Polar Express, or the scorpion king from The Mummy returns? Firmly in the valley. 

At the highest level, the valley has been long crossed. The computer generated humans in big budget Hollywood productions have been convincing enough to go unnoticed for at least a decade. It's only when we know there must be shenanigans going on (resurrecting dead actors, or making old ones look young again) that we look carefully enough to tell something may be off.

Personally, I never put in the work (or perhaps just didn't have the talent) to create fully realistic close-up ready humans from scratch. Perhaps I never even made it into the valley - an early attempt from the last millennium (above) may serve as an example. Anyway, it still is not an easy task. At all. 

This said, there are tools like Epic Metahumans, and of course the AI tools we get to play with nowadays, that can pass the valley with flying colours, without needing a team of artists specializing on just this one thing full time for months on end to get results.

PS: Masahiro Mori is a roboticist, and Uncanny Valley was (and arguably still is) more about appearance and motion than artificial intelligence. Not to say that AI can't be spooky too ;-)

CU

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Eki

TIK TOK ROCKS

PigTok!!

TIK TOK's no-brainer short video format is a world-wide blockbuster. In the US it has170m TTers - more than half the country's pop. But unless ByteDance, the Chinese co. that owns it sells out to an American company it's curtains in the US.  Or so they say. To top it off, t3 states have sued TT for being addictive to kids.

With 2bn users worldwide, it's addictive period. Kamala Harris' two videos got 50mn hits. A big chunk for one site. To rake in more doe TT has an online store,  is publishing digital books and the old-fashioned kind.

Eki advised me to stay off the app. But I got hooked on  two TT trends in the Washington Post and New York Times: castor oil for wrinkles and apple cider vinegar for eczema.* They work. I think.

*10% of the world's pop. has eczema 

 Economist, Washington Post, New York Times, internet

Next week: UNCANNY VALLEY: creepy eerie feelings when humans up close to an  AI person

Note: What to say... of all the time-sinking ratholes of the world, TikTok is **not** the one i will dive into. Making the viral miss maggypiggy was fun though ;-)

-- Eki

AI & Eki make a boffo music video for LMP

Michael "Melting Mike" Dalisalvadoré: Heel Over Heads For You

‘Michael "Melting Mike" Dalisalvadoré: Heel Over Heads For You’ in B&W, echoes Hollywood’s golden age. An art deco fashion show:  elegant models in bizarre costumes, snobby viewers,  a goofy, appealing singer, who looks like he’s been on a slap-happy bender.   Inspired  by art deco designer, Elsa Schiaparelli and Salvador Dali who designed  a joint collection in the late 30s.

It’s fun to be in on it. I write short plots for Eki to write his AI prompts. One of the most famous designs of Schiaparelli and Dali was their shoe hat.  Michael gives nutty nod to them.

So far Eki has made four videos for the album. In each one you can see the progress - Michael’s Head Over Heels is a giant leap. Altogether we've planned eight.  Can't wait for AI and Eki to finish number 5. 

Sources: Eki. wikipedia, personal experience

Next week:  TIK TOK: trends and influencers world-wide

Note: This project has, again, been an interesting dive into AI and new techniques. The pace of development in AI has been so fast that when the project started, the tools were in many ways different, even though it was just like three months ago. We have maybe two or three months more to go until we've done all the eight films. 

During this time, the AI video tools and all sorts of AI generation tools have improved so much that there's a clear difference in quality. It will be more when we come to the last films. 

It's also been a learning journey for me, a good reason to take time to explore the new tools available. It's always better to have a project where you test new tools instead of just trying to sit on your bum and work your way through stuff without actually getting any viable result from it. 

So, yeah, halfway through, and I'm also interested to see what comes next.

PS: I tried a new method of "writing" this time - I dictated the text to ChatGPT, which kindly not only turned my voice to text, but also cleaned out all the filler words etc., making the result 90% to what I wanted - I just manually trimmed a few sloppy parts here and there, tightened it, and - done. The future is now.

CU

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Eki

2024 Election: HARRIS &WALZ road show

Kamala at oval office, by Flux1-dev AI

"It’s time for us to do what we have been been doing.  And that time is every day." 

Kamala  Harris (1964-)

When Kamala Harris, a so-so VP got bumped up to pres. candidate she chose Tim Walz, gov. of Minn. for VP.  The most progressive, probably the least known of the candidates.  Rousing rally crowds seem to go for their message. Her poll numbers are up.  And in a recent Financial Times poll she jumped ahead of Trump managing the economy.

It’s no secret that big-wig Dems were pissed when Biden crowned Harris. Terrific candidates were in the wings ready to jump in. Josh Shapiro, gov. Pa., Gretchen Whitener, gov. Mich., Andy Beshear, gov. KY.  But when Harris was a fait accompli, they quickly organised the Harris/ Walz road show: a happy-go-lucky tour of battleground states with Beyonce music.

Poor Trump. The last couple of weeks has left him limp: the maladroit choice of J.D. Vance for VP, shot at a rally, Biden dumped. A lot for an old guy, past his sell-by date. If the stakes weren’t so high, US Election 2024 would be the most ’must watch’ soap opera of the year.

Sources: New York Times, Economist, Financial Times

Next week: TIK TOK TRENDS shoot the MOON

“There’s no company and no country in the world – no country in the world has ever ripped off the United States like the incredible job that they did on this country and the people that ran it.”

"Covfefe"

Donald Trump (1946-)

 

Note: I think Harris has done a fine job as VP of Biden, on the perhaps most effective Democrat presidency in modern history. Yes, despite considerable differences of opinion in some issues, and his age, I do think Biden has been a good president. Appearances are irrelevant, policies matter.

I also do think Harris will make a good president, and Walz will do fine as VP. When it comes to coherence and substance, she is on a completely different planet from her opponent. She may have made a gaffe or two, that's only human. Trump (and Vance) make more of them in the first minute of any given speech than she has done in her whole career. We've just grown numb for it.

As far as the VP nominations go, I'm happy she chose a somewhat progressive candidate instead of a lukewarm centrist. Despite "progressive" being often used as an insult, the actual progressive policy ideas are widely liked, even among ground-level republicans (as long as you do not call them progressive).

CU
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Eki

PS: Choosing that Kamala quote doesn't do much else than show how easy it is to become an useful idiot, an echo chamber for hollow right-wing talking points. Oh well ;-)

NIGHTWISH has a new clueless FAN

Behind the scenes of "Perfume of the Timeless" video shoot.

When the new NIGHTWISH music video, ‘Perfume of the Timeless’ was posted  Eki sent me the link. The first thing that grabbed my attention was the 12,500+ hits it got in the first hour - a north later it has 1,3 m. I watched it, the I listened. It was way out of the 30s deco, i.e. Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, etc, I’m hooked on.  But I went online to check them out.

A symphonic-metal band sounded like a contradiction. I called Eki. He said metal music is close to classical. If you played the notes on a piano it would be a tune. In the top 20 NW recordings "The Greatest Show on Earth" was number one. I listened. For me POTT was more symphonic and less metal.

I probably won’t buy headphones, or give up Billie, Louis. Ella. But will check out new recording. NIGHTWISH congrats. And ‘thanks a million'’ for clueing me in.

Sources:  Eki, internet

Next week: little margie doc blog  will be back in August

Iron Maiden medley with a symphony orchestra

Note: I have become a fan of the Nightwish songs I have worked on (the videos for "The Islander", "Noise" and POTT). But for some reason, I've never taken the time to listen to their full catalogue. Perhaps making a video and listening to a song hundreds if not thousands of times while working on it is so high a dosage that it deters from diving into the band more generally. Dunno.

As an example of this, I hadn't heard to "The Greatest Show on Earth" yet - and it's a song from a decade ago. So i took the time to listen to it now. I'm not sure what version Maggy listened to, but at least on the album version, the band does not even kick in before the six minute mark.

Until then, i's certainly not metal, but rather what could be called a cinematic composition in the vein of Hollywood adventures, played by classical instruments. And that's not all, the symphony orchestra returns many times during the 23 minute piece, alternating with the rock segments. And the passages read by the great Richard Dawkins. I actually liked it quite a lot. Perhaps I indeed should do that dive into Nightwish ;-)

Talking about the symphonic metal thing, Nightwish actually uses a real symphony orchestra instead of synthesizers in their records. But the connection between classical music and metal goes deeper. The musical language is actually often rather similar, different from pop and rock, which are usually more based on blues and jazz vocabulary. As Maggy said, i think many metal compositions would pass as classical music, if arranged for an orchestra. This has not escaped classical musicians, there are many examples of doing just that - the Iron Maiden medley above is just the first example i came across.

Apocalyptica plays Metallica (2015)

Finnish group Apocalyptica was started on this premise in 1993, perhaps originally as a joke. They played Metallica on cellos. Now, Metallica is in the genre of trash metal, which is from the not-so-complex end of the metal pool, but even that worked surprisingly well - so well in fact that it resulted in a 30-year, still ongoing international career with 10 albums and counting for Apocalyptica.

In the opposite end, another Finnish metal band, Stone, started their first album with Jean Sibelius' Finlandia, played with electric guitars. The album is a good example of the virtuosity and complexity often at display with metal musicians with their instruments - don't let the form fool you, they can give any classical players a run for their money.

PS: The Perfume of the Timeless video just crossed the 2 million view mark today. Cheers!


CU
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Eki

Little margie has the AI blues

Nightwish - Perfume of the Timeless

Eki and I got the idea to do an AI song. He had a recording of my voice, all we needed was a title and a prompt. A piece of cake. Ten minutes later he sent the link to ‘little margie sings the blues’. My head went into high gear. ’Why don’t we do an album?’ He said, ‘why not’.

Love 20’s, 30’s deco: tangos, rumbas, Harlem jazz, Josephine Baker. We decided on eight titles: Tom Dick & Mary’ - a tango. Prompt: ’Tom loves, Dick loves Mary, Mary loves Tom'. ‘Love on a Binge’, ‘Uncanny Valley’ waltz. Five more to go. Thought this ain’t easy. And plugged on.

Finally sent them off to Eki. He had just got off 15 hour days working on a Nightwish music video - ‘Perfume of the Timeless’. He sent me a link. After one hour online, it got 12,500+ hits. When I didn’t hear from him, began to think maybe I was way over my head. What the hell, We’ll always have ‘Little margie sings the blues’. ‘Play it again....'

Little Margie sings the blues:
https://www.udio.com/songs/vQEt7pcwVdqareg6Eohvtm

Source: personal experience. internet

Next week: TIK TOK takes over: 1 billion active monthly users worldwide, approx. 130 million in the US


Note: With the current tech, with the tools i use, I can make AI Maggy talk with her voice sample, but not sing (just yet). The song i sent back had a female singer, but that was not Maggy's voice, but rather something the AI tool (Udio AI) chose by itself based on the genre.

I'm yet to feed all the prompts into the AI, as getting good results takes a bit of time - it's curating using the shotgun method, with a twist of evolution thrown in. What you do, is to first generate multiple songs (or more specifically, 30 second snippets of a song), and listen to them. If you're not happy, generate more snippets. Once you find one that sounds good and fits the prompt, you add another 30 seconds to it, again multiple times, then choose the best addition, add the next 30 seconds to that... rinse and repeat until you have a full song.

I got lucky with the first example we did, and got a decent song with just a dozen or so tries. But it can take longer - much longer. So, the actual songs will come sometime later.

PS: Now, about a week later, the Nightwish video has 1.3 million views and counting.

CU

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Eki

All PLAY, no WORK when AI takes our jobs

Uncanny Valley, by Ideogram AI

Eki nailed it: AI is a new species.  It will  grow up and go to work. Even now, in its teenage stage, it has made a big splash. ChatGPT can record audio books in 95 languages.  A friend was texting.  Up popped :‘I can write this message for you’.  It writes articles, creates illustrations, incl. for the LMP blog.  Eki made an AI copy of my voice to narrate a short video.  Smarter, faster, cheaper than us,  AI doesn’t take time off or get a salary. 

It has made a huge impact in Health Care. AI is more accurate at diagnosing illnesses than human doctors. It discovered two types of testicular cancer: benign (no op  necessary) and the other invasive. In China ‘AskBob’ beat six doctors with more accurate, quicker diagnoses. It assists 1.32m doctors.  A New Zealand company has developed an AI ’doctor’ that looks and acts human. But  humans get an eerie, creepy feeling*  when they’re up-close to an AI bot that looks like us.

A big  stumbling block for AI is the humongous amounts of electricity it uses.  But still, AI will have the biggest impact, good and bad, on our lives since the 19C Industrial revolution - when Luddites wrecked the electric weaving machines. Welcome to the new world.

*"Uncanny Valley":  UUV AI post photography, Palmer gallery, London

Next week: TikTok on the   LOCK

Sources: Economist, BBC, Financial Times, Eki

Note to EKI re. third  party candidates:  in 2020 Ralph Nader got 97,488 votes in Florida.  Al Gore lost in that state to George Bush by 543 votes - the Supreme court wouldn’t allow a re-count. It cost him  the election. In 1996, Ross Perot got 19,743,921 votes.  Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton. Neither Nader or Perot had a star-power name of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who doesn’t care if he dumps Trump on the US.

Uncanny Valley, by Ideogram AI

Note: I didn't coin the "AI is a new species" thing, got it from a TED talk - by whom, I do not remember right now. And it's not ChatGPT that reads audio books, but rather some other AI.

Which reminds me, the logical follow-up for AI images, videos and voices is AI music. And of course AI nails that too, the likes of Suno and Udio (and soon Elevenlabs Music, by the same company I used to clone Maggy's voice) can create custom songs in any style from heavy rock to classical opera in mere minutes for essentially no money or effort, and the results are rather stunning: like other art generating AI:s, though they still fall short from the crème de la crème, they are better than *most* musicians.

Little Margie's Blues by Udio

When it comes to AI generated art (except perhaps AI video), we are past the uncanny valley - the AI generated humans look real, they sound real. But in robotics we're still on the other side of the valley - sure, the robots are deliberately made to look somewhat like humans or animals, but also still clearly machines. So far there have not been any robots that cross the uncanny valley to the other side, looking and behaving so realistically that they would pass for real humans or animals - all attempts so far look repulsive.

About the elections: Yea, wormbrain may get some votes, but I think more from the Trump conspiracy theorist pool than from Biden's side. 

CU

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Eki

“Double double toil and …” *3rd party candidates spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E*

"Do you like parties? I hope no bad people show up."
Beastie Boys - (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)

Seven 3rd party candidates are nipping at the the heels of the two old dogs running for US president. Four count:  Robert Kennedy Jr**., Jill Stein (Green party), Cornel West  (intellectual academic) , Libertarian party.  A lot of US voters, especially progressive Gen Zs, don’t like the US two party system.  And most voters are ho-hum about Biden and Trump. The bets right now are the outliers will give Trump a boost.

Eki thinks Tump will  be, or should be,  wearing stripes in jail - like a lot of his crooked pals. But if he wins it will be a ”get out of jail” card.  Like Biden, he babbles, mixes up names and is footloose with facts, But he looks more alive than Sleepy’ Joe. And he’s got a rock-solid base.

In 2020, Biden said he would be a ‘transitional’ president; in 2024 a new generation would  take the reins. That was then, this is now. The team that pulls old Joe off the stage when he starts to ramble, for ex. about long-dead leaders (Francois Mitterrand, Helmet Kohl) thinks they’ve done a bang-up job and deserve a 2nd term. Trump wants to stay out of jail and is puffed up by the power.  His team has been in working since 2020. It’s ready to take over: place their ‘people’ in all major government departments. Will Michelle O ride to to the rescue? Tune in.

* ”Double, double toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble.  By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”.  Macbeth

**R.F.K quote: “Joe Biden is more dangerous to democracy than Trump“. Trump thinks a ‘Trump Kennedy ticket is red-hot brand. Kennedy says “no dice”. That might change.

Sources: Economist, Guardian, New York Times

Next week:  “Dr. AI will see you now”

littlemargie note: Found two typos in last week’s post. Decided to not to correct them to prove a human wrote it. But then realised that AI could have purposely made errors to pretend a human wrote it. Welcome to the new world. 

Note: First of all, good job working for Trump presidency, Maggy. It's people like you that haphazardly promote moot anti-Biden talking points fed to you that are the greatest danger in the coming elections. Not the 3rd party candidates. Because said rhetoric you help spew is the very reason the 3rd party candidates might actually get votes.

This said, my gut feeling is that despite the party, Kennedy Jr. has more overlap with Trump than with Biden. Both peddle in the same ponds of delusion, conspiracy theories, and anti-science. Stein might have overlap more with Biden, i surely hope she is wise enough to pull from the race. West I do not even know, which suggests he is not a big problem. Libertarian party is essentially a less religious flavour of the Maga cult - and very possibly, it's the libertarian and conservative think tanks like Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation that pull the strings behind the curtain on both, like they do with climate change denial. And of course the russkies - the goals largely align.

I do indeed think Trump should be put behind bars. That may not happen, but nevertheless, he will very likely be a convicted criminal by the time of the election. The hush money trial is about to start in a week, and the evidence against Trump seems so strong that he's very likely to be found guilty of federal crimes. He may be pardoned, or avoid prison time in some other way, but that does not take away the fact that he will be a convicted felon, just because of this case.

And there are dozens of others to follow.

PS: Michelle O? Not gonna happen.

CU

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EKi

AI takes a giant LEAP

Eki sent me a link to three SORA* videos.  And one he made  for a  for a competition. AI did the script, narration, video, edit with a prompt. He said some day AI could doing  his job. When Midjourney came out a couple of years ago people who thought  ‘what a hoot’, are out of a jobs today. Better check if you’re on the endangered species list.  For the time being Open AI is keeping Sora under wraps until it can figure out how to control its use. As they say, ‘good luck with…

There’s a monster in our midst, smarter than US. Geoffrey Hinton, the god-father of AI, is spooked by his creation. And hopes to hell someone figures out how to rein it in. 50% of the world holds elections in 2024. Fake AI crap will flood social media.  What’s to stop it?   Trump & Co. are hyper-ventilating.

Eki says AI is in its pre-teen phase. You can bet that it’s going to get smarter and more versatile. Without answers it’s better to sit back, pour a glass a glass of something, strong, smoke a joint, meditate.  Or as Gestalt-ers say as infinitum: ‘stay in the  here and now’.  AI is here for better or worse. 

*Japanese word for ’sky’

Sources: Eki, New York Times, Economist

Next week: ‘Double, double, toil and trouble……’: *  3rd party candidates for US     president 2024 

*Three witches in Macbeth

Note: When Maggy sent me this blog, it took me a few seconds to remember which giant leap we are talking about - they come at a pace where "a week ago" is ancient history. Since the SORA announcement, there have been many other giant leaps already.

There's a fully autonomous software engineer called Devin, an AI that can not only do code, but also all other steps required in making applications: research, plan, test, compile and deploy. Essentially, it is a computer program that can make computer programs without human intervention. Claude 3 was announced, and it apparently outperforms ChatGPT 4. Stable Diffusion 3 is coming too, and it seems to be better than Dall-E 3 or Midjourney - and it also does videos. And then there's also another breakthrough with OpenAI brains - Figure-01 (video above) is a humanoid robot that is not only dexterous, but can also see, hear - and think. Essentially, it is the robot from science fiction films - a real life cousin of 3CPO (Before you ask, it's the golden robot from Star Wars, Maggy). As far as video goes, the "Chinese Amazon", Alibaba, announced a new model called EMO AI. It can take any image, and any song or speech, and make the image perform to the audio. 

But back to SORA. Sora is a video-generating AI that can make long (up to a minute) videos that are nearly indistinguishable from actual footage, with a lot of motion and even emotion. I'm of course already using the state-of-the-art-available-now video generators in my work, but they are nowhere near SORA - yet - but even as-is they are good enough to many tasks: creating elements for further manipulation, even full-screen videos as long as the clip is short (2-4 seconds or so) and the motion is minimal.

SORA could also be used to create, well, pretty much anything. Including using it for nefarious purposes. So, just like they did with ChatGPT, OpenAI has a period of testing and aligning the model to acceptable values. We will get our hands on it some day, but it can take months. But when we do, it will be interesting, not least for the future of my discipline, visual effects production.

CU

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Eki

MICHELLE OBAMA for PREZ 2024??

 

Michelle at Oval Office, by Midjourney & Eki

Will she or won't she?  The New York Post says it's a done deal that MICHELLE will  take the plunge. Throw her hat in the ring in May. God save the Dems. If Old Joe runs and loses to Trump it will be an epic disaster.  Michelle, whip smart, quick on her feet, experienced, is almost too good to be true.  The Guardian says it ain't gonna happen.

Joe Biden's cognitive skills have been  rusty for a while. It all became public when the special counsel, appointed  to investigate Biden's  stashing and using state documents.  The SC spilled the beans and caused an 8.9 earthquake in the White House. But the disclosure wasn't news to anyone interested in the 2024  election. High ranking Dems have suggested Biden step down. A scientist wrote an article for the Economist with the message that Trump and Biden are both too old to run for president.

So we liberal voters are left to hope and wonder if Michelle will step in and save the day. And maybe save US democracy. What a cliff-hanger. Bets anyone??

Sources; Ne York Post, Economist,  Guardian

Next  Week:  AI takes a GIANT LEAP

Note: Well, Biden is old, sure, but not much older and Trump. And I'd say the image of his mental decline is more a product of political opposition propaganda than reality (and his mental health is also arguably leaps and bounds above his rival). In the latter, A.K.A. The Real World (TM), Biden is doing quite fine, actually. In a recent 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey, he was ranked the 14th best president of all times by political science academics and historians. Not too shabby for someone whom you call "rusty".

As far as Michelle Obama goes, she would probably make a great president. But, unfortunately, I must side with the Guardian, it probably will not happen.

PS: Trump ranked last, no surprise there.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/18/us/politics/biden-trump-presidential-rankings.html

CU
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Eki

EKI’s AI take on PINK FLOYD

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of The Moon | A 50th Anniversary Animated Tribute by Eki & AI |

Eki asked me if I knew PINK FLOYD. I got all puffed up and said, ‘DUH’. And  added, ‘but I don’t know HIS music’. Eki jumped in with a withering, ’it’s a group, not a person’.  And said, for the 50th anniversary of ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ they invited AI prompt engineers to illustrate the album.

A huge task but right up Eki’s  alley. He sent me the link to ’The Wall’.  And told me Pink Floyd had a huge influence on him as a kid. When he saw i 'The Wall' as a young teen he decided ‘movies and music’ were what he wanted to do when he grew up. He stuck with it and made it happen.                                                                                                                                                         

To illustrate the old album using AI was a brilliant way for the iconic group to celebrate the Golden anniversary.  And give fans a way to to take part in the project. Eki sent me a link  to his  AI illustrated album. When I asked  people  about Pink Floyd, who were around Eki ’s age, they zeroed in on ‘The Wall’. But when I talked to a GenZ  guy, he knew Pink Floyd  was famous, but he liked ‘Arctic Monkey’. Time marches on. But Pink Floyd found a way to make their 50 year old ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ new again.  Hats off!

Sources: Eki, internet, interviews

Next week:  Please say YES!  Will  MICHELLE  OBAMA  run or PRESIDENT 2024?

Note:

To be more specific, it's an animation competition: the rules do allow the use of AI, but do not require it. Also, the task was to create an animated video for any song from the album - or more. It was my own decision to go full monty and try to come up with videos for every song, the whole album.

And that decision was made because of the emergence of AI - doing the work manually would have been practically impossible, due to the sheer amount of animation needed. So, i not only created the majority of images with AI, i also created the majority of the hundreds of needed text prompts with AI. As well as some custom code needed to make it all work. 

This said, there was a lot of manual work involved too - 3D and 2D animation, editing, compositing etc. I chose to attempt a hand-drawn style, something that would have been theoretically possible in the 1970s if they had unlimited budget. So even the 3D animation elements were pushed through AI processing for the hand-drawn look.

To me, this was largely a testing ground for the AI tools - a reason to spend time learning them and pushing them to the limit. The judges are still out making decisions about the winners, but to me, the trip itself was the goal. Getting awarded would of course be a nice bonus, but considering the high number of participants and the high quality of many entries, a quite unlikely one.

PS: Maggy's little blunder about the identity of Pink Floyd is not an uncommon one. In fact, Pink Floyd themselves have made fun of the misconception, e.g. in the lyrics of "Have a Cigar", where the record label executive asks them "Oh, by the way, which one is Pink?".

PS2: I was 5 years old when The Dark Side Of The Moon came out - a little too little to pay attention. But when The Wall was released about a decade later... I've been a fan of the band ever since, and the ground-breaking animations in The Wall feature film were one of the reasons why I pursued a career in the film/animation/VFX industry, along with the more usual suspects like ILM:s work on Star Wars, Raiders etc. They were indeed creating magic, and I wanted to do that too.

CU

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Eki

CHARISMA: weapon of mass destruction

Donald and Adolf at a comedy club stage, by Stable Diffusion

"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, next as farce."

Karl Marx1888-1935

HITLER had IT in spades. TRUMP has IT a knock-of f version. Two badass guys with egos on crack-cocaine. Comic-book kooks. Their chosen villains/victims: Jews and migrants. Con-men who hooked masses of malcontents with their dark CHARISMA.

It took the HITLER Nazi nine years (1924- 1933) to take over the German government . He lasted about twelve. Trump has been at it for eight. His legal troubles help haul in the money. His cult-base is rock-solid. He has an iron-grip on the Republican party. 

And is neck and neck, or ahead of Biden in multiple polls If Trump wins in 2024 it will be because Joe (past his sell-by-date) Biden lost. When high-ranking Dem, David Axelrod, said the 80 year old should quit. Biden called him a 'prick'. That ain't ‘charisma’. TRUMP/HITLER: love ‘em, hate ‘em, has IT.


Sources: the Economist, Washington Post, New York Times, Cambridge dictionary, personal opinion

Next week: Eki does Pink Floyd

"The argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with an average voter."

Winston Churchill 1874-1965

Note: No, it is not Joe Biden's fault if Trump wins. It is the fault of the people who vote for Trump. Period.

When (well, still "if") there are two or more options, and one of them is Trump, voting for him is a catastrophic failure by the person casting the vote. It is rather irrelevant who the other option is, the only reasonable option is to vote for someone else. Anyone.

And that right there is arguably the second most dangerous human trait. People act and vote based on emotion, not on reason. What is the most dangerous trait then you might ask? It's a close relative: faith. A strong belief that is held despite of evidence (as opposed to trust, a belief that is held because of evidence).

These two traits, held by ordinary people, create Donalds, and Adolfs. Charisma is irrelevant. Or rather, it should be.

- Eki