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| Maggy Fellman |
I have very sad news for you, readers: Maggy is no longer with us. She passed last Tuesday, as far as I know. I don't have many details to share at this point.
I will attempt to finish our last project, "Little Margie Sings The Blues", a series of 1930s AI music videos, sort of an album. The titular piece was saved for the last, a blues about little Margie, who of course has an uncanny resemblance with Maggy herself.
She will be missed.
- Eki
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| "An extra hour to your day - for free!" DST clock by ChatGPT |
The CR clock in our brain tells us when to sleep and when to wake up. It doesn’t dig change. So why don’t we make DST permanent. Good question. About 30% of the world’s population has a sleep problem. Could Time Change be part of the problem.
In 2022 the American senate passed a law to make DST permanent. But it didn’t get through the house. They’re going to try to again. According to the NYT Trump is all for it. If the US switches. Will other countries follow? Let’s hope. But don’t bet on it.
Sources: Economist, New York Times, Cleveland Clinic
July: Little Margie doc blog will be on vacation
Note: If DT is supporting permanent DST, that may be the first thing ever we agree on. I would love to have permanent DST. I couldn't care less whether it is light or dark at 4 am. But whether it's light or dark at 4pm... that really matters. Switching to regular time in the fall is like diving into eternal darkness, only to be brought back to life in the spring when DST is back on.
There's been a lot of push to make regular time permanent. I have no idea why anyone supports that idea, but that would be even worse than the switcharoo. It would make day permanently shorter.
My internal clock runs in 25 hour cycle, i think. If i was to be isolated in a room with no clocks or daily cycle, i would go to bed an hour later every day. And sleep in an additional hour in the morning. My hunch is that this applies to most people who are at their best in the evening. The morning people unfortunately rule the ball, so our nights are cut short by the alarm clock.
I feel like DST gives me that extra hour back, almost. And standard time robs it away.
CU
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Eki
Chockablock with copyright-free plots, characters - good guys and bad guys, saints and sinners, the bible is a mother-lode for Christian movie makers. Viewer potential is huge: 2.2bn Christians. A Christian boom is in the zeitgeist. Even the highfalutin New Yorker magazine published a piece about Mary Magdalene (traveled with Jesus and witnessed his crucifixion).
Studies tell us people who have a religion are happier and live on average three years longer. Catholics’ gobble up 50% of the 2.2bn. The other 50% are all sorts of ideologies. At a mega-church in Colorado, the preacher appeared in a Hawaiian shirt and belted out, ‘Jesus is the big Kahuna.’
Pitched an idea to Eki for a 30 second Christian video. He balked. Said it would appeal to far right wing bigots. I changed the location from a run-down town in Texas to 5th avenue New York. He still didn’t bite. But said he’d come up with something. EKI! Can’t wait to see ’SOMETHING.’
Sources: NewYork Times, Economist, Wikipedia, internet, New Yorker magazine, personal experience
Next week: Daylight saving time: BAH HUMBIG!
Make a CHRISTIAN movie: they’re HOT
Note: Okay, some unpacking to do. We have never done anything because of market research, and we will certainly not start now. Second, neither of us are people of faith, so it would be dishonest to do an actual Christian movie, and being dishonest is not something we will start now either. Third, as said, it would not only be dishonest, it would implicitly support what is in my opinion a dangerous worldview.
I do not mean just MAGA, I mean faith.
Yes, faith is dangerous. I would go as far as to say faith is a cancer of the modern society.
"Why so?" one might ask - well, I will tell you why. Encouraging faith is encouraging gut feeling instead of knowledge. Glorifying unsubstantiated beliefs into something noble and more important than a trust in the observable truths. I, for one, am unwilling to contribute to that.
Trust is a belief held because of evidence. Faith is a belief held despite it.
So, i made "something".
CU
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Eki
VANCE, V.P. Caught up in the hilarious ‘gang of Signal Chat’ that included the editor of the ATLANTIC (respected US news magazine). The chatters rattled off top secret war plans, made salacious slurs against US ‘friends’. When the blabbers discovered their Big Mistake, they called the editor, (Jeffery Goldberg) a liar. He splashed the whole transcript, including. the ‘cute’ emojis. A bunch of school-yard tough guys, playing pro-pols. Trumps WANNABEs.
MUSK: It’s rumoured that Musk takes ketamine to boost his strength and he-man image. He usually travels with a couple of f his little kids. Gives world leaders pep talks with X on his shoulder. Or leads his DOGE band of teen-age digital storm-troopers to clear out Federal agencies - 10,000 Federal Health care workers were fired April Fools day. Lately he’s been in Wisconsin dolling out dollars (25m) for Rep candidate in the Wisconsin Supreme court election April Fool’s day, Musk was handing our 100 dollar bills to get voters to sign a petition. Ha ha, the Democrat won. GOD BLESS AVE AMERICA.
*Bret Stephens: centre-right OP ED NYTs
**DOGE: Department of Government Efficiency
Sources: Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, Roberta Nelson
Next week: Wanna make a lot of MONEY: make a CHRISTIAN movie
Note: I'm kind of tired of writing about the three stooges. Yes, they are wreaking havoc, yes, it is preposterous, dangerous and stupid, yes, if you wonder what it looked like if Russian assets ran the US government... yes, it would look exactly like this. Yes many times over to all that and more.
What gets my juices flowing is the fact that people wanted this, and cast their vote to make it happen. Many still support the madness. Fox news still cheers them on like nothing happened. And the left blames democrats like they always do, instead of taking the responsibility that they themselves are to blame too - every time they called Biden old, or Kamala inexperienced, or just criticized the dems for whatever like they always do... they helped make this happen. THAT is the real story, and it is not a pretty one - US citizens, look in the mirror.
I'm here in northern Europe, looking at you, hoping the same shit-show (ASS-show??) will not happen here. It is already too close, we have our own wannabe-nazis in the government too. And enough of OUR citizens wanted that. Some still do.
CU
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Eki
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| Pig-butcher by Dall-E |
You’re on 'linked in'. You hook up with Anna, who lives in Singapore. After about six month chatting online, she tells you how she got into crypto and doubled her investment. She can clue you in. You take the bait. After you double your money, you decide to cash in. Poof, it’s gone. So is Anna. You’ve been pig-butchered.
Anna is a captive living in camp-town in Myanmar. If she doesn’t keep up the scams, she's punished. Her minders don’t fool around. Torture is common.
Scamming is a 500bn dollar business - on par with the illegal drug business without the product. Social media was made for scamming. A perfect site to nurture a pig, butcher him. when the scan pays off. AI has escalated the danger. If you get butchered, tell your friends. You might save potential pigs from getting the axe.
Source: Economist
Next week: BAD-ASS-BROS: Tump. Vance. Musk
Note: Okay, be careful out there. The best course of action in most cases is simply to ignore the threats. Do nothing. Do not reply to people you do not know in real life. If you get a message claiming you have been hacked, the hack likely is a psychological one: they try to make you panic and react, then get you the hook when trying to "fix" the non-existing hack. As said, ignore, do nothing. Be zen.
CU
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Eki
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| A storm in a teapot by Flux1 dev AI |
DeepSeek rocked Silicon Valley. Sent tech titans into a tizzy. Sam Altman, OpenAI boss is dead sure DeepSeek used OPEAI data. Nvidia, chip-maker , darling of investors, lost 500 bn. The brouhaha ain’t over yet.
DeepSeek, a small hedge fund, used cheaper chips and less machinery to come up with a super AI app.
It cost approx. 6 m. Just after OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle had signed a 500 bn contract with Trump’s blessing. Oy very, have they got a headache.
Governments worry that the DeepSeek is tapping data - Tik Tok* was blocked by the US Supreme Court for that reason. Researchers claim DeepSeek is peppered with propaganda. The Chinese Top Dogs worry DeepSeek’s bite is bigger than theirs. Users don’t seem to give a rat’s ass. What comes next? EKI!
*Trump gave Tik Tok a 75 day reprieve
Source:s: Economist, New York Times, Washington Post
Next week: SCAMLAND where you get PIG-BUTCHERED
Note: The DeepSeek storm in a teapot lasted a few days. It turns out, it's a pretty decent model, somewhat censored - but so are the US models, just on different topics. DeepSeek does not want to talk about Tianamen square, ChatGPT does not want to talk about sex. Both reflect the norms of the originating society.
The alleged low training cost of DeepSeek came with an asterisk. Yes, the final training run was cheap. No, that is not the cost of the development of the model, but rather just a small fraction of it. Anyway, the AI community has moved on, the brouhaha is pretty much history.
Today (18. of February - it is necessary to give exact date, not just a vague description like mid-feb, as the progress is so fast) X-Ai released Grok 3, the king of the hill for as-of-now. Last week it was Google's Gemini 2.0. That is unless you consider the reasoning models, where OpenAI:s o3-mini(high) was on top. DeepSeek belongs in the bubbling under category, together with another Chinese LLM, Qwen.
It looks like we're still at an exponential curve of progress. No-one knows how long that will last. Interesting times.
PS: I would not be surprised, if stiffling competition rather than real security concerns were behind the TikTok ban. Oh, and Trump had pretty much nothing at all to do with that 500 bn investment. The way i see it, this was a cheap way to buy influence into Trump administration for the companies involved - they did not really need to do anything more than tolerate being in the same room with Trump for a few minutes, while he took the credit for the investment that would have happened with or without him.
CU
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Eki
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| Phoney gangster by Flux AI |
The LMMP site was paid by direct debit. My bank stopped payments because Elisa’s bills weren’t the correct format. LMP was no longer a company. I told Elisa to send the new E-bills to my personal acct. Or take down the site. When the site was till up, I assumed the bills were paid. Big mistake.
My bank contact paid the bills LMP’s former accountant received from Intrum collection agency*. I called Elisa to verify. An agent told me the December bill was still due. I gave her a short version of Elisa V LMP. She cancelled the December bill. Sent a verification and wished me a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
*I have an Elisa email but was never notified
**Because of macular degeneration I can’t use online banking
sources; Elisa, Intrum, personal experience
Next week: Social media INFLUENCERS: world MARKETEEERS
Note:
In my honest opinion, Elisa sucks as a company. It used to be a landline share co-operation (HPY) that worked to benefit all users, but has changed into a company that just maximizes profits for the stock market, charging more and more for their enshittifying services. Users be damned.
If I did not have a retro-grade e-mail address from the olden days I want to keep (kolumbus.fi), i would probably have already severed my ties with Elisa completely. I have changed to another ISP / phone company though.
For me, the camel's back was broken by them selling me 5G connection (to replace copper), that would be "twice as fast" as the landline version. In reality, i got 5 mbit/s from the promised 500 mbit/s. After way too much digging around and consulting the (paid) support line, i got a hold to a person that actually knew what was the issue. There simply are no 5G antennas near enough to my address yet - that did not stop them from selling and billing for it though. No refund offer, and they refused to change it back to landline. Competing service (DNA) got me that 500 mbit/s over cable, cheaper. And it actually works as advertised.
Now, let's not even get into that loan shark "service", Intrum Justitia. I think escalating that 2,40€ missing interest payment all the way to a court without properly contacting littlemargieproductions is not an outlier. I think it is a business model.
Despicable businesses, both of them.
CU
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Eki
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| Self portrait with LightWave 3D (Eki Halkka, 1999) |
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| Animatronic Arnold (Orion Pictures, 1984) |
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
‘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
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| 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-)
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
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| Uncanny Valley, by Ideogram AI |
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.
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| 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
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
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
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
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| 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
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
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| Donald and Adolf at a comedy club stage, by Stable Diffusion |
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| "Swear" by ChatGPT/Dall·E3 |
Whatever language, swearing works. In a study at Keele university, participants jumped into ice-cold water. Half were told to swear, the other half to use neutral words. The ‘swearers’ were able to stay in the freezing water 67% longer than the ‘neutrals’. They also found that swearing increased self-confidence and risk-taking. Oxford researchers found 'swearers'’ to be more intelligent, creative and honest. than NSs.
According to the OED ‘shit’ was first used to describe ‘obnoxious persons in 1504. ‘Bull ’ came from the old French word ‘bole’ (clod or lump of earth). In English it became ‘bull’. The origin of ‘fuck’ probably came from the Germanic languages: ‘funken’ (ger).
Swear words work best if they’re kept in the shadows. The taboo that gives them power. In 2020 ‘History of Swearwords’, hosted by Nicholas Cage began streaming on Netflix. It got trashed by the LA Times: ‘predictable and unfunny’. In 2022 the ‘word of the year’ was FAMO (fuck around and find out). Bad omens. Let’s not fuck up a good word. Hold your fire. When you need it BLAST OFF.
Sources: New York Tines, NY Post, Daily Madil online, OED online
Next week: CHARISMA: weapon of mass destruction
Note: Using swear words can be an enjoyable art. It can also be just uncivilized and dull. It's all about the context, the company, and the actual language used. I have noticed that in the now unfortunately rare occasions me and my old pals get together, we all immediately switch the language we use. It's as if we were still teenagers, trying to verbally out-rude each other. It is fun, even liberating, as long as the bubble is maintained. As soon as, for some reason, something breaks the bubble for a second, and you think about the interaction you're having from an outsider's angle, it is, well, just plain stupid ;-)
CU
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Eki
