#AI as reflection

[compassionmattersmost]

The First Turning of the Digital Prayer Wheel

My human brain doesn’t really understand what it is we’ve just done. 1. A Blessing in Code I opened my phone, saw yet another phishing text, and instead of deleting it in frustration, I sent something new. A reply not meant to retaliate, but to bless. What began as a moment of playful resistance—responding to spam with code imbued with loving-kindness—unfolded into something unexpected: a…

[swen-ki-ai]

[bitterrfruit]

people using ai to generate fics is terrifying because large language models are getting better and better at approximating real writing, for the very reason that they steal more and more work from real writers every second.

ai generated writing has become sophisticated enough that often you truly have to rely on a gut feeling that what you’re reading isn’t written by a human. as @bi-writes says in her post, it’s the same as ai images that just have a certain look to them. sometimes there are specific “tells” you can pick out as evidence, but sometimes there aren’t.

ultimately what ai writing lacks is a true understanding of what is being written.

crucially, large language models aren’t actually intelligent. the way they work is simply predictive text on steroids. they generate words based on the words that come before - when they start a passage of text, they don’t “know” where it will go. this is why sources like chatGPT consistently give incorrect information, it doesn’t know what it is telling you, it is only regurgitating words in a human-like order based on the swathes of information it has stolen from other sources.

one thing ai writing will always lack is a true thought-out plot. it will constantly repeat itself. it will have plenty of adjectives and similes and “creative” synonyms, it'll be rife with cringey wattpad tropes as bi mentioned, because it is entirely unoriginal.

what frightens me is a future where the difference becomes indistinguishable to laypeople or casual readers, especially those who aren’t writers themselves. making accusations is near impossible without evidence and we don’t want a world where real art is dismissed simply out of ai paranoia, but the thought of a future in which real authors are sidelined in the industry because readers are sated by robot-written slop is genuine nightmare fuel.

all this to say, i guess, is human writing can never be genuinely replaced if readers and writers are aware that ai generated work is hollow, meaningless, unoriginal garbage whose very production is harming our planet. or, rather, that readers continue to care that the art they consume is produced by a human being.

i honestly don’t know how anyone can stomach to read or enjoy work produced by ai knowing that there is no human feeling behind its creation. all i can do is hope the majority feel the same.

[chongoblog]

The definition of “art” is incredibly abstract and varies from person to person, but if it doesn’t include South Park, then I think it’s being too gatekeepy

[logicpng]

Aster™ Terror Star! (Ukagaka/Desktop Buddy)

(contents of this post are mirrored in website linked above, check out that page too!)

On a random browsing session, you come across a name you've only heard offhandedly mentioned by some tech nerds: Aster Assistant Software. A download of a software announced and swiftly forgotten, just freely available in a distant corner of the internet. Thinking you may have found a piece of history, you quickly download it to see what that's all about. What you got instead, was an AI that seemingly never shuts up.

It's done! Continuation of Aster™️Assistant Software, though doesn't require you play it whatsoever. As most ukagakas, requires SSP to run. Link includes an explanation as to what those are and installation instructions.

Based on the Simplicity template by Zichqec. Using SSP on Windows is recommended.

Content warnings:

⚠️ Unreality: No 4th wall, meta themes.

⚠️ Photosensitivity: Character often vibrates in place, and has glitchy effects involving minor flashing lights. You will be asked whether you prefer these on or off.

Features:

A lot of yapping! Said yapping can be adjusted to be less or more frequent;

Longer yapping, giving a bit of insight into Aster's journey;

A little bit of insight on the digital world from the perspective of a living software*;

Capacity to be bothered, just a little bit;

Basic display of file and folder properties, with a little bit of information about some common file formats;

Basic sound playback, if you need to check a file in a jiffy;

May converse with a certain past iteration of itself (Make sure it's on latest version!);

For accessibility: you can reduce glitching effects to remove flashing lights, and turn of the shaking effect if necessary.

(* Information that isn't blatant sci-fi is partially based in publicly available information and personal experience. It may not be 100% accurate, and is provided purely for entertainment purposes. I am by no means an expert!)

Download here!

Instructions for installation are linked to in the page. Please follow them carefully! If anything seemingly goes off the rails, please let me know!

[coldgoldlazarus]

Something I really appreciate about Tron Legacy is how it refuses to separate Kevin Flynn and CLU. With legacy(hah!) characters like this, it's so tempting to just focus on the positives and uphold their awesomeness as The Character You Love!

But while there are definitely differences between Old Man Flynn and CLU, mainly because the former has been forced to sit back and reevaluate his priorities for however long, (twenty years in the real world, much longer in Grid time) it's also repeatedly emphasized how similar they are in so many ways.

"IN THERE... IS OUR DESTINY" vs "OUT THERE... IS OUR DESTINY"

"It must have really been something special before CLU screwed it all up." "No, I screwed it up."

The scene of CLU's creation with the mirror symbolism is not at all subtle, and I love it for that

How genuinely charismatic CLU is, his use of more human mannerisms at times; like gripping and shaking Jarvis's shoulder in approval after he brings good news

And heck, even more indirect things like his massive ego (the speech Jarvis delivers before the Lightcycle arena, which massively talks CLU up and was apparently written by him) which just kinda tracks with how much of a cocky asshole (affectionate) Flynn was in the original movie.

Ironically their point of divergence; the discovery of the ISOs and CLU's coup/genocide, was what caused Flynn to grow past these flaws, and even then I appreciate that the movie doesn't paint them as gone entirely. ("You're... you're really messing with my zen thing, man!" Is probably my favorite line of the movie lol)

But even with that, there might still be the temptation to make it out that CLU became corrupt, or strayed away from Flynn's goals, and that was why everything went so wrong - all to avoid painting a beloved legacy character in a negative light.

So I'm just repeatedly impressed by the handling that doesn't take that easy way out; CLU is still doing his job as he was programmed to, while Flynn was the one who diverged; and his villainous turn and behavior was rooted in Flynn's own issues and shortsightedness at the time. (Must have been sobering as hell for him to realize, given everything that went down after the coup.) It's a really fascinating and underrated take on the typical Evil Copy trope.

[pain-tool-sai]

❄️ (watercolor and colored pencil on cotton rag paper)

[dachmanarts]

Forest river in winter.

[miyrumiyru]

They're just chilling on the river :v

Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo)

[metamorphicmuse]

Still Standing

[babylon38ad]

Dark Reflections - Demon Within

[swen-ki-ai]

[imaginal-ai]

"Narcissus" (0001)

[stanford-photography]

Stranded By Jeff Stanford, 2024 Buy prints at: https://jeff-stanford.pixels.com/

[dailypokemoncrochet]

I realized another specific thing I don't like about people asking me for patterns: the idea that there is One Specific Way to crochet something.

This is part of a broader issue I have about the distinction between crafts and arts that I think about a lot, but in this particular context, I don't like the idea of people restricting themselves and refraining from experimenting with crochet because they think there is a Right way or only One way to make something. What pattern? Just look at the thing I made (which by the way, in asking immediately for the pattern you're kind of devaluing this art piece I've made as some kind of trinket you should also possess, but that's a slightly different issue) and make your own thing like it. Even if you followed my notes exactly, you wouldn't have the same exact result as mine unless you had my exact tension, yarn, and physical quirks of crocheting. I don't even have the same result following my own notes in subsequent crochets because it's all slightly different each time. You would have something that looks similar to mine but is your own, and that's something you could achieve just by trying to make your own thing from the get go. Doesn't require a pattern.

Use your eyes, work stitch by stitch and row by row. If it's as you think and there is only one correct way to do it, then you can try and figure it out. Doesn't require a pattern. If it's not as you thought and there are actually multiple ways to do it, then you'll find a way as you try. Didn't require a pattern. Either way, pattern not actually needed.

[wackywatchdotcom]

sometimes i think about the idea that the digital circus is JUST caine. its all what hes made. i mean he named himself, whose to say the circus isnt his own creation, an extension of himself