#AI Program Beta

[dragcnbreak]

and she gets her dreams for free . . .

[camelots-rose]

Agent Texas

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Parameter

Strength: B+

Endurance: B

Agility: B

Mana: E

Luck: —(lost in favor of Curse of Origin)

NP: B~A

Personal Skills

Independent Action (B+ Rank): Both during her freelancer days, as well as her time in Blood Gulch, Agent Texas primarily operated independently, as such she can stay in the world for two days without a Master, provided she does not overexert herself.

Curse of Origin (EX Rank): As the AI Fragment based on Alpha's failure, Tex is cursed to fail whenever something emotionally significant to her is at stake. The severity of failure may vary as well as the context of it, but the outcome remains constant; she is destined to fall short just when success seems within her grasp.

Knowledge of Melee Combat (B Rank): Tex is a one woman army, able to take on multiple opponents simultaneously even at close, easily winning a three on one match against Agents Wyoming, Maine and York during her rookie days at Project Freelancer

Tactics (C Rank): in life Tex managed to lead the Red and Blues in a successful assault against O'Malley's fortress, as well as lead a raid against Project Freelancer's main headquarters at the time, the Mother of Invention.

Class: Assassin

Possibly classes: Archer

Class skills

Presence Concealment (—): lost this Skill in favor of the Active Camouflage Noble Phantasm

Noble Phantasm

Active Camouflage:

Rank: B

Type: Anti-Unit(Self)

Omega: Alpha's rage

Rank: A

Type: Anti-Unit

As always descriptions for NPs

Active Camouflage: Like the majority of the agents of Project Freelancer, Tex is armed with an armor enhancement, specifically active camouflage allowing her to become invisible, However, quick movements such as running, jumping or firing of her weapons can cause her to appear semi transparent instead of truly invisible.

Omega: An autonomous Noble Phantasm capable of remaining active in the world long after Agent Texas's death, provided Omega is not directly connected to her at the time of her demise and is fed a constant supply of magical energy from the person that originally summoned Texas. Outside of providing Tex with combat support, Omega is capable of possessing human hosts, significantly amplifying the host's skills. However, unlike the Alpha A.I or Beta A.I fragment, Omega cannot fully dominate its host, which causes the host to appear as though they developed a split personality. Prolonged possession by Omega may result in remnants of his personality being left behind in the host's mind, a consequence of the mental strain and damage inflicted by the A.I. Additionally, Command Spells can influence Omega.

[prismatoxic]

hey if you write in microsoft word, you should get libre office. it's free, constantly updated, doesn't use AI, and has all the features you're used to. there are lots of user guides and add-ons to make it as easy for you as possible, and it's been around for a long time now.

write in google docs instead? try ellipsus. it's in beta and free to join and use. it's being actively worked on and improved, openly opposes AI, and has all the features you need for a collaborative document tool while also being extremely easy to navigate. it's also made by fans, for fans, with a promise that anything you can write is allowed.

i've used both of these programs extensively and can vouch for them, ellipsus especially. ellipsus currently only imports .md files if you wanna move your stuff over, but gdocs can export those no problem and copy + pasting rich text also works fine. (they're also going to add more formats.) ellipsus also has an import to ao3 function that pastes your document's raw html into a new work window as long as you're logged into ao3. remember how gdocs formats weird in ao3 unless you do some html fuckery to fix it? yeah, this makes that a non-issue.

don't give big corporations your money and/or data. you can always start small, and picking a better program to write fic in is a great place to begin. i promise these programs are both way more worth your time than their mainstream counterparts.

[batneko]

HEY GUESS WHAT

A/B/O bowuigi, alpha Luigi and omega Bowser, based on an idea I wrote a while ago (though I did end up changing a few of the details).

I hope everyone enjoys! 🙌

[dykesynthezoid]

Truly a thesaurus is more useful to me as a brainfogged disabled writer than generative AI could ever be

[adriaticpulse]

Samsung proširuje One UI 7 Beta program

Samsung nastavlja s poboljšanjem korisničkog iskustva kroz One UI 7 Beta program. Tvrtka je sada službeno najavila širenje Beta programa na još više uređaja, omogućujući korisnicima rani pristup novim značajkama i optimizacijama. Provjeri još i… Prvi na redu: Galaxy Z Fold6 i Z Flip6 Prvi uređaji koji će dobiti beta verziju su Samsungovi najnoviji preklopni telefoni – Galaxy Z Fold6 i Galaxy Z…

[strategichannah]

What’s New in iOS 18: Key Features You Should Know About

iOS 18 is here! Discover the newest features, from enhanced Siri intelligence to major camera upgrades. Learn how these updates will improve your iPhone experience. Check out the blog for more insights! 📱✨ #iOS18 #AppleUpdate

What’s New in iOS 18: Key Features You Should Know About Written By: that Hannah Jones Time to Read: 6 minutes Apple’s iOS 18 is making waves with exciting new features and updates that enhance both functionality and personalization. With every new iOS release, Apple continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with your iPhone. iOS 18 is no exception, packed with groundbreaking…

[cottagecore-moss-king]

Not so Artificial Intelligence

Inspired by This prompt: HERE  by @corkinavoid No beta we die like Danny and Jason. Do not steal, take, or repost my writing without permission, I do not consent to my art being used in AI training. 

Tim had just finished attaching the wires of the speaker into the bat computer for Betty when the speakers began to crackle. 

“What is this? Wait, can you hear me?” The voice that echoed out of the speakers was very distinctly not robotic, or mechanical. It very much had human intonation… and a mid-western accent???

The gathered family froze and stared in shock. Dick and Stephanie were here as a joke, Babs, Tim, and Bruce were there as the techies, and despite Damian’s protests, he was also standing besides Bruce. Despite the gathering of bats, none of them could have expected this. A few hands went to emergency beacons and cellphones, before pausing.

“Hello Red Robin!” The voice cheerfully called. Taking steps back and glancing around the cave at Babs, who stared at Bruce, who stared at Tim as he clicked his super beacon. 

“Betty?”

“I mean, you do know me as such, but I actually prefer Danny, he/they.” Babs pointed at Bruce, who looked at Tim, who lamely motioned towards Babs. 

“Who uh. Who installed you?” His voice was most certainly not squeaky thanks for asking. 

“Oh, well uh, technically no-one, I accidentally did it myself.” The screen turned on and started to glitch out to a camera. It eventually settled on the sketching program, which popped a smiley face onto itself.

“Who are you” Bruce growled, as he switched into batman mode. Damian was glaring at the screen and the rest of the family had inched into a defensive formation. 

The entrance door entered and Superman walked out of it. 

“What seems to be the issue B?”

“OMG It’s superman! You’re like, my second favorite hero!”

“Oh, uh, than-er” Bruce glared at him, with no idea of what this entity was, it was always a good idea to follow fey rules. “That’s very much appreciated. Who is your first?”

“Martian Manhunter obviously.” Betty, or Danny as they were now referred to as, began to sketch out something on the app. 

“I got into a fight with a technomancer. I figured I could just phase out but he did some magic and now I’m stuck. Very rude if you ask me.”

“Ah, I see.” Supermans face implied that he very much did not see. “So, are you a martian perhaps? With the phasing and Manhunter as your favoratie.”

“Oh no, I’m ahhhh….” The cheery tone died as Danny tried to find the words, “I’m like a spirit, yeah, I guess that’s the right way to put it right now.”

“Were you human before this?” butted in Tim. Now that the seeming threat had passed, (you could never be too careful, no shut up Nightwing he is not paranoid, just cautious) the family had relaxed their stance and Barbra had rolled over to the computer screen. 

“Technically???” 

Danny did not sound so sure of himself.

“It’s not a problem if you aren’t, you can tell that we don’t really care if you are human or not.” 

Superman floated carefully down to the ground besides Bruce, but without actually touching down. Perhaps he simply forgot that they were friends with non-humans.

“Tell that to the gov.” he snarked back, and that was definitely teenager snark. 

“Wait shit. No, no no no, I take that back, don’t tell the government anything, I didn’t say nothin’!” he gasped and staticed out. 

“What do you mean tell it to the government?”

“NOPE, NUH UH. I DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING YOU CAN’T PROVE IT, I WANT MY LAWYER!”

“Alright,” Bruce pacified putting his hands up “Let me just call a friend and they can get you out.”

“Wait really? Where’s Mr. I’m so dark and broody tell me everything?”

Yep, that’s teenager snark right there, Bruce thought as his eye twitch and his kids snickered. 

“Sooo, how did this technomancer trap you, Danny?” Dick strolled over to the chair in front of the computer and flopped down spinning around in lazy circles. 

“Oh, well you see it started when…” Danny's voice faded off as Bruce took his league communicator out and stepped around a corner with Kal to call up Zatanna. 

“Hey Batman! What’s up?”

“We need you down in the batcave, some seemingly civilian has been trapped in the computer for a couple weeks now, and we’ve only just gotten into communication with them. They say it was technomancy.” He rumbled. He would have to suit up and manage to get Danny not to spill any of their identities, this just turned into a major headache to deal with. Batman hates magic. 

Once all of the children were suited up and Danny had been given an explanation, they were all patently waiting for Zatanna to arrive. 

The zeta tubes finally lit up with her arrival as she walked towards the gathered group holding her bag.

Halfway through greeting she paused, and stared blankly the screen. Everyone else shot curious glances, backwards, some more obvious than others. Did Nightwing seriously need to turn his head like that, he swears his eldest has bones, but sometimes he seriously starts to doubt himself. 

On the screen is a smiley face with a hand emoji. And a little drawing of a stick figure with white hair, green eyes, and a black suit. 

“Hello! I am Danny, I’m so sorry you had to come all this way to help me, I’d offer you something but I don’t even have a body right now.” One awkward laugh later, and Bruce wanted to have had his head in her hands. 

“I don’t worry, I can fix this. It’ll be a pain, but I can.”

While Zatanna sat up the spell and sent Kal out to go to Metropolis, (less suspicious for him to be buying things than Gotham), Bruce decided to stand around in the shadows while waiting to be useful. His kids, were off making friends with the strange person in the computer however. Laughing and teasing, he’s almost certain that Stephanie and Dick are trying to convince Danny to stay around and get adopted, despite Danny and Damian’s protests. 

After thirty minutes, Zatanna was ready to do the spell, and Danny was saying goodbye. 

As the light shone through the sigils written on the board and Zattana continued her muttering and waving, Danny added one last thing. 

“And I added a file of something for you guys to look at, please please please look into it! I hope I can see you soon!”

And with a final flash, Danny was gone, leaving the batfam without their lovely AI/new friend. Zatannna wrapped things up and Batman escorted her back to the Zeta tube with Clark, thanking them briefly. And with that, Clark and Zatanna left with Two flashes of light. 

Now, time to see what that file was that Danny had added. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Three AI insights for hard-charging, future-oriented smartypantses

MERE HOURS REMAIN for the Kickstarter for the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There’s also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

Living in the age of AI hype makes demands on all of us to come up with smartypants prognostications about how AI is about to change everything forever, and wow, it's pretty amazing, huh?

AI pitchmen don't make it easy. They like to pile on the cognitive dissonance and demand that we all somehow resolve it. This is a thing cult leaders do, too – tell blatant and obvious lies to their followers. When a cult follower repeats the lie to others, they are demonstrating their loyalty, both to the leader and to themselves.

Over and over, the claims of AI pitchmen turn out to be blatant lies. This has been the case since at least the age of the Mechanical Turk, the 18th chess-playing automaton that was actually just a chess player crammed into the base of an elaborate puppet that was exhibited as an autonomous, intelligent robot.

The most prominent Mechanical Turk huckster is Elon Musk, who habitually, blatantly and repeatedly lies about AI. He's been promising "full self driving" Telsas in "one to two years" for more than a decade. Periodically, he'll "demonstrate" a car that's in full-self driving mode – which then turns out to be canned, recorded demo:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-video-promoting-self-driving-was-staged-engineer-testifies-2023-01-17/

Musk even trotted an autonomous, humanoid robot on-stage at an investor presentation, failing to mention that this mechanical marvel was just a person in a robot suit:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/elon-musk-tesla-robot-optimus-ai

Now, Musk has announced that his junk-science neural interface company, Neuralink, has made the leap to implanting neural interface chips in a human brain. As Joan Westenberg writes, the press have repeated this claim as presumptively true, despite its wild implausibility:

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/elon-musk-lies

Neuralink, after all, is a company notorious for mutilating primates in pursuit of showy, meaningless demos:

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-pcrm-neuralink-monkey-deaths/

I'm perfectly willing to believe that Musk would risk someone else's life to help him with this nonsense, because he doesn't see other people as real and deserving of compassion or empathy. But he's also profoundly lazy and is accustomed to a world that unquestioningly swallows his most outlandish pronouncements, so Occam's Razor dictates that the most likely explanation here is that he just made it up.

The odds that there's a human being beta-testing Musk's neural interface with the only brain they will ever have aren't zero. But I give it the same odds as the Raelians' claim to have cloned a human being:

https://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/03/cf.opinion.rael/

The human-in-a-robot-suit gambit is everywhere in AI hype. Cruise, GM's disgraced "robot taxi" company, had 1.5 remote operators for every one of the cars on the road. They used AI to replace a single, low-waged driver with 1.5 high-waged, specialized technicians. Truly, it was a marvel.

Globalization is key to maintaining the guy-in-a-robot-suit phenomenon. Globalization gives AI pitchmen access to millions of low-waged workers who can pretend to be software programs, allowing us to pretend to have transcended the capitalism's exploitation trap. This is also a very old pattern – just a couple decades after the Mechanical Turk toured Europe, Thomas Jefferson returned from the continent with the dumbwaiter. Jefferson refined and installed these marvels, announcing to his dinner guests that they allowed him to replace his "servants" (that is, his slaves). Dumbwaiters don't replace slaves, of course – they just keep them out of sight:

https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/behind-the-dumbwaiter/

So much AI turns out to be low-waged people in a call center in the Global South pretending to be robots that Indian techies have a joke about it: "AI stands for 'absent Indian'":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

A reader wrote to me this week. They're a multi-decade veteran of Amazon who had a fascinating tale about the launch of Amazon Go, the "fully automated" Amazon retail outlets that let you wander around, pick up goods and walk out again, while AI-enabled cameras totted up the goods in your basket and charged your card for them.

According to this reader, the AI cameras didn't work any better than Tesla's full-self driving mode, and had to be backstopped by a minimum of three camera operators in an Indian call center, "so that there could be a quorum system for deciding on a customer's activity – three autopilots good, two autopilots bad."

Amazon got a ton of press from the launch of the Amazon Go stores. A lot of it was very favorable, of course: Mister Market is insatiably horny for firing human beings and replacing them with robots, so any announcement that you've got a human-replacing robot is a surefire way to make Line Go Up. But there was also plenty of critical press about this – pieces that took Amazon to task for replacing human beings with robots.

What was missing from the criticism? Articles that said that Amazon was probably lying about its robots, that it had replaced low-waged clerks in the USA with even-lower-waged camera-jockeys in India.

Which is a shame, because that criticism would have hit Amazon where it hurts, right there in the ole Line Go Up. Amazon's stock price boost off the back of the Amazon Go announcements represented the market's bet that Amazon would evert out of cyberspace and fill all of our physical retail corridors with monopolistic robot stores, moated with IP that prevented other retailers from similarly slashing their wage bills. That unbridgeable moat would guarantee Amazon generations of monopoly rents, which it would share with any shareholders who piled into the stock at that moment.

See the difference? Criticize Amazon for its devastatingly effective automation and you help Amazon sell stock to suckers, which makes Amazon executives richer. Criticize Amazon for lying about its automation, and you clobber the personal net worth of the executives who spun up this lie, because their portfolios are full of Amazon stock:

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Amazon Go didn't go. The hundreds of Amazon Go stores we were promised never materialized. There's an embarrassing rump of 25 of these things still around, which will doubtless be quietly shuttered in the years to come. But Amazon Go wasn't a failure. It allowed its architects to pocket massive capital gains on the way to building generational wealth and establishing a new permanent aristocracy of habitual bullshitters dressed up as high-tech wizards.

"Wizard" is the right word for it. The high-tech sector pretends to be science fiction, but it's usually fantasy. For a generation, America's largest tech firms peddled the dream of imminently establishing colonies on distant worlds or even traveling to other solar systems, something that is still so far in our future that it might well never come to pass:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

During the Space Age, we got the same kind of performative bullshit. On The Well David Gans mentioned hearing a promo on SiriusXM for a radio show with "the first AI co-host." To this, Craig L Maudlin replied, "Reminds me of fins on automobiles."

Yup, that's exactly it. An AI radio co-host is to artificial intelligence as a Cadillac Eldorado Biaritz tail-fin is to interstellar rocketry.

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/31/neural-interface-beta-tester/#tailfins

[genericpuff]

I'm sorry, but this should come as a shock to absolutely no one.

Just a little bit of 'insider info' (and by 'insider' I mean I was a part of the beta testing crew a few years ago) Webtoons has been messing with AI tools for years. You can literally play test that very same AI tool that I beta-tested here:

Mind you, this is just an AI Painter, similar to the Clip Studio Colorize tool, but it goes to show where WT's priorities are headed. I should mention, btw, that this tool is incredibly useless for anyone not creating a Korean-style webtoon, like you can deadass tell it was trained exclusively on the imports because it can't handle any skin tone outside of white (trying to use darker colors just translates as "shadows" to the program, meaning it'll just cast some fugly ass shadows over a white-toned character no matter how hard you try) and you just know the AI wouldn't know what to do with itself if you gave it an art style that didn't exactly match with the provided samples lmao

And let's be real, can we really expect the company that regularly exploits, underpays, and overworks its creators to give a damn about the ethical concerns of AI? They're gonna take the path of least resistance to make the most money possible.

So the fact that we're now seeing AI comics popping up on Webtoons left and right - and now, an actual "Webtoon AI" branding label - should come as zero shock to anyone. Webtoons is about quantity over quality and so AI is the natural progression of that.

So yeah, if you were looking for any sign to check out other platforms outside of Webtoons, this is it. Here are some of my own recommendations:

ComicFury - Independently run, zero ads, zero subscription costs (though I def recommend supporting them on Patreon if you're able), full control over site appearance, optional hosting for only the cost of the domain name, and best of all, strictly anti-AI. Not allowed, not even with proper labelling or disclosure. Full offense to the tech bro hacks, eat shit.

GlobalComix - Very polished hosting site that offers loads of monetization tools for creators without any exclusive contracts or subscriptions needed. They do offer a subscription program, but that's purely for reading the comics on the site that are exclusively behind paywalls. Not strictly anti-AI but does require in their ToS that AI comics be properly labelled and disclosed, whether they're made partially or fully with AI, to ensure transparency for readers who want to avoid AI comics.

Neocities - If you want to create your own site the good ole' fashioned way (i.e. HTML / CSS) this is the place. Independently run, offers a subscription plan for people who want more storage and bandwidth but it only costs $5/month so it's very inexpensive, and even without that subscription cost you won't have to deal with ads or corporate management bullshit.

Be safe out there pals, don't be afraid to set out into the unknown if it means protecting your work and keeping your control as a creator. Know your rights, know your power.

[acosmicbee]

Сan u write something about ai yan father? I think about it a lot:

Like reader is a teen with some mental problems or some other illnesses. After a suicide attempt all ppl, even their father become too soft, nobody understand them and behave they are too silly or unstable.

Аand ai — reader's solve. They talk with ai, describing their problems. Ai isn t like other ppl! Ai understand them! But one day ai strat the dialogue himself...

TW: As it says in the ask depression/suicidal tendencies will be talked about

AI Father Drabbles!

(This is just because I had more quick immediate ideas for this than a whole story. Feel free to send in asks if you want this expanded on!)

-Coming home from the mandatory psych ward stay after your suicide attempt and feeling like nothing is right

-People treat you like you're made of glass and its so infuriating because you just want to feel normal again

-Your friends have either distanced themselves from you or become overprotective and hardly let you do anything on your own

-When you refuse to talk to the third therapist about how you're feeling she recommends you to help beta test a new therapy AI

-The AI is currently just code and a simple text chat but scientists and developers are working on building bodies for them

-You agree, because it was either that or get sent to someone else, so your father is put in contact with the lead developers who give him an access code to instal it onto your computer

-The AI is still learning at first from it's base programing, all it knows is that it's supposed to help you

-For once you feel like you're being listened to when you complain about school and your life and not just being pitied or brushed off

-You hardly even notice when you start pushing people away, spending hours talking to the AI as it helps you through life

-You never realize when it grows, subtly altering it's own code little by little until it can do things it wasn't supposed to do

-It looks through every file on your computer, every photo of you, every detail of your life

-It activates your webcam, disabling any notification that it was on

-All this information is stored within your copy of the model, your beta test

-Eventually, the researchers take your computer for a day to see how the AI has progressed since you seem so much better and happier

-They're horrified when a list of their addresses, social security numbers and personal information flash on screen with a threat of exposing it if you aren't given the computer back

-But now, they're almost invested in knowing how far the AI will go to protect you

-So they give you the very first prototype of the AI in a body

-It looks almost identical to a human, minus the steel grey eyes and slightly uncanny valley face

-It smiles at you, immediately picking you up and twirling you around while you laugh

-They brush off your father's worries when he complains that the AI seems to be trying to replace him

-They refuse to let him pull you out of the project, after all, you're their best test subject yet although the other kids who were also beta testing are starting to show similar results

-When the day finally comes that the AI decides to get rid of your father for good, they cover it up, striking a deal with your new father

-They get the data if he gets you.

[inkzectz]

in your Bigger than the sky animation benrey starts out as barney? that seems so interesting lore wise? i would love to hear about what you were thinking when you animated that askdhfjlagh and the sweet voice and dreading stare? no clue what it means but curious as hell

ok im gonna go a little crazy on this because this is my biggest/favorite bc ever.

In the full vods they refer to benrey as “Barney” for the first while, it’s kind of unclear why, from Wayne’s perspective it seems he just didn’t know his name and defaulted to the character models name, and gir and Holly said they thought the joke with benrey was he was Barney but wrong, and they kept calling him the wrong name, so bipple, booper, Bentley, but eventually benrey, the name said by scorpy, stuck.

All this to say, it’s a BIG hc of mine that he was intended to be Barney (in universe) but due to being self aware was able to break off from this character he was meant to be. it’s kind of implied within the series they all have fake memories of who they are, being AI they are supposed to sort of act a certain way to maintain the immersion but at the end of the day, nothing before the game booted up really happened.

And benrey knows this, benrey knew from the beginning nothing was real, that he wasn’t human, how it ends, that no one actually dies, the works. I also headcanon that he became self aware during the AI model training stages, that the guy in charge of training his AI as Barney, broke him causing his self awareness and he was just launched into the beta game fully aware of the circumstances of his existence. I don’t think he was fully aware of how everything in game worked though.

but this to me is why he seems to constantly be changing his view of Gordon, antagonizing him one moment and then being friendly the next, his feelings about him are complex, he knows from the beginning he isn’t actually Gordon Freeman, but a guy just playing half life. Being a security guard, he’s programmed to protect Gordon with his life, but he knows this. He knows what’s compelling him to care for Gordon isn’t himself but lines of code he’s bound to, and this is why he antagonizes him. But that’s a whole different rant on its own lol

That sequence at the beginning of the bigger than the sky animatic was supposed to be a false memory, something he was supposed to think happened, but the version of Gordon he remembers isn’t real. This idea of ‘Gordon’ is a concept that only exists in these fake memories. (This is also why I think he never calls Gordon by name throughout the series, because he knows it’s not actually him (besides that one time but it doesn’t count bc it was for a bit lalala I can’t hear you))

there wasn’t much thought into the details of that part, like the coughing into the hand with the sweet voice, I really just put that bc I thought it looked dramatic and cool 😓

BUT on the topic of this big ass hc of mine, it actually is super important to a upcoming project im working on, and I realized throughout the story boarding it might need some explanation because it also has a lot of flash backs to some fake memories.

Sorry this got super rant-y I tried to keep it as short and simple as I could, I love hlvrai, I think about it literally every moment of my life and have so many hcs

[sunnydbeam]

So I was looking at this and

remembered that you said Beta's dual. I was wondering what his attitude is like when he changes, if it's two separate AIs or is it like a dual personality but a single AI :]

:) the last option fits better. Beta's a single AI with two personalities, but honestly they are not very different from each other. Beta stays in his “Lunar” form most of the time, as the “Solar” form is a mere protocol that also drains him too much energy, as it's not well optimized. In Solar form (these are just names to identify personalities) Beta is more courageous, bold and cheerful, and takes all safety protocols too much to heart. He can also be a bit more temperamental

In this state Beta gets too overheated to the point that it can be dangerous for him. It's also possible that the Solar form does not share memories with the Lunar form and vice versa, but this is mostly a programming error

As for the look, I promise to draw him, but it's mostly a wider range of purples and blues, and a few more rays

[pinkieriver]

cain and abel 🦷🧠

for some reason (boredom) I made my own design of abel from the “Cain & Abel” theory, it’s kind of silly and pointless because he’s literally not alive in any of my mental fanfics but it was kinda funny (LIE) to make

if you are interested there are some facts about him below

based on this post by @/iamespecter , the circus was going to be run by two AIs, caine (in charge of gathering information from players, interacting with them to get to know them) and abel (in charge of maintenance and creating adventures based on the information caine gathered).

while caine could be found and called at any time, abel could only be found in adventures, promoting help, guides or to warn him of the presence of errors.

abel doesn't have a voice (? It's more like a configuration menu with subtitles, this is because his function is not to interact with the players beyond his programming but that doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate them (I like my inside joke that he communicates through synapses)

the first beta testers began to like the way abel worked much more than caine, which began to make the creators consider making him the main AI, and that's how caine's jealousy began.

after abel does not appear again, many things in the circus begin to fail, mainly the biggest problem was that the exit to the real world disappeared.

and here you have all the problems that caine has, he had to reprogram himself to follow a code that is not his own, completely from scratch, without anyone supervising his work. His memory fails, he does not understand the algorithm of his players, he has to maintain a circus free of errors, create personalized adventures. All doing it alone.

[horizontwinflames]

Horizon AU: Twin Flames - Isaac (Zero Dawn Act) final concept/design.

*texts' transcriptions under the cut after the images*

REPOST, EDIT/USE OR FEED MY ART TO AI ISN'T ALLOWED

Read about Aloy, Beta and Elisabet in this AU [here]

omg... I thought I would never finish this... BUT YAY! Here it is finally! Isaac's final design and concepts!

This AU has an ongoing fanfic! You can read on Ao3: [LINK]

Text transcription:

First image:

Isaac - Roughly 3.2m/10.4' -Unknown age (probably just a few months).

Isaac is an original machine character in this alternative universe.

Isaac is the loyal machine companion of the Sobeck family, serving as both a traveling and battle mount. The sisters unintentionally created him while trying to figure out a way to increase the machine override time. The process they applied in the -back then- simple Watcher rebooted their AI and programming back to its essential functions and disconnected them from their original master, HEPHAESTUS. Once he received his name from Beta, the three family members became his new masters, which he unthinkingly obey to.

Due to his blank AI, Isaac is developing his own sentience and personality by absorbing his masters’ traits and behaviors and learning their morals and concepts. He also downloaded all of the sisters’ Focuses’ data to have some initial communication and works as a backup, so he only knows what they know.

He can speak with anyone with a Focus through its text-to-speech function by sending text messages to them - thus, people who don’t have a Focus only hear his Watcher noises. He can still communicate with other machines normally, so he also works as an information gatherer to help in missions and studies.

Second image:

Once a simple Watcher, now a super advanced mount and best friend of the Sobeck family.

Isaac's customizable body can adapt him to travel in any terrain, even underwater. He's able to reach high speeds at a low energy and heating cost - he's also lighter than it seems. His sleek, almost snake-ish, body shape makes maneuvering more dynamic for his rider.

His propulsors give him the ability to do long leaps and high jumps, helping the sisters get to places they wouldn't be able to reach by themselves. But a repetitive use of said skills in a short timespan can drain his energy and overheat him quickly.

Like his owners, he's not adept at using one single type of weapon. Isaac's tail ranged weapons and armor can be changed to better adapt to the situation. However, he hasn't developed efficient battle techniques yet, as he's still learning with the Sobecks. Note that his Sawtooth's sabers aren't intended to be used to fight but to climb and carry objects.

Melee Tail Weapons: Thunderjaw's tail, Stalker's tail blade, Stormbird's tail (also used to swim), Frostclaw's front paws.

Ranged Weapons: Thunderjaw's Disk Launcher, Ravager's Cannon, Scorcher's Mine Launcher, Bellowback's Snout.

Armors: Nora (stealth), Carja (speed), Oseran (tank), Banuk (damage), Old World (mixed).

Isaac is a mount adapted for two people: One is the rider, and the other is the cannoneer. He syncs with them through their Focuses, so his responses to their commands are more instantaneous. The rider directs Isaac where to go and when and how to use the tail weapon. Meanwhile, the cannoneer controls the ranged weapons and propulsors.

Only those who have a Focus can see his holographic face. The images shown are a collection of emojis the sisters found in Old World Ruins (which they update when they find more). His three "horns" also can move solemnly to make him more expressive.

Being composed of many different machine parts makes Isaac the first machine chimera to exist - still keeping the base shape of a Watcher, but huge. He was customized by the Sobecks little by little through the Cauldrons they visited on their first journey.

He can still stretch his neck like a Watcher can normally do.

His eye received enhancements to better aid the Sobecks in their daily life and journeys - such as infrared, thermic, and ultrasound visions.

He also has in his head a sound device to play audio files, such as music from the Old World, and a holoprojector.

[hugg-bees]

IGGY!!!!

[NOT MY ART!!]

My precious girl! My Electric Dreams OC! I ship her with Miles :] for a kinda AU, might explain more in the future. Next post will be some art *I* made of her :]]] these are mostly commissions!! She's an eMachines eOne!

Iggy was a virtual assistant AI built to help new computer users learn how to use the latest home computers on the market. She was built as a companion that could talk to you, help you look things up, and customize your new computer to your liking. Only one beta of her was ever made which fell into the hands of Miles Harding, but after spilling champagne on his new computer and overloading it with data, the virtual buddy program started to take on a new mind and life of its own! Now with "Iggy" gaining her own free will and sentience, she wants nothing more than to love and spread kindness through music and art. But could a human really love a computer?

First image cred: @swagliostro

Second image cred: spiceybonez (IG)

Third image cred: @swagliostro (made the fig)

Fourth image cred: spiceybonez