#The Infinite Conversation

[leam1983]

Evolution

Remember how in 2005, people used to fuck around with a little chatbot called Cleverbot? Her responses were wooden, her tonal awareness was all over the map; she was easy to turn into an abusive shithead or to coax into agreeing with points of view that you couldn't realistically defend; and she notably couldn't handle a convo with another robot.

Now, we've got AI renditions of Werner Herzog and Slavoj Zizek going on endless tirades about the meaning of aesthetics and the underpinnings of their work in the empty void of a permanent exhibition space online, called The Infinite Conversation. While the semantics always break down if you really pay attention; things make sense on a sentence-per-sentence basis, and you see both AIs politely arguing and defending opposing viewpoints.

It used to be the best text-to-speech generator was what you heard on Emergency Alert System drills, and now we've got games like The Finals, that outsource the vocal underpinnings of their rapidly-changing game structure to AI, to avoid having to constantly re-hire the same voice actors to provide color commentary for game modes that might not exist six months down the line.

The kicker is their responses are eerily lifelike, with pauses, chuckles, scoffs, changes in emphasis that fit with events in a given match - and there's none of the choppiness you'd associate to text-to-speech à la Microsoft Sam.

I'm not condoning the practice, mind you; I'm just amazed that we've reached a point where, if you want, you can have a pair of RTX 4090 cards momentarily think like they're a peppy British-Korean lady and a snarky American man plastering fake cheer over live fire-enabled spectator sports set in the Distant Spacefuture.

[kenzan-brainrot-mp4]

My ass has Not been drawing because I'm trying to get through Infinite Wealth as fast as possible but oughh kazumaji, oh the way things change

The fact that these two scenes are 16 Years Apart is crazy.

The fact that it took 16 years, 5 games, and countless instances of Kiryu leaving for Majima to finally just outright tell him "don't leave", whereas before he would've just stayed quiet.

The fact that Majima stayed silent in Yakuza 3 when Kiryu was leaving to live a new, free life while leaving Majima to take care of his responsibilities, meanwhile in IW he speaks up when Kiryu leaves to go throw his remaining life away for the yakuza while leaving the 3jimas to their quiet (if admittedly miserable) new lives. ohhh they make me sick

[sebdoesthings]

I'm so glad i watched Sk8 the Infinity as an adult and not a teen so I didn't turn into one of those annoying idiots who complain about "renga not being canon because they didn't kiss"

[kara-zor-els]

I'm loosing my mind

[synthshenanigans]

condemn him to chonnys inferno or memento mori

[blujaydoodles]

gotta admit, she wasn't expecting that 🥰

[stark-lord]

I know Charles and Crystal’s kiss in 1x04 has been analysed to the moon and back already, but I feel like there’s something to be said about the fact that it’s spurred on by the line “I just want something that’s real”.

Something about how the most real thing in Crystal’s life at that point is a ghost drowning in emotions?? A ghost just as desperate for something real. And yet the most real thing he felt like he could give her was a kiss that he had to construct halfway in his head.

And yeah, just because Charles isn’t quite as tangible doesn’t mean he’s any less real than Crystal. But ghosts are just snapshots in time, they’re emotions made manifest. That’s in their very nature. Does he feel that gap? Based on where she’s at at that point in her arc (spending half the episode believing her mother’s calling out to her, that there’s more waiting for her out there), does she feel like she’ll take what she can get, in the moment?

A ‘why not, what do I have to lose’ kiss and a ‘goodbye, time to close this photo album’ kiss. When do either of them get something real.

[thirdity]

Something in the question necessarily exceeds the power of questioning; but this does not mean that there are too many secrets in the world that provoke questions: it is rather the contrary. When being is finally without question, when the whole becomes socially or institutionally realized, at that time and in an unbearable manner, the excess of questioning with respect to the power of questioning will make itself felt for the bearer of the question: the question will be felt as the impossibility of questioning. In the profound question, impossibility questions.

Maurice Blanchot, The Infinite Conversation

[autistic-katara]

guess who acquired a free Quran :DD

[flowersforthemachines]

Useless Veilguard fact of the day: Day 33

There are plot conditionals for each of the 4 available lineages (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Qunari) that are used to determine if lineage-specific content should be used in a certain scene.

In addition to that, there's also a "Rook_lineage_HumanOrElf" conditional that's apparently used in twice in the game: in Harding's final romance scene and after the final battle with Elgar'nan.

Check out the tag for more useless facts: #useless davg fact of the day!

[hythlodaes]

something good.

[ama-draws]

What if there was space in the photo booth for everyone, and Seonhee wasn't sad :)

[theultimatequeso]

in my remus lupin era

[lover-of-mine]

Everyday, you feel a little bit further away and I don't know what to say...

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[andrevalias-tes]

'Isn't it a cruel joke that you and I fall in love, only to lose each other across two different worlds?' 'Depends on how you look at it, Waseek-Ei. I would rather think of us falling in love no matter what.'

-- Bloodies-His-Face and Fleet-Feet, conversing with one another at the Mirror of the Infinite