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Blue Sky Vs Twitter

This was my first tme hearing about Blue Sky, the app apparently trying to take Twitter's place. Blue Sky is still in Beta testing stages and is invote only for those wanting to join. The platform itself is built using a decentralised dev model, with the concept coming from Twitter's former CEO Jack Dorsey.

The app is very much like a basic Twitter in terms of functionality, as mentioned. However how to fares once introduced to the wider populace will be interesting, considering the ongoing mixed views of Elon's Twtter take over. An interesting platform war in the making perhaps.

[web-authoring-g0rl]

T shaped skill base/ T shaped learning

I was doing a smaller UX/UI course when I decided to do this post grad, so naturally I had to shelve the UX/UI course.

The last thing I learned/was learning about was wireframing.

However, I thnk the most prominant thing that stuck with me from my short time studying UX/UI, was the concept of T shaped skill bases. I'm finding that most areas of digital media require this from their employees/creatives. Relaistically, most areasa of any profession you choose to move into require T shaped skill branches surely. Having never looked at it in that form before, however, it stayed with me.

As we move through this course it resonates more with me too. Even when you break it down to a module specific outlook, for example with web authoring, I'm startng to grasp how T shaped everything really is.

Web authoring on the face of it and at the heart of it, is coding (my greatest fear). But movng through this module I'm understanding how much it encompasses. There are elements of design at play, elements of empathising with user experience, concepts of interactivity and making a website FUN to use and interact with, as well as accessibilty.

I stumbled upon this update from Google, regarding their "it's nice that" digital campaign, promoting a more humanistic approach to design. I thought it was an interesting read and reminded me of the T shaped user centric approach I was learning about previously (I mean it has to be because it's google UX of course, but I just had a moment of recollection). I think the article is important, beacuse on the forum and on this blog, we have been discussing AI frequently and I think this sort of digital focus, as mentioned in the article, will be a positive movement.

[web-authoring-g0rl]

A positve digital media post to break up the negative worry-posting

I fell like there's a lot of criticism on here about concerning digital trends (ones that worry me anyway) and I wanted to break it up with a very basic but fun update.

I've finally figured out how to make good(ish) art on procreate for Ipad.

Late last year, I "splurged" on a second hand Ipad, just to use procreate. Previous to this I had just been creating digital art using illustrator - See water girl picture on profile header -

I had been struggling to get used to how the digital pen felt and navigating the settings, how to best work the layers to speed up the process - Art takes time but I seem have none.

But I feel like this tiger piece I did is really an important marker for me in terms of navigating digital art, so I wanted to post it because I'm proud of it. I would have liked to use this piece in our digital platforming campaign as an advertising graphic but I didn't have enough time to finish it.

The interface of procreate still is a little foreign to me, but I'm hoping to be able to create gifs and animated illustrations using it eventually. I feel like it'll be a useful skill to have in terms of logo design or freehand design for any aspect of digital media design so, we'll keep at it.

I just have to keep reminding myself that two years ago, I didn't know how to make a triange in Illustrator too.

[web-authoring-g0rl]

Another AI art/design app - to what end?

Microsoft have joined the growing number of tech firms moving into the AI art generation trend. It works as you might expect it to. You input a short desriptive passage explaining what you want to create visually and the app outputs something like you have in your mind, much like Dall-E or Chat GPT.

It's wonderful news for people struggling to start their creative journey as onlne sellers or perhaps on social media to create interest for their posts, etc..

But as always, with all AI innovations, it's a threat to the entire digital desgn industry. I wrote an essay about this in semester one, using the Lensa app as an example. Last november, Instagram seemed to be awash with anti AI art sentiment and prominant vitriol from artists who felt the app had directly stolen their intellectual property. I can recall one post, that was shared from a number of artists' profiles, regarding another artist who had just passed away- but his art that he had been creating for decades and his unique style, seemed to feature heavily in many of the AI Lensa portraits. It was quite troubling to see so many creatives up in arms, when the landscape for artists - be they traditional or digital - is so bleak right now anyway.

From a personal standpoint, I'm quite against AI art and design . It's amusing in some forms and interesting to see the development of - but ultimately, it's thinly veiled theft that devalues creative expression.

Unless there can be some sort of direct co-creation model implemented, as opposed to teaching the AI from sources from across the web - only then would I change my mind on this topic. If you're going to create an art based from of AI creation then artists need to be directly involved, to input original media to teach the bot, to offer up criticism to the technologically minded creators of the AI art apps and to show other artists, that creation, design, art and modes of creative thought can be integrated with the technological world, to ensure a future for artists.

Blaze

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[web-authoring-g0rl]

Me too bro

I'm never sure if the dangers of A.I outweigh the benefits. Proceeding with caution just seems like the smart thing to do.

*** morally confused.

[web-authoring-g0rl]

Yasss UCD Nova lads repping privacy!

I saw this today on my internet travels and I thought It was a good news story to break up the doom, gloom and grey area posting of future of tech concerns - an unfortunate trend on this blog, however necessary they may be to address.

Oblivious, the Dublin start-up based in Nova UCD is marketing their innovative tech as "confidential computing", who want to repair the trust between data scientists and data owners. Which is HUGE if true. Using new privacy enhancing technologies the company hopes to draw clearer lines in the sand, with regards to how to process data ethically - re: huge multinationals. With the money they've raised I certainly am looking forward to hearing more about this development soon.

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SEO blogs, research and starting every post with the word BEST

I recently took up a freelance gig doing SEO blogs for an A.I company. Full disclosure, having written in many styles, voices and modes in the past, I have never written an SEO blog before. HOWEVER... research is one of my strong points, if something needs to be done well, I'll resesrch it till it gets to the level it needs to be, which I have been doing.

I saw this article on my weekly news dive and I found it quite funny. Maybe I'm being a bit mean, because there are a couple good tips in this article. Nevertheless, it doesn't manage to say lot about social media trends and generalises a lot without example. Telling people to follow trends true to a brand or enterprises' voice, in early stages is a tricky business. One "poor tone" post could break a business.

While this is vaguely mentioned in the post, I don't believe enough to warrant a Forbes post, perhaps. In saying this, I do understnad that a lot of SEO posting has it's unique style, he's obviously implementing keywords and doing it well. I just wish that there was a way to make SEO blogging less throwaway, while introducing content with a bit more substance.

For a person staring a new small business or jumping into start-up life, I could see buzz articles like this being quite frustrating. In saying that, I did click on it, so whatever the writer did...so, it does work.

( full disclosure - I may be angry because I know he's getting paid way more than me, c'est la vie)

[web-authoring-g0rl]

Coding anecdotes - re: chat gpt

When we were coding our personal profiles, I hit a bit of a wall, several walls actually. Despite wanting to try and make my profile look a bit different and colourful, I'm not even sure if my final result will do very well when marked.

However! In the depths of my dispair, between <div>'s and notes to myself, later deleted, which read <!--HELP-- >, I did consult Chat GPT to see where my code was going wrong, at the time I was panicked about the html.

In fact, my poor frazzled laptop, with a full google drive and one drive just wouldn't connect to Chat gpt for some reason - <!-- obviously nothing to do with my computer, potentially the site was at full user capacity, however I hate my laptop and full Gdrive and I will blame them-- > - so, I asked a friend in desperation.

I sent him my code copied and asked him to ask Chat Gpt "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS HTML CODE". The chat bot, got back to him and he sent on what it said, which was "this code is missing a </head>. Thanks Chat gpt, I felt incredibly stupid for having to resport to you, but you saved me.

Writing about this situation, funny or not, was spurred on by seeing this article on my travels. It was an interesting read and I'm glad Chat GPT functions more so as an assistant to people trying to code (or code terribly - like me), rather than a tool to do all the work for you.

I've spoken about this before, in relation yo A.I making people lose skills etc.. and it's good to know that most people are experimenting with it, as an aid to correct mistakes, rather than a piece of slave-tech to do alll the work for us. I hope it remains an integrated human-to-bot experience.

[web-authoring-g0rl]

Will I get it?? -Thoughts on coding.

I wasn't very invested in maths in school and didn't have the opportunity to take physics/chemistry/biology in school either, despite wanting to. It built up a sort of "left brain blockage" as a result, with the majority of my work and study since then has been centered around the English language, writing and editing. Studying coding, however basic a level it may be, has been a daunting subject for me to tackle. I am not confident in my abilities at all at all unfortunately, but I want to be, I want to improve.

In spite of my concerns (fears) on the topic, I am finding learning it interesting, it's making me engage my brain in a new way. I saw this news article about women who left their jobs for careers in coding. One woman, Jessica, also mentioned that she didn't come from a science or maths background either but found her next step in life through coding. It was very inspiring and has given me a bit of hope.

[web-authoring-g0rl]

Microsoft launches CoPilot for Office - Are people going to write anything anymore?????

Microsoft just recently announced the launch of Copilot, a new A.I system to assist people to work quicker in Microsoft office.

This new addition to Office suite will be geared towards everyone according to reports, from help with writing job descriptions to birthday invitation writing. Similarly, it will be integrated into Outlook, to help compose emails quickly and help users keep up with long email threads.

The new updates to Office will also allow programmers to buld their own prototyping language using the feature, marketed as an innovator friendly tool.

An interesting development to be sure, however I wonder how Microsoft's A.I features will stack up to the likes of Google workspace, which enables users to generate auto summaries for texts and auto replies for email already.

The worry remains, will ANYONE actually write anything anymore. I'm incredibly interested in the power of A.I generation, working on par and in harmony with human created media/work etc. However, I'm genuinely concerned about us losing integral human brain power and skills, as we move into the next era of A.I evolution.

I will continue to use smart compose though on email. Am I being a hypocrite??

-GP

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Social media companies, responsbility and the return of "the tangerine".

A few days ago it was announced that Donal Trump has returned to Facebook, after being banned in January 2021, as a response to the Riots on Captal Hill.

It made me think about how much responsiblity falls upon those who run social media platforms, with regard to safeguarding the public from harmful people, with huge followings. There has to be a way, to avoid what happened with Capitol Hill happening again, with regards to Trump's behavior and others influential people online.

There are questions of course, with regards to censorship and issues regarding free speech. However, I feel the events of Janurary 2021 need to serve as a catalyst for Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk in particular, to put in place failsafe procedural actions going forward.

High risk individuals with a high following, posting rapid-fire, poorly thought out media/communications online that incite violence, cannot be the norm going forward. This was a highly irregular occurence, which is understandable. It's beyond the realms of the norm to see the president of a country behaving the way that Trump did.

Can he be trusted to be online, is the main question I fins myself askng, and, has he forfeit his right to be a "person of prominence" online. I personally think, there has to be a clearer line...

-GP

Below are examples of Facebook and Twitter's community standards.

FB

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Twitter

Violent Speech: You may not threaten, incite, glorify, or express desire for violence or harm. 

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Even the WEEBS are protesting A.I art...

Still via Screenrant.com and Corridor Digital.

Side note- As a long time fan of anime and Ghibli, I can neutrally use the term weeb, as I am one. -

The following article caught my attention for a number of reasons. As a fan of the genre of Japanese manga and anime art styles, some of the issues raised in this post could threaten the entire genre's media industry, in a creative and innovative sense, from a human perspective. https://screenrant.com/anime-rock-paper-scissors-ai-art-controversy/

The controversial topic of A.I art and concepts of authorship is a complex one that came to my attention a number of months ago, with the rise in prominent celebrities and social media figures using the Lensa A.I art app. The app is used to create futuristic, fantastical and very beautiful art portraits of users, using A.I tech. The main issue with this app, from an ethical or legal standpoint is the fact that the A.I learns to create these wonderful portraits, by scanning for works on the internet created by traditional (or analogue) artists.

Naturally, this sparked uproar amongst the artist communties across the world, concerning intellectual property theft of their art style and unique designs along with questions on copyright law. Below is a condensed example of the fallout regarding Lensa VS artists. https://www.theregreview.org/2023/01/24/penava-ai-art-is-in-legal-greyscale/

So, A.I generated art, animation and media CAN and often is trained using any and all sources available from the internet, however, the anime article mentioned above deals with a partcular video on YouTube, uploaded by Corridor Digital, which used one single anime called Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. https://youtu.be/GVT3WUa-48Y

The video is very impressive for A.I animation and they've certainly managed to include some visual anime tropes, however overall, it's more akin to that of rotoscoping in film. I haven't seen VHD:B, but here is a link to the trailer of the anime for comparison. https://youtu.be/44xT9LSrgJ4

The knock on effects of this type of animation development being used in the anime or manga world, would cost thousands of people their jobs. And globally, should this become commonplace, who's to say that the voice acting industry for anime dubs could potentially become threatened by an A.I generated voice over program? Food for thought.

Overall, I think A.I usage in the anime and manga development industry should be kept to a minimum. Examples such as visually complex fight scenes that may last thirty seconds on screen, but takes months of digital animation development, would be the only instance where I would personally advocate for A.I to be used. Even then, given the given the "die hard" extremes of anime fandom out there... this could be a controversial statement on my part.

-GP