News sucks

[unapologetic]

the equivalent of giving a user a motorbike in a bicycle race,

My view is more like steroids in a bike race. If it's use causes problems, Yes it is the falt of the user, But you still forbid it's use.
The 'optics' may be that I am blaming AI, But in reality I blame users and would take their toy away. AI may be a tool for you. For users I see on the internet, it's a misused toy.

 

[bilby]

But that's not a problem with AI. That's a problem with the person using it.

Maybe, but it's a problem for everyone.

AI is pissing in the Internet punchbowl.

Whether that's a problem with piss, or a problem with the guy who pisses, it's a problem for everyone who wants to be able to consume the Internet's content.

AI is bad because it generates pollution - misinformation - but AI pollution is worse than most, because there is a huge amount of it, and it is extremely hard to detect.

There are lots of flags that indicate that a text was written by a person who doesn't know what he is talking about. AI is extremely good at avoiding those red flags; It is a confident and convincing liar.

It doesn't know it's lying; It consequently doesn't give itself away by subconsciously providing defensive clues that a human liar would find hard to avoid, nor by trying to hedge its bets in anticipation of being called out.

Such effective liars are rare amongst humans, but are dangerous nonetheless, despite the very small contribution they can make to our total store of information.

AI can (and is) generating vast torrents of highly confident and plausible sounding falsehoods. This is not going to end well.

 

[DrZoidberg]

But that's not a problem with AI. That's a problem with the person using it.

Maybe, but it's a problem for everyone.

AI is pissing in the Internet punchbowl.

Whether that's a problem with piss, or a problem with the guy who pisses, it's a problem for everyone who wants to be able to consume the Internet's content.

AI is bad because it generates pollution - misinformation - but AI pollution is worse than most, because there is a huge amount of it, and it is extremely hard to detect.

There are lots of flags that indicate that a text was written by a person who doesn't know what he is talking about. AI is extremely good at avoiding those red flags; It is a confident and convincing liar.

It doesn't know it's lying; It consequently doesn't give itself away by subconsciously providing defensive clues that a human liar would find hard to avoid, nor by trying to hedge its bets in anticipation of being called out.

Such effective liars are rare amongst humans, but are dangerous nonetheless, despite the very small contribution they can make to our total store of information.

AI can (and is) generating vast torrents of highly confident and plausible sounding falsehoods. This is not going to end well.

I get it. You don't like new stuff. Things were better in the good old days. You spent your life understanding the world and now you need to learn new stuff. Wtf.

I was young when the Internet came. You sound exactly like those old curmudgeon's annoyed by any change.

Dude, your criticisms have no substance. You might as well be railing against the decadence of rock'n'roll music

 

[DrZoidberg]

Here's a good video on AI

 

[bilby]

But that's not a problem with AI. That's a problem with the person using it.

Maybe, but it's a problem for everyone.

AI is pissing in the Internet punchbowl.

Whether that's a problem with piss, or a problem with the guy who pisses, it's a problem for everyone who wants to be able to consume the Internet's content.

AI is bad because it generates pollution - misinformation - but AI pollution is worse than most, because there is a huge amount of it, and it is extremely hard to detect.

There are lots of flags that indicate that a text was written by a person who doesn't know what he is talking about. AI is extremely good at avoiding those red flags; It is a confident and convincing liar.

It doesn't know it's lying; It consequently doesn't give itself away by subconsciously providing defensive clues that a human liar would find hard to avoid, nor by trying to hedge its bets in anticipation of being called out.

Such effective liars are rare amongst humans, but are dangerous nonetheless, despite the very small contribution they can make to our total store of information.

AI can (and is) generating vast torrents of highly confident and plausible sounding falsehoods. This is not going to end well.

I get it.

That's encouraging.

You don't like new stuff. Things were better in the good old days. You spent your life understanding the world and now you need to learn new stuff. Wtf.

Oh. How disappointing. Your first sentence was completely and totally wrong.

I was young when the Internet came. You sound exactly like those old curmudgeon's annoyed by any change.

Dude, your criticisms have no substance. You might as well be railing against the decadence of rock'n'roll music

This entire rant about me, personally, that in no way even attempts to address my arguments certainly doesn't look much like anything other than a pathetic ad-hominem. So far, we have a three word sentence that introduces your response with a gross misrepresentation of your condition, and three paragraphs that grossly represent mine, with zero words about the points under discussion.

Is this what passes for rational argument in your world? Because from where I am sitting, it sounds like you have no valid response to my argument, and have decided instead to lash out like a spoilt toddler.

I guess you are conceding the point; It's a shame you are not able to do so with more maturity.

 

[DrZoidberg]

But that's not a problem with AI. That's a problem with the person using it.

Maybe, but it's a problem for everyone.

AI is pissing in the Internet punchbowl.

Whether that's a problem with piss, or a problem with the guy who pisses, it's a problem for everyone who wants to be able to consume the Internet's content.

AI is bad because it generates pollution - misinformation - but AI pollution is worse than most, because there is a huge amount of it, and it is extremely hard to detect.

There are lots of flags that indicate that a text was written by a person who doesn't know what he is talking about. AI is extremely good at avoiding those red flags; It is a confident and convincing liar.

It doesn't know it's lying; It consequently doesn't give itself away by subconsciously providing defensive clues that a human liar would find hard to avoid, nor by trying to hedge its bets in anticipation of being called out.

Such effective liars are rare amongst humans, but are dangerous nonetheless, despite the very small contribution they can make to our total store of information.

AI can (and is) generating vast torrents of highly confident and plausible sounding falsehoods. This is not going to end well.

I get it.

That's encouraging.

You don't like new stuff. Things were better in the good old days. You spent your life understanding the world and now you need to learn new stuff. Wtf.

Oh. How disappointing. Your first sentence was completely and totally wrong.

I was young when the Internet came. You sound exactly like those old curmudgeon's annoyed by any change.

Dude, your criticisms have no substance. You might as well be railing against the decadence of rock'n'roll music

This entire rant about me, personally, that in no way even attempts to address my arguments certainly doesn't look much like anything other than a pathetic ad-hominem. So far, we have a three word sentence that introduces your response with a gross misrepresentation of your condition, and three paragraphs that grossly represent mine, with zero words about the points under discussion.

Is this what passes for rational argument in your world? Because from where I am sitting, it sounds like you have no valid response to my argument, and have decided instead to lash out like a spoilt toddler.

I guess you are conceding the point; It's a shame you are not able to do so with more maturity.

We've been flooded with misinformation the second Internet was connected. Same thing happened the moment the printing press was invented. That's not a new thing. There's no way it can get worse than it is already. We're already saturated with bullshit. There's no way AI can make the problem worse.

I don't think AI is convincing as a liar. I think what people have a problem with is that they want AI to show how sure it is about a statement. But you can just ask your AI to show you it's chain of reasoning and how confident it is. It's an easy fix. That's just down to learning how AI works. But I think the real problem is that they want to be served easy answers and don't react when it sounds too good to be true. Ie laziness. That's not the fault of AI. That's a problem with users.

I still think you sound like a dinosaur shaking your cane at the heavens.

 

[Emily Lake]

AI doesn't replace thinking or human feelings. It replaces the need of us to do some of our boring repetitive tasks.

That's automation, not artificial intelligence.

 

[Emily Lake]

My claim is that using AI has no downside. If AI fails at a task you have lost nothing.

Mmm.... If I recall, I think there were two fairly substantial lawsuits in the past few years related to AI having a downside. I believe one of them was a hospital that was using AI to augment diagnoses and the formation of treatment protocols, and it was found to be discriminatory. The other was I think United (not positive, one of the big insurers) using AI as part of it's prior authorization evaluation, also found to be discriminatory.

 

[Emily Lake]

Why do you think the top one sucks, and is not art? Why is Van Gogh’s Potato Eaters boring?

Both are ugly with no style. You may disagree, but then EVERYTHING could be called art. And any discussion of 'art' is pointless.

I'm not an art expert by any means, but here's my take.

I'm not particularly fond of Van Gogh's style of art. Even with his most famous pieces (starry night), I don't really care for his brush strokes being so large and obvious. I know I'm probably an outlier, but I've never really like impressionists and abstract stuff much.

That said, Van Gogh's paintings do capture a feeling. None of the people in the pic above is pretty, the image itself isn't happy and joyous. But it sure does capture the borderline desperation of most bars, and a pretty sad overall emotion in the posture of the few people there - nobody looks like they're having a good time.

There are lots of artists that I don't care for, but other people seem to. Mondrian bores me, and I'm pretty sure Miro's work could be done by a kindergartener with a caffeine boost. Even Manet and Monet are pretty dull to me. But that's just my taste. I tend toward dynamic landscapes and portraits. And of course... I can't recall any of the names of the artists I do like. I just know when I go to the museum, I spend the majority of my time looking at landscapes and portraits from like the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

[Emily Lake]

If an AI can be trained that 'jiggle' matters, it can be trained that things or styles that simulate/stimulate emotions also matter.

Perhaps. I think where AI is likely to fall down is that AI doesn't have any emotions of its own, it doesn't know what wrath or rue feels like. It's hard to stimulate something you aren't capable of feeling.

Aside: Many ages ago, I watched a season of American Idol. There was one contestant who did a song that was fundamentally about sexual attraction and desire. But it was obvious watching her sing and move that she'd never experienced that herself. She had no passion at all, and if I were a betting person, I'd say she was a virgin. That lack came through in her performance - even though she had a great voice, she had no desire and no ardor of her own to contribute.

 

[pood]

Why do you think the top one sucks, and is not art? Why is Van Gogh’s Potato Eaters boring?

Both are ugly with no style. You may disagree, but then EVERYTHING could be called art. And any discussion of 'art' is pointless.

I'm not an art expert by any means, but here's my take.

I'm not particularly fond of Van Gogh's style of art. Even with his most famous pieces (starry night), I don't really care for his brush strokes being so large and obvious. I know I'm probably an outlier, but I've never really like impressionists and abstract stuff much.

That said, Van Gogh's paintings do capture a feeling. None of the people in the pic above is pretty, the image itself isn't happy and joyous. But it sure does capture the borderline desperation of most bars, and a pretty sad overall emotion in the posture of the few people there - nobody looks like they're having a good time.

There are lots of artists that I don't care for, but other people seem to. Mondrian bores me, and I'm pretty sure Miro's work could be done by a kindergartener with a caffeine boost. Even Manet and Monet are pretty dull to me. But that's just my taste. I tend toward dynamic landscapes and portraits. And of course... I can't recall any of the names of the artists I do like. I just know when I go to the museum, I spend the majority of my time looking at landscapes and portraits from like the 17th and 18th centuries.

You are certainly entitled to your taste.

The rise of Impressionism, post-Impressionism, expressionism and later non-representational art (usually denoted as abstract art, but all art is abstract, no matter how realistic) coincided with the rise of photography, removing the need for realistic portraiture, landscapes, etc. If you look at Rembrandt’s works they are stunningly realistic.

You are right that in the bar painting and also in the Potato Eaters, Van Gogh captured a feeling and that is the key, imo, to the success of the paintings. I certainly think you’re wrong, imo, about Mondrian and Miro. What do you think of Picasso? IMO Guernica is the greatest painting of the 20th century, and I say that as someone who generally opposes “what is the greatest” lists in any form.

There is a whole philosophy of art that goes back at least to Ancient Greece. Reality is a representation in our minds so it follows that the visual arts are a representation of a representation. Plato, through Socrates, already intuited this, arguing that art is an imitation of an imitation (the perfect forms) and hence of little value. Socrates also opposed writing, arguing that everything should be oral. I don’t believe in any perfect Platonic forms, but as an artist myself who has sold quite a few picture, I do philosophically question the utility of what am doing, until someone flashes a couple hundred dollars to buy a drawing of mine. Then it all seems worthwhile.

But yeah, the philosopher in me is skeptical of art.

 

[pood]

Krishnamurti wondered why people flock to museums to gawk at pretty portrayals of nature when they can just experience nature firsthand. Henry Miller observed that K’s philosophy made writing itself seem superfluous, not too different from Socrates. Miller lived in Pacific Palisades not far from Ojai where Krishnamurti lived and posted a note on his door that said, in condensed form, if you want enlightenment, don’t knock on my door. Go visit Ojai.

 

[pood]

Henry Miller’s notice to visitors

 

[Emily Lake]

Why do you think the top one sucks, and is not art? Why is Van Gogh’s Potato Eaters boring?

Both are ugly with no style. You may disagree, but then EVERYTHING could be called art. And any discussion of 'art' is pointless.

I'm not an art expert by any means, but here's my take.

I'm not particularly fond of Van Gogh's style of art. Even with his most famous pieces (starry night), I don't really care for his brush strokes being so large and obvious. I know I'm probably an outlier, but I've never really like impressionists and abstract stuff much.

That said, Van Gogh's paintings do capture a feeling. None of the people in the pic above is pretty, the image itself isn't happy and joyous. But it sure does capture the borderline desperation of most bars, and a pretty sad overall emotion in the posture of the few people there - nobody looks like they're having a good time.

There are lots of artists that I don't care for, but other people seem to. Mondrian bores me, and I'm pretty sure Miro's work could be done by a kindergartener with a caffeine boost. Even Manet and Monet are pretty dull to me. But that's just my taste. I tend toward dynamic landscapes and portraits. And of course... I can't recall any of the names of the artists I do like. I just know when I go to the museum, I spend the majority of my time looking at landscapes and portraits from like the 17th and 18th centuries.

You are certainly entitled to your taste.

The rise of Impressionism, post-Impressionism, expressionism and later non-representational art (usually denoted as abstract art, but all art is abstract, no matter how realistic) coincided with the rise of photography, removing the need for realistic portraiture, landscapes, etc. If you look at Rembrandt’s works they are stunningly realistic.

Some photography can replace it, sure. Like "official portrait" sort of things, a photo can do better. For a lot of the older landscape paintings, they combined the realism of a beautiful landscape and very often the emotive power of an event - something that isn't often captured by photo, or at least is incredibly hard to capture. Many of those paintings tell a story in a single image. I wish my brain were better at remembering stuff like this... but you mention Rembrandt and the internet is a great place sometimes. Storm on the sea of Galilee, for example, isn't replicable by photo

You are right that in the bar painting and also in the Potato Eaters, Van Gogh captured a feeling and that is the key, imo, to the success of the paintings. I certainly think you’re wrong, imo, about Mondrian and Miro. What do you think of Picasso? IMO Guernica is the greatest painting of the 20th century, and I say that as someone who generally opposes “what is the greatest” lists in any form.

I actually kind of liked Picasso's earlier stuff, that red & blue phase. I'm just not really big on cubism. Dali, I'm down with - it doesn't have to be realistic.

There is a whole philosophy of art that goes back at least to Ancient Greece. Reality is a representation in our minds so it follows that the visual arts are a representation of a representation. Plato, through Socrates, already intuited this, arguing that art is an imitation of an imitation (the perfect forms) and hence of little value. Socrates also opposed writing, arguing that everything should be oral. I don’t believe in any perfect Platonic forms, but as an artist myself who has sold quite a few picture, I do philosophically question the utility of what am doing, until someone flashes a couple hundred dollars to buy a drawing of mine. Then it all seems worthwhile.

But yeah, the philosopher in me is skeptical of art.

I took some art classes in college. My drawing teacher once told me "You're very technically accurate, have you considered a career in architecture?" Which seemed like a really nice way of saying that a computer could probably make art better than me!

 

[Emily Lake]

Krishnamurti wondered why people flock to museums to gawk at pretty portrayals of nature when they can just experience nature firsthand. Henry Miller observed that K’s philosophy made writing itself seem superfluous, not too different from Socrates. Miller lived in Pacific Palisades not far from Ojai where Krishnamurti lived and posted a note on his door that said, in condensed form, if you want enlightenment, don’t knock on my door. Go visit Ojai.

I gawk at portrayals of nature that I can't reasonable access from my location, or which feature events that I doubt I'd be lucky enough (or brave enough) to experience directly. A typhoon in the mediterranean with a ton of lightning and tormented ships isn't really on my travel itinerary. And while I could certainly make plans to visit Yellowstone every now and then, the chances of me being there when the light is just right is kind of small...

 

[pood]

I actually kind of liked Picasso's earlier stuff, that red & blue phase. I'm just not really big on cubism.

Picasso’s red and blue phase was inspired by Gauguin. Cubism was inspired by Cezanne,

In Cubism, Picasso and Braque attempted to do for form what the impressionists did for light. The latter were interested not so much in painting what they saw but in painting light, breaking it up into dots of complementary colors.

The Cubists were exploring form from multiple perspectives at the same time.

Maybe we need a philosophy of art thread.

 

[pood]

Cubism had two phases that came to be called analytic and synthetic. Picasso (and Braque’s) early works were analytic; Picasso’s later works, like Guernica, were largely synthetic. In both cases of course the artists totally abandoned the idea of depicting reality exactly as it was or seemed to be.

I have sometimes run my art through free Cubism filters online and the result is total crap, fortifying my belief that AI and filters just don’t cut it.

 

[Emily Lake]

I actually kind of liked Picasso's earlier stuff, that red & blue phase. I'm just not really big on cubism.

Picasso’s red and blue phase was inspired by Gauguin. Cubism was inspired by Cezanne,

In Cubism, Picasso and Braque attempted to do for form what the impressionists did for light. The latter were interested not so much in painting what they saw but in painting light, breaking it up into dots of complementary colors.

The Cubists were exploring form from multiple perspectives at the same time.

Maybe we need a philosophy of art thread.

I might learn something.

 

[bilby]

A typhoon in the mediterranean with a ton of lightning and tormented ships isn't really on my travel itinerary.

That's a good thing, because the Mediterranean is too far North to have tropical cyclones (and if it did have them, they would be Hurricanes; The name Typhoon is only given to a tropical cyclone that forms in the northern hemisphere east of 100°E longitude, while the easternmost point of the Mediterranean is only 36°E).

A Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone is called a Medicane.

/pointless pedantry

 

[DrZoidberg]

My claim is that using AI has no downside. If AI fails at a task you have lost nothing.

Mmm.... If I recall, I think there were two fairly substantial lawsuits in the past few years related to AI having a downside. I believe one of them was a hospital that was using AI to augment diagnoses and the formation of treatment protocols, and it was found to be discriminatory. The other was I think United (not positive, one of the big insurers) using AI as part of it's prior authorization evaluation, also found to be discriminatory.

I still don't see what the problem is.

The AI is just following the rules its given. They fucked up when promoting it and where lazy when validating the results. Something they would have needed to do anyway without AI.

The biggest problem with AI is that some people think its magical. When people realise its not magical they become angry at it. The irony is of course they could just have asked the AI how it works

AI doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to save work. Since its so cheap to use its very hard not to profit from using it