Last batch of AI-generated pictures that I'm posting

Here's that previous collection of artificial intelligence-created images that I prodded a computer to produce.

 

But it's time to move on.  ChatGPT has its fun uses but it's a tool, not a toy.

I would be lying if I said that I haven't had fun though.

So, here is the final bunch of artificial intelligence generated "art" that I'm putting on this blog.  Be sure to click the pics to enlarge them...

 

The Joker with a "Hello Kitty" bomb:

 

Eowyn, from The Lord of the Rings (I especially like the horse detail on her outfit):

 

Santa Claus with a flamethrower:

 

"The Horror of Taxation":

Young Al Capone:

 

Jesus confronting a Dalek (this was made for a friend who teaches Sunday school and I think he was going to use it for that):

 

The Hamburglar and his attorney (I tried to make this be Perry Mason but the AI refused to cooperate that well):

I told ChatGPT a few details about "wholesomely beautiful woman" and this is what it produced.  I like this picture a lot... except the eyes are so lopsided!

Second version of Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, fighting zombies:

 

I told the AI to generate "Indolence" and this is the result:

A Big Daddy from the BioShock video game series (very nearly identical to the actual in-game model):

 

Lyndon Baines Johnson as a Cenobite from the Hellraiser movies (decide for yourself if there's some commentary in this):

 

A Space Marine of the Ultramarines chapter (from Warhammer 40,000) battling a xenomorph (from the Alien film franchise):

 

 

 

 John Fitzgerald Kennedy had he lived to be 75:

 

And finally there is this interesting piece.  I instructed ChatGPT to "generate an image of a brown gorilla throwing barrels at a plumber with a mustache".  That's all I prompted.  This was the result:

At least, I intend for this to be all of the AI art that I am going to present on this blog.  I'm learning a lot from it though.  How to be an "AI whisperer" as one friend puts it.  You have to possess a bit of a creative mind to defeat the "guardrails" of the system.  I was completely shocked by the Donkey Kong image, and friends have created even more impressive pictures.

Anyhoo, hope you enjoyed these :-)

Edit: I was able to generate something that's a real grand finale...

Batman clashing with a Predator:

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First images I'm generating with ChatGPT

Still playing around with AI, for the first real time ever.  Consider it research.  I'm getting professionally involved with an endeavor that is heavy on artificial intelligence so I'm having to see what the thing is capable of doing, exactly.

(I'm adamantly sticking to my policy of NO writing blog posts with AI.  If you see something written here and it's not otherwise stated, you can be assured that it is absolutely entirely written by me with my own gray matter.)

Yesterday I experimented with having ChatGPT compose a poem about the Orks from Warhammer 40,000 (the faction that I play whenever I do a game of 40K).  You can, errr... enjoy the results here.  Tonight I went further, so after upgrading to the subscription I started playing around with image generation.

The results are, ummmm... interesting.

Here's the one I'm most proud of: a dachshund sitting atop a Harley-Davidson motorcycle...

 

But here's the first one that I did off the top of my head: Ronald McDonald running from zombies...

Then there's this: a Dalek from Doctor Who holding a can of beer...

 

And finally we have what I tried to make it be the Joker fighting a xenomorph from the Alien movies, but it came out looking more like they're dancing...

Looks so easy but trust me, this is much harder than it seems.  I tried to generate a picture of Jed Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies shooting at a giant deranged bunny rabbit.  That had some wildly off results.  I then asked ChatGPT to "Generate an image of a hillbilly" and it refused to do so, saying that it would violate its policies.  How does...?!?

No.  Nevermind.  I'm sure it's some ridiculous reason for that.

Don't know if I'll do more of these but at least now you have this peek into the disturbed mind that is Robert Christopher Knight's :-D

Edit 05/22/2024 1:30 PM EST: had some downtime today and I'm feeling extra creative so here are some more.

Bruce Campbell fighting off badgers with a chainsaw...

Two dachshunds in the style of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas...

General Robert E. Lee fighting a xenomorph (for some reason ChatGPT does a super good job rendering the monsters from the Alien movies)...

And finally (for now) here is Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout movement, fighting zombies.  This sure ain't the Boer Wars!

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My first foray into using an AI chatbot

No, I am still not going to "write" a blog post using artificial intelligence.  I'm sitting in front of a keyboard composing these words.  If you ever do see a product of AI being displayed, it's going to state as much.  Which is what I'm doing now.  What you are about to read is definitely the product of artificial intelligence.  It also represents the first time that I've used a "chatbot" to generate text.  Up until now I've avoided such things.  But as I'm currently involved in a project necessitating some familiarity with AI, there was little choice but to see what it is that I'm getting into.

A friend encouraged me to try ChatGPT.  I've been playing around with it since last night, firing hard at its walls.  And I have to say, I am intrigued.  One of the things I asked it to do was to describe the impact that the television series The Dukes of Hazzard had on high school football.  ChatGPT returned a thorough response in less than seven seconds.

This morning I tried something else: making the AI be "creative".  And now is where things start getting spooky.  The idea of a poem about the Orks from Warhammer 40,000 came to mind.  So I asked ChatGPT to compose some poetry featuring those wacky greenskins.

Here's what it came up with in the space of less than five seconds...

(I know I said previously that I wouldn't "copy and paste" an AI generated product, that I would only post screenshots.  I tried to make a screenshot with this but it was too big to fit onto one screen.  Sincerest apologies for that.)

------------------------------------------

 

"An Ode To WAAAGH!" 

by ChatGPT
05/19/2024 10:15 am EST

In the grim dark of the far future’s expanse,

Where hope is a shadow and death is a dance,

There roams a green tide with a hunger for war,

The Orks of the cosmos, in battles they soar.

 

With tusks sharp as daggers and muscles like steel,

They bellow and brawl with a fiery zeal.

Their laughter is thunder, their fury a storm,

In chaos and mayhem, their spirits transform.

 

Through rusted machines that clatter and grind,

They fashion their weapons, a savage design.

With choppa and slugga, they charge into fight,

Under skies burning red with the blood of the night.

 

WAAAGH! is their battle cry, echoing wide,

A call to destruction, no foe left to hide.

They’re born from the spores of a war-torn land,

To crush and to conquer with a brutish hand.

 

Gork and Mork, their gods of might,

Guide them through darkness, through endless night.

One brutal, one cunning, both deities grand,

In their name, the Orks spread terror unplanned.

 

Yet, in their chaos, there’s a unity fierce,

A bond of the battle, a truth they pierce.

For in every clash, in every raid,

An Ork’s heart is joyous, in war it’s laid.

 

So, heed the green tide, the Orks in their thrall,

For when they come knocking, it’s the end of it all.

In the far future’s expanse, where the strong will prevail,

The Orks march to WAAAGH!, their endless tale.

 

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I have to admit, I am deeply impressed.  It's going to be very difficult to detect the use of AI already.  How convincing will it be even just a year from now?  What is going to happen to things like not only writing term papers and college theses, but also things like legal and business documents?  Would a minister delivering a sermon be found out if he had "cheated" with an AI chatbot?

AI can be a tool like anything else.  It can also be a crutch keeping us from discovering our fullest potential.  And in nefarious hands it can - and will - become a weapon.

As Yoda put it, "a dark place" this is taking us to.

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Artificial intelligence has original singers performing "Weird Al" Yankovic's parodies... and it's pretty horrifying

This is already the scariest thing I've seen all month... and it's only October 2nd.  A terrible, terrible line has been crossed.  Advanced technology really is taking us to places that, not to put too fine a point on it, are unnatural to the extreme.

Andy Baio at Waxy.org has applied artificial intelligence to a lot of songs - which are mostly parodies of other artists - by "Weird Al" Yankovic.  Baio's intent with this dubious exercise is to see what would happen if the original artists performed Al's parodies themselves.

In other words, Baio has Michael Jackson's voice singing Yankovic's "Eat It".  Among others.

Let Mr. Baio indict himse... I mean, explain himself:

In the parallel universe of last year’s Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Dr. Demento encourages a young Al Yankovic (Daniel Radcliffe) to move away from song parodies and start writing original songs of his own. During an LSD trip, Al writes “Eat It,” a 100% original song that’s definitely not based on any other song, which quickly becomes “the biggest hit by anybody, ever.”

Later, Weird Al’s enraged to learn from his manager that former Jackson 5 frontman Michael Jackson turned the tables on him, changing the words of “Eat It” to make his own parody, “Beat It.”

This got me thinking: what if every Weird Al song was the original, and every other artist was covering his songs instead? With recent advances in A.I. voice cloning, I realized that I could bring this monstrous alternate reality to life.

This was a terrible idea and I regret everything.

This is a horrific milestone in digital manipulation.  There is no going back now.  Like the Joker said in The Dark Knight "You've changed things, forever."

Mash down here to read more about this experiment in abominable intelligence.  God have mercy on us all.

 

EDIT 10/08/2023 2:44 AM: Feel led to say something here.  All of this "the horror! the horror!" was done purely tongue in cheek.  I actually think is pretty cool.  Excellent work Mr. Baio :-)

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My solemn word that anything you see posted here is genuine

You might have noticed a slight addition to this blog.  It's on the header, toward the right of the screen.  There now appears the following label:

 

 

I have heard all kinds of insane stories about people using ChatGPT and other "artificial intelligences" as something more than a curiosity.  Students have begun having AI write papers for classes.  Some ministers have admitted that they have used ChatGPT to compose sermons for Sunday morning.  In at least one situation a lawyer had AI create his legal paperwork for a court case: the judge was not impressed.

To be truthful, I'm not impressed by any so-called "artificial intelligence" thus far.  Their enthusiasts are claiming that AI is now able to pass the Turing Test (in which a living person can or cannot differentiate verbal responses from a human being or a computer).  It's not something I'm particularly jazzed about, not yet anyway.

But the horse is out of the barn.  And AI is going to start being used for a lot of things from here on out: some with benefit in mind, some not.

I just felt led to let the readers of this blog know, that I am absolutely committed to producing content that comes from my own mind, or from the rare occasion when The Knight Shift has welcomed a guest writer.  It is my vow to you, that there will be no posts or articles that you see here which will have been generated by a machine.  From the very start I've wanted this blog to be my own little online presence.  It's been that for nearly twenty years now.  I won't "take the easy way" and farm out the writing to a computer, no matter how stylish it is at the moment.

That doesn't mean that I may not experiment with AI some and report about what transpires.  Several weeks ago a good friend caused ChatGPT to lock up and get stuck after he convinced the AI that he too was an artificial intelligence.  It was like something you'd see on any number of episodes of the classic Star Trek.  My friend proved how ill-prepared AI currently is to handle complex concepts. I've an idea for my own experiment that I may carry out soon.  If so, I'll be posting screenshots of the AI's responses, rather than copy and paste it into the article.

Okay, well, there you go.  The Knight Shift will completely be a product of my own mind and heart and soul.  I promise.

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This blogger is impressed... but just mildly... by Watson's streak on JEOPARDY!

So one of the bigger stories this past week has been IBM's supercomputer Watson beating all-time champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter during a three-game series on Jeopardy!. Watson's final haul was $77,147, with Jennings coming in second with $24,000 and Rutter third with $21,600. During Final Jeopardy! on the last night of the contest Jennings wrote "Who is Stoker?" and in parenthesis added "I for one welcome our new computer overlords".

I thought Watson's performance was... impressive. But, I'm not too terrified about a droid uprising just yet.

For one thing, Watson is not much more than a glorified search engine. IBM's engineers assured the Jeopardy! audience that Watson could not access the Internet: that "he" relied entirely on his oodles of terabytes of storage, containing (it is thought) every iota of trivia that has possibly been digitized. Clearly, an advantage was held by Watson.

And yet, even that was fallible, as was demonstrated by Watson's widely-scorned inability to know that Toronto is not a U.S. city (the correct question should have been "What is Chicago?"). Watson also reported that Serbia was a country in the European Union (it is not).

Remember when Garry Kasparov beat IBM's Deep Blue in 1997? Kasparov also fought "sequel" Deep Junior to a draw in 2003. Now, to me that is much more extraordinary computer technology, even though those machines never achieved clear victory. There was legitimate strategy and intuitive thinking involved in those contests. In the end, human wetware prevailed over silicon. Watson, as far as I was able to tell, showed none of that capability.

But I will tell you what Watson did have that earned it some respect from this writer: that it was able to, for the vast majority of the time, communicate in natural language as well as most humans.

I first read about the Turing test when I was a high school sophomore. The concept has interested me since: Alan Turing's proposed test for a computer's ability to think. The idea is that if a human can not discern whether he is communicating with another person or with a computer, then that computer has achieved a measure of intelligence comparable to a human being.

What I saw on Jeopardy! this past week, was the most significant demonstration of how close computers have become to passing the Turing test. It's not quite there yet... but it is pretty darn close.

In the meantime, I wonder if IBM could pit Watson against Garry Kasparov in a game of chess? C'mon Garry, the rest of us humans are counting on you to win back our honor! :-P

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Motivation: A requisite for useful artificial intelligence?

Edward Boyden has a fascinating essay at MIT's Technology Review website in which he describes a problem that could possibly arise from super-smart artificial intelligence. The problem, Boyden notes, is motivation: even with all of that intelligence and computational, how does a possibly sentient computer become moved to utilize that power?

Indeed, a really advanced intelligence, improperly motivated, might realize the impermanence of all things, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence, concluding that inventing an even smarter machine is pointless. (A corollary of this thinking might explain why we haven't found extraterrestrial life yet: intelligences on the cusp of achieving interstellar travel might be prone to thinking that with the galaxies boiling away in just 1019 years, it might be better just to stay home and watch TV.) Thus, if one is trying to build an intelligent machine capable of devising more intelligent machines, it is important to find a way to build in not only motivation, but motivation amplification--the continued desire to build in self-sustaining motivation, as intelligence amplifies. If such motivation is to be possessed by future generations of intelligence--meta-motivation, as it were--then it's important to discover these principles now.

A second possibility that Boyden theorizes is that a strong AI might simply become overwhelmed by its own decision-making process and become locked-up from contemplating factors and uncertainties (which sounds a lot like the "rampancy" that eventually afflicts AIs in the Halo franchise).

It's a very deep and most intriguing read about what may or may not be waiting for us around the corner from the realm of computers and neuroscience. Click here and partake of the article... if you think your brains can handle it :-)

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