39 Comments
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

Terrific episode 🙏🏼 one thing I notice abt ai generated images- there is a strange…sheen to them. Is it just me?

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

That's an interesting observation. I'd like for you to show some examples of that, if that's possible, right here or via a link to your substack. There are not always many obvious clues available. Thanks.

Expand full comment

Maybe smoothness is what I mean…everything is just too smooth. No hard edges. I don’t really have examples. It’s just whenever I see ai images, they look too perfect.

Expand full comment

Well, most do. The ones with all the weird fingers and eyes, well those are very obviously ai 😂

Expand full comment

Thanks. 'Too smooth, too perfect' is a pretty good definition.

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

There is a weird look to a lot of them, but there's usually stuff that seems out of place. Look at the AI image that Greg has on this post; what is the man doing? He's definitely not typing. Is he wringing his hands, or stirring his tea? The typewriter is sideways - why? If he does want to type he has to rotate it around to face him.

The more you look at the image, the more you see that seems out of place. What's up with the bookcases at right angle to each other? Who has a bookcases like that? Lot's of wasted space behind.

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

The first thing I noticed is the typewriter itself. That is one STEEP keyboard. I've actually used typewriters (yes, OLD!) and I could never type on something like that.

I can't figure out the bookcases either in that the room is oddly constructed. There are windows on each end of the bookcases, implying that the room is in the corner of a building or some kind of residence. So, the bookcases both hug walls that jut into the room at a 90-degree angle from the outer walls. What is behind the bookcases? Maybe a secret passage that leads to the rest of this MC Escher-inspired house? Oh, AI, how you vex me! 🤣

Expand full comment
author

Ha ha, yes, the typewriter. It's like it moved the keys to face us but not the rest of the machine.

I learned to type on a manual typewriter when I was 11 or 12. A useful skill, and a good way to learn. These kids today would not be able to do it, with only their thumbs in use from all the texting...

Expand full comment
author

I'm looking at it more closely now...the sheet of paper in the typewriter looks like Kleenex. What shape is that?

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

That can easily be "prompted" away: Just suggest "make a pic of X that comes from a consumer camera img_005.jpg" - strange but true

Expand full comment
author

This took literally 20 seconds to do, and I did not do anything to improve it. To your point.

Expand full comment
author

I know what you mean...they are too polished, and "lit" in a way that lighting cannot produce.

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

Excellent article, thank you. Selling possible cancer patients’ names to mortuaries….the worst case for humanity.

Expand full comment
author

That's tactless and gross but at least it's useful research...the stuff the scammers are doing to the elderly and to children is much, much worse.

Expand full comment

TGIF🎉🎉🎉

Expand full comment

Food for thought… what will the future be 🎼 billserle.com

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

There is a substantial amount of human behavior that can never be replaced by a machine. We can use AI to help do more, but we as humans need to get paid a better average wage for our essential contributions. Because of billionaire greed, there's going to be a period of disruption and dislocation.

The pain in the short term will be how and when we get to a comfortable equilibrium again.

Tax the rich now and spare them the guillotines.

Expand full comment
author

Silver lining: Consolidating all that wealth into the hands of a precious few will make it easier to redistribute said wealth, if we're only talking about a dozen or so people...

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

I find that my kids, now in their mid to late 30s, have more than a running interests in vampires and aliens and alien encounters of all sorts, in low key sort of horror stories. They are sensible, productive, educated women. So, I see this sort of an intuitive understanding of our nation and, via capitalism, the predatory push for our attention all the times, via images and videos. As a regular visual observation, we see thousands of images a day.

So, I wonder if these topical observations are basic intuitive representations of what surrounds us in the media we consume at almost all levels. I would think AI will have to be balanced with anti-AI (i.e., real human generated works). While AI has its literate component, it also is a mathematical concern, plus/minus AI, in our general interaction with the social world (where AI is valued by its saturation rate). It's real antithesis is the natural world: wind and rain and thunder, now with pencil and paper and the typewriter and keyboard. Electricity is the empowerment of the modern world.

The future always seems to be a battleground. "Peace might be farther than thought." The quote is from Subcomandante Marcos from the government encounters in the early days in Chiapas.

Expand full comment
author

The kids all love horror stuff. It's a generational thing. And they seem incapable of being scared by it. I don't know what that says about the terror of the real world...

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

I use AI, in the form of ChatGPT, almost every day for work because no one has ever told me I couldn't! I have to write "Descriptions of Operations," for various companies when auditing insurance policies, and when I get to the part where I have to describe the business itself and what they do on a daily basis, I can hardly ever find the words I need. Despite all of the voluminous stuff I write here, I'm really not much of a writer if I don't have the passion for what I'm writing, so I turn to AI. Just last week, I had a farm, and this city boy has only driven past farms, so I told ChatGPT to give me, "200 words on the activities and operations of a farm that grown soybeans, corn, tomatoes, and barley," and got back an almost perfect description of everything I would have needed, including the growing season activities through harvest, how each crop is dealt with differently, and what employees who worked the crops would have to do from planting to harvesting and loading the product on trucks for eventual distribution. Sometimes it takes more than one try as AI tends toward advertising copy and you have to tell it to pull back from that. To me, all in all, it's pretty damned amazing!

There are even times I use ChatGPT in place of Google to search for things because ChatGPT seems to always know what you ACTUALLY want, as opposed to the 30 years of junk that clogs up Google searches. So, I'm a big fan of AI for stuff like this, but I also assume that within a decade, my job will be obsolete and taken over by AI. All I really am is a data processor, so personally, I'm glad I'll be retiring in the next few years. THE TERMINATOR and its sequels are some of my favorite movies, but let's hope that science-fiction remains fiction!

Expand full comment
author

Are we sure the libertarian racist sexist pigs didn't take over the future and send John Wilkes Booth back in time to kill Lincoln? ; )

AI is great for that kind of writing, which drains the brain for no real purpose. It's like what Tom says about its use for lawyers in analyzing documents. My guess is that a lot of the writing AI has learned from IS that kind of technical writing, ad copy, catalog descriptions, and so forth, so it makes sense. We don't want your creative juices exhausted by writing descriptions of soybean farms, Steve!

On the other hand, the kid I work with uses AI for EVERYTHING. You are capable of writing about the soybean farm if you had to; I'm not sure the kid could do that.

Expand full comment

I still remember how to do long division too, on paper, with a pen! These damned kids! LOL

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

When AIs start programming themselves to be smarter (already happening), it will take a few months to get that right, and then they will get smarter 100 times per minute, and we will be toast.

We won't even have to worry about the climate catastrophe, since the machines will direct their human slaves (our children) to burn more fossile fuel to run ever-bigger cooling systems.

“The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.”

- Charles de Gaulle

Expand full comment
author

"And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves."

--Kent Brockman, newscaster on The Simpsons

Expand full comment

❤️

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

AI may force us to reconnect to our physical reality and use our senses more when determining what is real and what is not. Physical sensations should be our primary connection to reality anyway. We treat our mental worlds as primary, and that's where the suffering begins.

Expand full comment
author

Beautiful comment, Rick, and sad and true. Thank you.

Expand full comment
Oct 18Liked by Greg Olear

Thanks, illuminating article. Two thoughts:

Underlying the good and the evil is one common denominator, human beings. We are the purveyors of good and evil, automation in every form, is simply a tool. A car didn't kill the child on a bike, the driver did, be it criminally such as drunk driving or an unfortunate swerve to avoid a different child who crossed in front of the car. However AI introduces a new element, the scariest element, AI takes on a human form and rules us, decides good and evil. At that point mankind simply becomes the subject of an all powerful technology and we are back to 100% serfdom.

Secondly, I have spent decades in the world of finance and I am a skeptical of regulation. Like a pendulum, most times too little or too much. Like the point above the underlying failure is the human. Traditional Republicans, almost always too little, Democrats almost always too much, both equally full of unintended consequences.

Taking into account our many imperfections I'll take human over machine any day. Despite our failures the tug and pull mostly creates a balance. Every human form AI may take will still have at its core the bane and blessing of its creator, the human.

Completely off topic. This election has really messed me up. At 2 am this morning, unable to stop my brain from spiraling, it dawned on me. The election choice facing us is not Kamala vs (using a schoolground politically incorrect term) the mental retard. He will not survive the inauguration ball. We are voting for Kamala vs JD. Viewed from that perspective it should be a Kamala landslide. Republicans, however so hooked on power will these next days to November 5th pull out all the stops to keep the focus on Kamala vs the mental retard. Sadly, many prefer mental retarded to sane and extremely capable. I call this the human condition.

Expand full comment
author

Thanks, Old Man. First, you're right about Kamala v JD. It's like both of the elderly top of the ticket dudes aren't there anymore. And JD is just Thiel and Musk and those weirdo libertarian billionaires. Yuck.

I live in a town that is progressive to the point where it becomes self-righteous and virtue-signal-y. There used to be a bumper sticker you'd see: KILL YOUR TELEVISION. I understand the point, but it's no different, fundamentally, than saying BURN YOUR LIBRARY. Media is technology, and technology is neither inherently good or ill. Although a technology designed to kill people, like an AR-15, is perhaps best left of the street.

Humanity is imperfection, and imperfection is the basis of all art.

Expand full comment

Thanks. My wife and I did our civic duty, voted for Harris-Walz yesterday. If signs are an indicator H-W outnumber 45 in Wake County about 3 to 1. Given both Hillary and Joe got over 60% of the vote, not surprising. However if the 6 large counties can counter the 94 red one, perhaps KW have a chance. At your recommendationwe saw The Apprentice. Saying we enjoyed it is wrong but pleased to see it us the best we can say.

Expand full comment

Unreal!

Expand full comment
author

Literally.

Expand full comment
Oct 19Liked by Greg Olear

Will AI become a psychopath?

Expand full comment
author

Only if it copies humans.

Expand full comment

The rise of machines

Expand full comment

AI never should have been released for general use, it should have been tested in industries and professions first. The decision to offer general release was an act of unfettered greed, protected by a total denial of responsibility for the originating techies. The damage to societies that accept/promote free range AI will be devastating. There is now AI Truth and Human Truth, so kiss your public libraries goodbye, the stories they hold will not survive. And when that bell rings, it’s over

Expand full comment