I love this story!!
I'm impressed by ChatGPT. But I've also got a healthy respect for Atari Chess, a cartridge for the classic Atari 2600 Video Computer System from 1977. I got Atari Chess when I was nine years old in third grade. I'd just learned how to play chess and already wanted to get better by having a computer opponent to practice with. Atari Chess beat me EVERY time. Then again I've only won a single time at chess but that's beside the point...
Yesterday a couple of dachshunds I follow on Facebook (the inimitable Barney and Fred) posted some pics of themselves that their "pawrents" had rendered by the ChatGPT artificial intelligence system. It made me curious about how my own little girl Tammy would do.
If you use the free version of ChatGPT it limits you to three renderings a day. Here is what it generated this morning...
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):
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:
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...
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.)
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"An Ode To WAAAGH!"
by ChatGPT
05/19/2024 10:15 am EST
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.
