A.I. is B.S.

figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
On the subject of AI making people's delusions worse. From Rolling Stone: People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies

" Self-styled prophets are claiming they have 'awakened' chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPT "

From a teacher whose husband got sucked into ChatGPT:
“It would tell him everything he said was beautiful, cosmic, groundbreaking,” she says. “Then he started telling me he made his AI self-aware, and that it was teaching him how to talk to God, or sometimes that the bot was God — and then that he himself was God.” In fact, he thought he was being so radically transformed that he would soon have to break off their partnership. “He was saying that he would need to leave me if I didn’t use [ChatGPT], because it [was] causing him to grow at such a rapid pace he wouldn’t be compatible with me any longer,” she says.
 
Vrii

Vrii

It feels like there's a connection between the struggles with identity and inclusion that we know social media causes/exacerbates and this willingness to believe shitty AI when it tells people that yes, they're very special and unique and cosmically important, actually. Whether that needs to be addressed as a mental health issue, a technology issue, or both I have no idea (and if we're being honest it's not like it will actually be addressed under either umbrella as long as people think there's money to be made with AI).
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
@Dave
U=BTL is a reference to the novelization of the British Comedy Series "Red Dwarf", in particular the second book, "Better Than Life." The major setting of this part of the story is a VR/AI game called Better Than Life, in which you put a metal visor on your forehead, and it burrows electrodes into your brain, putting you in a dream state where you experience a new "game" of life that is... Better Than Life. Everything goes your way, all your dreams come true, and everything you do is elevated and meaningful and profound and.... meanwhile your real body, your real life, is withering away - some faster than others, depending on who has loved ones willing to feed and clean them. Nobody has ever chosen to leave the game, because once they're in it the first thing the game does is erase your memory of choosing to play, and fabricating a false transition to your new life narrative, and everyone who plays eventually withers and dies, unwilling to leave or usually not even realizing they're playing. Some well-meaning family members tried forcibly removing the game from their loved ones' heads, but the trauma of ripping out the burrowed electrodes lobotomized the victims, rendering them vegetables.

At one point of the story, one of the main characters develops a sharp pain in their forearm. No matter how much lotion or medicine they use for it, it still hurts. Until he traces just the exact parts of his arm that hurt with the lotion, and realizes it spells out U=BTL.

You are in Better Than Life.

Someone has burned the letters into his real arm with a cauterizer, in a desperate attempt to make him realize the truth.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Gotcha. Too many fucking acronyms. I, of course, know that episode. I didn’t remember that part, though.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Dave said:
Gotcha. Too many fucking acronyms. I, of course, know that episode. I didn’t remember that part, though.
Click to expand...
The books GREATLY expanded on things that were in the series, fleshing out a lot of things that had to be glossed over in a 25 minute episode. Basically they turned the Better Than Life episode into an entire season in written form.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

GasBandit said:
The books GREATLY expanded on things that were in the series, fleshing out a lot of things that had to be glossed over in a 25 minute episode. Basically they turned the Better Than Life episode into an entire season in written form.
Click to expand...
I've actually never seen the series, but I love the books
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Um....I might be wrong seeing that I'm an American, but aren't some of those in the wrong country?
/s in case you think I'm just that dumb.
 
Tress

Tress

If your wife is so fucking stupid that she believes ChatGPT can predict the future based on a picture of coffee grounds, you should welcome that divorce wholeheartedly. Sue for custody of the kids, and then run as fast as you can.
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

In another thread...elsewhere...it was mentioned by...someone...that AI image generation on the PC was getting easier to achieve.

When I previously tried, I had to string together like 4 different command-line tools, each running different versions of Python with different versions of various packages. and it still failed spectacularly. So, after reading the other thread, I got online and found Stability Matrix. It's kind of like LM Studio, but for pictures instead of LLMs.

The two default models produce either 'photorealistic' or 'anime/artistic' pictures. I haven't done any real research on additional models yet--these two are producing stuff approximating Midjourney sometime last year, but in seconds on my machine.

prompt: "young dark skinned fairy girl with wings in green armor riding a corgi." in the art model.
1747419014540.png

prompt: "chibi deadpool" in the photorealistic model
1747419053960.png

ChatGPT's image generation is far ahead of what this thing can do. But for simple one-off stuff, the technology is improving.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

"young dark skinned fairy girl with wings in green armor riding a corgi" using the bluePencilXL model, which is purportedly optimized for anime-style output.
youngdarkskinnedfairygirl_33929949.png

"chibi Deadpool" using the epicRealismXL model, "photographic" preset.
cinematicphotochibiDeadpool_17201124.png

EDIT: @Tinwhistler @bhamv3 Forgot to mention that these were both produced locally on my machine using the Diffusion Bee application I mentioned earlier.

--Patrick
 
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figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Chicago Sun-Times prints summer reading list full of fake books
"On Sunday, the Chicago Sun-Times published an advertorial summer reading list containing at least 10 fake books attributed to real authors, according to multiple reports on social media."
...
"A check by Ars Technica shows that only five of the fifteen recommended books in the list actually exist, with the remainder being fabricated titles falsely attributed to well-known authors."

The creator of the list, Marco Buscaglia, confirmed to 404 Media that he used AI to generate the content. "I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses," Buscaglia said. "On me 100 percent and I'm completely embarrassed."
---

Fucking liar. You "always check"? If you always check, then you would have checked this time, too. How many other times have you not checked you lazy shit?
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
figmentPez said:
Chicago Sun-Times prints summer reading list full of fake books
"On Sunday, the Chicago Sun-Times published an advertorial summer reading list containing at least 10 fake books attributed to real authors, according to multiple reports on social media."
...
"A check by Ars Technica shows that only five of the fifteen recommended books in the list actually exist, with the remainder being fabricated titles falsely attributed to well-known authors."

The creator of the list, Marco Buscaglia, confirmed to 404 Media that he used AI to generate the content. "I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses," Buscaglia said. "On me 100 percent and I'm completely embarrassed."
---

Fucking liar. You "always check"? If you always check, then you would have checked this time, too. How many other times have you not checked you lazy shit?
Click to expand...
Chicago Sun Times doesn't know how it's own article got printed.png

Chicago Sun-Times (@chicago.suntimes.com)

We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak. It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom. We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon.
bsky.app bsky.app

The Chicago Sun-Times is furiously backpedaling to deny involvement with this list. They're saying it's syndicated content they licensed, and was not created or reviewed by them before publishing.

chicago.suntimes.com

Chicago Sun-Times response to May 18 special section

chicago.suntimes.com chicago.suntimes.com
 
Tress

Tress

figmentPez said:
View attachment 51781

Chicago Sun-Times (@chicago.suntimes.com)

We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak. It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom. We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon.
bsky.app bsky.app

The Chicago Sun-Times is furiously backpedaling to deny involvement with this list. They're saying it's syndicated content they licensed, and was not created or reviewed by them before publishing.

chicago.suntimes.com

Chicago Sun-Times response to May 18 special section

chicago.suntimes.com chicago.suntimes.com
Click to expand...
I don’t think “Durrr, we don’t check all the content before we print it under our name” is the rock-solid defense they seem to think it is.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Sara_2814

Sara_2814

GasBandit said:
Click to expand...
I disagree with the tone of the article. The tarpit isn't malware ("software that is specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system.") and the creators aren't attackers. They are defenders. It's anti-malware defending a computer system. The attack is ignoring robots.txt and the malware are these AI bots sucking bandwidth and degrading the performance of a website they were specifically told in robots.txt they do not have permission to access. The AI companies are complaining because site owners don't want to subsidize their models with bandwidth and free data. Fuck off. If you don't want your training model poisoned, then obey robots.txt and don't take data without permission.
 
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