ArtEfficient Intelligence

: tech, October 11 2022 ▶

Your corporation is probably blasting your ears with slogans like "digitization is the future", "automation is the key" and so on..., but only recently the management bobbleheads started using "Aritficial Intelligence" in their presentations. Of course, none of them knows exactly what this means, let alone what it involves. These people are so obsessed with their own agenda and focused on the political correctness, that you can sell them dogshit with an "AI" stamp and they will take it. But let them be. To make it a bit clearer I will try to explain what is usually meant nowadays when people say "AI". Are you ready? Here we go.
Advanced statistics.(notice the period at the end of the sentence)

Now, let's try to define what "intelligence" (including artificial) should involve. The opening article in Wikipedia describes it best.

It is all of the above mentioned qualities. One may argue that the machine learning somehow touches these topics, but that's not the case. ML is closer to mathematics and statistical analysis than real intelligence. Other may say your brain works the same way - no, it's not. Your brain uses layers of so called "cognitive and sensory pathways", so complex, nobody can even dare to try to describe how they function. For sure it is not the "if-then-else" construct, used in the puny exaggeration that most of you call AI. In other simple words - AI (as it exists today, in public) is not a real intelligence. It is a mathematical algorithm to analyze and interpret data. It is not some magical thing, learning and evolving past the parameters it has. For sure, it may lead to some unexpected situations, but so are the bugs in the open-world games. I know about a case where 2 AIs created their own language to communicate with one-another and this proves nothing - this was their purpose all along. After billion years of doing so, they will not stand up and walk to each other or go discover another AI, as the concepts of evolution and abstract thinking are not present in their initial matrix.
I was thinking of the "AI" implications for quite some time, but what really draw my (superficial) attention was an AI winning a drawing competition. Of course the judges had no idea what they were voting for. The picture "Space Opera Theater" (above) is created by Midjourney and is absolutely stunning! DALLE2 is another "hot right now" AI-painter. I checked/tested them both these days. The title picture is created by the latter. The string was "oil painting artificial intelligence explain to human it exists". Usually the bots create 4 pics. My 4th one was absolutely off topic, but the first 3 ... well, I would say they were pretty good. On the first you see a young man, teaching a robot what the letter "A" is - the robot interprets it binary. You can tell immediately that it is a machine by the sharp features and overall industrial look. On the second, a rather human-looking machine is having a conversation with a mid-aged man. The robot is cunning and feels he is really challenging the person. On the third pic a man in the background is holding his head in despair. Some really crude looking machines ... look happy. The picture lacks the focus and the distinctive lines of the first two. Do they represent some chronological timeline? The AI might have created them one after the other, or using 4 threads simultaneously...My lack of drawing expertise would say these 3 were pretty good. Reminded me a little of what an artis would draw in 1960s if asked to create a book cover for an Isaac Asimov's book.

Today I enrolled also with Midjourney and my first call was "oil painting,epic,emperor of mankind,beacon of light,cathedral,great hall,crowd,volume light,realistic,red,gold,black". The one on the left is the result (picked 1 out of 4 and refined it). If I have not seen some MJ creations before, my jaw would definitely hit the deck. Me and my wife both agreed we would be happy to have some high-quality prints on our walls as Midjourney creates FANTASTIC sceneries. Again, looking at them, you (only!) have the feeling what they represent, but ...if you concentrate on a certain part of the artwork ... you cannot really tell what it is. Some of the contours seem familiar, yet unidentifiable. Same is the case with the real modernist artists. I see no problem with that.

So is this an AI?
No, it is not. It is a really good algorithm, that combines different visual objects really well. If you take a picture of a flag, a soldier and a beach, obfuscate them using several known Photoshop filters and then splice them together, you will get more or less the same thing. To make it look good, a professional would spend several hours in the works - the bot does it in seconds. I am not saying it is not a spectacular feat of human engineering genius. It absolutely is and, in the future, when HQ-export is possible, I would definitely put some wallpapers around the house. But it is just an algorithm. If you spend long enough time, you will notice it uses the same patterns, when receiving similar input. DALLE2 does not even differentiate between "a cowboy riding horse" and "a horse riding cowboy". It also has some weird "quirks" to match the current woke narrative! (What a coincidence, huh?!) Another funny outcome of this "AI winning a contest" story is the outrage in some art circles. Apparently these so-called artists dreaded the AI as much as others would question their skill and the value of their artwork. Some started fantasizing how in 2 years AI will produce its own movies, theatrical plays, video games. I can only pity such morons. To fear an algorithm can take your bread means you are mediocre at best, your "art" is mostly garbage and you lack creativity overall. If you are easily replaceable by a script, start thinking of another area to make a living. I experienced the same drama ~10 years ago (never been influenced by it though) when everyone in the IT started panicking over the "cloud taking over our jobs" and millions of IT profis dying of hunger. What really happened is developers are desperately sought after, cloud and security engineers basically raise their hand and get hired almost immediately. My humble prediction is that AI will be a new field for the artists to explore and collaborate. Working together will bring even more amazing stuff!

But why stop here?! Let's check other areas where the AI is the new gold rush. You guess it - the automotive industry and the "self driving cars". 13 years ago Google showcased their first (potentially) self-driving prototype. At that time I was absolutely stunned at this idea. Train drivers and maybe pilots would have been the first ones to lose their jobs, but driving a car has a magnitude more variables and unexpected situations to happen. If you ask someone from "the industry", he will explain you there is a revolution in the sector. If you ask the regular customer (like me) - nothing radically changed. Hardware became smaller and faster, programs (just maybe) a little bit better, but in its core, the tech is still a myth. Here is what a pioneer in the branch confessed 2 days ago: He himself, a renown hacker, raised $18 million for his own driverless concept in the past 7 years. Let me tell you when/how you would know if we have achieved it - when your car insurance company agrees that all claims should go to the car's manufacturer and not to the owner of the vehicle. Only then we can really say "OK, we now have a self-driving car".
Let's step back for a second. In what context did you first encountered the idea of AI? I can bet it was either a robotics-related sci-fi book or his majesty "The Terminator (2)". And what did the AI do - yep, simple - it killed. So which organization, that existed in the entire human history, in literally every culture and society, would spare no effort or resource to get it? Yep, you are right again - the military. My best guess, derived from our newest history (world war 1 since) is, if something is commercially available for me and you, the guys in green have it for at least a decade. Meaning IF there is an AI at all, in its true meaning, the military has it. This will be something top secret, as a breakthrough like this would mean the difference the gunpowder made during the middle ages. Some military analysts predict achieving an "AI Supremacy" may trigger the next global war. That's how serious the things are. So next time your boss overhypes the new ERP software, stamping it with the AI badge, just pass by with a smile and a bit of salt, do not overthink it, it is just the next buzzword, nobody really understands it.

Rinse and Repeat

: history, September 05 2022 ▶

A gamer by birth I was searching something to play. Before my vacation I was quite busy (and tired) at work, so gaming / binge watching were scarce commodities, but, with some free time afterwards, I started to look around. Gamescom 2022 was at its end, same for the school's summer vacation, no knowledge of new titles for months - how hard can it be? Well, 2 weeks later I am writing this article in utter frustration and fear for the future of this world.
Months ago I have uninstalled "World of Warships" (been playing it since release in 2015) - it has become the poisonous mess of unbalanced (Russian) ships, copy-paste content, crazy bugs and idiotic players (pay-to-win mostly). "Dune: Spice Wars" grabbed the attention for a while, but also lacked the depth to keep me exploring. I caught myself watching hundreds of replays of "Starcraft" (24yo game) and "Warcraft 3" (20yo game) - the first still going strong in Korea, which is absolutely amazing! My PC is rather powerful so, at least hardware-wise, there is no show-stopper. I started searching for a game, where I can deep-dive and potentially escape the "desert of the real world" ... and there is literally nothing out there worth playing! Checked Gamescom titles - from bland sequels, through so-deep-in-development-it-may-never-see-the-light overpromising titles, to the casual remakes. Nothing to sustainably grab the attention. Then browsed Steam and EpicGames stores for weeks - same thing - unfinished games, utter lack of creativity, nothing unique, nothing even moderately intriguing. Remakes, remasters, retitles, reskins, retextures. Re-,re-,re-, repeat.
During my vacation had to drive for quite some time, stuck with whatever radio stations consider modern. Sampled songs, remixes, re-edits. Sounds from the 90s-till-2010s, mixed with some electronic garbage, flagged as brand new songs.
Movie-wise the situation was even worse. Sequels to brilliant franchises flopped miserably. "Dune" - a stunning visual success and "Top Gun: Maverick" was a sweet 80s nostalgia (nothing more), but everything else ... oh Lord, give me strength! I have not seen so many shows canceled in their 1st season. Latest drama is the "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" - it costed Mr. Bezos $250mil to obtain the rights alone and another $470mil for making the Season 1. It bombed miserably even before it started, to such extent that Amazon and its daughter company, IMDB, fixed the review ratings and ultimately banned all reviews. The "independent" critics in "rottentomatoes", properly-fed as always, awarded the amazing 84%, but the audience smashed it with 39%. Personally, I do not believe it is that bad, but again - I am not the biggest Tolkien fan so cannot really tell. But what I can tell is I could barely stand "Star Trek: Discovery" (just a few episodes needed to quit; similar results as per Critics/Audience) and "Star Trek: Picard" was just "meh". Watching Patrick Stewart (82yo) struggle keeping his lines was just sad. Vulturing on a rotting corpse, rather than some development of the beloved universe - that's what it was. And many other examples...you know exactly what I mean.

OK, none of this mess is some news. If your IQ is above the room temperature you already have some idea why this is happening. Here I am trying to summarize the problems with the "Modern Entertainment Industry", not necessarily in significance order.

1. Lack of ideas.
It appears that modern screen(song)writes are just empty. "Everything is already done" is not far fetched, but also not always the truth. Unlike tech (where real discoveries nowadays are almost impossible), writing a "entertainment product" is nowhere near as hard, time consuming and expensive. You need (a ton of) talent and motivation. Especially for musicians - Metallica still gathers 50K+ people on their concerts, singing the same songs for the past 3 decades. Can you compare them to a band from 2012 onward? No, you cannot. Any contemporary hit-song is hammered down on a conveyor belt and sold to the highest bidder (one-time-hit performers mostly). Recently, everything is just "sampled" garbage, rinse and repeat. I guess talented people are busy with other activities.

2. Corpo greed.
I remember the big writers strike ~2008 and the aftermath - we were overwhelmed by bullshit movies for years. When the person, who wrote the script, receives a dime and some Hollywood clown "voice acts" for millions, the former surely reconsiders further such endeavors. Greed cuts corners and a brilliant idea ultimately fails due to the low quality or presentation of the end product. It even endangers the people during their work - Alec Baldwin accidentally shot a lady on set, as the company replaced the gun experts with some cheap idiots. In another twist, the Greed does not care about the franchise longetivity, the fans, the ideas, the legacy - they will just make a survey on what will bring the quick bucks and follow its results, regardless if it may end the product's universe or not. The Greed will push out an unfinished game and will cut 3 of the planned 10 episodes (murdering the plot) of you favorite series. The Greed will take money and adjust the movie/game/music video to the narrative of the puppet masters, despite knowing that the majority of the audience will hate it.

3. Squeezing the franchise.
Star Wars, StarTrek, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, FIFA, etc - all victims of milking the franchise dry. The Corpo Greed rushes dull, repetitive, numerous spin-offs, just to grab the short-term fruits. In another article I wrote about high-ranking CEOs, who do not see past the quarterly-bonus-horizon. Same applies here. If they notice a decline, they will not try to improve, they will not listen to the community. They will inflate the product with some unnecessary, unwanted, dreary content presenting as "the next big thing", thus frustrating the audience even further. As cheap as possible!

4. Pay to win / watch.
You buy a streaming subscription. Several months later some of the content requires additional payment. Or you buy a AAA-game (~$80) and the multiplayer component introduces real-money-only loot-boxes with premium equipment. Or an "expansion" 3 months after the launch, which basically forces you to spend cash if you want to continue playing. Sound familiar? This is not related to the quality of the product, but is a predatory practice, which destroys people's trust and drives the fanbase away - same result as if the game is bad.

5. Overpromising and and under-delivering.
Games in particular are plagued by this. Regardless if an unfinished game is published due to greed or plain management's stupidity it can destroy a franchise irreversibly. Another example is watching an incredible trailer, then receiving something completely different on your PC/Console/Movie screen. Especially if the game/movie lasted forever to produce and consumed millions in green - you just scratch your head in disbelief where all these money went?

6. Woke "culture" and correctness (I know and I do not care).
We reached the most controversial and significant cause. Recent movies, games, music are deliberately pumped with brutal brain-washing messages, not to the taste of the regular person. Most of the time they have nothing to do with reality - they just follow somebody's sick agenda (the puppet masters). Black people need more recognition (...than white!) - put a black actress as Ariel, the little mermaid. Wakanda is the most advanced country in the world (but surrounded by 3rd World such). We need strong (black) female characters - the next James Bond can be a (black) lady - what a wonderful idea! Not enough LGBTQ stuff on screen - let's randomly throw gay scenes here and there. Oh, it is a children's movie - even better! Our primary political opponent is USSR/Balkan/MidEast/China - the bad guys will always be dumb Russians/Balkans/MidEasterners/Chinese (replace the variable to match the recent enemy). "Refugees" need to be respected more and get all benefits immediately - all trespassers from now on are "refugees" and the actors, women and children of course, match racially the current immigrant influx.
Forcing such foreign "virtues" will always fail, no matter what! People are already pushed too far from the Woke culture (it is "canceling" itself as we see) and will fight against any such "entertainment". We have numerous examples of such fiascos and LoTR is its latest victim.

P.S.
Just I was hitting the "nothing to watch" mood, decided to try "The Boys" - a long-time bench-warmer of my "to watch" list. And, oh boy, was it a good one! A fresh breeze of honest brutality, hard-hitting sarcasm, some soul dive, intriguing and intense story. A twisted parody of the modern Corpo-culture and Marvel/DC pink-unicorn's bullshit. I had so much fun, I can forgive the casual plot holes, pinches of "woke" and cut-backs. Highly recommend it, especially in the light of the upcoming Season 4.