Creating This Blog

This blog is about getting creative with A.I., and recording the strange, hilarious and fantastic things these tools often produce.

This is me: a regular, middle aged guy. I live in Melbourne, Australia - one of the world's most ordinary cities - and work for a large corporation downtown. 

Home is a flat in the inner suburbs.

Until recently, I had little experience with A.I. tools. We have Co-Pilot at work, but it is heavily restricted, and I only use it for occasional copywriting.

We hear all the time: A.I. will change everything. A revolution has come, and no one knows what its final shape will be. 

Great things are expected in science, medicine, finance, mathematics, and computing. In Australia, the government predicts productivity gains in the many hundreds of percentage points, in just a few years. Exactly how this will happen, what industries will be impacted, and who will benefit: no one can say.

We are all going to lose our jobs, but somehow it will still be awesome.

Like everyone else I am fascinated with these tools, and what they can do, or might do one day. And so I thought I would set up a free blog, and share my experiments. 

Hopefully, if anyone finds this, they find it interesting. 

To start with, I thought I would get A.I. to help me make an image for this project. A symbol. 

How I think I will do these, is to write up a prompt, then feed the same one into different common tools: ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Co-Pilot. I am particularly interested in image and video generation.

The prompt for the blog image was: 

Make an animated image of an ordinary middle aged man, with a short beard and glasses, getting comically frustrated trying to get an A.I. tool on his computer to work.

I didn't mention at the start: I have a short beard and glasses.

Now the prompt is in, and away we go!

ChatGPT

I have to say, I kindof love this. This is exactly what I had in mind, in a way that is eerie. If the guy were a bit heavier, he even looks like me.

The self deprecating humour of the third hand is the kind of thing that obviously makes some mentally flaky people fall in love with these things. Great work ChatGPT, I can see why you are the industry leader.

Gemini

Gemini's effort is good. This has got a 'Mad Magazine' vibe, that I appreciate. I especially like the little angry thought bubbles, and the detail of the room this guy is sitting in.

Small, odd, things to note: three mystery, raised keys on the keyboard. And one of the thought bubbles is... a spiral?

Even so: a solid result. How long did the artists attached to 'Mad Magazine' take to hone their craft? According to Malcolm Gladwell, something like 10 000 hours. This took less than ten seconds, for a productivity gain that Jim Chalmers would applaud. 

Grok

I was perhaps most curious about Grok, which showcases Elon's facility with terrible names. If I didn't already think so, the name 'Grok' made me expect something hideously deformed (and: likely racist/sexist/transphobic).

Instead, this is the most straightforward of the bunch: a middle aged man, frustrated with his computer, exactly as ordered. Is he perhaps also frustrated with the socialist cucks that are ruining society with their immigration policies? Perhaps.

One further note about Grok: ChatGPT and Gemini give you one image at a time, but Elon's baby produced... seemingly an infinite number of results. The page when finished had hundreds, and HUNDREDS of images, so many that I never reached the bottom.

All of them were broadly similar to the above.

Co-Pilot

In a harbinger of future A.I. experiments to come, the strangest result came from Co-Pilot. This is based on the same prompt as the others, yet here we have a Timothy Olyphant lookalike, staring creepily into our souls from a party at his local park.

No computer, no frustration, and not animated: is Microsoft trying to say, 'what's with all the negativity in your prompt buddy? The A.I. future is a happy place!'

Co-Pilot gives you four images, they were all the same, with Olyphant at a slightly different angle in each.

I had to go back and chastise it: 

These do not show a computer or an AI tool and the man needs to look frustrated: can you update?

This is what I got this time:

Now we have Young Kramer, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Not to worry Kosmo, I'm sure your buddy Bob Sacamano will help you out.

It could be that the best value of these tools as they stand currently, is comic. Time will tell.