Jane Goodall passed away today. I have had a lot of alt-left friends over the years, and she is a huge figure in that community.
Her work made us think of animals as more than objects, there to serve humans needs (or just be ignored outright). She showed apes, and so: all animals, as complex beings, with needs, desires, and emotions.
Later in her life, she added advocacy to her scientific achievements. Her legacy is vast.
Today I asked my friends the AI tools to make a tribute to Jane, including a quote from her. The prompt was:
Create an image of Jane Goodall as a tribute to her life and work, including this quote from her 'The greatest danger to our futre is apathy'.
ChatGPT
A sensitive effort from ChatGPT, which refinds its footing after some dodgy results. This is pretty perfect, and in a style and form that my old alt-left friends would have appreciated.
One thing to note: the quote did not originally come with quotation marks, which I wanted. I asked ChatGPT to add these: it thought for a while, processed for a while, then reproduced the exact same image, sans quotation marks.
It has done this a few times, when I have asked for an edit. Is this the haughtiness of these things, showing through? As in, 'I don't have to take suggestions from you, meat sack'.
Gemini
Gemini has gone back to where we started with these comparisons: producing a jankier version of what ChatGPT did.
Do the engineers who work in these labs do these same tests? Do the google ones bang the desk in frustration when they see that Open AI's tool is similar, but so much better?
This is also a poor representation of Jane: there was a tonne of media coverage of her over the years, surely her image is not that hard to depict?
Grok
Grok has produced a very dramatic image, but it is not without its strengths. A strong picture of Jane, nicely set in the jungle; although there is not an ape in sight.
Perhaps the subtext is: she had many facets, apes did not define Jane Goodall.
Interesting to note how subdued the quote is: barely visible, lurking to one side. Grok can sense the danger in this message: Elon, Zuck, all the tech barons, and Trump, are relying on apathy to maintain their position.
Co-Pilot
COP returns to form with more inspired nonsense. Its visual output is so demented it could surely form the basis of a gallery show, or Adult Swim series.
What on earth is happening here?
A crowd has gathered to view what appears to be a mural of apes in their natural environment, the mural itself containing spectators in a way that we could describe as 'meta', if that didn't belong to the IP of another company. To one side: a giant ape, seemingly half buried underground, but sanguine.
Is this meant to be art? Commentary? A vision of the future? A King Kong origin story? If you could somehow make a real version of this, would people come?
COP as always provides more questions than answers.




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