Y’know, the recent discussion about the US world dominance relying on the petrodollar has me thinking: it sure is a coincidence that, since 2012, we’ve rocketed from one horrifically energy inefficient techno-fascist bubble to another without pause. Each outpacing renewables like clockwork
Huh 👀
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Let’s talk about AI art.
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Supple jurassic body is just what I needed right now. XD ❤
(And thanks for all the rest too. ❤)
Honestly, great take from multiple directions.
This weekend, I made a t-shirt and a logo for a nonexistant studio in about an hour.
How'd I do it?
Text layout in Zazzle's store and clipart in Canva. Didn't push any of the AI buttons; did definitely use someone else's drawing of a dog and someone else's image of an upward-pointing arrow. And someone else's fonts. And someone else's t-shirt printing machinery.
Because my goal wasn't to create any of that; my goal was to composite it into a mildly-entertaining seasonal shirt I could wear. And because it took an hour, i could do that between the things people in my life care about me actually accomplishing.
Enjoy making Clipart, loser.
Thank you! I have not aspired to more in this domain.
"Pregnant Mario lactating jamba juice all over Baka from street fighter"
<spurfs coffee out nose>
ow!
the rest? 
Keep doing talented shit you wonderful bastard, Matthew. 
I've used generative A.I. to make concepts and backgrounds for a TTRPG campaign I was running, and while that produced perfectly adequate images, I found the process PROFOUNDLY unrewarding. I make art. I'm good at it, in my own niche, but there are other specializations that I haven't practiced. When I make something and it turns out great, that makes my soul sing. I don't get that sense of joy from using A.I. image extruders.
Thanks for sharing your ideas!
ever noticed how it's "AI art" when generated but "content" when human made? 
(just to be clear, this is not a jab at your use of the term, it makes sense here obviously as a way to connect to the audience; just a general observation)
Related: Here's the definitive documentary about the guy who made those original Jurassic Park dinosaurs not suck:
Tip: the doc is about much more than CG dinosaur production.
image description:
a drawing of a falling laptop and a paintbrush on dark grey background; the paintbrush and the laptop both drip a bit of colorful paint.
text:
A cartoonist's review of AI art
If there's anything I really really appreciate about AI art
it's that it finally seems to make people care about the process and not just the resulting picture.
Drawing with digital tablets is significantly easier compared to manually mixing paints from manually collected pigments.
I'd say that doesn't mean either is more valid than the other, but you can appreciate the difference in process, you can imagine the blood sweat and tears it took, it gives the creation a body, a background
You talk about feelings and stuff when viewing a piece. I think I have a similar concept, but mainly about the amount of work put in something. The sum of all details, big and small, known circumstances, etc. that lead something seemingly basic (xkcd, or indeed the ratcopter) to really click, while some seemingly perfectly rendered thing don't trigger anything in the viewer.
Somehow, I think the work of the authors creep into their productions, one way or another. And we can see that.
I agree with most of what you said.
What I do know is that AI art will do what clipart did, and give the talentless people who understand the value of having visuals break up mind-numbing blocks of text the opportunity to illustrate their documents.
As long as nobody pretends that it's an original artistic composition, there's no harm done. In return we give people who are otherwise visually mute the opportunity to mumble a little
Also, thank you for "ten trillion teraclops per floppyshart"
> AI has accelerated our abilities (…)
“AI” as in the overused since the 70 wanketeering term, or as the current overhyped “AI” as LLMs and diffusion slop extruders?
If first then well okay.
If second then heeeeeeeeell no.
The current lineup of AI wank can't do the things you mention, as it doesn't understand what they are. Being probabilistic models they only statistically estimate the next word or static noise iteration.
AI doesn't give us "extraordinary abilities" either. It's weird that you see how it's shit in the context of art but will gladly use it for other purposes.
It's atrophying people's cognitive skills, it makes ABSURD mistakes that no matter how much ppl claim "well, we check the output first" keep slipping through (which is because it's made to create outputs that *look* correct, so it's harder to spot)
And it takes more power and water than anything we ever did in datacenters before
Solid take, but you skipped the part where LLMs(they are not intelligent, AI is a marketing term and I'm not being paid to market for them), which is really what you're talking about, are built on stolen data and complete disregard for copyright law, near slave labour in the testing stages(outsourced to Africa for a dollar US a day), and a business model designed to make the rich richer and put folks out of work.
The tech has uses, the current model needs to sued out of existence.
Not sure when I did fav, re-toot, reply to a toot AND even subscribed to the newsletter, because I just loved the whole thing.
Just thank you for that, from one artist (composer) to another!
I was on the same page as you until I watched this video : youtube.com/watch?v=1gZaJpnTEb…
This video is AI (from their own acknowledgement) and yet it is *very* good.
The part made with AI isn't good, but it's acceptable enough, and it allows the genuine creativity (that was made by humans) to strive.
This video would not exist without AI, considering how expensive it would have been to make it otherwise.
So now I really don't know what to think.
It's a beautifully crafted and very thoughtful take. It reminded me of something @pluralistic said in one of his many blogs some time ago (I think). That what makes something art is the dialogue between artist and the audience. It's not the object. And with AI generated art, the artist's part of the dialogue is reduced to the prompt to generate the object.
It may be a very pretty object, but it's an empty dialogue.
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Also this gonna fade. It is expensive and unusable. Yes, computers still gonna help you with things, but most of these snake oils are expensive and not gonna hold up, including generative LLM art.
By AI I mean that which steals art and words, mixes it, like this comic assumes.
yes, AI is for lazy people. The use of it often reveals those who don't know what art is.
AI often involves silent theft, changes the tolerance for taking work off the internet, so you can't be neutral about that.
AI involves shitloads of energy and bulk computing for trivial things.
a large comic about the feels of AI is missing these points.
times changes
Ai replaced jobs - ai art everywhere - ai music will 100% replace modern music - just look youtube (only "bangers" from 80s will be left)
people change view on "value" of art/music/reading/content
maybe only what people need - is tiktok like website with infinite content - maybe this is "peak" of human compression of content
Doing the work is important: work is where the artist provides their input. Choices are what make art art.
An AI artist's only input is in designing the prompt itself. The prompt can take real work to craft it, but once done, anyone can make essentially the same image by using the same prompt. So the prompt itself is the only actual content, the only actual art.
When AI artists fall to the allure of conjuring images with a click, real artists become all the more valuable, at least.
I consider them an equivalent to maybe handcrafted whoopee cushions, not art.
But: Artists always found ways to create art using the most bizarre tools and materials, so I expect that art will be created using “#AI” image generators in a way. It’s unavoidable.
Let’s ask #NamJunePaik

Excellent analysis. This reminds me very much of my early days as a communications professional, specialising in small business needs.
At the time, technological limitations (anf the skillsets needed to use professional-level prepress tools) meant that generally, most clients recognised the need for professional help with layout, design, and so forth.
But the *copy* (text) of whatever was needed? Clients overwhelmingly insisted they could write and would want to provide that content -- despite it generally being terrible for the intended use.
It took me a long time to figure out that many of them considered writing merely to be a functional thing that they already spent 12 years in school doing, so they 'must' already be experts.
There was zero understanding that graduating grade 12 is not the same as knowing, practising and developing the conventions, skills and techniques specific to writing for different genres and audiences, or in this case, target markets.
😐
The part about "enjoy making clip art" resonated with me a lot. I work in tech and (believe it or not) I am really good at telling a story. In WORDS.
Let's face it: I have NEGATIVE drawing talent.
So I use Gemini for exactly one thing: Slide deck illustrations. They are just as soulless as stock photos, but at least they are specific to my story.
At least I know that "art" is the wrong word for that. And I loved that cartoon.
I really liked your comic! 
Not every type of AI is bad, in my opinion. Most people think of GenAI while talking about "all AI". Spellchecker or algorithms (e.g., on YouTube) are AI too. Some can even detect cancer. All the while, GenAI is just pretending. Pretending to write like a person, pretending to make music, pretending to draw art. You might as well call it PretendAI.
It made me really happy to see Allie Brosh's name in there. I hope she knows she still has alot of fans.
As for AI art. Prompts can sometimes be "art". Someone has an interesting idea but can't draw, so...
But, the resulting art is going to be "what would art matching this prompt look like?" It's going to be an averaging of matching influences. There's no thinking outside the box, no clever twists. So, AI art is mostly only interesting when the "art" in the prompt manages to shine through.
Still, regardless of what usecase when using AI you should never blindly trust its "reasoning". You need to have at least some understanding of what you are doing - be it to debug AI code or to find logic errors in a text.
Them: We value your opinion!
Me: Yeah? How much, exactly, do you value it? Please feel free to use currency measures.
uspol funny
I created bubblepop.lol a little over a year ago as an amusing webtoy in an era where cheap webtoys without ads or tracking are an incredible rarity. The only data it has is a counter that counts the number of bubbles popped globally.
It's sitting at 940k bubbles popped and it would be so cool if it got to a million in a year! Would you all mind boosting this and popping a bunch of bubbles? I've been told it's therapeutic!
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SCAM ALERT
An elderly adult may go up to you and pinch your nose without your consent then claim to have stolen your nose
Do not attempt to pay them to reacquire your nose
They do not have your nose
Their supposed proof is just their thumb in between two of their fingers
Do not engage them
You still have possession of your nose
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"Whatever" is a brilliant essay on "AI" by @eevee:
"But I think the core of what pisses me off is that selling this magic machine requires selling the idea that doing things is worthless. Because if doing something has some value, then it must be somehow better than pushing a button and receiving Whatever for essentially no cost."
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threadings.io/youve-been-traum…
you’ve been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress).
i was not going to publish this essay because i don’t like to yell but here the fuck i am.ismatu gwendolyn (Threadings.)
Are Microsoft and their ilk doing *any* due diligence with their AI investments?
“Builder.ai lacked true AI, instead utilising a group of Indian developers who were merely pretending to be bots writing code.”
On the plus side, less environmental degradation and actual people were getting paid 💁🏼♀️
ibtimes.co.uk/builderai-collap…
Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5bn 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Actually Indians' Pretending to Be Bots
Builder.ai, once a $1.5 billion 'AI' startup backed by Microsoft and QIA, is filing for bankruptcy. A lender seized $37M, crippling operations.Vinay Patel (International Business Times UK)
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strong colonialist’s undertones in that title.
“The Biggest Mechanical Turk” is a great idea for a movie.
A long post about excellence, learning, standards, rules, and being exceptional but also good.
Get Weird And Disappear ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/get-we…
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Small anecdote about this from my own family. In the 1940s, my paternal grandmother was ordered to host a young man who had been a warden in one of the German Concentration Camps. That man had nightmares every night and when my grandmother mentioned this to a neighbor along the lines of "If Hitler weren't such a stuck up about the Jews, we wouldn't be in this pickle" she got rounded up by the Gestapo and questioned for a day, and only let go because my grandfather was at the Eastern Front and known to be a good citizen (i.e., fervent Nazi).
This is _the only story_ about the Nazi time I know about my grandparents. Everything else was stoic silence.
Everyone knew.
infosec.exchange/users/masek/s…
I didn't knowWhen I learned about the holocaust as teenager in Germany, many people from the Nazi era were still alive and lived all around me. Being the curious person I always was, I asked them about what happened and their role in it.
"I didn't know" was the boilerplate answer. And as they were relatives and friends, I believed them at first.
Then in 1981 we got a new teacher for history and he exposed the lie. Or more precise: he got us exposing those lies.
1/5
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What does it mean to live in a quantum universe?
Most of us don't think of quantum physics as playing a role in our macroscopic, everyday world.
But look closer, and you'll see that so much absolutely relies on it.
bigthink.com/starts-with-a-ban…
Ask Ethan: What does it mean to live in a quantum universe?
Over a century after we first unlocked the secrets of the quantum universe, people find it more puzzling than ever. Can we make sense of it?Ethan Siegel (Big Think)
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One thing I have wondered about all this. In the equation E=hf, does f have to be an integer quantity? Or can it be any (more or less) real number?
It feels like it ought to be an integer quantity (otherwise things wouldn't be very quantized) but I don't know if I've ever seen it detailed anywhere that it is, or isn't, constrained in some way.
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OK, this thing is amazing and props to @siracusa for another really neat tool. I look forward to giving it a run on my mom's machine -- it's got multiple users on it (and the tool doesn't do cross-user file linking alas, though I understand why) and they're regularly short of disk space.
mastodon.social/@siracusa/1140…
Announcing the third entry in my collection of weird little Mac apps: Hyperspacehypercritical.co/2025/02/25/hy…
Hyperspace can reclaim disk space *without removing any files.* Read the linked post to learn how it works.
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AI has a lot of problems, but maybe counter intuitive, energy consumption is not a big issue!
Very interesting read by Andy Masley on the energy consumption of ChatGPT compared to services like streaming and other cloud services.
andymasley.substack.com/p/indi…
He does not mention the Jevons paradox though which could have negative outcomes for some services I guess.
#ai #energy #chatgpt #water #climatechange
Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment
And a plea to think seriously about climate change without getting distractedAndy Masley (The Weird Turn Pro)
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Yvan ー イボん 🗺️
in reply to Hazel Weakly • • •mhoye
in reply to Hazel Weakly • • •How to use computing power faster: on the weird economics of semiconductors and GenAI
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Hazel Weakly
in reply to mhoye • • •@mhoye Oh this is a very interesting article. Thanks for sharing!
It rings pretty true for me. Adding that in as a secondary layer to all of this paints quite the fascinating picture