Episode 645 - AI-cast
Jul 24, 2023
We're chatting about the current state of AI, it's use, abuse, and the moronic way it's typically being utalised by mid-level businesses to screw over creative people and save money in the short term.
Topics and Show Notes
“AI” is the current big thing on the market, specifically “generative” AI that's been illegally trained on copyrighted datasets like chat GTP, Mid-Journey, Stable-Diffusion and more. This sort of AI could be extremely useful IF used in the correct ways: things like sifting through masses of data to filter results in crucial and important ways, instead it's being criminally abused by completely untalented, uncreative, pathetic, greedy losers with nothing more than a business degree, to steal work from their creative superiors and produce mindless pablum in the form of copy-editing, scripts, illustrations and more. And that's just scratching the surface.
The biggest problem with the technology is that it can't actually create and it can't understand what it produces. It simply gives you a remix of existing data as an image, script, sound-file, or video. A moron might tell you that people do this as well, but they'd be completely wrong. The way humans create is far more complex and is never simply based on things that match a theme like it is with AI, but on things we actively WANT to represent. We have layers of intention, reasons, justifications, and even things like cultural background having a strong influence behind the sources we draw on. AI is the direct opposite of this as much as it's possible to be, there IS zero intent behind any of it, it's totally and absolutely mindless. The closest it gets is the human “prompter”, and their contribution is utterly laughable because the “prompts” are so limited, basic and stylised compared to the vastness of actual creative influence and skill.
What this means is that the “creative” possibility of AI is extremely limited since it HAS to draw on real creative work in order to fake its own. If it comes to dominate the market it will kill off genuine human creatives and then it won't have any new sources to steal from, which will be its downfall because it will be forced to draw from the crap it produces itself and we will get degenerated copies of copies of copies.
We're already seeing all sorts of interesting a terrible abuses. Production companies want to be able to digitise actors images and voices in order to keep them working forever but not have to pay them. They're doing the same with scripts from certain authors. This will kill off creative jobs, but it will also harm ALL of us as viewers. The harm this cheap, commerce driven garbage can do to culture is immeasurable and could be generational. There really need to be laws in place to govern the abuses of “generative” AI.
An idiot might say “the cat's out of the bag now, we can't go back”, but they'd be wrong and stupid: society always has the ability to correct for abuses. This is why we haven't had the use of a nuclear weapon in anger since 1945, people can't just use full auto machine guns willy-nilly whenever they feel like it, people aren't walking around nude in the cities and having sex where they feel like it, and you can't just steal what you want. When the internet became popular in the later half of the 90s, illegal downloading of music, movies and software was universal and endemic, but now none of that is a big issue anymore. The “cat” is never irreversibly “out of the bag”.
You can tell what side I'm on :)
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Domestic HellLand - Full of optimism and hope! Great things are jusssst around the corner. Life is amazing and wonderful things are about to happen. This is a very positive sounding piece, it’s all synth, piano and electric guitar. It’s full of happiness and light.
Topics and shownotes
Future cast: TRON and TRON 2
Links
Featured comic:
Eco Crew - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jul/18/featured-comic-eco-crew/
Featured music:
Domestic HellLand - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Domestic_HellLand/ - by SheepSheket, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 643 - Cultcast
Jul 10, 2023
With the release of the new Indiana Jones film comes some questions… We haven't seen it yet but we hear a lot of people don't like it and it's already being called a flop. But is that because it's actually bad, because people want it to be bad, or because it doesn't match people's expectations? What's the real story? It's hard to know at this point.
Episode 642 - Gatekeeping
Jul 3, 2023
Gatekeeping can be a pretty dickish practice… but not in every case. Generally we see it as a social pop culture trend where older established fans of something will try and put down new people and discourage them from joining a fandom. This can stifle a fan community and really kill discourse, not to mention shutting out new members and new perspectives which is actually what a fan community needs in order to flourish and grow.
Episode 637 - Rumours
May 28, 2023
Rumours can be damaging stories deliberately spread to harm people, they can grow organically of their own accord. Salacious rumours replace truth and stick around in history, like the silly stories of Catherine the Great and horses, Nero fiddling while Rome burned, Marie Antoinette saying “let them eat cake”, or the famously wealthy Roman general Crassus dying by having molten gold poured on his head. All rumours and silly stories but they become stronger than real history. Then there's the notorious story of poor Fatty Arbuckle and how he supposedly killed a woman during a sexual act due to his ‘enormous bulk“. A complete and utter fabrication but it destroyed his career and is still believed today.
Episode 636 - The Cusscast
May 22, 2023
We're talking about swearing! Swearing in comics, types of swearing, the use of swearing, causing offense, taking offense, swearing used as a term of endearment, and some history behind various types of swearing. We barely even scratch the surface! We don't swear in the Quackcast if we can help it so we're talking around and about the language without using it, though we DO swear in our Patreon vid, which is free to all patrons, even the $1 level.
Episode 635 - Warcast
May 14, 2023
We're talking about WAR here! Trying to leave out politics, though that's really hard with war because it's basically ALL politics but on fire. So we're talking mainly about depictions of it or at least aspects of it, in art and the media. Both Tantz Aerine and myself work on war comics, Without Moonlight and Pinky TA respectively (plus Tantz also does Brave Resistance with Pitface), so we have some knowledge of the subject from a creator perspective.
Episode 634 - Boomer-myth
May 8, 2023
Generational tensions are a cultural constant. It's popular to pick on the young and say they're lazy, irresponsible, stupid, changing things in silly ways etc, but it's also just as popular too defend them and debunk myths associated with younger people, we don't have that with older people and I find that a bit sad and disturbing. This cast tackles the myths associated with “boomers”.
Episode 629 - Reevaluation cast
Apr 3, 2023
Have you ever watched a series devotedly then lost touch with it for some reason for a while and then gone back to it a couple of years later and tried to get into again but this time you look at it with a very different perspective? Or maybe you loved a movie when you were young and decided to watch it again as an adult to see if it holds up?
