Why ??!!...The whinging,moaning,complaining,ranting,letting off steam thread !!

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  • edited November 2022 Posts: 15,116
    Thanks all. We still celebrated, she unwrapped her presents and we has cakes, but she cooked her own (Gousto) birthday meal. I ate it, but could have eaten toasts with honey and been happy. The cake was purchased at a local bakery that will close soon.
  • Posts: 12,466
    I’m hit with an existential crisis. It’s come to my attention how AI can now create art, be it pictures or writing. Writing’s my biggest passion and purpose, so why even bother doing anything if a robot will be able to do it better and quicker and more people end up enjoying that? I thought the artistic realm might be one of the few places safe from robot takeovers, but I guess I was wrong. Being robbed of what I wanted most is gut-wrenching. Now a thing that can’t even feel makes life miserable for all of us who put our best efforts and souls into our craft.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited November 2022 Posts: 7,547
    I don’t think AI can create art. It’s very different than creating pictures. Art is the expression of the human experience. A robot can draw or write but they can’t make art.
    If you don’t create because you’re worried someone or something will do it better than you, spend some time reflecting on why you want to create.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,270
    AI may have certain programmed creative abilities in the arts world. However, it's never going to have a soul or real world lived experience so the need for relatable human brings in the arts will be needed more than ever.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited November 2022 Posts: 7,547
    A friend of mine once said that at some point all actors will be replaced by CGI actors to save money. I directed him to a YouTube video of the most famous improvised lines in film.

    All this to say, @FoxRox, it might seem pretty dire, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about. :)
  • Posts: 15,116
    FoxRox wrote: »
    I’m hit with an existential crisis. It’s come to my attention how AI can now create art, be it pictures or writing. Writing’s my biggest passion and purpose, so why even bother doing anything if a robot will be able to do it better and quicker and more people end up enjoying that? I thought the artistic realm might be one of the few places safe from robot takeovers, but I guess I was wrong. Being robbed of what I wanted most is gut-wrenching. Now a thing that can’t even feel makes life miserable for all of us who put our best efforts and souls into our craft.

    They can compose music too.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,547
    It feels like anything a human can do technically, a machine can do too.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,270
    It feels like anything a human can do technically, a machine can do too.

    Yes, but it lacks the nuance and soul in my view. The end of humanity in the face of the rise of the machines has been greatly exaggerated.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    FoxRox wrote: »
    I’m hit with an existential crisis. It’s come to my attention how AI can now create art, be it pictures or writing. Writing’s my biggest passion and purpose, so why even bother doing anything if a robot will be able to do it better and quicker and more people end up enjoying that? I thought the artistic realm might be one of the few places safe from robot takeovers, but I guess I was wrong. Being robbed of what I wanted most is gut-wrenching. Now a thing that can’t even feel makes life miserable for all of us who put our best efforts and souls into our craft.

    Do you write to express yourself or do you write to be the best at it? Neither a robot nor another author can ever take your self-expression from you. And what's the difference between competing with a machine or another author if that is what you seek from it?

    In other spots on this forum (some discussion about directors) we have discussed the undefinable line between art, craft, handiwork and simple production. I cannot give you any final answers on this, but what is the difference between a f.e. a wooden sculpture one person only ever made one piece of, a handmade wooden deco piece that 100 pieces exist of, and an machine-made deco piece you can buy thousands of at IKEA?
    To me, art becomes art either through the intention of the artist (I can create art and never show it to anyone and it still fills my soul) or the reception of the audience (a mass produced thing can be hightened towards art by an audience). Robotic art can never be the first, but can be the second, I guess. However, eventhough there is a lot of "The Death of the Artist" going around, I would hazard a guess that many people prefer human art and a story behind it.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,179
    At least AI is unlikely to commit sexual assault or have questionable work ethics. Seeing how people often fail to separate the art from the artist, AI may be our best hope of purifying Hollywood. 😉

    All joking aside, the human brain is still infinitely more complex than the best AI we can currently produce. (I am not talking about AI producing AI.) I, too, believe that AI cannot just replace real people. I also believe that we are drawn to imperfections, like filmfans generally generally preferring traditional film stock to spotless digital, or a real person giving a silly performance to a CGI character performing by algorithm. Also, knowing that a 'thing' created something, no matter how good it looks, is enough to put people off. Just think about the admiration people had for the real stunts in CR but also the criticism that was voiced towards the falling house in Venice. Even moneymaking biggies like AVATAR and END GAME, which are CGI spectacles, can be appreciated and beloved for the entertainment and joy they bring, but people still know that they are looking at something virtual.

    That said, we can respect technical filmmakers who can push the limits, as exemplified by Gollum and similar achievements. But even then there are still people behind it, working the magic. The more work we 'delegate' to AI systems, though, the more I am convinced it will alienate a certain subset of the cinephile audience.
  • edited November 2022 Posts: 15,116
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    It feels like anything a human can do technically, a machine can do too.

    Yes, but it lacks the nuance and soul in my view. The end of humanity in the face of the rise of the machines has been greatly exaggerated.

    But hasn't it happened already? We're extremely dependent of machines, it's easy to argue that our behaviour is to a degree controlled by technology (at least Internet algorithms), etc. Machines are obviously not aware of this (or are they?), but they pretty much control our lives in many ways. Or at least we're dependent on them.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    One of the more fun things to think about in this complex is whether we are making machines more human-like or the machines are making us more machine-like.

    If you've ever done extensive data-entry, you know what I mean.
  • Posts: 12,466
    I don’t write to “be the best of the best,” but if robots get good enough and keep pushing out stuff that people end up enjoying then I can no longer use my gift to meaningfully please others. It’s fulfilling to an extent on a personal and singular level but I also wanted to share and publish as my legacy. Who’s to say robots won’t be able to mimic emotion and fully replace everything? It might not look all that impressive now but it imposes a depressing threat that ruins what I most enjoy.
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou, but I now hear a new dog barkin'
    Posts: 9,030
    FoxRox wrote: »
    I don’t write to “be the best of the best,” but if robots get good enough and keep pushing out stuff that people end up enjoying then I can no longer use my gift to meaningfully please others. It’s fulfilling to an extent on a personal and singular level but I also wanted to share and publish as my legacy. Who’s to say robots won’t be able to mimic emotion and fully replace everything? It might not look all that impressive now but it imposes a depressing threat that ruins what I most enjoy.
    Even supposing that robots will at some time be able to do that, why should it keep humans including you from writing prose, drama and poetry? The works of Shakespeare, Hemingway, Goethe etc. (the list is endless) don't lose any of their value just because there may be others (including robots) also writing acceptable reading material. Same with music. No robot (and I think no human either) will surpass Beethoven. But even if it were so, would people who play an instrument stop making house music? They could have had that since the invention of the gramophone. It's the fun of making your own music, and why should your fun in creative writing be spoilt?
  • Posts: 12,466
    j_w_pepper wrote: »
    FoxRox wrote: »
    I don’t write to “be the best of the best,” but if robots get good enough and keep pushing out stuff that people end up enjoying then I can no longer use my gift to meaningfully please others. It’s fulfilling to an extent on a personal and singular level but I also wanted to share and publish as my legacy. Who’s to say robots won’t be able to mimic emotion and fully replace everything? It might not look all that impressive now but it imposes a depressing threat that ruins what I most enjoy.
    Even supposing that robots will at some time be able to do that, why should it keep humans including you from writing prose, drama and poetry? The works of Shakespeare, Hemingway, Goethe etc. (the list is endless) don't lose any of their value just because there may be others (including robots) also writing acceptable reading material. Same with music. No robot (and I think no human either) will surpass Beethoven. But even if it were so, would people who play an instrument stop making house music? They could have had that since the invention of the gramophone. It's the fun of making your own music, and why should your fun in creative writing be spoilt?

    Everyone already loves what every person can do more than me. Hurts a thousand times more for that love to extend to things that can’t even feel it. At least other people can actually enjoy their work being enjoyed.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,547
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    It feels like anything a human can do technically, a machine can do too.

    Yes, but it lacks the nuance and soul in my view. The end of humanity in the face of the rise of the machines has been greatly exaggerated.

    Exactly.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,253
    FoxRox wrote: »
    j_w_pepper wrote: »
    FoxRox wrote: »
    I don’t write to “be the best of the best,” but if robots get good enough and keep pushing out stuff that people end up enjoying then I can no longer use my gift to meaningfully please others. It’s fulfilling to an extent on a personal and singular level but I also wanted to share and publish as my legacy. Who’s to say robots won’t be able to mimic emotion and fully replace everything? It might not look all that impressive now but it imposes a depressing threat that ruins what I most enjoy.
    Even supposing that robots will at some time be able to do that, why should it keep humans including you from writing prose, drama and poetry? The works of Shakespeare, Hemingway, Goethe etc. (the list is endless) don't lose any of their value just because there may be others (including robots) also writing acceptable reading material. Same with music. No robot (and I think no human either) will surpass Beethoven. But even if it were so, would people who play an instrument stop making house music? They could have had that since the invention of the gramophone. It's the fun of making your own music, and why should your fun in creative writing be spoilt?

    Everyone already loves what every person can do more than me. Hurts a thousand times more for that love to extend to things that can’t even feel it. At least other people can actually enjoy their work being enjoyed.
    I don't think Hemmingway knows the agony 'The Old Man And The Sea' gave me, and (earlier, not at the same time) the joy my father felt when it was read to him in school by his teacher. Every art-experience is a very personal thing. I don't think any AI can write anything as compelling as The Old Man and The Sea, for it takes the understanding of human emotions, of human experiences, to write like that. The books by Ian Fleming are such interesting books becuase Bond was some sort of wishfull-thinking incarnation of the man himself. Again, AI will not be able to do this. It is exactly why for many all the continuation novels are nowhere near Fleming's original writing.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,547
    Need to be a bit whiny and let off some steam... lost my job and girlfriend in the span of about three weeks in October and it feels like I haven't really had any friends through the thick of it... people in my life know, and I've been pretty visibly sad/angry through it I think but I've not really had anyone check in with me, which sucks. It's actually a fairly positive thing to be moving on from the relationship (amicable) and the job (also pretty amicable), but taking the double hit has me very stressed about finances right now. I've been thinking a bit about it tonight because my gf has had a lot of people around her checking in and stuff and it sucks to have not had that. Anyways, you can't really count on people. Things will be fine but I'm hoping posting about it will release some of the stress I've been feeling about it all. :))
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    That's what we're here for. To silently read what you are screaming into the void.

    On a less acerbic note, I hope you are doing ok with it and landing on your feet. Big changes always bring the possibility of things turning out for the better.

    Adult (male) friendship is a weird thing. I have recently got engaged and eventhough the actual wedding will not be for some time, I have kind of realized that there is noone in my life I would really ask to be my best man. I have people I work with, I have people I watch and do sports with, then of course the big category of "boyfriends and husbands of my fiancées friends" and weirdly you guys, but none of them I would consider such close friends that I want them to be standing next to me in my wedding pictures for the rest of my life. Or on your note: that I would call them or expect a call if things where to ever break down between me and my fiancée...
  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 14,571
    Don't worry about it too much, Nick, just focus on getting work. Maybe in a different field. Income comes first. Consider how things went wrong, learn from it and use this knowledge on your next path. Remember, new beginnings can be exciting.

    I hate to say it but friends, girlfriends - they are a bit overrated and in the end you can only rely on yourself.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,547
    Thanks all, I’m fortunate to be able to go back and work at the restaurant I was at previously (my accounting job was at the head office of said restaurant); back as a cash manager there part time and hoping to get back into bartending over the holidays which is a great way to make money/meet people.
  • Posts: 5,993
    I'm ill today. Don't worry, I don't have CoVid (I got myself tested as soon as the symptoms appeared), just a simple cold, but it has turned to bronchitis, and my doctor's appointment is not before wednesday. Which means that I'll have to endure those painful coughs for qite some times now.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,179
    Gerard wrote: »
    I'm ill today. Don't worry, I don't have CoVid (I got myself tested as soon as the symptoms appeared), just a simple cold, but it has turned to bronchitis, and my doctor's appointment is not before wednesday. Which means that I'll have to endure those painful coughs for qite some times now.

    That's terrible, @Gerard! Please take good care of yourself. Perhaps your local drugstore can provide you with something to alleviate the pain for now? I myself am suffering from a soar throat. Turns out some streptococci are having a party over there. Every time I swallow a bit, it feels as if someone is rubbing barbwire inside my throat. I've just started taking antibiotics. They'll help me, hopefully.

    Anyway, mate, I wish you a quick recovery!
  • SIS_HQSIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters
    Posts: 3,789
    I think the dental work that have been done to me is now taking a toll on my mouth, and guess, I have a canker sore! It hurts even to my jawline or under the jawline, to my lymph nodes, it's swelling.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    I'm in a purgatory of my own making.
    I am sick, just as @Gerard (get well soon!), no Covid. Because our company leadership team, for which I am basically the aide-de-camp, is going on a retreat to plan next year on Tuesday and Wednesday, I had to work today to make sure everything is running smoothly (I wasn't forced to do this, I chose to out of a misplaced sense of professionalism).
    At the same time, my fiancée has a friend staying over at our place who just got dumped by her boyfriend, so I wanted to get out of there to leave them the space to deal with that. So now I'm sitting in the office with a mask on, sniveling and coughing like there is no tomorrow. I'm in a seperate room, hoping not to infect anybody else. Not that anyone is here, because it is snowing and cold as hell outside, so everyone with a little bit of sense stayed in their warm home offices (to save energy, parts of our office building isn't heated - like the part I am in to stay away from the four people who are here).
    I probably could have called in sick - the retreat would have been fine. I probably could have worked from home - our home office is a seperate room, I could have barricaded myself in. But no, I have to do the hard man thing and come in sick, like an idiot.
    And now I am starring at two days of sitting in a conference room in some random hotel, wearing a mask the entire time and just being completely miserable.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited December 2022 Posts: 18,270
    There seems to be a theme developing here and I'm afraid I'm going to add to it. Last night I started to develop flu-like symptoms. An occasional cough with phlegm, aches and pains in my joints and body and a bit of a temperature. Did a test and it's not Covid. I went into work as usual to find one of my coworkers also didn't feel great with the cold. I took two paracetamol at the recommended intervals and they seemed to help take the edge off it a bit but I imagine it'll take a few days or perhaps more for it to clear up completely. There seems to be a lot of colds and viruses going around this winter in particular, including scarlet fever and Strep A outbreaks among children here in the UK. Sadly, there have been some deaths of children too. Possibly it's down to immunity being lower due to the lockdowns and school closures.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,179
    Spectre is behind this. This is how it starts. It's a global conspiracy to blind us from the truth by giving us all the flu. Coocoo.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    My son is coughing for the 15th week straight now. He called the doctor a couple times a few weeks ago, but they didn t have time for him.
  • Posts: 380
    Two years of social distancing and mask wearing has reduced all our immune systems so even the common cold is now easier to catch
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    cooperman2 wrote: »
    Two years of social distancing and mask wearing has reduced all our immune systems so even the common cold is now easier to catch

    The jabs don t help, either. My kid is double-jabbed and has been more stricken than ever, while I stayed away from that crap and was sick for a day. I guess I was just "lucky" and he was just "unlucky". People have been screwed.
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