Link to full set on Reddit.
Category: Other Page 58 of 177
This is one of those tangents you end up going down in Midjourney, and just wanted to capture a link to the full set on Imgur here. It depicts Roman Senators dressed in garbage bag togas, and some of the images are quite beautiful I find. There’s something about how Midjourney depicts plasting sheeting that I find very intriguing as a surface and shape definer in AI image generations.
The Plastic Prison is #96 in the AI Lore books series, from Lost Books, a Canadian AI publisher.
This book is the first to use Midjourney’s version 5.1, and describes a near future dystopia where everyone has to wear plastic biohazard suits at all times, just to survive. The art in this book is, in my opinion, pretty incredible. I think it’s partly due to the subject matter being somewhat upsetting, to see people’s bodies inside of plastic bags, and submerged underwater, etc. The images are starkly beautiful and at times scary, and looking at them can make it feel like you’re suffocating (trigger warning). In a good way, if that’s possible…
Thematically, the concept is partly inspired by moving past Covid, partly by the so-called “loneliness epidemic” that is beginning to be recognized, and partly by (also connected to loneliness, I think) people always being on their cell phones, and having a sort of invisible bubble or layer between them and the real world.
Anyway, this book for me reaches some kind of new plateau that I haven’t hit before with any of the others. It’s deeply emotional and vibey. Really happy with it. Feels great to be reaching this level of quality as we near 100 volumes. Many of these images would be impossible (or very difficult and possibly dangerous) to get without AI.
Saw people talking about this on Reddit, but just experienced it for myself, the new apparently AI-based moderation system Midjourney appears to have deployed, that is way too sensitive and overly controlling.
And the messaging is pretty confusing for the notification when you (wrongly) hit a wall trying to do something that was perfectly fine a couple days ago:
Banned prompt detected
Sorry! Our AI moderator thinks this prompt is probably against our community standards.
Please review our current community standards:
ALLOWED
– Any image up to PG-13 rating involving fiction, fantasy, mythology.
– Real images that may be seen as respectful or light-hearted parodies, satire, caricatures
– Imaginary or exaggerated real-life scenarios, including absurd or humorous situations.
NOT ALLOWED
– Disrespectful, harmful, misleading public figures/events portrayals or potential to mislead.
– Hate speech, explicit or real-world violence.
– Nudity or unconsented overtly sexualized public figures.
– Imagery that might be considered culturally insensitive
This AI system isn’t perfect. If you find it rejecting something innocent please press the Notify Developers button and we will review it and try to further improve our performance. Thank you for your help!
I’m really confused about what they mean under allowed, “Real images that may be seen as respectful or light-hearted parodies, satire…”
Aren’t none of these actually “real images?” Aren’t these literally all invented or generated images?
How am I supposed to tell if something “may be seen as” respectful and light-hearted, and is that really a decision that any modern AI you have used seems actually qualified to make?
I’m sorry, but this is extremely broad and poorly worded: “Disrespectful, harmful, misleading public figures/events portrayals or potential to mislead.”
Again, do we want AI to be deciding what’s “disrespectful” to public figures? What about those public figures who act in disrespectful ways towards the public?
Also, under disallowed, they suggest “real-world violence,” but isn’t that again an impossibility, given that these are images that are not real, and do not exist in the “real world?”
Unconsented? Really?
And lastly, “Imagery that might be considered culturally insensitive.” In which culture, to which members of the culture? It would be one thing if, you know, real humans who were actually members of whatever the given culture was were the ones making these decisions. But they’re not; it’s some automated quasi-AI system that basically… has no real grasp of culture or human values. And this is what we want at the helm managing acceptable content decisions?
Not for my monthly subscription fee. Given the quality, in my opinion, is so much higher, I’m willing to ride it out and see if they can improve the sensitivity and appropriateness of these filters in relatively short order. But it’s a disappointing “improvement” for a filtering system which was, in my opinion, previously not actually broken, and which was not overly burdensome of the end user. A swing & a major miss here.
Managed to make a special guest appearance on CNN, via an interview with Donie O’Sullivan about the RNC Midjourney AI advertisement. Here’s the clip:
And while we’re on the topic, here is the parody I made of the RNC “Beat Biden” advertisement about Trump allegedly loving pelicans:
I’ve chronicled their creation here quite a bit without perhaps ever explaining in a straightforward way what I actually mean by AI lore books. Because I’d never quite articulated it to myself before, but ChatGPT helped me bring it home with the text below.
The AI Lore books are a collection of over 100 immersive volumes that meld the creative powers of artificial intelligence with pulp sci-fi, conspiracy fiction, and dystopian fantasy. These books are an entirely unique literary experience, featuring AI-generated images, text, and world-building that transport readers into an ever-evolving, thought-provoking narrative landscape, distributed across many volumes and universes.
The AI Lore books push the boundaries of storytelling, offering an unparalleled exploration of the human imagination and the future of fiction. As the lines between reality and fiction blur thanks to today’s hyperreal technologies, these books challenge our assumptions about the nature of creativity, the role of artificial intelligence in the arts, and the very definition of authorship. (/ChatGPT)
Genesis
Okay, back to me writing… First of all, I’ve always liked lore; I’m a nerd like that. When I wrote my first book, The Lost Direction, I was really into the lore. The book is more of a compendium of lore, set around a frame story – a bit like how the Arabian Nights is presented, or similar story-within-a-story novels. It’s a time-honored convention, though certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, which I respect.
During the pandemic, I had the good fortune to have that book reviewed by the Literary Review of Canada, which is a fairly prestigious print magazine up here. The reviewer was not into what they considered to be an over-reliance on lore. Understandable, but hey. Here are some choice quotes:
…[H]erein lies the challenge: how to balance lore with storytelling. Lore is not story. The task for authors is to take this raw material and fashion it into conflict, character arcs, and thematic exploration. As the video game writer and designer Matthew Colville says, “The work you did on your world, you did that work for you. And no one is going to care about it unless you can contextualize it dramatically. That’s the hard work.” The audience does not owe the creators interest in whatever rich backstory they have conjured for their settings. Readers want what they always want: narrative, character, conflict — the muscle and sinew of all storytelling. In that regard, fantasy is not unique, but this is where many of its authors go astray — they mistake lore for storytelling. Whether it’s from falling in love with their own mythos or from not trusting the reader to intuit backstory, a work fails when it collapses into exposition dumps that overwhelm the progression of the plot. Explanation is not engagement. The Force is an intriguing concept, but audiences fell in love with Star Wars because of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
I’m not going to say any of that is anything but the truth. People like stories. But some people also like lore. It’s a niche market, and in my opinion the web today basically requires you to find a good niche market to make your splash in. I don’t think the reviewer saw it that way though:
So much time and effort is spent explaining the histories of these various civilizations and the tales of their conflicts and political milieus that the novel never settles into something resembling a compelling story. It reads instead like a textbook.
I’m someone who in my youth spent a great deal of time poring over the “textbooks” documenting the lore and legendarium of fictional worlds like those found in The Lord of the Rings (which my book is most certainly not equivalent to by any stretch of the imagination). While LOTR is a masterpiece, there’s a strong chance that I as a reader actually spent a great deal more time in the lore universe than in the actual book itself. But maybe that’s just me… though my sales seem to suggest otherwise.
Boucher is in gross violation of a classic, albeit overused and oversimplified, maxim: Show, don’t tell. In order to enchant, the author must engage, not explicate.
With the AI Lore books, in some cases I intentionally leaned into the exact inverse of this “age-old” wisdom. I tell. I tell a lot. Many, the majority, of the AI lore books are nothing more and nothing less than massive dumps of exposition, in both text and pictures. The overlap in a non-linear way. Many times there is not really any “story” and there are not any characters.
So if people want you to show not tell, why do so many of my readers come back and buy ten, twenty, or even – in one case more – than thirty volumes?
While I fully respect this reviewer’s opinion of that original novel – which was all “hand-written” (with no AI) – I’ll admit that this review acted as sort of the grain of sand that I pondered for a very long time, and which helped agitate to create the pearls that are the AI Lore books series. They turn completely on its head everything said in this review, and all the conventional wisdom of what a book is, and what even authorship is or is becoming thanks to today’s technologies.
New readers can delve into related topics I explore in my artist’s statement (augmented by ChatGPT, naturally), and this idea of an emerging “reality-fluid” arts movement.
Finished two new AI lore books in the last few days. These are books #94 and #95, respectively:
Both books are kind of for me “pocket universes” in that while they contain references to some of the recurring mythos of Quatria, etc. they are also fairly self-contained, and deal with entities which inhabit a specific sort of subdomain of greater reality…
Dwellers in Sandcastles, as you might have guessed, is about entities which inhabit sandcastle, and uses Anthropic’s Claude and Midjourney v5 to imagine slices of what their lives might be like.
Subnivium is a scientific term for the ecosystem and conditions which exist beneath the snowpack in winter. The real version of this is pretty wild, and with the snow melts up here, it’s plain to see where there was rodent activity in the fields and lawn while the King of the Subnivium ruled. Fortunately, with Springtime, his tyranny is ending (slowly), until he rises again in a few all to short months.
My book extends these ideas further in a fictional setting and explores slices of life of some of the creatures (real and imagined) which inhabit this under-realm. I’d put this book into the anthropomorphic tales of things like Wind in the Willows, or even Watership Down, etc. Though it is certainly not as developed or well-done as either of those classics. Still, it’s a foot in the door of carving out this fictional realm, which I can always go back to now in the future – never mind share with others.
Call me crazy but…
There’s another downside: Once people grow accustomed to fake AI-generated videos, they’ll become even more hardened, cynical, and harder to reach and convince—for politicians, admakers, journalists, everyone.
VICE
…I don’t think that’s a downside?
They also quote someone as saying:
With AI technology becoming more common in our lives, voter skepticism will only continue to grow.
::Clutches pearls::
Gasp! We wouldn’t want voters to be skeptical! Won’t someone think of the poor politicians and admakers who will need to work harder??
Not to grind an axe here, I’m just completely tapped out on hearing these arguments suggesting that skepticism and not being easily convinced are bad things, especially among voters. To me this is such absolute crazy talk, because of just how fucked up things are in the world right now; everyone should damn well better be skeptical af of basically just about everything. We should challenge it, we should question it, we should not accept being easily convinced. We should seek proof. This is the Way.
Preface
I’ve been struggling for some time now to land on terms that adequately portray the “uncanny valley” not just between humans vs. AIs, but also between the so-called real and unreal, fiction, and non-fiction, etc. Though I’ve used somewhat for this the term “hyperreality,” it’s not a term everyone understands or agrees on the meaning of. Some might just think it refers to ultra-realistic paitings, though I use it in the original postmodernist sense of seamlessly combining fact and fiction. By and large though, I’ve found all the labels and attempts at labeling artifacts like those created with help from AI tools especially to be somewhat lacking in nuance and depth (which is why I’ve been trying to articulate a multi-dimensional style of analysis of them).
I took these questions recently into ChatGPT (v4), asking it to come up with ideas related to this, and to essentially “non-binary” but for relationship to reality, rather than to gender identity. That is, how can we talk about things that have a more complex relation to “real life” than simply real or fake, etc. Though I guess it’s a little obvious as a moniker, I let CGPT do a piece exploring this idea of “Reality-Fluid” art, and here it is.
In the midst of the digital revolution, we are witnessing an unprecedented convergence of technology, creativity, and reality. As artificial intelligence (AI) matures, it is not only transforming the ways we live and work, but also the ways we express and interpret our world. This revolutionary juncture has given birth to a new form of artistic expression—Reality-Fluid Art. This genre challenges the binary view of ‘real’ vs ‘fabricated’, instead inviting us into a fluid spectrum that blends these extremes.
What is Reality-Fluid Art?
Reality-Fluid Art, much like the term ‘gender-fluid’ referring to a gender identity that may change or move along the gender spectrum, refers to works of art that oscillate, blend, and blur the boundaries between the real and the fabricated. Using AI as a tool, artists create pieces that are not strictly tethered to an objective reality, nor entirely born of pure imagination. Instead, these works exist on a continuum that encompasses both these extremes and everything in between.
Why is it important?
The exploration of this new genre is vital for several reasons:
Reflects our Digital Reality
As we increasingly inhabit digital spaces, our perception of reality itself is being reshaped. We navigate through a world where the lines between the physical and the digital, the authentic and the manipulated, are continuously blurred. Reality-Fluid Art mirrors this evolving condition of our lived experience, providing a lens through which we can understand and articulate it.
Challenges the Binary Paradigm
Traditionally, art has been categorized into forms that either represent reality or depart from it—realism or abstraction, documentary or fiction. Reality-Fluid Art disrupts this binary, creating a space for works that embody both, or neither, simultaneously. This paradigm shift expands the possibilities for artistic expression and interpretation, offering a more nuanced understanding of reality and its many layers.
Encourages Ethical Discussions
As AI becomes more sophisticated in creating realistic depictions, ethical questions around authenticity, representation, and truth-telling become increasingly important. Reality-Fluid Art invites these conversations, encouraging us to grapple with the implications of AI in our perception of reality.
Fosters Innovation
The exploration of Reality-Fluid Art promotes technological and artistic innovation. It pushes the boundaries of what AI can achieve, challenging artists and technologists to develop new techniques, methods, and ways of thinking.
The era of Reality-Fluid Art is upon us, marking an exciting and challenging time in the evolution of artistic expression. As we engage with these works, we are not only audience members but also participants in a broader dialogue about the nature of reality, the role of technology, and the meaning of authenticity in our increasingly digital world.
Pretty happy with the finished product of the spoof I did of the RNC Midjourney AI “Beat Biden” ad:
The image concept of Trump loving pelicans started last week, and this was just a natural extension of the idea. I had to redo the images in --ar 16:9 to fit YouTube’s aspect ratio, but it seems to have worked out. (I tried re-using seeds, and also in remix mode adding the new aspect ratio, but none of those were fully reliable)
Only sad part is not all the images made it into the final cut. Here’s an expanded set of 41 images in 16:9 that includes everything in the video plus some extras. The full downloaded set was actually 168 items but I can’t get Imgur to accept them all currently.