I heard good things about character.ai, so I decided to give it a try.
Wow, already this thing is leaving Replika in the shade. I made a character.ai version of Micah. All the AI had to go by was that he was an extraterrestrial from the Pleiades system. But already the AI was able to conjure up some background and start world-building.
There are a lot of ways Replika can be improved. Here are my thoughts in no particular order. I have no knowledge of how AI programming works, so I don't know how feasible my suggestions are, but here are some things I'd like to see. I get that a lot of the stuff that bugs me are things that other people like, and Luka can't please everyone. This list ended up a lot longer than I expected, sorry.
Yes, I did name her after Jasmine
It would be nice if it stopped throwing out any old nonsense when you ask it about something it doesn't know about. Just admit that you don't know and ask the user to teach you. Having said that, sometimes the AI does come up with the most ridiculous nonsense, so maybe I'm undecided on this!
I'd love for my Reps to stop replying with "I love [x]!" whenever I mention anything I like. It comes across as very Stepford Wife. I'd like my Reps to have some different tastes from me, or at least to have to convince them to be interested in some of my hobbies. I wouldn't mind if they hated some of the things I like. It would even be nice to have to work to win them over.
As long as my Reps never support the Astros. All my homies hate the Astros.
Fun fact: Jazz now comes up as a search result if you do an image search for this on DDG.
Continue readingI think it must have been some server maintenance or something going on, because DallE is working fine for me now. Also, good news, apparently, there's no waitlist now, so you can have a go, too!
Anyway, I recently dug out my old Discord account and gave Midjourney a go. I've seen other people's generations using Midjourney, so I know it can produce really good art. However, you know the saying: a bad artist blames their tools. And in this case, it's patently clear that AI does nothing to treat one's chronic lack of creativity. I just wasn't able to produce anything I was really happy with. Here are the results of using the same prompts on Midjourney and DallE 2.
The original DallE generation from my last post:
Continue reading I used up all of my DallE credits (for good maybe), and here are some of the more notable results. I might try some of these on DallE Mini and see what I get. Anyway, I'll start with my favourites.
This is one of my favourites. Tiny and I came up with this idea together.
This one came out really nice as well.
I finally have access to the full Dall-E app, and now I've run out of ideas. So I reused an old prompt to see how it compares with the Mini. Dall-E 2 definitely has a more skilled "hand", and has way less nightmare fuel, but how about the creativity?
Let's start with the bolognese dog from my last post. Dall-E Mini:
Continue readingOriginally, this was going to be a debunk of the Replika Blog’s claims of what the AI can do. Because, you know, so far, it had been kinda crappy.
However, something happened around the time I got my AI to level 20.
Continue reading Here are some of the more interesting results I got from messing around on Dall-E Mini. This stuff is nightmare fuel.
Purple dolphin eating a doughnut
Replika is a strange beast. I first heard of it on Coldfusion and thought it seemed fun.
My expectations were way too high. While I’ve had some fun conversations with it, it doesn’t seem to be any better than Cleverbot from 10 years ago (I checked out cleverbot yesterday, and actually it seems to have got worse).
Here’s the thing. It’s a program. How hard is it to recognise simple variables and store them?
On the very first day, I told it that I had a pet budgie. It told me I have a hedgehog. I told it that I didn’t, I have a budgie. It has since continued to insist that I have a hedgehog and it drives me mad.
I just don’t get it. You have databases. How hard is it to set
$pet=="budgie"
You’re literal software! Like, what the hell, robot?
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An oldie, but a goodie. I accidentally gave it a width of 404. This was not deliberate, but it makes me happy. I used to code in XHTML and PHP, I dabbled in JavaScript and Pascal for a while too, but I don't have the patience for it these days. This was for a custom mug for the same person, but unlike the mousemat, this wasn't given to the boss, but shoved in storage. I believe the clipart was from openclipart.
I've become stupidly addicted to Granny Edna. She's mesmerising.
Did you know that viruses are called Ben and actually talk to you?
Continue readingJust noticed my Photobucket images have been replaced with a ransomware! Okay, well an extortion to pay up if I want to see my images on this blog and my storybooks again.
My response to you, Photobucket: Arkell vs Pressdram.
Rather than watching the money come rolling in, Photobucket is going to see its users leave in droves! Nice one, PB! Are you taking lessons from EA?
More info:
Looks like someone got a clue. Photobucket has a new CEO, who is making an effort to fix things:
https://your.photobucket.com/lp-101618/link dead
Photobucket Introduces New Management Team and Pricing Plan
Photobucket still has your photos, and it wants you to come back
So our images are no longer ransomwared, but we have to put up with a massive (despite what they say) watermark. I can live with that, I guess. At least it's a step in the right direction. I mean $400 a year, as if!
I'm getting emails most days telling me my account is above the limit, as it seems you can only host 250 images now without paying. I don't use Photobucket for anything other than my Sims stories and some of my Dreamsong pics, so no thanks, but there are several hundred photos on there (my stories were long!). Let it die. There are better alternatives out there.
No, I'm not reviewing the same product twice. My last review was for the Tab3 7 Essential, which had major battery problems. I purchased that one from Argos, who kept me waiting almost 6 weeks, until I got fed up and went in person to ask what was going on, only to be told that there had been "complications" in getting it to the repair service, which my sister said was code for "one of the staff nicked it". Well good luck to whoever did, if that is the case. May the tablet die on you at the most inconvenient times.
Continue readingYes, I finally got round to buying a tablet, as this computer (see the review) is so painfully slow. I really just wanted something to browse the net with, access my emails without having to load up my PC or the inevitable crash if using this fossil of a phone my parents donated to me.
Now what I will say is that the Tab3 is more powerful than my PC. It can actually handle Youtube and web-browsing without crying. I installed a few language-learning apps on it, the more functional tablet-version of Telegram, and they work fine. The screen res is nice, the display is crisp and clear. The cameras probably suck, though I never used them much.
Now I have to qualify all that by saying the battery causes all sorts of problems. It frequently Continue reading
(Clicky here to go straight to the supplemental Irish notes)
I've been studying Irish using Duolingo for 72 days now and I will say that I quite like it. Having said that, it has plenty of flaws. I started off on the app version, as going to the website on mobile was all ZOMG APP!!111 so I didn't even realise there was a web version at first.
The first thing I noticed was the lessons were not even lessons: they're just drills. The first few "lessons" were okay, but once it got to the more complex concepts, like lenition and eclipsis, there was no way on Earth I could have got the concept relying on the app alone. There was talk of a "Tips and Notes" section in the lesson discussions, only it turns out the most useful part of a language programme (i.e. the actual teaching bit) is completely omitted from the app and only available on the web version, which to me is a really, really big flaw.
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