Tag: AI

The SI AI Scandal

On By coilerxiiIn EssayLeave a comment

Many people don’t know that sports reporting was one of the first big ways that “modern AI” as we know it came into public view. Basically, if you had a box score for a game where you couldn’t or decided it wasn’t worth it to send an actual reporter, an AI could (and still can) extrapolate a game story based on it. Sure, you don’t get the “yes they sportsed but we sportsed harder” quotes from the participants, but is that really a big deal?

Of course, that assumes one admits to using it. In the case of once-great Sports Illustrated magazine, they tried to sneak AI in. With presumably machine-generated (and if not machine-assisted) articles and “reporters” who were the sportswriter equivalent of Aimi Eguchi , the institution that once gave us Rick Riley’s reports was reduced to the algorithm gaming self-publisher.

Now I have no problems with AI in creative endeavors, but if you want to make something completely with it, it should be labeled as such. (I’ll leave other legal concerns aside for now). I can think of ways to make an openly fake (for lack of a better word) recapper. But any technology can be used for bottom feeding, and this is no exception.

AI Art and Wargaming

On By coilerxiiIn Essay2 Comments

So I’ve fallen to the dark side and have begun making prompt-generated pieces of AI art. This is a very controversial subject with a lot of undeniably talented artists who I respect being furious about it, and understandably so. If I had to sum up my opinion on the controversy (beyond specific technical issues like how to treat stuff like training images for the sake of copyright and licensing), it’d be condensed to this:

  • AI art is here and isn’t going away. It also has undeniable advantages as well as issues. The economic concerns of traditional artists are real.
  • Many AI artists have done their medium no favors by just spamming out low-effort prompts and/or deliberately copying obscure internet artist styles, either by model-making or just plain image-to-image.
  • The backlash, while understandable, is a Canute-ian endeavor (sorry, had to be a little pretentious). The same thing was said about Photoshop and similar tools. And online self-publishing. And recorded music. And photography. And pipe organs (seriously-the 17th century equivalent of “tech-bros” was applied to the stereotype of organ players back then). Like when free agency became a thing in sports, you have to learn to understand it and see if you can use it to your advantage.
  • There’s more to good AI art than just typing in “anime girl trending on artstation”, even if a lot of people only see that (see point 2 above)

But as a hobby, since I can write much better than I can draw, AI prompt tools have let me explore visual media in a delightful way. Yet what struck me when I really started getting into was how natural it seemed to me. And then it occurred to me: I’d done something similar before. Many, many times before. In wargames and simulators like Command, Nuclear War Simulator, Title Bout Boxing, and WMMA, I’d enjoyed simply creating a situation, allowing the RNG to add the needed element of chance to it, and then witnessing the result. And yes, frequently getting inspired by the result.

AI prompt tools allow me to do something similar with art and pictures. Yes, it can be an end. But a casualty list after a wargame scenario or results screen after a sports simulation can also be the beginning of a very human story.

As for AI writing, which is a thing, I’m strangely unfazed by it. I’m an artisanal sculptor, so seeing the metal casting factory rev up means little to my specific work. If that makes sense. Also, I’ve had the warped perspective of reading so many bad and mediocre books that I’m sincerely convinced that a computer can’t really do much worse.