Cursed AI | Ken Loach’s 1977 film ‘Star Wars Episode IV – No Hope’

Ken Loach’s 1977 film ‘Star Wars Episode IV – No Hope’. George Lucas was unhappy with Loach’s depressing subject matter combined with there being no actual space scenes (with all the action taking place on a UK council estate). He immediately halted filming, recast many parts (Carrie Fisher replacing Kathy Burke for example), did extensive Read more about Cursed AI | Ken Loach’s 1977 film ‘Star Wars Episode IV – No Hope’[…]

E-Paper News Feed Illustrates The Headlines With AI-Generated Images

It’s hard to read the headlines today without feeling like the world couldn’t possibly get much worse. And then tomorrow rolls around, and a fresh set of headlines puts the lie to that thought. On a macro level, there’s not much that you can do about that, but on a personal level, illustrating your news Read more about E-Paper News Feed Illustrates The Headlines With AI-Generated Images[…]

What? AI-Generated Art Banned from Future Dungeons & Dragons Books After “Fan Uproar” (Or ~1600 tweets about it)

A Dungeons & Dragons expansion book included AI-generated artwork. Fans on Twitter spotted it before the book was even released (noting, among other things, a wolf with human feet). An embarrassed representative for Wizards of the Coast then tweeted out an announcement about new guidelines stating explicitly that “artists must refrain from using AI art Read more about What? AI-Generated Art Banned from Future Dungeons & Dragons Books After “Fan Uproar” (Or ~1600 tweets about it)[…]

Redditor creates working anime QR codes using Stable Diffusion

On Tuesday, a Reddit user named “nhciao” posted a series of artistic QR codes created using the Stable Diffusion AI image-synthesis model that can still be read as functional QR codes by smartphone camera apps. The functional pieces reflect artistic styles in anime and Asian art. QR codes, short for Quick Response codes, are two-dimensional Read more about Redditor creates working anime QR codes using Stable Diffusion[…]

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The Supreme Court’s Warhol decision could have huge copyright implications for ‘fair use’, apparently made by blind judges

The Supreme Court has ruled that Andy Warhol has infringed on the copyright of Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer who took the image that he used for his famous silkscreen of the musician Prince. Goldsmith won the justices over 7-2, disagreeing with Warhol’s camp that his work was transformative enough to prevent any copyright claims. In Read more about The Supreme Court’s Warhol decision could have huge copyright implications for ‘fair use’, apparently made by blind judges[…]

Need To Pick Objects Out Of Images? Segment Anything Does Exactly That

Segment Anything, recently released by Facebook Research, does something that most people who have dabbled in computer vision have found daunting: reliably figure out which pixels in an image belong to an object. Making that easier is the goal of the Segment Anything Model (SAM), just released under the Apache 2.0 license. The online demo Read more about Need To Pick Objects Out Of Images? Segment Anything Does Exactly That[…]

Gen-2 by Runway text to Video AI

No lights. No camera. All action.Realistically and consistently synthesize new videos. Either by applying the composition and style of an image or text prompt to the structure of a source video (Video to Video). Or, using nothing but words (Text to Video). It’s like filming something new, without filming anything at all. Visit the page Read more about Gen-2 by Runway text to Video AI[…]

AI-generated art may be protected, says US Copyright Office – requires meaningful creative input from a human

[…] AI software capable of automatically generating images or text from an input prompt or instruction has made it easier for people to churn out content. Correspondingly, the USCO has received an increasing number of applications to register copyright protections for material, especially artwork, created using such tools. US law states that intellectual property can Read more about AI-generated art may be protected, says US Copyright Office – requires meaningful creative input from a human[…]

Civitai / stable diffusion

CivitAI is an AI image generator that isn’t hosted in the US, allowing for much more freedom of creation. It’s a really amazing system that gives Midjourney and DALL-E a run for their money. https://civitai.com/models/4201/realistic-vision-v13 https://civitai.com/models/4384/dreamshaper Civitai is a platform that makes it easy for people to share and discover resources for creating AI art. Read more about Civitai / stable diffusion[…]

AI-imager Midjourney v5 stuns with photorealistic images—and 5-fingered hands

On Wednesday, Midjourney announced version 5 of its commercial AI image-synthesis service, which can produce photorealistic images at a quality level that some AI art fans are calling creepy and “too perfect.” Midjourney v5 is available now as an alpha test for customers who subscribe to the Midjourney service, which is available through Discord. “MJ Read more about AI-imager Midjourney v5 stuns with photorealistic images—and 5-fingered hands[…]

NL Museum Temporarily Swapped Girl with Pearl Earring With AI Art and Luddites didn’t like it – sounds like art pushing boundries

A Netherlands museum is facing criticism for selecting an AI-generated piece of art to temporarily take the place of the renowned Girl with a Pearl Earring painting. The artwork was created by Johannes Vermeer in 1665 and is usually located at the Mauritshuis Museum but is on loan at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam until June Read more about NL Museum Temporarily Swapped Girl with Pearl Earring With AI Art and Luddites didn’t like it – sounds like art pushing boundries[…]

Luddites have a sad that Netflix Made an Anime Do boring background art Using AI Due to a ‘Labor Shortage’

Netflix created an anime that uses AI-generated artwork to paint its backgrounds—and people on social media are pissed. In a tweet, Netflix Japan claimed that the project, a short called he Dog & The Boy uses AI generated art in response to labor shortages in the anime industry. “As an experimental effort to help the anime industry, which Read more about Luddites have a sad that Netflix Made an Anime Do boring background art Using AI Due to a ‘Labor Shortage’[…]

This man used AI to write and illustrate a children’s book in one weekend. He wasn’t prepared for the backlash.

Ammaar Reshi wrote and illustrated a children’s book in 72 hours using ChatGPT and Midjourney. The book went viral on Twitter after it was met with intense backlash from artists. Reshi said he respected the artists’ concerns but felt some of the anger was misdirected. Ammaar Reshi was reading a bedtime story to his friend’s Read more about This man used AI to write and illustrate a children’s book in one weekend. He wasn’t prepared for the backlash.[…]

YouTube may fix controversial policy to demonetize videos with swearing – wait why can’t you swear on YouTube? US prudish sensibilities suck ass

YouTube is rethinking its approach to colorful language after an uproar. In a statement to The Verge, the Google brand says it’s “making some adjustments” to a profanity policy it unveiled in November after receiving blowback from creators. The rule limits or removes ads on videos where someone swears within the first 15 seconds or Read more about YouTube may fix controversial policy to demonetize videos with swearing – wait why can’t you swear on YouTube? US prudish sensibilities suck ass[…]

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This Controversial Artist Matches Influencer Photoshoots With Surveillance Footage

It’s an increasingly common sight on vacation, particularly in tourist destinations: An influencer sets up in front of a popular local landmark, sometimes even using props (coffee, beer, pets) or changing outfits, as a photographer or self-timed camera snaps away. Others are milling around, sometimes watching. But often, unbeknownst to everyone involved, another device is Read more about This Controversial Artist Matches Influencer Photoshoots With Surveillance Footage[…]

Palette – Colorize Photos using AI, great colour

A new AI colorizer. Colorize anything from old black and white photos 📸, style your artworks 🎨, or give modern images a fresh look 🌶. It’s as simple as instagram, free, and no sign-up required! Source: Palette – Colorize Photos Only gums and teeth in shadow look a bit brown and ghoulish but this is Read more about Palette – Colorize Photos using AI, great colour[…]

Google research AI image noise reduction is out of this world

If you have great lighting, a good photographer can take decent photos even with the crappiest camera imaginable. In low light, though, all bets are off. Sure, some cameras can shoot haunting video lit only by the light of the moon, but for stills — and especially stills shot on a smartphone — digital noise Read more about Google research AI image noise reduction is out of this world[…]

Use This Free Tool to Restore Faces in Old Family Photos

[…] GFPGAN—first made it onto our radar when it was featured in the August 28 edition of the (excellent) Recomendo newsletter, specifically, a post by Kevin Kelly. In it, he says that he uses this free program to restore his own old family photos, noting that it focuses solely on the faces of those pictured, Read more about Use This Free Tool to Restore Faces in Old Family Photos[…]

Midjourney – AI picture creator through words, wins digital art competition

An independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species. Source: Midjourney It works like Dall-e and is now very popular because a user used this to win a digital art competition (using attribution) Jason Allen entered the artwork titled “Theatre d’Opera Spatial” in the “Digital Arts Read more about Midjourney – AI picture creator through words, wins digital art competition[…]

The Humanity Globe: World Population Density per 30km^2

This visualization was created in **R** using the **rayrender** and **rayshader** packages to render the 3D image, and **ffmpeg** to combine the images into a video and add text. You can see close-ups of 6 continents in the following tweet thread: https://twitter.com/tylermorganwall/status/1427642504082599942 The data source is the GPW-v4 population density dataset, at 15 minute (30km) Read more about The Humanity Globe: World Population Density per 30km^2[…]

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Mapped: A Detailed Map of the Online World in Incredible Detail

View the giant full-size (20 MB) version of this map. A Map of the Online World in Incredible Detail The internet is intangible, and because you can’t see it, it can be hard to comprehend its sheer vastness. As well, it’s difficult to gauge the relative size of different web properties. However, this map of Read more about Mapped: A Detailed Map of the Online World in Incredible Detail[…]

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Songwriters Are Getting Short-Changed by Music Streaming, Study Shows

Ever since the music industry began its streaming-fueled recovery around five years ago, the songwriting and publishing communities have been protesting not only the uneven payment structure of streaming — which sees recorded-music rights holders being paid three times what publishing is paid — but also the imbalanced power and payment structures of the music industry. Read more about Songwriters Are Getting Short-Changed by Music Streaming, Study Shows[…]

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