duck or rabbit (11. 157)

Though this gallery of visual anagrams enhanced by AI and part of a school thesis—via the always engaging Web Curios—relies on many of the familiar tropes of optical illusions, like Einstein-Monroe transformations, reversals, skewed perspective and textual ambigrams, the collection of dynamic paintings and sketches built with diffusion models that one can tweak and re-code to create works of one’s own is pretty spectacular. We agree, moreover with the editorial that one should spend a moment pouring over these examples—as considering the pace of change, the magic is only guaranteed for a limited amount of time.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit, an unsuccessful space opera, the US Taiwan-Relations Act, celebrity anagrams plus Planet Pizza

two years ago: Angela Merkel steps down 

three years ago: Wonder Woman first appears in animated form, Emil and the Detectives (1931), CBC’s Larry Logo plus Trump’s daughter ostracised 

four years ago: the University of Leipzig (1409) plus outrage and polling

five years ago: more links to enjoy,  Bohemian Hanukkah plus UPA animation studios

countdown (11. 150)

In anticipation of Advent, our trusted AI-wrangler Janelle Shane (see previously) has created their own interactive calendar with the help (or hinderance) of the latest iteration of ChatGPT integrated with the image-creator DALL ᐧ E. Having no luck getting it to follow labelling instructions in the usual format, Shane took the alternate tactic of asking for seasonal items captioned as for language learners and compiled those uncannily close or far off, Hot Choclate, Hoy Choclæ, Gingerboman and Ice Smat—verging towards even weirder territory when asked to generate a whole holiday spread around the hearth, which prompted me to request a Nativity Scene (on the older, free version) with some rather glitchy outcomes.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the first modern ban on capital punishment, assorted links worth the revisit plus AI poetry

two years ago: a historic public health mission 

three years ago: another MST3K classic short, more links to enjoy, a nuisance filing, weasel words plus a troupe of abstract dancers

four years ago: the hallowed ground of native Los Angeles plus the Feast of St Andrew

five years ago: Datarama, stupendous pipe organs plus pictures of an empty laundromat

merriam-webster defines (11. 147)

The US reference book publisher offers Authentic as its Word of the Year, which whilst at first glance not seeming so novel does serve to encapsulate the trends of the past twelve months, informed by discussions regarding both identity, frankness and the rise of synthetics in arts and writing. Runners up for the choice, bolstered by the dictionary’s data and up-tick in research, also serve to chronicle recent news and events, and include coronation, deepfake—vis-a-vis the winner, dystopian, indict, deadname with the rash of American school districts proposing and enacting “Parental Rights” bills that requires instructors to address pupils by their birth names and gender regardless of their preference and the term rizz—possibly originating from and suggesting charisma.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Schrödinger’s Cat, assorted links to revisit plus Fly, Robin, Fly

two years ago: Britain’s Got Talent

three years ago: The Public Universal Friend,  fifty years of Tatort, Saint Saturninus, Pong (1972) plus more constructed language

four years ago: some uplifting statistics, Mid-Century style in the Peanuts plus the speech prepared for Nixon in the event of a Moon disaster

five years ago: more links to enjoy 

9x9 (11. 146)

the big easy: Bonapartist diaspora had designs for Napoleon to retire in New Orleans—via Messy Nessy Chic—see also courtesy of Super Punch  

holiday emporium: Kottke’s annual gift guide returns after a hiatus  

triple word score: players and lexicographers are a bit mortified with Scrabble’s new tournament rules  

colophon: the rise and fall of Borders Books 

moonlight towers: during the infancy of electric lighting, there was a predecessor to serial lamps  

pump and dump: insurance companies are exacerbating the climate crisis 

fiat: during the bank strikes of Ireland in the 1970s, pubs stepped in to fill their function—via the new shelton wet/dry  

ai garage sale: haggle with robots for real items—via Waxy  

pas de goulots d’étranglement dans la production: a strange 1940 diagram from linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf presenting French as a factory assembly line

q* (11. 132)

Though unable to independently verify the existence of the supposed memo circulated to the staff and board of OpenAI, sources suggest that the catalyst for the abrupt ousting and re-hiring of founder and CEO Sam Altman was a potential breakthrough towards artificial general intelligence, gauged not by simply stringing words together in a convincing way but rather by solving maths problems, albeit rudimentary ones but exercises that are transparent and comprehensible enough for human minds to know that the answer was correct and not merely persuasive and betraying a real understanding of the task the computer was given. The organisation has been forthcoming with the research project (pronounced Q-Star) and its aims to apply it to scientific application (fields where only one, non-trivial answers exist) but reports suggest that the board was harbouring reservations about releasing the new application. The next day the board fired Altman.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Festival of the Five Grains plus Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)

two years ago: artist Agnolo Cosimo

three years ago: your daily demon: Crocel, St Felicity of Rome, the invention of acting (534 BCE) plus Project Cybersyn

four years ago: a foundation document for press freedom, The Bounty Hunter’s Tale, Simpsons’ memes of the 2019 box office plus Disney streaming options

five years ago: assorted links to revisit, the eight-hour work day plus the premiere of Dr Who (1963)

terraforming (11. 125)

Via Good Internet, we learn that AI-powered robot chemist, analysing Martian meteorites as a proxy for available materials in-situ (see previously) the Red Planet, has devised an efficient method for splitting the abundant reserves of water ice into its components—hydrogen and oxygen not only for air for potential human explorers to breathe but also for fuel—by trialing millions of molecular compounds (metallic ores bonded with those component elements are normally inert) apparently readily present in the Martian terrain to find the best catalyst to set off the reaction with the least need for extra energy to trigger the reaction and least effort of extraction. Though accomplished without human-intervention—drawing on the sum of human learning—the proposal would still need to be vetted by scientists for unintended consequences or biases for Earth gravity and weather. If proven safe and effective, maybe as an encore, the robot chemist could come up with the best way to capture and store carbon back home.

synchronoptica

one year ago: The Mouse and his Child (1977), the first book printed in English (1477) plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: bias in photo developing, the consecration of Old and New St Peter’s plus not all symbols are universal

three years ago: your daily demon: Haagenti, more medieval remixes, a Star Trek TOS fashion show plus the origin of the asterisk

four years ago: the Triadic Ballet reprised, Super Robot manga, separating texting from emails plus the Rabbrexit tapestry

five years ago: exterior walls of Japan plus a 1950s scrapbook of Moscow

8x8 (11. 123)

ałk’idą́ą́’ yádahodiiz’ą́ą́dą́ą́’ yá’áhoníkáándi: an update on Stars Wars dubbed in to the Diné bizaad language of the Navajo people—see previously 

hallucinate: the new meaning of the psychological verb picked for Cambridge dictionaries’ Word of the Year 

chipophone: Vivaldi performed on Commodore instruments—see previously 

wikiwho: guess the person from their Wikipedia biography—via Web Curios  

prisencolinensinainciusol: revisiting the Italo Pop song with nonsense lyrics that was meant to sound like English singing—see previously 

veistospuutarha: the sculpture garden of of Veijo Rönkkönen  

here we observe the sophisticated homo sapiens: an unauthorised David Attenborough voice-clone to narrate one’s daily activities—see also  

life day: a fresh look on the Star Wars Holiday Special on its forty-fifth anniversary 

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Hand of Irulegi plus a Soviet moonwalker (1970)

two years ago: another MST3K classic plus assorted links to revisit

three years ago: more links to enjoy, a rebuttal from Nixon (1973) plus St Hugh of Lincoln

four years ago: the Velvet Revolution plus world flags reimagined in the style of Kazakhstan’s 

five years ago: a Japanese view on American history, the mind of a scammer, more links to enjoy plus the Star Wars Holiday Special

monad-gpt (11. 116)

Via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest, we are directed towards a narrowly trained language model from Hugging Face contributor Pierre-Carl Langlais versed in texts from the Early to Late Medieval Period, which is essentially akin to having a scholarly monk as one’s interlocutor, delightfully limited to the corpora of scientific, historical and cultural of the tenth through seventeenth centuries. Not to contribute to the misconception that the Dark Ages were backwards and lacking in introspection, the conversations elicited (see also) seem pretty fun and harmless vis-à-vis the rather worrisome tendency of of generalised chatbots to confidently lead one astray and is suitable for staying in character at the Renaissance Fair and for continuing to tease out facts from a specific manuscript. Questions and answers can also be generated in French and Latin.

  

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links to revisit,  remembering the 13. November Terrorist Attacks in France plus more bad paperback covers

two years ago: more links to enjoy plus Hollywood Horror House (1970)

three years ago: your daily demon: Vual, venues entrusted with medical information, animal magnetism, composer Johann Zach plus the vice-president elect

four years ago: the Feast of St Brice, a customisable racing bar chart plus conditioning feline instincts

five years ago: linear settlements, customisable emoji plus AI’s tendency to cheat and cut-corners

9x9 (11. 110)

tragedy of the commons: Tokelau’s country-code top level domain (see also) turned the tiny Pacific island into a virtual den of thievery—via Web Curios  

hanna-barbera educational division: a bizarre 1979 film-strip about getting home safe for latch-key kids featuring some ranger danger 

itinerant filmmaker: travelling from town to town, The Kidnappers Foil was a four-decade vanity project for local talent, produced hundreds of times over  

suspense accents: add the sound of drama to your day—via Things Magazine  

mixtape 2023: Cardhouse’s annual audio/visual revue

björn of the dead: Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson to play a starring role in an apocalyptic ABBA-tribute band horror movie—via Good Internet  

so red the nose, or, breath in the afternoon: an Oakland, California speakeasy bringing back drinks from 1930s—including Ernest Hemingway’s favoured Champagne cocktail  

merrie melodies: a snippet of the score for the cancelled Coyote v Acme—see more about the shelved project 

legal autopilot: a neural network negotiated and finalised a contract—an NDA—without human intervention

pin (11. 104)

The startup called Humane, launched by two former Apple engineers, hoping to introduce an alternative to time-stealing smart phones and touch screens, has unveiled its brooch-like wearable, powered by AI that does not need to be paired with other gadgets, and designed for interfacing with large language models rather than apps, geared towards talking and voice commands (also through gesture and showing it objects) rather than focusing on typing and visuals. Though there is no display, AI Pin can project images with a laser onto the user’s hand. For privacy and disclosure to others within ear-shot, the “Trust Light” blinks when the badge is activated (no listening for a wake word) and collecting data. Though the question remains whether this new device, a lapel pin, might meet the same fate as Google Glass and other augmented reality accessories, the launch demonstration included a round of feats, including an email inbox, message summary, presenting one’s meal to it for nutritional information, navigation and real-time translations.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Lateran Basilica, an archaeological discovery in the muddy ruins of a bath house plus assorted links to revisit

two years ago: another MST3K classic plus prioritising driverless technology over pedestrian safety

three years ago: World Freedom Day, unfortunate juxtapositions, a vaccine for COVID under development, a synonym for Schadenfreude plus Poe’s Dream-Land

four years ago: the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) 

five years ago: a resort on the Adriatic, single-use as Word of the Year, the veil of ignorance plus Kristallnacht (1938)

 

woty (11. 098)

Beating out other shortlisted neologisms in common parlance including nepo baby, deinfluencing, debanking, and canon event—a formative occurrence in an individual’s life and identity, Collins Dictionary announces AI as the Word of the Year for 2023—see previously. The abbreviation for artificial intelligence, it describes the process of modelling human mental functions, especially the multilayered architecture underlying deep learning neural networks and large reinforcement and inference schema that draw from the sum of human knowledge, which has seen an exponential increase in usage in the past twelve months.

9x9 (11. 097)

falling for fall: an epic attempt to capture the Christian Girl Autumn aesthetic—via the morning news  

paradox: NASA climate group issues a bleak warning on climate change—controversially suggesting that a reduction in aerosol pollution will accelerate warming 

the hunting of the earl of rone: one individual’s quest to catalogue the folkways and traditions of the United Kingdom  

they’re all good dogs: the winners of the annual world canine photography award presented—plus a bonus vocabulary term for one who is favourably disposed to dogs—via Nag on the Lake  

ja-da, ja-da, ja-da, jing jing jing: a soothing 1918 jazz standard covered for decades after  

mechanical turk: exposing autonomous cars’ vast human support network to maintain an illusion of safety, reliability 

roll on: a clever phonophore logo for a transport and logistics company in Hong Kong 

cape canaveral: a 3D animated billboard recounts the chronology of the Kennedy Space Centre 

momiji tunnel: a stunning section of the Eizan railway showcases the turning foliage—via the ever excellent Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the Gun Powder Plot, a Commodore accordion, more McMansion Hell plus a Wikipedia list of common fallacies

two years ago: the Saint Felix Flood (1530) 

three years ago: a tri-lingual dictionary (1499), a flashpoint labour strike (1916), a séance on a wet afternoon plus the Rebel Rabbit GIF

four years ago: more on Guy Fawkes, Voyager 2 leaves the Solar System, ghoulish guacamole plus Facebook’s shift to the right

five years ago: representative Shirley Chisholm, an ancient boardgame, photographer Denise Scott Brown, words for the Winter Blues plus mapping the US mid-terms

7x7 (11. 089)

rough trade № 5: experimental post-punk band The Raincoats recording their first single  

seo: an after-party for those who helped ruin the internet 

fungiculture: narrated by Björk and presented by biologist Melvin Sheldrake, an upcoming documentary on on the ties that bind—see previously 

top level domain: Anguilla’s .ai internet suffix is a significant portion of the island’s gross-domestic product  

spectral analysis: the missing colours of the rainbow accounted for with Frauenhofer lines

survey sez: a newspaper accuses an advertiser of reputational damage after a poorly placed poll 

the kingsmen: the story behind Louie Louie—see previously

the devil’s ball (11. 084)

With introductory remarks on how artists are rebelling against having their works and style scraped and assimilated often without attribution or respect and are fighting back, Fancy Notions directs us to a spooky Halloween treat, fever dream in the form of the uncut animated short from pioneering stop-motion storyteller Władysław Starewicz from 1933. The original was considerably edited for length prior to release and many of the film segments are lost but using AI to help fill in the gaps, the original story of this le Fétiche (the Mascot) series has been restored. The surreal cast of creepy toys and re-animated bones (Starewicz’ earliest experiments used dead insects articulated with wires, which reviewers believed were expertly trained bugs) coming to life and vie for a prize orange. Later filmmakers, like Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mister Fox (Starewicz’ most acclaimed work was Le Roman de Renard) or Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas, pay homage to the artist’s influence.

fun-sized (11. 076)

Our trusted AI wrangler Janelle Shane has been running experiments on generating trick-or-treating goodies (see previously) and sorting them by what one might like to keep or swap, to gauge the capabilities of various platforms and monitor improves, both marginal and significant. The latest iterations are much improved and are generally more accurate and less glitchy with the printed word but still have some way to go. In what’s described by Shane as the ‘kitten effect,’ where one specific example might turn out passably accurate, all these models tend to seize up and degrade when asked to produce multiple individuals—one cat as opposed to a basket of kittens. It’s nonetheless a relief that there’s some weirdness left in the wrappers. Smndy or Cearbiers might be good to try, but the best houses give out the full-sized candy bars.  Much more at the links above.

digitalis (11. 073)

A new data-poisoning tool allows artists to fight back against generative AI by allowing them to make invisible alterations to pixels so when their data is scraped—without consent or compensation—for training, causing the output to verge in chaotic directions. Called Nightshade, these subtle changes could have significant down-stream effects for later iterations of what’s become mostly recursive machine learning. The industry faced with numerous lawsuits over this unauthorised sampling, the application’s creator hopes that this method—which reminds me of trap streets on maps, fake entries in dictionaries and other honeypots—will create a deterrent for such infringement.

🌀 (11. 044)

Via Pasa Bon!’s regular link roundup (lots more to check out there), we are referred to this clever project by Steven Tey that uses artificial intelligence to generate fantastical spiralling compositions (see previously) from a text prompt with a single click. The application accepts very elaborate instructions and really excels in surprising ways. Do give it a try and be sure to share your collaborative creations. 

 

 synchronoptica

one year ago: the cast of Star Trek in an energy company advert plus Saint Reparata

two years ago:  your daily demon: Raum, Baghdad’s House of Wisdom plus a bi-directional typeface

three years ago: assorted links to revisit, Les Misérables (1985), poorly drawn animals plus Trump requires wildlife conservationist organisations to celebrate America’s hunting heritage

four years ago: visualising Wikipedia updates in real time, Trump abruptly withdraws from the Syria-Turkish border, Call Me By Your Monet, The Million Eyes of Sumuru plus discouraging frivolous lawsuits in the Middle Ages

five years ago: the degrading web plus calling attention to the problem of space junk

disco triceratops incident (11. 032)

Continuing an annual tradition of using the latest state-of-the-art artificial intelligence available generate sketching prompts for the Month of October, this year (see previously) proved to be a bit more challenging

for our faithful AI wrangler as the dominant large language models learning off of each other were coming up with rather tame and predictable suggestions—until dialling up the chaos factor and drawing from ideas of year’s past. Although some choice prompts emerged, most were still pedestrian and not in keeping with the weirdness of previous instalments. How would you draw “pants for salad,” “a resplendent,” “a ghost of a teapot” or “televised toast” but make them more spooky? Much more from Janelle Shane at the links above. 

synchronoptica

 

one year ago:  The New People (1969), discovering a devilish beach house, presenting the public face of generative text-to-image technology plus disco Star Wars

 

two years ago: Botober sketch prompts, assorted links to revisit, irregular verbs, CAT scans (1971), synthetic dyes plus Night of the Living Dead (1968)

 

three years ago: more links to enjoy plus an in depth look at Albrecht Dürer’s self-portrait

 

four years ago: Denmark recognises same-sex marriages (1989) plus Swedish sea-fortresses recommissioned

five years ago: passive cooling, Bohemian Rhapsody in the style of Gershwin, Trump lampooned in Beirut plus documenting London’s poor

 

dank meme (11. 024)

We’ve already witnessed how accomplished artificial intelligence can potentially be at generating fake news and history with persuasive confidence, and our trusty AI wrangler (see previously) is uncovering another insistent unreality in the form of trolling chatbots and calling on them to delivery a summary or explanation of a cultural happening that didn’t actually happen. This experiment demonstrates the chasm between human requestor and their synthetic correspondent, which is seeking information versus predicting a plausible outcome. These examples are pretty innocent and fun but underlie something a touch sinister when one can be served an account that never occurred. 

synchronoptica

one year ago: Knight Rider (1982) plus an asteroid deflection test

two years ago: the Free City of Christiana (1971), Biosphere 2 (1991), more McMansion Hell, an AI names supermarkets plus Germany votes

three years ago: assorted links to revisit plus the photography of Robert Bechtle

four years ago: Trump’s “perfect call,” communal housing in the capital of Greenland plus the science vessel formerly known as Boaty McBoatface

five years ago: World War III narrowly averted (1983), Trump at the UN General Assembly, the Afrofuturist art of Bodys Isek Kingelez, more on the Hyperloop project plus Gilligan’s Island (1964)

7x7 (11. 007)

spiral town: AI artistry with geometric patterned medieval villages captivate the internet—via Waxy 

the fabric of civilisation: the fascinating history of sericulture—see previously here and here  

🫠: an informal survey reveals men think about Ancient Rome daily, sometimes to the surprise of their partners 

magic screen: a look at the creative crew behind Pee-wee’s Playhouse 

lennon 2499: hunting down the artist’s famous wristwatch—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to check out there)  

hal mooney and his orchestra: ballet standards as lounge music  

everyday yōkai: AI generated Japanese folklore figures hiding in plain sight—see previously