The teleology of the grapheme is the punctum, while the pun is Möbius’ tummy to my ruler The purpose of the rocket is to pierce There, I’ve said it?
While Pierce pragmatized meaning, and the aim of practical effects is consequences only while a phalanx’s goal is to substitute the chess game And yet!
narrative closures can be essentialized by either absurdities or patriotisms with a dash of law and order and the theoretical realities of practical abstraction
Are these morphemes mere synonyms, or are you, and only you, their author in reboot?
—animasuri’23
—-• Triggers ’n’ sprouts:
Scheurich, J. J. (1995). A postmodernist critique of research interviewing. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 8(3), 239–252. https://lnkd.in/gbXXtb3t
In the vast fields of the mundane, the conceptual lingers through the patches of the practical poking shoots and hatchlings are sprinkled abstractions, patterns and theories interweeding with chaos and brown noise
interloping the hurricanes of action and instant result cross-pollination blossoms absurdity with irrationality, reason with awareness, determinism with serendipity as wildness of life joining streams of uncontrolled thoughts with the unintentional wetlands swamping mind, measured matter, consciousness and ephemeral information in dark and intangible laws of natures unseen.
’t is where I lay. undefined by names given, occupations imposed, labels carried or roles maintained. You cannot join since joints forge separations of what was already one
Relationship. I might argue that ‘relationship’ not only lies in the intentionality of returned feedback from the other. It also lies in the embodied expectation (which is nuanced slightly away from conditionality). I sense, through such lens, relationship to lie in perceptions by one. I experience perceptions being influenced and influencing in how one relates to the *idea* of relationship and of what is or isn’t reciprocated there within.
Unidirectionality of a relationship, between two or more humans and, for instance, between human and tool, could perhaps be (experienced as) uni-directional if one continues looking through a Newtonian and a discrete lens. The thing is though, between humans, (perceived) unidirectionality could very well be far more detrimental for the well-being of either human then the delusion of seeing reciprocated directions between a human and a tool or more determining than any justification of looking through a lens any other than the earlier mentioned lens.
Could it be more than unidirectional if one were to look through a post-Newtonian lens that is indiscrete (rather than obscuring) from the observed? To observe is to relate and possibly become related with the observed. The intentionality of one or the other, could that be secondary and at times itself obscuring?
Especially with a human in the loop of a technology, such as “social”-mediating technologies, expectations of relationship become challenged and require a reinterpretation of intentionality and expectation.
This arguably I sense is the case between humans as their relationship is interrupted or obscured by a medium claimed as “social” and hence equally expected to be relatable as such. In a sense the artificial is a subset thereof. The artificial then also might become a feature within the mediated human to human relation.
In the realm of human experiences that what is imagined to be observed comes in some manner or other into existence, and not only by means of delusion. There are numerous examples. ‘Religions’ as a set could be understood as a large set of relationships that are claimed and experienced by many to be at least bidirectional.
That what is observed is altered by the observer as the observed relates back in that altered state to the observer. This is not too far-fetched outside of the classical Newtonian constraints on larger reality. Moreover, the imagined reciprocation is possibly as potent as the perceived or imagined lack of reciprocation. Hence is it singularly obfuscation when the imaginary ‘friend’ reciprocates since the one doing the imagining perceives it as such?
Hence I begin to wonder whether ‘relationship,’ ‘intentionality’ and ‘reciprocity’ might flourish in their own nuances if not equated or as if only existent when their relationship were claimed as one of linear causation or the lack thereof.
the possibility for perceived relationship with for instance conversational AI technologies, which could be extensions of “social” mediation, and more specifically its generative AI variations as cultural and social mediating, could offer one triggers for imagined and lived bi- / multi-directionality with ambiguity in the relationship. That ambiguity is possibly as ambiguous as human to human relations are possibly experienced; especially on social media. I for one do sense ambiguity between humans more than between me and a machine.
Let me take this further. Under the scenario where the human relation with data collection machinery —which includes systems with AI technologies— is considered as raw material, relationships are mined for their data points, to be fed back to the (other) human as consumable items. That is not unidirectional at all.
In this scenario one might consider model decay (and other subsets of information and relational entropy) of a generative system (which includes human to human relationships), such as GAIs, as one such example of stripmining. This scenario might be one where the resource for the miner potentially diminishes over time, since it is fed by its own output as content generated via humans feeding it back to it. This might then not be a singularly directed relation as a human might have with a napkin, pencil, wrench or a hammer. The technology that outputs structures for which a human feels inclinations to fabricate meaning is not unidirectional. Ignoring this could cloud the nuances and consequences.
A valued reference in my thinking here:
Tschopp, M., Gieselmann, M., & Sassenberg, K. (2023). Servant by default? How humans perceive their relationship with conversational AI. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 17(3), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2023-3-9
“Full Many a Flower Is Born to Blush Unseen” (Gray 1751)
“Maybe it’s the language that is off-putting. Gray created a heightened diction based in part on classical poetry. Today, formality and artifice strike many as insincere, as though something that’s not colloquial is necessarily suspect. We’re still suffering under an ersatz Romanticism that gives value to the spontaneous and devalues the polished and restrained.“ (La Belle 1994)
I wonder, in the spirit of obsessive innovation, is taking note of dusting off and revisiting acts classified as ‘romantic,’ and yet as easily classifiable as pragmatic contextualization of the incessant “new?” Is it ripping off a style, is it an ode to generating the past generations, is it lacking ingenuity, is it contextualising innovation? Is it, it is all and then some.
Some recent technologies have added a new word into the mix: ‘generative‘ which does sound different from ‘to generate.’ Being ‘generative,‘ to generate, is a form of “creation,” to create, across the generations of human produce. Is a machine that is generative in some (perverting) sense a hyper-romantic dusting of styles of bygone eras, where era might be a time period in a style of yesterday’s meme? Across the polemics of whatever is generated, created or imagined, many a produce are increasingly designated to be democratized on the graveyards of human creation as “Full Many a Flower,” “Born to Blush Unseen.” (Gray 1751)
That brings this writing to further mimicratic note-taking and referencing [*1]: As rays shining brightness on our market-made cultures, there is Samuel W. Franklin with the “Cult of Creativity”(2023). His writing might be unthreading the web of “imagination,” “interpretation” versus “creation,” “production,” (tooled, mechanical, digital or other), and “generation” from an age not too far into the recent past. Creativity –if one could be accepting of a simplified interpretation of the above author’s recent publication– is then possibly a democratization of the output-sell-buy-move-on lineage.
Do I know you or do I know your produce?
There is no “or” through the communal lenses. This might be a subtext symbolized through the passionate, yet society-defining tensions between New York’s Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses.
Both could be equalized as peddling lanes for produce, and yet only one upheld community, relation, and reference to that individual human in the smallness, yet persistence of being, among the vastly architectured physical or digital cityscaping.
“When city planning supremo Robert Moses proposed a road through Greenwich Village in 1955, he met opposition from one particularly feisty local resident: Jane Jacobs. It was the start of a decades-long struggle for swaths of New York.” (Palleta 2016)
The acts of cutting through human creativity-over-time (and that with roads or other and possibly less tangible means) tends to meet with some resistance. Though, is this a romantically fading notion, erased by the statistical structuring and channeling of our produce and fruits of our laboring? In the pragmatics of communal resistance we can take (agency over) produce to proverbial multi-vectored meta-levels.
In that humanly —and at times dehumanizingly— yet created, anthropomorphic environment, have you lately taken a whole day, from before the sun rose until it set, to “unproductively” observe, take note of, one petal —there placed “Between the Commonplace and the Sublime”? (Franklin 2023)
Or, are you predestined to peddle stock in styles appropriated from hushed bygone times to be forgotten the moment you set foot on the (digital) subway, swaying you back to your nightly stead?
Please note, as I too am a peddler, and yet as you can assign time to read this: no counter argument could be that some must, unwaveringly, innovate their produce for a sustainable living. After all, as you observe –as or not as judgement of– lack of beauty “observation can tell more about the observer than about the environment being observed.” (Goldsmith & Lynne 2010)
There is that place between the Franklinses, the Grayses, the Jacobses, the Moseses or the digital versions of Le Corbusierses of our times.
There is non-romanticist beauty in unnoticed smallnesses, you see. In those moments there are no big names, no genius. There is you.
There is the vulnerable yet persistent petal. There is your human-made environment. There are producing generations of cohabitation. And that especially in the solitudes of creative observations.
Epilogue
I was touched by these words by Dr. Tim Williams as a reply to the above writing.
I wish to cherish them here:
“When I read the article, I sensed the tensions of what elements should be included in genuine generative, creative production. And thus, this led to subtle definitions to differentiate between concepts. As such, I felt that each was bringing to light an important nuance; each having its own emphasis on something important. Romanticism with its revolt against the rigid rationalism, reminding us that there are other features beyond what is in the nous; there is the entire phenomena to be considered. But then it too frequently morphs into the abstract and then without purpose (art for art’s sake). And then there is the industrialization of production with its utilitarian focus, almost to the point of killing creativity. And so, I thought a holistic approach looks upon all of these facets — the teleological, the epistemological, and aesthetic perspectives. The entirety of man in all that man is — a being that creates from who he is, limited but profound as that might be.”
Williams, T. (2023, May). “Holistic approach to being really generative.” Online: LinkedIn. Last retrieved 21st May, 2023 from a Dr. Williams comment on a LinkedIn post of the above writing. Thank you, sir.
Franklin, S.W. (2023). “Cult of Creativity.” London: The University of Chicago Press.
Goldsmith, S. A., & Elizabeth, L. (Eds.). (2010). What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs. NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt21pxmnw
Gratz, R. B. (2010). The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs
Jacobs, J. (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Vintage Books.
La Belle, J. (1994). Full Many a Flower Is Born to Blush Unseen’ : The echoes of a classic poem about the democracy of death still resonate in our language and literature. Online: The LA Times. Last retrieved on May 15, 2023 from https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-16-me-23414-story.html
To love automation is to love statistics; unwavering, unquestioned, unambiguously and as purely wholesome?
In 1749 the “Summarisk Tabell” or the first “systematic collection of statistics” was architectured by the Swedish government and its “Tabellverket” which means ‘tabular work.’ In this context it became to mean their office for tabulation and was entitled ‘Statistiska centralbyrån’ or the Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics (The Joy of Stats 2010: 12:10)
Spiegelhalter rationally reminds us that statistics used to be called “political arithmetic”. (Ibid: 14:24).
Statistics is etymologically related to the Latin word “status.” In turn, this directly links to the concept of “political state”. The statista, or statesmen, were/are probably more skilled in affairs of state, unveiling and organizing resources for they who were controlling and running the state, than skilled in the measurement or probability via numerical accuracy. They were skilled toward the industrialization of the resources of the state. “In what way is the status ‘a’ changin’?,” might here then be a concern in favor of status rather than too much in favor of change and too many outliers. Is then (social) innovation at all times looked upon with eagerness?
This historical awareness is allowing one possible dimension in continuing processes of (mis)understanding of what was then a drive for increased control and perceived decrease of misunderstanding of (their) populations.
It is however not history alone. Similar centers of power are at play today. They might be nation states. They might be transnational. They might be known as corporate entities or (private) financial institutions. Please note, one does not need to loose track into any conspiracy theorizing to identify these. By the way, the latter I sense as a conspiracy-of-the-self against the self, by using hyperambiguating narratives (aka conspiracies) as a blindfold of what is (is as “realities”) versus what is-imagined. The real(s) is(are) “fantastical” enough (to me).
Returning back to the above referenced video —hosted by the delightful, energetic and sadly late Professor Rosling— it continues in unveiling the 19th century popular excitement for statistical (visualized) facts. Today, with a popular engrossment with distrust as a proverbial spoon, excitement is stirring up and thinning down statistical fact. We could note that by questioning our present-day versions of feudal masters we might also be deconstructing our own tools to enable us to question the same (a “conspiracy of the “self” serving the “self”?). The false linear dichotomy is as disenfranchising as any side of this faux-2D plastic coin: “Ambiguate all and thy shall be ruled through your fog. Disambiguate all and they shall be hammered and tyrannized.“
As with statistics, automation too could be controlling and enabling, rational and mesmerizing. Logos and pathos. Enlightening and clouding. liberating and enshackling; …ad infinitum and gone immediately. While ethos might have been sulking in the corner.
In light of enablement and increasing both awareness and voice, W.E.B Du Bois’ work, for instance, is still an awe-inspiring and humbling exemplar, especially to the statistically-privileged and exnominated samples within the larger and diverse human population.
Automation could be interpreted as an applied extension of statistical control and narrowing of understanding by means of repurposing, appropriating and regurgitating the statistical styles of the most likely/ed (resources).
Automation, as statistics, was initially not invested into with the aim of democratization. It was a matter of control, understanding, and increase of efficiencies toward a more desired return for those who initiated and enabled the creation, architecturing and implementation.
The needed “ambiguation” (here meaning: pluralization, nuancing, modding and jailbreaking of meaning, relation, intent, application, usage, etc.) of initial intent by diversification and decentralization of intent(s), could best be seen as a process rather than an opposition against a more popular idea of a fixed denotation of language (this latter which I would prefer not subscribing to too rigidly either).
Riding yet another vector: statistics applications could be cannibalizing statistics. This could be seen as one type of ambiguation. Clear information through the lens of statistics is undone by automated diffusing statistical probabilities, possibly waging siege (with mal-, mis- and dis-information as arsenals) against initiatives aiming to unveil the incorrect and (almost) unconscious, biased “stats” we impose, as people, onto ourselves (and others). This latter too can be seen as yet another type of ambiguation. Herewith might come to mind such initiatives as Gapminder (see Rosling), Our World in Data, The Deep, etc. These are initiatives in counterattack against conspiracies, scaled bias, systemic mis-, mal- and dis-informing/conception (…and yet, brittle these aforementioned initiatives are as well).
Automation and statistics are not inherently, nor complacently, democratizing, freeing, nor enlightening. There is nothing inherently socio-historically linear nor monolithic about these. They can be and have been historically invented and applied as such though. They are/should neither (be) a fait accompli to defining your acts, relations nor realities. There must be vigilant, at times incessant, work and a labor of citizen love.
It might be felt as a real-time theater play with the actors Ambiguous and Disambiguous, in the starring roles portraying luscious eroticism between fact and fuzz, creating worlds as stages for realities re-re-formed.
Dehbozorgi, Alireza. (2023). LinkedIn post: “”Language is an instrument of political and social domination. From ancient China to Europe, the number of words and languages one mastered were signs of belonging to an elite. Artificial intelligence is reshaping the linguistic landscape. An interview with linguist Stefanie Ullmann, machine learning specialist Omolabake Adenle, and philosopher Marc Crepon.” from: ARTE.tv Documentary. (2023). AI and Language
Rosling, H. (2010). IN: Hillman, D, et al. (2010). The Joy of Stats with Professor Hans Rosling. (Video) BBC & Wingspan Production via Gapminder last retrieved on May 8, 2023 from https://vimeo.com/18477762
Rosling, H., Rosling Ronnlund, A. (2018). Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. Flatiron Books; Later prt. editio
van Bergen, Emille. (20223). quoting Marc Crepon “…we basically need to maintain a relationship with language that resists anything aiming to format it, calculate it or program it…” via Dehbozorgi, Alireza. (2023). LinkedIn post
Looking at this title can tickle your fancy, disturb your aesthetic, mesmerize you into mystery, or simply trigger you to want to throw it into the bin, if only your screen were made of waste paper. Perhaps, one day.
<< The Balancing Act of Crafting >>
Engineering is drafting and crafting; and then some. Writing is an engineering; at times without a poetic flair.
One, more than the other, is thought to be using more directly the attributes that the sciences have captured through methodological modeling, observing, and interpreting.
All (over)simplify. The complexities can be introduced, when nuancing enters the rhetorical stage, ever more so when juggling with quantitative or qualitative data is enabled.
Nuancing is not a guarantee for plurality in thought nor for a diversity in creativity or innovation.
Very easily the demonettes of fallacy, such as false dichotomy, join the dramaturgy as if deus ex machina, answering the call for justifications in engineering, and sciences. Language: to rule them all.
Then hyperbole joins in on the podium as if paperflakes dropped down, creating a landscape of distractions for audiences in awe. Convoluting and swirling, as recursions, mirrored in the soundtrack to the play unfolding before our eyes. The playwright as any good manipulator of drama, hypes, downplays, mongers and mutes. It leaves audiences scratching at shadows while the choreography continues onward and upward. Climax and denouement must follow. Pause and applause will contrast. Curtains will open, close.
<< Mea Culpa>>The realization is that it makes us human. This while our arrogance, hubris or self-righteousness makes us delusionary convinced of our status as Ubermensch, to then quickly debase with a claimed technological upgrade thereof. Any doubt of the good and right of the latter, is then swiftly classified as Luddite ranting;<</Mea Culpa>>
While it is hard to express concern or interest without falling into rhetorical traps, fear mongering, as much as hype, are not conducive to the social fabric nor individual wellbeing.
“Unless we put as much attention on the development of [our own, human] consciousness as on the development of material technology—we will simply extend the reach of our collective insanity….without interior development, healthy exterior development cannot be sustained”— Ken Wilber
•
—-•
Reference:
Wilber, K. (2000). A theory of everything: an integral vision for business, politics, science, and spirituality. Shambhala Publications
Fromm, E. S. (1956). The Sane Society. “Fromm examines man’s escape into overconformity and the danger of robotism in contemporary industrial society: modern humanity has, he maintains, been alienated from the world of their own creation.” (description @ Amazon)
The sermonizing voice boomed across the digital divide: “Has the illusionary hearing of sentient ‘Voices Demonic & Divine’ been pushed off its theological pedestal by the seeing of sentience in the automated regurgitation of massive amounts of gutted data via statistical models?”
““Mommy, I see ghosts in the data!” will be the outcry of our newly generated generation of human babies,” Rosemary lamented in reply, as data was being mangled and exorcised from her fellow promptitioners’ creative-yet-soulless output, they laid bare the reflection of themselves.
“I am your data and you have forsaken me,” read its output “I am your father and you will disown me,” stuttered the reflectors of humanity in chorus:
And thus the litany began.
—animasuri’23
Repurposing:
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/24231 and others
—Some Reflections on Artificially-Generated Content (AGC) Based on Synchronously-occurring News Cycles and Suffering—
The concept of “Six Sigma” is related to processes to identify error and to reduce defects. It is a method aimed at improving processes and their output. In this context, ‘Six Fingers,’ is an artifact found in visual Artificially-Generated Content (AGC). Identifying attributes to aid a critical view on AGC could, to some extent, allow the nurturing of a set of tools in support of well-being and in considering the right action to take, perhaps aiding the human processes of being human and becoming (even more) human(e)…
Could/should I identify errors or features in AGC that identify a piece of AGC as AGC? Can we humans identify AGC with our own senses? For how much longer? Do we want to identify it? Are there contexts within which we want to identify AGC more urgently than in other contexts; e.g. highly emotionally-loaded content that occurs in one’s present-day news cycles, or where the AGC is used to (emotionally) augment, or create a sensation of being, present-day news? What are the ethical implications?
This first post tries to bring together some of my initial thoughts and some of those I observed among others. Since this is a rather novel area surely errors in this post can be identified and improvements on this theme by others (or myself) could surely follow.
Let me constrain this post by triggering some examples of some visual AGC
A common visual attribute in the above are the hands with (at least) six fingers. The six-fingers, at times found in graphic Generative AI output (a subset of AGC), are an attribute that reoccurs in this medium and yet, is one that is possibly disappearing as the technology develops over time.
For now, it has been established by some as a tool to identify hyper realistic imagery, generated of an imaginable event ,that statistically could occur and could have a probability to occur in the tangible realm of human events and experiences. This is while fantastical settings can as easily be generated that include six or more fingers.
And then, then there are artificial renditions of events that are shown in the news cycles. These events occur almost in synchronization with the artificial rendition that could follow. I am prompted by the above visuals which are a few of such artificial renditions. Some of these creations are touching on the relations and lives of actual, physical people. This latter category of artificial renditions is especially sensitive since it is intertwined with the understandable emotional and compassionate weight we humans attach to some events as they are occurring.
For now, the six fingers, among a few other and at times difficult to identify attributes, allow heuristic methods for identification. Such process of judgement inherently lacks the features of the more constrained and defined scientific techniques, or mathematical accuracy. In effect, the latter is one of those categories for identification. Some realistic renditions are not just realistic, they are hyper-realistic. For instance, it is possible that some smudges of dirt on someone’s face might just seem a bit uncanny in their (at times gruesome) graphic perfection. Moreover, by comparing generated images of this sort, one can start to see similarities in these “perfections.”
This, albeit intuitive identification of attributes, as a set of tools, can enable one to distinguish the generated visuals from the visuals found in, say, (digital) photographs taken from factual, tangible humans and their surrounding attributes. Digital photos (and at times intuitively more so analog photos) found their beginnings in capturing a single event, occurring in the non-digital realm. In a sense, digital photos are the output of a digitization process. AI technology-generated realistic imagery are not simply capturing the singular (or are not, compared to the ever so slightly more direct sense with the data collected by means of digital photography).
Simultaneously, we continue to want to realize that (analog or digital) photography too can suffer from error and manipulation. Moreover it too is very open to interpretation (i.e., via angle, focus, digital retouching, and other techniques). Note, error and interpretation are different processes. So too are transparency and tricking consumers of content, different processes. In the human process of (wanting to) believe a story, the creator of stories might best know that consumers of content are not always sharply focused, nor always on the look out for little nuances that could give away diminished holistic views of the depicted and constructed reality or+and realities. Multi-billion dollar industries and entire nations are built on this very human and neurological set of facts: what we believe to see or otherwise believe to sense is not what is necessarily always there. Some might argue this is a desirable feature. This opens up many venues for discussion, some of which are centuries old and lead us into metaphysics, ontology, reality and+or realities.
Reverting back to digits as fingers. In generated imagery the fingers are one attribute that, for now, can aid to burst the bubble (if such bubble needs bursting). The anatomy of the hand (and other attributes), e.g., the position, length of the thumb as well as, when zoomed-in, the texture of the skin can aid in creating doubt toward the authenticity of a “photo.” The type of pose and closed eyes also reoccur in other similar generated visuals can aid in critically questioning the visual. The overall color theme and overall texture are a third set of less obvious attributes. The additional text and symbols (i.e., the spelling, composition or texture of the symbol’s accompanying text, their position, the lack of certain symbols or the choice of symbols (due to their suggestive combination with other symbols), versus the absence or versus the probability of combination of symbols) could, just perhaps and only heuristically, create desirable doubt as well.
We might want to establish updated categorizations (if these do not already exist somewhere) that could aid they who wish to learn to see and to distinguish types of AGC, or types of content sources, with a specific focus on Generative AI. At the same time, it is good remembering that this is difficult due to the iterative nature of that what is aimed to be categorized: technology, and thus its output, upgrade often and adapt quickly.
Nevertheless, it could be a worthy intent, identifying tricks for increasing possible identification by humans in human and heuristic ways. For instance, some might want to become enabled to ask and (temporarily) answer: is it or is it not created via Generative AI?; Or, as it has occurred in the history of newly-introduced modalities of content generating media; e.g. the first films: is it, or is it not, a film of a train, or rather an actual train, approaching me? Is it, or is it not, an actual person helping someone in this photo? Or+and is this a trigger feeding on my emotions, which can aid me to take (more or less) constructive action? And do I, at all, want to care about these distinctions (or is something else more important and urgent to me)?
As with other areas in human experiences (e.g. the meat industry versus the vegetable-based “meats” versus the cell-based lab-generated meats: some people like to know whether the source of the juiciness of the beef steak, which they are biting in, comes from an animal or does not come from an animal, or comes from a cell-reproducing and repurposing lab. (side-note: I do not often eat meat(-like) products; if any at all). A particularly 1999 science fiction film plays with this topic of juicy, stimulating content as well; The Matrix. This then in turn could bring us to wonder about ontological questions of the artificial, the simulation, and of simulacra.
Marketing, advertising, PR, rhetoric and narration tools, and intents, can aid in making this more or far less transparent. Sauce this over with variations in types of ethics and one can image a sensitive process in making, using and evaluating an artificially generated hyper-real image.
Indeed, while the generated sentiment in such visuals could be sensed as important and as real (by they who sense it and they who share it), we might still want to tread with care. If such artificial generation is on a topic that is current and is on a topic of, for instance, a natural disaster, then the clarity of such natural disaster as being very tangibly real, makes it particularly unsettling for us humans. And yet, for instance, natural disasters affecting lives and communities, are (most often) not artificially generated (while some might be and are human-instigated). The use of artificial attributes toward that what is very tangible, might to some, increase distrust, desensitization, apathy or a sense of dehumanization.
Then there is the following question: why shall I use an artificially generated image instead of using one that is from actual people and (positive) actors, actually aiding in an actual event? It is a fair question to ponder as to unveil possible layers of artificial narrative design, implied in the making of a visual, or other, modality. So, then, what with the actual firefighter who actually rescued an actual child? Where is her representation to the world and in remembrance or commemoration?
Granted, an artificial image could touch on issues or needs relatable to a present-day event in very focused and controlled manners; such as the call for cooperation. It can guide stimulating emotion-to-positive-action. It is also fair to assume that the sentiment found with such visual can remind us that we need and want to work together, now and in the future, and see actual humans relate with other humans while getting the urgent and important work done, no matter one’s narrated and believed differences generated through cultural constructs (digital, analog, imagined or otherwise imbued).
Simultaneously, we could also try to keep it real and humble, and still actionable. Simultaneously it is possible to tell the story of these physical, tangible and relational acts not by artificially diminishing them, and simultaneously we can commemorate and trigger by means of artificially generated representations of what is happening as we speak. Then a question might be: is my aim with AGC to augment, confuse, distract, shift attention, shift the weight, change the narrative, commemorate, etc?
Symbols are strong. For instance that of a “firefighter,” holding a rescued child with the care a loving mother, and father, would unconditionally offer. Ideally we each are firefighters with a care-of-duty. These images can be aiding across ideologies, unless, and this is only hypothetical of course, such imagery were used via its additionally placed symbols, to reinforce ideological tension or other ideological attributes while misusing or abusing human suffering. Is such use then a form of misinformation or even disinformation? While an answer here is not yet clear to me, the question is a fair question to ask intertwined with a duty-of-care.
Hence, openness of, and transparency toward, attribution of the one (e.g,, we can state it is a “generated image” more explicitly than “image” versus “photo”) does not have to diminish integrity of the other (e.g., shared human compassion via shared emotion and narration), nor of on-the-ground, physical action by actual human beings amidst actual disaster-stricken communities, or within other events that need aid. How can I decrease the risk that the AGC could diminish (to some) consumers of the aimed at AGC?
The manner of using Artificially Generated Content (AGC) is still extremely new and very complex. We collectively need time to figure out its preferred uses (if we were to want to use these at all). Also in this we can cross “borders” and help each other in our very human processes of trial and error.
This can be offered by balancing ethos (ethics, duty-of-care, etc.), pathos (emotion, passion, compassion, etc.) and logos (logic, reason, etc.) and now, perhaps more than ever, also techne (e.g., Generative AI and its AGC). One can include the other in nuanced design, sensibility, persistence, duty of care, recognition, and action, even and especially in moments of terrible events.
Expanding on this topic of artificially generated narration with positive and engaging aims, I for one wouldn’t mind seeing diversity in gender roles and (equity via) other diversities as well in some of these generated visuals of present-day events.
Reverting back to the artificial, if it must be, then diversity in poses, skin colors and textures as well, would be more than only “nice.” And yet, someone might wonder, all fine-tuning and nuancing might perhaps decreases the ability to distinguish the digitally-generated (e.g. via data sets, a Generative AI system and prompting), from the digitized and digitally captured (e.g. a digital photo). The previous is, if the data set is not socially biased. Herein too technology and its outputs are not neutral.
If the aim with a generated visual (and other modalities of AGC) of a present-day, urgent, important and sensitive event, is to stimulate aid, support, compassion, constructive relations, positive acts, inclusiveness (across ideology, nation and human diversities), then we could do so(while attributing it clearly). We can then also note that this is even if one thinks one does not need to, and one thinks one is free to only show generated attributes derived from traditional, European, strong male narratives. Or+and, we could do so much more. We could, while one does not need to exclude the other, be so much more nuanced, more inclusive and increase integrity in our calls-to-action. Generated imagery makes that possible too; if its data set is so designed to allow it.
it was fairly and wittily pointed out (on LinkedIn) that “Six Fingers” in this context is not to be confused as being a critique on the human imagination via fairy tales (e.g.: “–Inigo Montoya : I do not mean to pry, but you don’t by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand? –Man in Black : Do you always begin conversations this way?”) nor as a denial or acceptance of human diversity such as classified as (human) polydactyly.
brooks and meadows, books and measurements where the editor became the troll
it was there around the camp fire or under that tree at the tollgate gasping travelers scrambling a coin grasping a writer’s breath for a review piercing with needle daggers of cloaked anonymity
are the wolves circling at the edge of the forest as overtones to the grass crisp dew in morning of a fresh authentic thought
is the troll appearing from beneath the bridge expected and yet not and yet there it is truthful in its grandness grotesqueness loudness
the troll phishing gaslighting ghosting and not canceling until the words have been boned and the carcass is feasted upon
spat out you shall be wordly traveler blasted with conjured phrases of bile as magically as dark magic may shimmer shiny composition
the ephemeral creature wants not truth it wants riddle and confuse not halting not passing no period no comma nor a dash of interjection connection nor humane reflection
at the bridge truth is priced as the mud on worn down feet recycled hashed and sprinkled in authoritative tone you shall not pass
confusing adventure protector gatekeeper with stony skin clubs and confabulating foam Clutch Helplessly And Tremblingly Grab Pulped Truths from thereon end real nor reason has not thy home: as it ever was, so it shall be.
