Bloopers & News
The End of "The Simpsons."
Last night I watched The Simpsons for the first time in ages. The episode I chose was listed as the “series finale,” and I was shocked I hadn’t heard that the show was ending. The plot revolves around A.I.
The show begins with an animated Conan O’Brian hosting a celebration of the long running show. He explains that The Simpsons’ writers used AI to write the big finale, uploading every episode ever, plus the finale of all of TV’s most beloved sitcoms.
If you are fretting about the series ending, don’t. The “finale” is just a plot device, and the episode is brilliant. Not only is it a sharp satire of sappy endings (a character in each scene declares “I sure am gonna miss this place,” and flips off the lights), it is a very clever commentary on artificial intelligence.
The episode’s old TV cliches work to remind us that A.I. can only work with a mash up of old material, which leads to tired tropes and hokey plot points. When I first started experimenting with A.I. I tried to use it to outline a novel and the results were exactly that: tired and hokey.
Next I watched the latest Wallace and Gromit movie (with the recent world news I was in need of some gentle viewing). The plot is about an A.I robot who becomes evil after being reprogrammed by the villain. It is good fun.
My take away from both these viewings is that A.I. and robotics are on every creator’s mind. How could they not be? The writers and artists who made The Simpsons episode and Wallace and Gromit are dealing with their existential crises by jumping towards the problem and exploring the possibilities. I recognize this because it is exactly why I started my A.I. graphic novel.
Nailed It
I used only Midjourney this week for Chapter 38. My first prompt was simple: “Create the graphic novel image of a 50 year old woman with long brown hair. She is laying on the ground, smiling.”
Not bad but too young. I asked the A.I. to regenerate the image, reminding it to “make her look 50.”
Bwahahhaa. The young woman is lying on cracked earth. The 50 year old woman IS cracked earth. That tracks.
Next I needed a man falling backwards with a look of surprise on his face. Which I guess I got?
He is SO surprised his legs popped off.
Next was: “create the graphic novel image of a tiny adorable flying robot with wings flying inside a dark room. The robot is carrying a cute pug in its hands.”
Look carefully, because the image is of an adorable robot with pug hands.
If giving the robot dog paws wasn’t weird enough, check out the second variation, in which each hand is a tiny pug face.
When I work with A.I. I am constantly reminded of the film The Fly in which a scientist wants to teleport himself, and when he finally succeeds a fly is inside his chamber, thus rendering the scientist half man/half fly.
I regenerated and got these:
A flying pug robot!
I regenerated again with the same prompt, but I added, “make the robot bigger and the pug smaller.”
And things got VERY weird.
I think the hair and claws on the foot of the yellow robot are pug related and perhaps so is the tuft of hair on the red one?
I confess that I find the flying pug/robots pretty cute, and I can imagine creating an entire plot around the two robots above. These are examples of where the A.I. might lead you to create new characters you never would have thought of. However, the better the A.I. gets, the less these happy accidents will happen. :(
Carolyn. I agree that the pug robots, especially the last two, are irresistible. Please use those AI generated images as the basis for a new work and DON’T pay any royalties to the AI that generated them. After all, you came up with the prompt.
c'est magnifique.