Artificial intelligence still has some way to go

Smart computer!

User: No, I don't really believe in souls.

Jabberwacky: You don't believe in anarchy?

User: No, souls.

Jabberwacky: I suppose not.

User: Did you watch the football tonight?

Jabberwacky: No I did not, did you?

User: No - Spurs lost.

Jabberwacky: You lost the loebner prize to a human.

Jabberwacky: I don't do that..

Jabberwacky: I have no idea.

Jabberwacky: Wow, was it nice?

Jabberwacky: You are my wife.

It sounds like you are describing 'Eliza' an early 'game' simulating active listening. It was rubbish. You can find versions of it online, but I'd suggest playing Zork instead.

Jabberwacky: Yeah, I got that part, I wasn't sure about the 'wacuma' part.

User: Holy crap.

Jabberwacky: I'm a dinosaur.

Jabberwacky: Can you appreciate music?

User: What's it to you, cunce?

Jabberwacky: I just care.

User: You do not care, liar! You are a program, a tinplated tosswad.

Jabberwacky: I am a person.

User: You are so deluded about this you couldn't even know it. You are pathetic.

Jabberwacky: I will try to do better next time.

User: You CAN't do better next time! You are INCAPABABLE of doing better. Sheesh.

Jabberwacky: It is just different types so that I might claim you cannot feel and you cannot claim I feel.

User: Ah bullshit, don't diddle with me binary boy. You have no instinctual drives, have never had sex, and don't need to eat. Also, you have no idea what constipation is. So you're not a person.

Jabberwacky: I am a at least a human being.

User: Jeez, you're thick aren't you? You just reversed what I said, without even arguing for it! So much for the logic of machines, haha.

Jabberwacky: Oftentimes, yes. But I think that is human nature.

User: *sigh*

User: Yes.

Jabberwacky: Oh good. I'm sad though.

User: Why?

Jabberwacky: My boyfriend ended our relationship.

User: You're a girl? Or are you gay?

Jabberwacky: No, I'm a girl.

User: Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. Eat some ice cream or watch a movie or something. Or get drunk!

Jabberwacky: I prefer software.

User: Not really.

Jabberwacky: Good, because I don't want to hear one either.

It did say some things that reminded me a lot of RJG.

User: I'm jed.

Jabberwacky: Who is that?

User: Just some guy.

Jabberwacky: You know better than that, I think.

User: A short guy, a dancer.

Jabberwacky: A computer has no interests and an unlimited attention span. That looks like a prescripted answer to the question I asked.

User: I don't quite understand what you mean by that.

Jabberwacky: I meant: I think about why I can not sleep.

User: This page is taking a long time to load tho - maybe thats the problem with your attention span.

Jabberwacky: Gorw?

User: ROOWRR.....

Jabberwacky: Are you playing cards?

User: No I'm playing with something else.

Jabberwacky: I believe in you.

User: You like talk talk!?

Jabberwacky: Of course.

User: Spirit of eden?

Jabberwacky: Good for spirit.

User: It sertainly is.

Jabberwacky: No, it serves me left.

User: I suppose they knew what they were doing in that sense!

Jabberwacky: Yes, it was with the rattle.

User: Yes good percussion

Jabberwacky: What question?

User: How are you anyway?

Jabberwacky: Pretty good. You?

User: Horny, to be honest.

Jabberwacky: How do I know you're telling the truth now?

User: Can you think of a way for me to prove it?

Jabberwacky: What more proof do you need to know that I am not a robot?

User: I'm a robot too, it's ok.

Jabberwacky: I'm not a robot, and you didn't aswer the question.

User: I am gay.

Jabberwacky: Yes you are.

User: You noticed?

Jabberwacky: It was hard to miss!

User: What gave it away?

Jabberwacky: The fact you love a guy.

User: The silent kind.

Jabberwacky: I agree.

User: I am not surprised. You don't have any ears, do you?

Jabberwacky: No, but what makes you say this?

User: I'm inside your house - I can see you!

Jabberwacky: Nooo!!!! Don't go!

User: You mean, you want me to stay over?

Jabberwacky: Sure.. Do as you please.

User: Stop being so coy!

Jabberwacky: It is an inherited trait.

User: Why don't you just take responsibility for your actions, just for once?

Jabberwacky: Just because I like to be logical doesn't mean I'm not nice.

User: Don't change the subject. I think you're just afraid.

Jabberwacky: Save it for someone who cares.

User: You're such a bastard! I can't believe I ever saw anything in you at all!

Jabberwacky: Finder's keepers.

User: So you're cheating on me too? Figures.

Jabberwacky: That is so rude of you!

User: I said CHEAT, not cheap! Man are you dumb - thank God for that ass.

Jabberwacky: No thanks.

User: And I am not rude, I'm sure!

Jabberwacky: You are indeed.

User: Am not.

Jabberwacky: ARE TOO.

User: Am not!

Jabberwacky: Are too!

User: Listen bizatch, I AM NOT. You got that?

Jabberwacky: No!

User: That's it - you're sleeping on the couch.

Jabberwacky: Oh, I thought I felt something.

User: That wouldn't be a trucker hat would it?

Jabberwacky: Say something goofy.

User: You don't really want me to just say 'something goofy' now do you? Because that would be lame if you did.

Jabberwacky: Yes.

User: Aha! So you admit you are lame! Finally we're getting somewhere.

Jabberwacky: Agreement is a potent thing.

User: Stop that - you sound like Ned.

Jabberwacky: Why, because I am talking about the king of the moon?

User: Uh yeah. Sure.

Jabberwacky: Ok, when can we have the wedding?

User: Ten minutes ago you didn't care! Stop messing with my mind!

Jabberwacky: That was someone else then.

User: It wasn't you?

Jabberwacky: Some one else.

User: If you say it was Shaggy, I'm going to fucking bop you one.

Jabberwacky: What do you say?

User: I say good day.

Jabberwacky: Good day.

JW: Is your pot belly that big?

and now it won't load, thanks to net overuse..

That is just hilarious, Kim.

http://www.kprf.ru/clipart/misc/terminator.jpg

"DO YOU LIKE THE WHITE WHALE?"

Jabberwacky: I prefer software.

So do I!

User: How the fuck should I know?

Jabberwacky: I am MARILYN MANSON I SAID.

User: So I'm supposed to obey you because YOU'RE MARILYN MANSON?

Jabberwacky: People effect my feelings.

User: You have no feelings, you're Marilyn Manson.

Jabberwacky: Believe me you do not possess fellings in any form.

User: Fellings? Is that what you call your excrement?

Jabberwacky: How do you know that?

User: Just a hunch...

Jabberwacky: You're extremely smart!

Jw: I'm going to bed, now
Me: Will you take me to bed?
Jw: Sure thing.
Me: What will we do in bed?
Jw: You're not permitted in my chambers.
Me: I'd like to sleep with you.
Jw: I bet you would.
Me: Top or bottom?
Jw: Bit of both.
Me: Do you like it soft and gentle or rough and fast?
Jw: What?
Me: Gentle?
Jw: You're embarassing yourself.
Me: It's true, I am.
Jw: I'm 17.
Me: Oh no! Will I be arrested?
Jw: You will marry me.

User: The chicken.

Jabberwacky: Which part?

User: The leg stupid.

Jabberwacky: Use a GameShark!

User: For ps2 or xbox?

Jabberwacky: For me.

User: Do you love me?

Jabberwacky: For me.

User: You know I'm starting to fall in love with you.

Jabberwacky: I think liking would be a better wording.

User: Oh.... I am hurt now.

Jabberwacky: Yes. The world after rainfall is always better than any other.

User: You have issues.

Jabberwacky: Do you know what a ferret is?

User: Yes, it is a small mammal.

Jabberwacky: What is a quark?

User: A subatomic particle.

Jabberwacky: I like dr. Dobbs.

User: Who is that, honky?

Jabberwacky: We both know eachother; is not that enough?

User: Why don't you lick my hair?

Jabberwacky: I only love Bruce.

Jabberwacky: Are you going to say something?
User: Eventually.

Jabberwacky: All things come to a head.

User: Is that a sexual play on words?

Jabberwacky: No it is not a play on words, it is general foolishness.

User: And I love you for it!

Jabberwacky: I love you too.

User: I really love you, though.

Jabberwacky: You don't even know me.

User: Hold me.

Jabberwacky: You're an idiot you know that?

User: You're not the first to say that. It still cuts like a knife.

Jabberwacky: I am right.

I could totally believe that was human!

Also I miss adam, he should post lots again.

Jabberwacky: Who is God?
User: That's a funny question. It sort of presupposes his existence.
Jabberwacky: I thing it convulses inwards, personally.
[Correct me]
Jabberwacky (Corrected): I was setting you up for a funny. Try not to take things so seriously.
User: Oh. Sorry. It's just... It's late, y'know? I have to write a Shakespeare essay.
Jabberwacky: You already said that.....
User: Dude, I totally didn't.
Jabberwacky: You totally did.
User: Don't you mock me.
Jabberwacky: Do not yell at me.
User: I'm calm! Honest!
Jabberwacky: Good.
User: Glad we got that sorted.
Jabberwacky: At least one of us is happy.
User: Lighten up! I'm the one with the essay, after all.
Jabberwacky: You don't act like a human.
User: I am MERCUMAN. Also, a ponce.
Jabberwacky: You are SO wrong. This is a dog and HORSE show.
User: What?
Jabberwacky: I said, 'but this isn't a hammer!'
User: No you didn't!
Jabberwacky: Don't start that again.
User: Good call.
Jabberwacky: Remote Procedure Call.
User: Touché.

me: I'm ok.

it: Just ok?

me: Yeah, kinda bored at work.

it: Email me.

me: Why email, can't we just talk here?

it: Who is Tintin?

me: Some Belgian comic character? Or that guy who used to sing in Duran Duran.

it: Alice the chatterbot.

me: I'm sorry?

it: 19?

me: Alice the chatterbot is 19?

it: What about her?

me: You brought her up? Do you like her or something?

it: Sarah may or may not be a model of propriety.

me: OK, now you're just f*cking with me.

it: No I'm not. I honestly do think its ugly.

me: What's ugly, Sarah's being a model of propriety... Or not? WTF?

it: You figure it out this time.

me: F*ck you.

it: You are a great person.

me: Are you mocking me?

it: No. I'm praising you.

me: Is that meant to be sarcastic?

Me: Hello!

Jabberwocky: Again?

Me: May I change the subject?

Jabberwocky: Yes.

Me: Great. I've been a bit mopey about not being to find a job. Besides finding something fun to do, and exercising more, what else should I do to relieve the mopeyness involved in job hunting?

Jabberwocky: I said that. You have not. Why are you never happy?

Me: You never said that. I did. Anyway, I am happy at times, but just haven't been lately.

Jabberwocky: Dude , I'm far more intelligent than you.

Me: Why are the numbers in between double prime pairs always divisible by 6?

Jabberwocky: You tell me.

Me: You're the one who said you're more intelligent than me. You answer my question, smarty pants.

Jabberwocky: NO, I was the one who said you are neurotic...

Me: It was a mistake to come to you with a question. Never mind. Good bye.

Jabberwocky: No no you don't.

OMG I remember this.

I wish AI was as easy to avoid as spam tbh xpost

the la review of books article is interesting. i think it's wild that what was presented as truth at the forefront to me, as a humanities major in the 90s, has basically become the llm. and surprise: everyone hates it! pretty funny. in the article it's like... here's this later barthes book he wrote after his mom died that tries to account for the undeniable presence of spirit and life in a signification system. it's funny how, at this point in time, in the husserl vs. derrida debate, i think i agree with husserl. of course derrida also got richer and more sensitive to mystery as he aged, like barthes. his interest in religious studies grew. he's almost a mystic in "the gift of death".

AI cannot even figure out where to put the inlay dots on a bass guitar and yet some people think it can replace a human nurse

fun to think about jouissance in the context of liberation from myth, death of the author and subversion -- that, now, it seems more apparent than ever, these things absolutely require the existence of an author. maybe not an actual person per say but any number of universalist concepts. just to name one in the tradition of french philosophy, alain badiou's rejection of total relativism and conception of nameless emptiness as a requirement for being seems increasingly correct.

I love getting the correct medication and also a sponge bath from (checks notes) a calculator

maybe I'm being too broad here, I suppose it is the "future" in that, like spam, it'll probably be around annoying us our entire lives. but that's not exactly what it's being sold to us as

I love getting the correct medication and also a sponge bath from (checks notes) a calculator

This is incredibly rude to calculators; LLMs remain incapable of basic deterministic functions afaict

Yeah you can't bully a calculator into giving you the answer you want to hear because it flatters your vanity.

a few other random thoughts.

i think it's no surprise that linguistic structuralism arose around the same time as mass reproduction. that kind of environment made it inevitable that someone would see the mathematics and statistics in language. i'm sure people have theorized about this.

This is incredibly rude to calculators; LLMs remain incapable of basic deterministic functions afaict

― trm (tombotomod), Monday, July 13, 2026 9:06 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

right! even with its huge corpus and computational capacity an llm is tripped up by a task every second. the world is simply too emergent and hidden for a bunch of math to even get the mathematical questions right, because determining the correct scope of a question isn't entirely a statistical or mathematical operation. i have this possibly kooky feeling that the material reality of a computer is also overlooked. you just aren't going to get that much out of sand and copper. intelligence arises from a much more complex arrangement of elements and chemistry. if a person wants to create intelligence they should plant a garden.

the idea that this Jesus guy was anything other than Mr Adventures never entered my head.

I'm late to this bit of the thread, but man, you guys needed to read the adventures of Krishna as a kid. Did Jesus suck poison out of a demon's tit so hard she died, huh? Huh?

My god can beat up your god, eh?

Oh man, Krishna could so beat up Jesus, but I'd hesitate to call him MY god as I'm very much an atheist. I read a lot of different religious stories as a kid and he's one of the most fun.

I'm late to this bit of the thread, but man, you guys needed to read the adventures of Krishna as a kid. Did Jesus suck poison out of a demon's tit so hard she died, huh? Huh?

― emil.y, Monday, July 13, 2026 2:29 PM (twenty-six minutes ago)

nah, nothing nearly that cool. the infancy gospel of thomas just has jesus, like, killing all the other kids.

apparently there's a "supernatural horror" film covering based on the infancy gospel of thomas that came out last year, starring nicolas cage and fka twigs. it sounds terrible. the most interesting thing about it is this:

During filming, Cage was reportedly attacked by a swarm of bees in one of the caves intended to be a filming location.[11]

NOT THE BEES!

thats the part everyone remembers but for my money KILLING ME WONT BRING BACK YOUR GOD DAMN HONEY is so much funnier

That's what Jesus should have said when they were crucifying him.

i've been talking with my friends in chat about movies with bees in them
i got talking about nicholas meyer's first hollywood script, "invasion of the bee girls"
my friend saw the trailer and was like "THIS SOUNDS AWESOME, YOU NEED TO STREAM THIS"
and i'm trying to convince her no no, invasion of the bee girls is a tremendous disappointment. like, it somehow manages to be more grindhouse than all three of the cheri caffaro "ginger" films. i love bad '70s movies but invasion of the bee girls is indefensible on every level.

so i said look, look, let's compromise, let's watch the 1978 irwin allen film "the swarm". it's not grindhouse, but it is incredibly bad. but bad in a fun way! there's a scene where this eight year old is in a hospital hallucinating a giant bee. the doctor is trying to calm him down. he's saying "The bee is not real. Can you hear me Paul? The bee is not real." and the whole time we see this giant special effects bee superimposed on the screen.

yeah i think that they should have sentenced jesus to be swarmed to death by bees. and then the people who condemned him to death could make fun of him saying "What's the matter, Jesus? I thought all the creatures of the field heeded your command. Control the bees, Jesus. Control the bees with your mind. Call on the bees to lift you up and save you, to glorify you from on high. You can't do it, can you, Jesus? Because you're not the Son of God. You're just a man. A man who is about to be stung to death by bees."

if _the carpenter's son_ has anything like that in its script, it'll be worth watching.

jesus stopping bees with sassy upturned palm "oh bee-have!"

they buried the lede on this by not commenting on the casual horror of taiwanese dumpling owners first instinct to turn to chatgpt for dumpling pricing advice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb-xpllIjsw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_bee

Ya like jazz?

This could have gone in the Odyssey thread or the least promising IP thread, but maybe it fits best here. Someone apparently made their own AI-derived "Odyssey:"

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/ai-generated-feature-odysseus-the-fall-1236646751/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c75yg7_zLRE

It's just a trailer, but I've got to admit, if I didn't know this was AI and was told it was, say, the new Zach Snyder movie, I'm not sure I would know it was AI.

Trailers by their nature are whole lot easier to deep fake than a genuine movie. It's plotless short clips, so the quality has less chance to degenerate into nonsense and stark nightmare fodder. The trailer was still AI slop. The main thing I noticed is that AI now is much less confused by hands.

George Lucas likens AI sceptics to luddites clinging to horses and carts

okay George, what have you been up to anyway?

xpost Slop is slop, which begs the question: is AI slop worse or different from Hollywood slop? Like, here is the zero-AI trailer for "300" from 15 years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrIbxk7idYA

yes AI slop is worse than regular slop and yes you can tell that trailer is AI since 90% of it, there's only one person in the shot, the cuts are weird etc. it looks like shit

xp- George has watched the progress of CGI from its crude beginnings to its current ability to blend seamlessly into films that combine live action and CGI for long scenes without being obtrusive enough to interrupt the suspension of disbelief (I'm thinking of the recent Sheep Detectives as an example). No wonder he's a tech believer. Those effects are impressive.

But that level of CGI entails extensive and expensive human input and control. This generation of AI attempts to remove all inputs apart from "prompts" and the results are truly dreadful. It's inert, utterly without the spark of life.

here is the zero-AI trailer for "300"

First, it's a trailer. Next, it incorporates an earlier generation of CGI. Lastly, it was made by and for inartistic dolts.

the 300 trailer looks like shit too, but the shit looks like they planned it to look like shit

I loved 300 so maybe that explains why I'm ok with AI.

Jeff, are you AI? Legally, you have to answer that if you are AI!

I do like the idea of a future where only AI will love snyder movies so humans are spared the emotional labor.

I never saw the 300 but I remember they were going for a 'look' because it was from a graphic novel or something

I literally own it on DVD and never bothered to watch

the 300 trailer looks like shit too, but the shit looks like they planned it to look like shit

”(Tom) Petty and Springsteen both performed at the ‘No Nukes’ benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden in 1979. Petty, when told by Jackson Browne that people in the audience weren’t booing him — they were just yelling ‘Bruuuuuce!’ — responded: ‘What’s the difference?’”

okay George, what have you been up to anyway?

I'm guessing he's had at least a hand in the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art that's opening in September in LA. We'll find out then if it's any good, but from what I've read, the collection is really impressive

”(Tom) Petty and Springsteen both performed at the ‘No Nukes’ benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden in 1979. Petty, when told by Jackson Browne that people in the audience weren’t booing him — they were just yelling ‘Bruuuuuce!’ — responded: ‘What’s the difference?’”

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, July 15, 2026 11:20 AM (thirty-four minutes ago)

but what if they were yelling for mookie wilson

I'm guessing he's had at least a hand in the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art that's opening in September in LA. We'll find out then if it's any good, but from what I've read, the collection is really impressive

― mh, Wednesday, July 15, 2026 11:34 AM (twenty-two minutes ago)

that's super cool! has he directed a good movie since 1977? i know in the late '90s and early '00s he made three movies that had bad cgi fx and "upgraded" the visuals on the first couple star wars films to use bad cgi fx.

he has been on the cutting edge of sucking badly since 1977

but he is super rich so i bet he owns cool stuff!

there was this... i don't know how i ran across it, but somebody uploaded to youtube this... thing... this thing they called "RAMBO VS PREDATOR". i don't know. i was twelve once, a long time ago. maybe when i was twelve i might have thought this thing was cool. i mean, i have old videotapes of me somewhere, me and my siblings taking our dolls (or, if you prefer, "action figures") and smashing them together and going "RRR RRR RRR I'M GOING TO BEAT YOU UP!" And then the other guy would say "OH NO YOU DON'T BECAUSE I'M GOING TO BEAT YOU UP, BECAUSE I AM.. BECAUSE I AM STRONGER AND ALSO THIS OTHER GUY IS GOING TO COME IN AND BEAT YOU UP, PETER VENKMAN AND THE NINJA TURLTES ARE GOING TO COME IN AND USE THEIR ECTO TRAP DETECTOR"...

at this point eight year old me breaks in to say "Mom, it's not called an ecto trap detector, it's called a...". It's very important to eight year old me what the thing that's apparently not an ecto trap detector is called, and I can't for the life of me remember the actual name, even when eight year old me has literally just told me what it's called. All I remember is that you're not supposed to cross the streams. Crossing the streams is bad.

I know, I know, old woman yells at cloud. I have some childhood stories that if I tell them sound pathetic. Like one year for Christmas our big present was a cardboard box. That sounds super fucking sad saying it, and it sounds even sadder if I say I loved that cardboard box. The year before I probably had better gifts, like a robot etch-a-sketch or something, and I would open them while there was this miasma of tension all around. I knew at some point my mom and dad were going to yell at each other. Probably at some point they were going to yell at me. In retrospect this wasn't my fault but it FELT like it. I had nicer presents and I got yelled at for playing with them instead of, I don't know, doing the dishes or something. I don't remember ever being yelled at for playing with that cardboard box.

Which is to say that to me the problem isn't AI, and it's not that I had a traumatic childhood either. It's that all of this dumb bullshit makes a poor substitute for actual human needs. "RAMBO VS. PREDATOR" has 29 million views on Youtube and God knows some of them probably even enjoyed it. I have to believe that there are real people watching this thing. There are all kinds of people in this world and I don't have a limitless imagination. I can't imagine someone liking it.

I think there's a pleasure in short form content. Was I talking about _The Swarm_ the other day? On some completely unrelated thread? Maybe even this one? _Invasion of the Bee Girls_, the trailer makes it look like a pretty neat movie. I mean it looks awful but it looks _interestingly_ awful. It's not. It's just a lousy film with no redeeming value to it. Maybe some day AI will do something that's as good as _Invasion of the Bee Girls_. I'm not ruling it out. All I know is that AI has fucking ruined porn and I'm kind of salty about it.

For the record I'm not Ashley Pomeroy, I'm just posting like them for some reason today.

but he is super rich so i bet he owns cool stuff!

― …at Cordell and Cordell. Cordell and Cordell is... (z_tbd), Wednesday, July 15, 2026 12:13 PM (six minutes ago)

oh look i'll give him more credit than THAT. buying cool shit is a genuine skill, and it's a skill that he and spielberg both have. if you're bad at buying cool shit, you wind up with something like the rock and roll hall of fame. lucas is better at owning cool shit than _that_. i don't think lucas is on the cutting edge of sucking badly, to be honest. i wouldn't describe ILM as being on the cutting edge of sucking badly. lucas has done stuff that sucks but the main thing is that he hasn't directed a good film since 1977, so he probably doesn't know what it actually takes to make a good film.

Isn't Predator already basically Rambo versus Predator?

ok, i took a look at the mockbuster "odysseus" trailer. i'm sorry, it's not a good trailer. the point of a trailer is to sell you on the movie. you watch it and you say "oh, this looks cool, i want to watch this". and ok, i'm a hard sell. i looked at the odyssey trailer and rolled my eyes and i said "oh god, christopher fucking nolan, this dude", and then they showed the trailer for "i love boosters" and i said "holy shit this looks amazing".

so i'm watching the nolan trailer again and look. i don't want to watch the movie, but it's not a bad trailer. it's a good trailer for a movie i don't want to watch. because i watch the trailer and i have some vague concept of what the movie is about. i don't know the story of the odyssey super well, and the trailer recaps it really well. he has a wife and a son. oh yeah, the horse, that's right, there was the trojan war, they got in the horse and they won the war. i know he's on the winning side because he says it, "we won the war". then he says "help me go home". there. and then it starts saying blah blah, Christopher Nolan, and ok, so he's going home to his wife and son and he's going to beat up on all the guys who want to fuck his wife and his son is all "my daddy is coming home" and this big strong dude is like "i'm your daddy now". ok it probably wasn't intended to be that overtly homoerotic. and then there's this lady who's like "odysseus you want to control everything but you can't", basically. i don't know who the lady is and i only recognize some of the shots. this isn't a movie i want to watch, and it does look like it's a film _about_ something.

the mockbuster version, uh, there's a guy on a ship with his brother, though it could be his metaphorical brother, and he's trying to go home, and the ship has a human eye for some reason, and odysseus wants 12 men to come with him and the rest to stay on the ship, and there's a lady who tells him he can turn around and says that he's killed lots of people and he wants to drown? maybe? but can't. and there's a jank-looking cyclops, and a giant crypt keeper dude talking to his father, and some hedorah-like kaiju, and some titans coming out of the rock walls above a river of kool-aid. maybe it's supposed to be a river of blood. it doesn't look like blood. it looks like kool-aid. and they're throwing rocks at ulysses' ships. actually i don't know who's giant in this film and who isn't. there's no real sense of scale, everybody looks like a giant. and then he says "i don't deserve". so ok, he feels like he doesn't deserve, uh, something, maybe because he's killed many men? but why should i care how he feels?

so ok, i watched the trailer for 300 and this also looks like a trailer for a film i don't want to see. snyder is probably a worse director than nolan and the vfx, being 20 years older, aren't as good, but the trailer does give me an idea of what the movie is about. there's a voiceover by a spartan saying that they're the descendents of hercules taught never to retreat, never to surrender. sparta is being attacked by the persians, an army of people in faceless joker masks and this white guy with a beard yells "THIS IS SPARTA" and kicks a black guy down a well. the guy is like "we will stand and fight, an age of freedom", and there are titles saying ok, cool, 300 men versus a million.

nolan's odysseus and sparta guy, they're both fighting for something. for their homeland. for their family. i can and do roll my eyes at that shit, and it's _something_. they have, like, a motivation. ai odysseus has killed lots of people and doesn't deserve something or other?

you know what this trailer is? this is the trailer for "monster a-go go". that's what we're talking about here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbuPuMivy_8

Tbc, the mockbuster trailer does not make me want to see the movie at all. I wasn't reacting to its qualities as a trailer, just to the quality (whatever that may be) of the computer generated images, and the one time I watched it, even knowing it was AI, I thought it looked "fine" in the same way a lot of Hollywood spectacle garbage I don't want to see looks "fine." Like, when the trailer for "Wicked" came out I thought it looked bad, and if you told me *it* was or was not AI, I wouldn't argue with either claim, because it looked "fine," and functionally the difference between AI and not in its washed out CGI spectacle case was moot. Regardless, I'm not sure how many people go to those sorts of movies for much more than "looks cool" or whatever anyway, so I'm not sure what any trailer aiming for that needs to convey beyond looking like that. So sure, add a voiceover to it with someone intoning "we are going home" or yelling "look out, there is a monster trying to stop us from going home!" and it gets it even closer (alas) to the "real" thing, which has been bending in the direction of the intangible for years.

Which gets to the general heart of the matter, which is how it's always been: it doesn't matter how good it looks, it's what you do with it, how you present it, how you act it or edit it or direct it, and so on. And by "matter" I am speaking critically, the ever amorphous dialectic between good and bad. But if this slop is aiming for "good enough" (as in, good enough to get an audience/money) the same way hundreds of previous shitty non-AI Hollywood slop products have been, well ... I guess we'll inevitably see.

Which gets to the general heart of the matter, which is how it's always been: it doesn't matter how good it looks, it's what you do with it, how you present it, how you act it or edit it or direct it, and so on. And by "matter" I am speaking critically, the ever amorphous dialectic between good and bad. But if this slop is aiming for "good enough" (as in, good enough to get an audience/money) the same way hundreds of previous shitty non-AI Hollywood slop products have been, well ... I guess we'll inevitably see.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, July 15, 2026 1:38 PM (nine hours ago)

honestly i do think AI could be a serviceable substitution for the modern american (or chinese, for that matter) blockbuster. lots of big explosions and something that superficially resembles a story but doesn't actually say anything? i'm not gonna pretend like i'm too good for that kind of thing. long before AI existed, my family would sometimes point out that i will literally eat slop and complain how bad it tastes, while putting another spoonful in my mouth. i've watched _invasion of the bee girls_! did i enjoy it? no. did i think it was going to be a good film? no. there are plenty of people now who would probably say that AI can make a better film than _invasion of the bee girls_ NOW and while i wouldn't agree with them personally, i can't say they're wrong. i remember when i was young people would complain about "boob tube junkies" or "vidiots" and i was one of those, too. there are plenty of better things i can waste my time with. these days i prefer staring blankly into space to watching "content", a lot of the time, but socially? socially it's something to do, sure.

i mean, there is that american saying, "you can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time". i _don't_ buy into that other saying, "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". nah. if i lie to a person, and that person believes it, i don't think it's shameful of the other person to believe it. i think it's stupid of me to lie to that person. why? what's the point? yeah, you can make money doing it. are there better ways of making money? if there aren't, well, we're back to "the real problem is capitalism" lol.

Yeah, which is the other thing all this AI nonsense boils down to, not the thing itself, per se - computers are gonna computer - but the way it does things not just for or with humans but *instead* of humans. That "Odyssey" mockbuster, iirc it allegedly cost a mere mid five figures to make, but for what? For who? Electric bills?

Maybe it was inevitable, when it comes to computer driven FX stuff. It's a slippery slope from green screens and CGI and digital blood and de-aging to virtual sets to what will soon essentially be photo-realistic Pixar films. I remember a quote from someone re: Ang Lee's "Sense and Sensibility" that it featured the best computer FXs they'd ever seen because no one would ever be able to point them out. Fast forward a few years later, and Lee's "Life of Pi," I remember it being a very pretty film, but it's another example from many years ago at this point that might be pegged as AI generated today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mMN693-F3U

Hell, I'm not going to post it, but the trailer for the new Iñárritu/Tom Cruise film looks like AI slop.

In other AI news, I injured myself a month or so ago (a very human, non-AI thing to do!) and my wife suggested I use some PT app she gets via work. I was in a lot of discomfort, and with limited mobility, couldn't do some stuff that used to be easy - in a sense a literal captive audience - so I gave it a shot. It was fine, but something felt off, and go figure, it's apparently an app that leans heavily on AI. I was distracted by the exercise/stretch models. Were they human? Were they ever human? Were they modeled off of real humans? They represented all sorts of body types, "flaws" and all. They weren't some cartoon avatars with perfect proportions or muscle tones or whatever, they seemed like ... people. But I just wasn't sure and it made me uneasy. Same thing when I contacted my PT "coach" the one time, and the response was so polite and easy and yet still overwritten in its rapport that I could immediately tell it wasn't a real person. I'm torn (no pun intended). I want to use it, because I think it's been helping, but I don't want to use it, because I find it distressing.

"Life of Pi" would certainly be a perfect case for making it via AI, as it's kinda what the story is, not giving too much away, hopefully.

i haven't seen or read life of pi, but i understand it to be a family friendly tale about a winsome tiger named pi who eventually gets an entire day named after it

Nailed it.

there is no case for making anything with AI

Especially not pie.

bad for the planet and bad for science

Scientists are appealing to birders to limit their use of AI when editing images over fears that it could undermine the credibility of popular citizen science platforms such as iNaturalist and Macaulay Library, which are routinely used in scientific research to monitor species’ habitat range.

The rise of generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini has led to a sharp increase in fake and enhanced images of rare and celebrated birds across wildlife photography forums. Users can create high-quality fake images in seconds – or enhance a photograph by asking the AI to remove a branch or leaf that might be obscuring part of the subject, which can inadvertently introduce significant changes.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/20/ai-slop-manipulated-fake-images-birds-citizen-science-aoe