5 days before becoming PM Brown faced a tough BBC grilling – politicalbetting.com

Because Ms Truss is supposed to be Continuity Boris. If there was a fridge handy, she would probably be hiding in it...

A lot of blame seems to attributed to Graham Brady Old Lady for the elongated leadership contest, or even Rishi for not pulling out.

The lion’s share of blame actually lies with Boris Johnson, who after pleading for a month or so’s stay of execution, couldn’t even be bothered turning up to work.

The country has drifted, at a time of crisis.

It's a pity that @RochdalePioneers got rid of his safe - otherwise he could have lent it to Liz to hide in!

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

Truss’s refusal to come on the national broadcaster - while plausibly logical in terms of pure campaign strategy - is absolutely shit in terms of what it says about her willingness to *lead* the country.

Truss is in a difficult position because of the assumption that she'll win, but technically she's still just a leadership candidate in the same position as Sunak.

Not really.

She is heir assumptive and thinks she is above going on the national broadcaster.

Will she bother turning up for PMQs?

Gardenwalker said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

Truss’s refusal to come on the national broadcaster - while plausibly logical in terms of pure campaign strategy - is absolutely shit in terms of what it says about her willingness to *lead* the country.

Truss is in a difficult position because of the assumption that she'll win, but technically she's still just a leadership candidate in the same position as Sunak.

Not really.

She is heir assumptive and thinks she is above going on the national broadcaster.

It's synthetic outrage. Nick Robinson doesn't have any role in our constitution.

The problem is that she hasn't got the job yet because the contest was made too long.

ExiledInScotland said:

People who don't like Boris and wanted him to resign are now complaining that he's not doing his job? You have spotted that it's August? And you expect Liz Truss to have fully worked out answers to the Fuel Price crisis without Civil Service input?

I understand why she's not going on TV. Journalists now go for the gotcha rather than letting their interviewees develop an answer. I blame the journalists as much as the politicians.

So politicians shouldn’t do their job because it’s hot, or because journalists are too annoying?

“It’s a view”.

ExiledInScotland said:

People who don't like Boris and wanted him to resign are now complaining that he's not doing his job? You have spotted that it's August? And you expect Liz Truss to have fully worked out answers to the Fuel Price crisis without Civil Service input?

I understand why she's not going on TV. Journalists now go for the gotcha rather than letting their interviewees develop an answer. I blame the journalists as much as the politicians.

I'd like an acknowledgement from Liz that she even understands it's a problem. She's formulated plans to cut VAT by 5%, why not have some kind of clue to keep energy prices down, clearly she thinks there's room to borrow £40bn.

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

Truss’s refusal to come on the national broadcaster - while plausibly logical in terms of pure campaign strategy - is absolutely shit in terms of what it says about her willingness to *lead* the country.

Truss is in a difficult position because of the assumption that she'll win, but technically she's still just a leadership candidate in the same position as Sunak.

Not really.

She is heir assumptive and thinks she is above going on the national broadcaster.

It's synthetic outrage. Nick Robinson doesn't have any role in our constitution.

The problem is that she hasn't got the job yet because the contest was made too long.

Of course he doesn’t.
I’m not outraged.

I just note the judgment that prizes questionable narrow strategy over the bigger picture of public accountability and indeed leadership during crisis.

It does not say great things about her character.

@kyf_100

“Free version (slow, queue)

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

Paid with credits (instant, and you get a few credits free)

https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/home

I've been playing with both all afternoon and have barely got anything coherent, let alone anything chuckleworthty.”

++++

I don’t wish to boast - you know what I’m like - but I was getting memorable results within 20 minutes and Holy Shit results within 2 hours

You just have to work out what Stable Diffusion is good at - and what it isn’t - and also what words trigger it into doing the good shit, without also triggering it’s no-porn no-violence censor modules

Perhaps I’m good at it because I’m good with flints and words? Which is slightly reassuring. Still a small role for the artist

Stuartinromford said:

MaxPB said:

ExiledInScotland said:

People who don't like Boris and wanted him to resign are now complaining that he's not doing his job? You have spotted that it's August? And you expect Liz Truss to have fully worked out answers to the Fuel Price crisis without Civil Service input?

I understand why she's not going on TV. Journalists now go for the gotcha rather than letting their interviewees develop an answer. I blame the journalists as much as the politicians.

I'd like an acknowledgement from Liz that she even understands it's a problem. She's formulated plans to cut VAT by 5%, why not have some kind of clue to keep energy prices down, clearly she thinks there's room to borrow £40bn.

Like some of the other proposals, it's about people proposing the thing they have wanted to do all along as a solution to the latest crisis, no matter how tenuous the connection.

Had 2016 gone the other way, I'm sure that there would currently be headlines saying "We send £350 million a week to the EU. Let's use it to cut fuel bills instead."

No I think it's worse than that, she's simply refusing to even admit that energy prices are an issue. I haven't seen a single time where she's said that as PM she would address them other than a few words about the free market. The next PM exists in a Tory ivory tower and that's going to end in disaster for everyone.

Gardenwalker said:

Truss’s refusal to come on the national broadcaster - while plausibly logical in terms of pure campaign strategy - is absolutely shit in terms of what it says about her willingness to *lead* the country.

Perhaps she wouldn't have got a hard enough thrashing?

Beibheirli_C said:

MikeSmithson said:

Will she bother turning up for PMQs?

Oh yes! Because that will be a moment in the limelight. A chance to glory in the attention of others, say banal things and pretend to be PM.

She's going to be a total disaster.

Leon said:

@kyf_100

“Free version (slow, queue)

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

Paid with credits (instant, and you get a few credits free)

https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/home

I've been playing with both all afternoon and have barely got anything coherent, let alone anything chuckleworthty.”

++++

I don’t wish to boast - you know what I’m like - but I was getting memorable results within 20 minutes and Holy Shit results within 2 hours

You just have to work out what Stable Diffusion is good at - and what it isn’t - and also what words trigger it into doing the good shit, without also triggering it’s no-porn no-violence censor modules

Perhaps I’m good at it because I’m good with flints and words? Which is slightly reassuring. Still a small role for the artist

It's worth playing with Midjourney too if you haven't. For 'liz truss pork markets' it's given this...

Some election news from the US: Some Republican candidates are offering compromises on abortion. For example, in Colorado, Senate candidate Joe O'Dea has taken the middle position, calling for it to be legal early and illegal late. (Which is where most American voters are.)
https://www.joeodea.com/

In Washington state, Senate candidate Tiffany Smiley has said that she is pro-life -- but that, if elected, she would not vote to ban abortion nation wide. And, she is calling for more support for women in pregnancy, and after their babies are born.
https://www.smileyforwashington.com/

Both have attractive personal stories.

(This reminds me more than a little of Bill Clinton's compromise: He advocated making abortion safe, legal -- and rare. Earlier in his political career, he had claimed to be pro-life, by the way, as did Al Gore.)

Leon said:

@kyf_100

“Free version (slow, queue)

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

Paid with credits (instant, and you get a few credits free)

https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/home

I've been playing with both all afternoon and have barely got anything coherent, let alone anything chuckleworthty.”

++++

I don’t wish to boast - you know what I’m like - but I was getting memorable results within 20 minutes and Holy Shit results within 2 hours

You just have to work out what Stable Diffusion is good at - and what it isn’t - and also what words trigger it into doing the good shit, without also triggering it’s no-porn no-violence censor modules

Perhaps I’m good at it because I’m good with flints and words? Which is slightly reassuring. Still a small role for the artist

I found it absolutely spot on at creating stock-y images like "attractive boho girl stares longingly at you across the room at party" or "windswept man on yacht stares out to sea" but when you try to feed it anything unexpected or contradictory, it struggles. "Man high fiving giant rat" delivered nothing of the sort, "dictator in general's uniform at a warehouse rave surrounded by gurning idiots" delivered an image that looked more like a bunch of army blokes in a barracks, and certainly not passable as photographic (too many distortions), and when I tried "the sugababes doing karaoke at a death metal concert, the stage is on fire", it delivered neither sugababes nor fire - no death metal either, come to think of it - just three generic singers standing on a generic stage.

So my takeaway is it's fairly good at producing stock-y expected images, but if you want to get granular about the details of the image, or throw something unexpected at it in terms of proportion size or "something that shouldn't be in the room is present" it can't cope.

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

@kyf_100

“Free version (slow, queue)

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

Paid with credits (instant, and you get a few credits free)

https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/home

I've been playing with both all afternoon and have barely got anything coherent, let alone anything chuckleworthty.”

++++

I don’t wish to boast - you know what I’m like - but I was getting memorable results within 20 minutes and Holy Shit results within 2 hours

You just have to work out what Stable Diffusion is good at - and what it isn’t - and also what words trigger it into doing the good shit, without also triggering it’s no-porn no-violence censor modules

Perhaps I’m good at it because I’m good with flints and words? Which is slightly reassuring. Still a small role for the artist

I found it absolutely spot on at creating stock-y images like "attractive boho girl stares longingly at you across the room at party" or "windswept man on yacht stares out to sea" but when you try to feed it anything unexpected or contradictory, it struggles. "Man high fiving giant rat" delivered nothing of the sort, "dictator in general's uniform at a warehouse rave surrounded by gurning idiots" delivered an image that looked more like a bunch of army blokes in a barracks, and certainly not passable as photographic (too many distortions), and when I tried "the sugababes doing karaoke at a death metal concert, the stage is on fire", it delivered neither sugababes nor fire - no death metal either, come to think of it - just three generic singers standing on a generic stage.

So my takeaway is it's fairly good at producing stock-y expected images, but if you want to get granular about the details of the image, or throw something unexpected at it in terms of proportion size or "something that shouldn't be in the room is present" it can't cope.

No, you’re simply doing it wrong

Your promptcraft is poor, and you’re trying to get it to do things it’s not good at - at least via words (you can also use images as prompts if you’re not good with the words)

You’re like someone who’s been given the world’s first plane and you’re complaining it’s no good for collecting the shopping

That interview with Gordon Brown shows what a political giant he was in comparison with the current Conservative pygmies. And I speak as somebody who had no time at all for Gordon Brown.

MaxPB said:

Stuartinromford said:

MaxPB said:

ExiledInScotland said:

People who don't like Boris and wanted him to resign are now complaining that he's not doing his job? You have spotted that it's August? And you expect Liz Truss to have fully worked out answers to the Fuel Price crisis without Civil Service input?

I understand why she's not going on TV. Journalists now go for the gotcha rather than letting their interviewees develop an answer. I blame the journalists as much as the politicians.

I'd like an acknowledgement from Liz that she even understands it's a problem. She's formulated plans to cut VAT by 5%, why not have some kind of clue to keep energy prices down, clearly she thinks there's room to borrow £40bn.

Like some of the other proposals, it's about people proposing the thing they have wanted to do all along as a solution to the latest crisis, no matter how tenuous the connection.

Had 2016 gone the other way, I'm sure that there would currently be headlines saying "We send £350 million a week to the EU. Let's use it to cut fuel bills instead."

No I think it's worse than that, she's simply refusing to even admit that energy prices are an issue. I haven't seen a single time where she's said that as PM she would address them other than a few words about the free market. The next PM exists in a Tory ivory tower and that's going to end in disaster for everyone.

I suspect there's something deeper afoot. Liz believes the Brits are lazy beggars. She's calculated that a full-blown energy crisis will force the masses to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and be deprogrammed from their reliance on an cumbersome and overbearing state. It might be grisly in the short term, but under her tutelage we will emerge ready and rebuilt into a golden age.

MaxPB said:

Stuartinromford said:

MaxPB said:

ExiledInScotland said:

People who don't like Boris and wanted him to resign are now complaining that he's not doing his job? You have spotted that it's August? And you expect Liz Truss to have fully worked out answers to the Fuel Price crisis without Civil Service input?

I understand why she's not going on TV. Journalists now go for the gotcha rather than letting their interviewees develop an answer. I blame the journalists as much as the politicians.

I'd like an acknowledgement from Liz that she even understands it's a problem. She's formulated plans to cut VAT by 5%, why not have some kind of clue to keep energy prices down, clearly she thinks there's room to borrow £40bn.

Like some of the other proposals, it's about people proposing the thing they have wanted to do all along as a solution to the latest crisis, no matter how tenuous the connection.

Had 2016 gone the other way, I'm sure that there would currently be headlines saying "We send £350 million a week to the EU. Let's use it to cut fuel bills instead."

No I think it's worse than that, she's simply refusing to even admit that energy prices are an issue. I haven't seen a single time where she's said that as PM she would address them other than a few words about the free market. The next PM exists in a Tory ivory tower and that's going to end in disaster for everyone.

There's a chunk of that.

Small-to-medium crises are good for idealogical politicians, because they are opportunities to get public consent to move society the way you want it. Blair got consent for his expansion of the state becuase everyone knew, deep down, that the public realm was more than a bit shabby. Cameron didn't have to argue that hard for austerity, becasue it was accepted that there was no money left. And so on.

What's incoming is huge. For those of us who have been broadly comfortable, it will be unpleasant. For people already on the edge, it will be ruinous. Then, as with all-out War
or the early days of Covid, what a politician wants to do goes out the window.

Truss has a fairly consistent vision through her political career of small state / low tax / maximum freedom. She, Kwarteng, Redwood, Rees-Mogg... they didn't go into politics to administer a massive rapid transfer of money to poor people. She can't use this crisis to change the country in the way she wants, because there's no public consent for small state / low tax / maximum freedom and it almost certainly would end in disaster.

Worse than that, she has boxed herself in over the leadership campaign. I sort of get why, though once she was up against Rishi the Boriskiller, she was home and dry. But she now has a massive explanation job on her hands, telling the UK why she is going to spend more than the dry right would like but less than the public desire. And she has shown no sign of beginning to do this.

The New York Times has made some mistakes in hiring: "The New York Times has come under fire for hiring freelancers who praised Adolf Hitler and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas.

A videographer, Soliman Hijjy, has a history of praising Hitler, who was responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust."
And they hired another, with a similar background: Hosam Salem. And earlier still another, Fady Hanona -- who had also worked fot the Guardian.
source: https://www.mediaite.com/news/new-york-times-under-fire-for-hiring-freelancers-who-praised-hitler-hamas/

Gardenwalker said:

noneoftheabove said:

rottenborough said:

MaxPB said:

If Liz Truss does borrow £40bn to cut VAT but doesn't freeze energy prices at some affordable rate it's the end of the Tory party for at least a generation.

I honestly can't think of a worse use of the national credit card than a VAT cut right now. Borrowing to keep prices down, borrowing to invest, borrowing to keep the lights on all make sense. Borrowing to give people £100 off a £3500 TV doesn't

The only priority for the government in the next month is coming up with a way to keep energy bills down to £1200 for lower income people, £2000 for middle income and £4000 for higher income people and working out how to help businesses.

This. 100x this.

Her government could be finished by the end of next week frankly.

Nothing they do afterwards will make the slightest difference.

It is so blatantly obvious though, surely she can't be unaware of the problem or unwilling to address it? Far more likely she has been badly advised or decided herself that it is better to keep a plan secret for a big reveal as her first act as PM.

I don’t expect her to unveil her solution to Nick Robinson.

But I haven’t even seen her recognise the potential scale or complexity of the problem, just crap about not penalising entrepreneurship.

People are asking for a solution to Nick Robinson?

I thought that was what GB News was for.

noneoftheabove said:

rottenborough said:

MaxPB said:

If Liz Truss does borrow £40bn to cut VAT but doesn't freeze energy prices at some affordable rate it's the end of the Tory party for at least a generation.

I honestly can't think of a worse use of the national credit card than a VAT cut right now. Borrowing to keep prices down, borrowing to invest, borrowing to keep the lights on all make sense. Borrowing to give people £100 off a £3500 TV doesn't

The only priority for the government in the next month is coming up with a way to keep energy bills down to £1200 for lower income people, £2000 for middle income and £4000 for higher income people and working out how to help businesses.

This. 100x this.

Her government could be finished by the end of next week frankly.

Nothing they do afterwards will make the slightest difference.

It is so blatantly obvious though, surely she can't be unaware of the problem or unwilling to address it? Far more likely she has been badly advised or decided herself that it is better to keep a plan secret for a big reveal as her first act as PM.

Pretend not to give a toss for weeks on end while people lie awake worrying about how to pay their energy bills - in order to convince people as comprehensively as possible that you're performing the U-turn of all time immediately after being elected?

Sheer brilliance.

Selebian said:

ohnotnow said:

Not to give @Leon any more ideas, but I admit this is rather suggestive of a different 'queening' than I was anticipating from the prompt.

Tory power stance!

But also a figure too small for the crown she is trying to wear.

Could be prescient.

Nigelb said:

Standard poll.

EXCLUSIVE: Poll reveals 51 per cent of adults support an election this year, with only 20 per cent taking the opposite view
https://twitter.com/EveningStandard/status/1564632971587600392

People want rid. I don't expect a Truss bounce, more a further dip.

ohnotnow said:

Not to give @Leon any more ideas, but I admit this is rather suggestive of a different 'queening' than I was anticipating from the prompt.

Queening now !

Leon said:

I fed in this prompt


“A bunch of PB-ers cowering in a cupboard, staring in bewilderment at Stable Diffusion”

Haven't you been given a cease and desist prompt - or has that been rescinded ?

Republicans fight abortion backlash with ads — and stealth website edits
Arizona’s Blake Masters is among the Republicans changing abortion positions on their websites, while others are airing TV ads on their stances.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/30/republican-abortion-positions-midterm-elections-00054128

Selebian said:

Leon said:

I fed in this prompt


“A bunch of PB-ers cowering in a cupboard, staring in bewilderment at Stable Diffusion”

Bit young and female for here, aren't they? Or do I misjudge the PB demographic?

Leon’s “mistresses” emerge blinkingly into the light from his basement in North London.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

I fed in this prompt


“A bunch of PB-ers cowering in a cupboard, staring in bewilderment at Stable Diffusion”

Why are you still posted grotesque images of children that you promised you wouldn't

Because others have posted their own images and weren’t censured

So I posted mine. I can’t help it if they frighten the fuck out of you, old man

kyf_100 said:

Selebian said:

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

@kyf_100

“Free version (slow, queue)

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

Paid with credits (instant, and you get a few credits free)

https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/home

I've been playing with both all afternoon and have barely got anything coherent, let alone anything chuckleworthty.”

++++

I don’t wish to boast - you know what I’m like - but I was getting memorable results within 20 minutes and Holy Shit results within 2 hours

You just have to work out what Stable Diffusion is good at - and what it isn’t - and also what words trigger it into doing the good shit, without also triggering it’s no-porn no-violence censor modules

Perhaps I’m good at it because I’m good with flints and words? Which is slightly reassuring. Still a small role for the artist

I found it absolutely spot on at creating stock-y images like "attractive boho girl stares longingly at you across the room at party" or "windswept man on yacht stares out to sea" but when you try to feed it anything unexpected or contradictory, it struggles. "Man high fiving giant rat" delivered nothing of the sort, "dictator in general's uniform at a warehouse rave surrounded by gurning idiots" delivered an image that looked more like a bunch of army blokes in a barracks, and certainly not passable as photographic (too many distortions), and when I tried "the sugababes doing karaoke at a death metal concert, the stage is on fire", it delivered neither sugababes nor fire - no death metal either, come to think of it - just three generic singers standing on a generic stage.

So my takeaway is it's fairly good at producing stock-y expected images, but if you want to get granular about the details of the image, or throw something unexpected at it in terms of proportion size or "something that shouldn't be in the room is present" it can't cope.

Stock images are where I can see this kind of thing taking off. I guess it's a huge enough market to go after. I just hope the developers have been scrupulous about the licensing of training sets - it seems a bit of a stretch to call a generated image a derived work, but a stretch is no impediment to long court battles for vested interests with deep pockets (e.g. Oracle versus Google).

On some of your specific examples, moral rights are an interesting one. If you can create a recognisable image of the sugababes then what restrictions do they have on how it is used? You'd probably be fine in certain contexts with some of the normal defences, but others could be tricky.

I've controlled for "it won't let you do famous people" - since I've had remarkable success at prompts including "Britney Spears holding hands with a clown" and "Britney and Rhianna kissing" (which is surprising it got through the filter as the final result is *nearly* lewd).

In terms of usefulness, I once did some work for a company whose big idea for a PR stunt was to get the lead singers of two notorious rival bands to sing together on stage (sponsored by the company of course). A photoshopper was duly appointed and spent a day creating a realistic looking image of the two rival singers loved up and crooning together in a duet (the company logo flying proudly behind them on stage). The image was borderline believable, though still photoshopped if you looked at it closely. Hence my interest in working with prompts like this. I've had situations where it would have actually been useful at work.

The type of images I've been generating today look absolutely nothing close to what the professional photoshopper was able to achieve in a few hours, and it really does feel like pot luck more than anything else. One of the images I generated gave me two sugababes, but one of them had three legs.

My overall impression of it is "meh, it's a bit of fun but it's wrong 9 times out of 10 and generates nothing close to what a skilled human can create, though using AI may well in the future cut down on a professional designer's workflow substantially (a lot of modern photoshopping is automated through ai tools, albeit guided by a human hand).

You’re using it wrong. It’s that basic

Leon said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

I fed in this prompt


“A bunch of PB-ers cowering in a cupboard, staring in bewilderment at Stable Diffusion”

Why are you still posted grotesque images of children that you promised you wouldn't

Because others have posted their own images and weren’t censured

So I posted mine. I can’t help it if they frighten the fuck out of you, old man

They do not frighten me but they show little respect for children, many of whom are in a war zone terrified

I may be an old man about to have our 5th grandchild but I do not consider your images anything to do with my age but just plain disrespect for children

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

Truss’s refusal to come on the national broadcaster - while plausibly logical in terms of pure campaign strategy - is absolutely shit in terms of what it says about her willingness to *lead* the country.

Truss is in a difficult position because of the assumption that she'll win, but technically she's still just a leadership candidate in the same position as Sunak.

Not really.

She is heir assumptive and thinks she is above going on the national broadcaster.

It's synthetic outrage. Nick Robinson doesn't have any role in our constitution.

The problem is that she hasn't got the job yet because the contest was made too long.

My outrage (!) about Liz Truss dodging scrutiny because her vacuous soundbites, boosterism and button-pushing couldn't stand up to it is not synthetic.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

I fed in this prompt


“A bunch of PB-ers cowering in a cupboard, staring in bewilderment at Stable Diffusion”

Why are you still posted grotesque images of children that you promised you wouldn't

By the time girls get to 14 and are still doing dance competitions, that looks about par for the course

Jim_Miller said:

The New York Times has made some mistakes in hiring: "The New York Times has come under fire for hiring freelancers who praised Adolf Hitler and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas.

A videographer, Soliman Hijjy, has a history of praising Hitler, who was responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust."
And they hired another, with a similar background: Hosam Salem. And earlier still another, Fady Hanona -- who had also worked fot the Guardian.
source: https://www.mediaite.com/news/new-york-times-under-fire-for-hiring-freelancers-who-praised-hitler-hamas/

Ah, so that's who Hitler was. Nice of them to explain it.

Apropos of nothing, a 1/16 shot was beaten at Chepstow today.

Leon said:

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

kyf_100 said:

Selebian said:

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

@kyf_100

“Free version (slow, queue)

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

Paid with credits (instant, and you get a few credits free)

https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/home

I've been playing with both all afternoon and have barely got anything coherent, let alone anything chuckleworthty.”

++++

I don’t wish to boast - you know what I’m like - but I was getting memorable results within 20 minutes and Holy Shit results within 2 hours

You just have to work out what Stable Diffusion is good at - and what it isn’t - and also what words trigger it into doing the good shit, without also triggering it’s no-porn no-violence censor modules

Perhaps I’m good at it because I’m good with flints and words? Which is slightly reassuring. Still a small role for the artist

I found it absolutely spot on at creating stock-y images like "attractive boho girl stares longingly at you across the room at party" or "windswept man on yacht stares out to sea" but when you try to feed it anything unexpected or contradictory, it struggles. "Man high fiving giant rat" delivered nothing of the sort, "dictator in general's uniform at a warehouse rave surrounded by gurning idiots" delivered an image that looked more like a bunch of army blokes in a barracks, and certainly not passable as photographic (too many distortions), and when I tried "the sugababes doing karaoke at a death metal concert, the stage is on fire", it delivered neither sugababes nor fire - no death metal either, come to think of it - just three generic singers standing on a generic stage.

So my takeaway is it's fairly good at producing stock-y expected images, but if you want to get granular about the details of the image, or throw something unexpected at it in terms of proportion size or "something that shouldn't be in the room is present" it can't cope.

Stock images are where I can see this kind of thing taking off. I guess it's a huge enough market to go after. I just hope the developers have been scrupulous about the licensing of training sets - it seems a bit of a stretch to call a generated image a derived work, but a stretch is no impediment to long court battles for vested interests with deep pockets (e.g. Oracle versus Google).

On some of your specific examples, moral rights are an interesting one. If you can create a recognisable image of the sugababes then what restrictions do they have on how it is used? You'd probably be fine in certain contexts with some of the normal defences, but others could be tricky.

I've controlled for "it won't let you do famous people" - since I've had remarkable success at prompts including "Britney Spears holding hands with a clown" and "Britney and Rhianna kissing" (which is surprising it got through the filter as the final result is *nearly* lewd).

In terms of usefulness, I once did some work for a company whose big idea for a PR stunt was to get the lead singers of two notorious rival bands to sing together on stage (sponsored by the company of course). A photoshopper was duly appointed and spent a day creating a realistic looking image of the two rival singers loved up and crooning together in a duet (the company logo flying proudly behind them on stage). The image was borderline believable, though still photoshopped if you looked at it closely. Hence my interest in working with prompts like this. I've had situations where it would have actually been useful at work.

The type of images I've been generating today look absolutely nothing close to what the professional photoshopper was able to achieve in a few hours, and it really does feel like pot luck more than anything else. One of the images I generated gave me two sugababes, but one of them had three legs.

My overall impression of it is "meh, it's a bit of fun but it's wrong 9 times out of 10 and generates nothing close to what a skilled human can create, though using AI may well in the future cut down on a professional designer's workflow substantially (a lot of modern photoshopping is automated through ai tools, albeit guided by a human hand).

You’re using it wrong. It’s that basic

I'm giving it prompts similar to prompts I've given a real life person who is skilled in photoshop in order to put together key visuals for a PR campaign I was working on, in order to answer the question "could it replace that person's job?" and the answer is a resounding no.

I'm using it. Is there a right way or a wrong way to use it? Why is generating endless images of horrific clown faced children the right way to use it?

You're not an artist. You have no idea how to use it. This is not some poor drone-like graphic designer that you boss about

Within ten minutes of using SD, I realised it would be pretty crap at what you're trying, half-wittedly, to do. Tho i did produce a reasonable Boris Johnson-in-the-19th-century

So instead I approached it artistically, imaginatively - imagining what is it GOOD AT?

I had a sense it would be deft at producing frightening images, if fed the right precise prompts, honed over hours. I posted some of the best yesterday (I won't do it again in case I actually kill @Big_G_NorthWales)

They are genuinely horrifying. I know this because of the way people reacted on here and the way people have reacted today as I have shared them. Holy Shit is the usual response

So it is REALLY good at that. Terrifying imagery. There's quite a big market for that. My guess is it will be really good at lots of other things. It's only been in existence for a week and people like me have been using it for 2 days. 2 days!

I am sorry your Sugababe had three legs

Believe you me you do not have the power to kill me

As I said yesterday I have lived nearly 80 years on this planet, and am not easily shocked, especially in view of images I saw when serving as a police officer in Edinburgh in the early 1960's but introduce children, and horrific images of haunted children, in today's context of war in Ukraine jars with my sense of decency and frankly they are unnecessary

NigelB said: "The Times is a pretty strange beast these days.

Still publishes some interesting stuff."

Agreed on both. For example, their reporter Anemona Hartocollis, is consistently good, often on difficult subjects. For instance, years ago, she wrote a story showing that Obamacare had led to the demise of many rural hospitals. (Unintentionally, I believe.) And she ahs been good on college admissions.

And, on the other side, the Times is partly responsible for the 1619 project, which may be a good story, but isn't true.

StuartDickson said:

Support for Welsh independence is growing – people are fed up with being forgotten
- As in Scotland, many people have looked at the United Kingdom and decided that it’s simply not working for them

The idea of an independent Wales is no longer just a hobby-horse of bearded men in Carmarthenshire pubs on Six Nations rugby match days. Polls put support for independence at about 30%, (and skew more pro- the younger you go): not enough to signal anything imminent, but high enough for us to be certain something real is happening. After all, Scotland was polling similar numbers in 2007, and just seven years later David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg were making “the vow” to the people of Scotland as they scrambled to keep the union together.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/30/support-welsh-independence-growing-scotland-uk

Totally unsurprising when the country is ruled by an English (actually a particular form of English) nationalist party.

Leon’s pictures are fascinating in small doses, but he clogs up the threads already with irrelevant shite, so on balance I’d prefer to see the ban maintained.

Strikes me Liz Truss decided tax cuts were the answer a couple of decades ago.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Leon said:

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

kyf_100 said:

Selebian said:

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

@kyf_100

“Free version (slow, queue)

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

Paid with credits (instant, and you get a few credits free)

https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/home

I've been playing with both all afternoon and have barely got anything coherent, let alone anything chuckleworthty.”

++++

I don’t wish to boast - you know what I’m like - but I was getting memorable results within 20 minutes and Holy Shit results within 2 hours

You just have to work out what Stable Diffusion is good at - and what it isn’t - and also what words trigger it into doing the good shit, without also triggering it’s no-porn no-violence censor modules

Perhaps I’m good at it because I’m good with flints and words? Which is slightly reassuring. Still a small role for the artist

I found it absolutely spot on at creating stock-y images like "attractive boho girl stares longingly at you across the room at party" or "windswept man on yacht stares out to sea" but when you try to feed it anything unexpected or contradictory, it struggles. "Man high fiving giant rat" delivered nothing of the sort, "dictator in general's uniform at a warehouse rave surrounded by gurning idiots" delivered an image that looked more like a bunch of army blokes in a barracks, and certainly not passable as photographic (too many distortions), and when I tried "the sugababes doing karaoke at a death metal concert, the stage is on fire", it delivered neither sugababes nor fire - no death metal either, come to think of it - just three generic singers standing on a generic stage.

So my takeaway is it's fairly good at producing stock-y expected images, but if you want to get granular about the details of the image, or throw something unexpected at it in terms of proportion size or "something that shouldn't be in the room is present" it can't cope.

Stock images are where I can see this kind of thing taking off. I guess it's a huge enough market to go after. I just hope the developers have been scrupulous about the licensing of training sets - it seems a bit of a stretch to call a generated image a derived work, but a stretch is no impediment to long court battles for vested interests with deep pockets (e.g. Oracle versus Google).

On some of your specific examples, moral rights are an interesting one. If you can create a recognisable image of the sugababes then what restrictions do they have on how it is used? You'd probably be fine in certain contexts with some of the normal defences, but others could be tricky.

I've controlled for "it won't let you do famous people" - since I've had remarkable success at prompts including "Britney Spears holding hands with a clown" and "Britney and Rhianna kissing" (which is surprising it got through the filter as the final result is *nearly* lewd).

In terms of usefulness, I once did some work for a company whose big idea for a PR stunt was to get the lead singers of two notorious rival bands to sing together on stage (sponsored by the company of course). A photoshopper was duly appointed and spent a day creating a realistic looking image of the two rival singers loved up and crooning together in a duet (the company logo flying proudly behind them on stage). The image was borderline believable, though still photoshopped if you looked at it closely. Hence my interest in working with prompts like this. I've had situations where it would have actually been useful at work.

The type of images I've been generating today look absolutely nothing close to what the professional photoshopper was able to achieve in a few hours, and it really does feel like pot luck more than anything else. One of the images I generated gave me two sugababes, but one of them had three legs.

My overall impression of it is "meh, it's a bit of fun but it's wrong 9 times out of 10 and generates nothing close to what a skilled human can create, though using AI may well in the future cut down on a professional designer's workflow substantially (a lot of modern photoshopping is automated through ai tools, albeit guided by a human hand).

You’re using it wrong. It’s that basic

I'm giving it prompts similar to prompts I've given a real life person who is skilled in photoshop in order to put together key visuals for a PR campaign I was working on, in order to answer the question "could it replace that person's job?" and the answer is a resounding no.

I'm using it. Is there a right way or a wrong way to use it? Why is generating endless images of horrific clown faced children the right way to use it?

You're not an artist. You have no idea how to use it. This is not some poor drone-like graphic designer that you boss about

Within ten minutes of using SD, I realised it would be pretty crap at what you're trying, half-wittedly, to do. Tho i did produce a reasonable Boris Johnson-in-the-19th-century

So instead I approached it artistically, imaginatively - imagining what is it GOOD AT?

I had a sense it would be deft at producing frightening images, if fed the right precise prompts, honed over hours. I posted some of the best yesterday (I won't do it again in case I actually kill @Big_G_NorthWales)

They are genuinely horrifying. I know this because of the way people reacted on here and the way people have reacted today as I have shared them. Holy Shit is the usual response

So it is REALLY good at that. Terrifying imagery. There's quite a big market for that. My guess is it will be really good at lots of other things. It's only been in existence for a week and people like me have been using it for 2 days. 2 days!

I am sorry your Sugababe had three legs

Believe you me you do not have the power to kill me

As I said yesterday I have lived nearly 80 years on this planet, and am not easily shocked, especially in view of images I saw when serving as a police officer in Edinburgh in the early 1960's but introduce children, and horrific images of haunted children, in today's context of war in Ukraine jars with my sense of decency and frankly they are unnecessary

I was aiming to produce images that were properly horrifying, I am glad I succeeded instead of doing "the Sugababes with the right number of legs"

Someone who can make truly terrifying images can make money, because people pay hard cash to be frightened out of their wits, in cinemas and elsewhere

FWIW I don't think this image today is that terrifying. I was going for something more like "unsettling but with a certain soulfulness". Saying "this cannot be seen because Ukraine is at war" is bonkers

Leon said:

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

kyf_100 said:

Selebian said:

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

@kyf_100

“Free version (slow, queue)

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

Paid with credits (instant, and you get a few credits free)

https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/home

I've been playing with both all afternoon and have barely got anything coherent, let alone anything chuckleworthty.”

++++

I don’t wish to boast - you know what I’m like - but I was getting memorable results within 20 minutes and Holy Shit results within 2 hours

You just have to work out what Stable Diffusion is good at - and what it isn’t - and also what words trigger it into doing the good shit, without also triggering it’s no-porn no-violence censor modules

Perhaps I’m good at it because I’m good with flints and words? Which is slightly reassuring. Still a small role for the artist

I found it absolutely spot on at creating stock-y images like "attractive boho girl stares longingly at you across the room at party" or "windswept man on yacht stares out to sea" but when you try to feed it anything unexpected or contradictory, it struggles. "Man high fiving giant rat" delivered nothing of the sort, "dictator in general's uniform at a warehouse rave surrounded by gurning idiots" delivered an image that looked more like a bunch of army blokes in a barracks, and certainly not passable as photographic (too many distortions), and when I tried "the sugababes doing karaoke at a death metal concert, the stage is on fire", it delivered neither sugababes nor fire - no death metal either, come to think of it - just three generic singers standing on a generic stage.

So my takeaway is it's fairly good at producing stock-y expected images, but if you want to get granular about the details of the image, or throw something unexpected at it in terms of proportion size or "something that shouldn't be in the room is present" it can't cope.

Stock images are where I can see this kind of thing taking off. I guess it's a huge enough market to go after. I just hope the developers have been scrupulous about the licensing of training sets - it seems a bit of a stretch to call a generated image a derived work, but a stretch is no impediment to long court battles for vested interests with deep pockets (e.g. Oracle versus Google).

On some of your specific examples, moral rights are an interesting one. If you can create a recognisable image of the sugababes then what restrictions do they have on how it is used? You'd probably be fine in certain contexts with some of the normal defences, but others could be tricky.

I've controlled for "it won't let you do famous people" - since I've had remarkable success at prompts including "Britney Spears holding hands with a clown" and "Britney and Rhianna kissing" (which is surprising it got through the filter as the final result is *nearly* lewd).

In terms of usefulness, I once did some work for a company whose big idea for a PR stunt was to get the lead singers of two notorious rival bands to sing together on stage (sponsored by the company of course). A photoshopper was duly appointed and spent a day creating a realistic looking image of the two rival singers loved up and crooning together in a duet (the company logo flying proudly behind them on stage). The image was borderline believable, though still photoshopped if you looked at it closely. Hence my interest in working with prompts like this. I've had situations where it would have actually been useful at work.

The type of images I've been generating today look absolutely nothing close to what the professional photoshopper was able to achieve in a few hours, and it really does feel like pot luck more than anything else. One of the images I generated gave me two sugababes, but one of them had three legs.

My overall impression of it is "meh, it's a bit of fun but it's wrong 9 times out of 10 and generates nothing close to what a skilled human can create, though using AI may well in the future cut down on a professional designer's workflow substantially (a lot of modern photoshopping is automated through ai tools, albeit guided by a human hand).

You’re using it wrong. It’s that basic

I'm giving it prompts similar to prompts I've given a real life person who is skilled in photoshop in order to put together key visuals for a PR campaign I was working on, in order to answer the question "could it replace that person's job?" and the answer is a resounding no.

I'm using it. Is there a right way or a wrong way to use it? Why is generating endless images of horrific clown faced children the right way to use it?

You're not an artist. You have no idea how to use it. This is not some poor drone-like graphic designer that you boss about

Within ten minutes of using SD, I realised it would be pretty crap at what you're trying, half-wittedly, to do. Tho i did produce a reasonable Boris Johnson-in-the-19th-century

So instead I approached it artistically, imaginatively - imagining what is it GOOD AT?

I had a sense it would be deft at producing frightening images, if fed the right precise prompts, honed over hours. I posted some of the best yesterday (I won't do it again in case I actually kill @Big_G_NorthWales)

They are genuinely horrifying. I know this because of the way people reacted on here and the way people have reacted today as I have shared them. Holy Shit is the usual response

So it is REALLY good at that. Terrifying imagery. There's quite a big market for that. My guess is it will be really good at lots of other things. It's only been in existence for a week and people like me have been using it for 2 days. 2 days!

I am sorry your Sugababe had three legs

I'm still trying to figure out why it seems better at some things than others.

You are right about scary images, it's come up with some truly terrifying things when I use the keyword "nazi" (works on the huggingface free version, the word is censored on the paid/credits version though).

Both versions are quite happy to churn out some hideously racist stuff that I will not go into detail here, circumventing the prompts with the right turn of phrase to generate some shocking, 4-chan level crap is laughably easy.

But I can't understand why it's still making basic mistakes like rendering a singer with three legs, or when I asked for "two men riding a lawnmower" it gives me two men standing side by side a flymo-style lawnmower (it's not even smart enough to spot that if people are riding a lawn mower, it should be a sit on)

And yet it has done phenomenally well at other things. Years ago when doing some work for (insert name of dying - possibly now dead) high street fashion chain, one of the things we came up with was creating a "selfie wall" of polaroid pictures inside the dressing rooms. And when I prompted diffusion to create a visual for that, it came up with something incredibly similar to what our professional photoshopper used to illustrate our presentation to the company in the end. But perhaps "a wall of polaroids in a changing room" is an easier prompt than "the sugababes at a death metal gig with the stage on fire".

All I can say is it seems to be very hit and miss, but the more weird and specific your request, the harder it is for the machine to process it.

I've warned before. I won't warn again. NO MORE AI GENERATED IMAGES.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Apropos of nothing, a 1/16 shot was beaten at Chepstow today.

Another hustings event lost by Truss then?

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

kyf_100 said:

Selebian said:

kyf_100 said:

Leon said:

@kyf_100

“Free version (slow, queue)

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

Paid with credits (instant, and you get a few credits free)

https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/home

I've been playing with both all afternoon and have barely got anything coherent, let alone anything chuckleworthty.”

++++

I don’t wish to boast - you know what I’m like - but I was getting memorable results within 20 minutes and Holy Shit results within 2 hours

You just have to work out what Stable Diffusion is good at - and what it isn’t - and also what words trigger it into doing the good shit, without also triggering it’s no-porn no-violence censor modules

Perhaps I’m good at it because I’m good with flints and words? Which is slightly reassuring. Still a small role for the artist

I found it absolutely spot on at creating stock-y images like "attractive boho girl stares longingly at you across the room at party" or "windswept man on yacht stares out to sea" but when you try to feed it anything unexpected or contradictory, it struggles. "Man high fiving giant rat" delivered nothing of the sort, "dictator in general's uniform at a warehouse rave surrounded by gurning idiots" delivered an image that looked more like a bunch of army blokes in a barracks, and certainly not passable as photographic (too many distortions), and when I tried "the sugababes doing karaoke at a death metal concert, the stage is on fire", it delivered neither sugababes nor fire - no death metal either, come to think of it - just three generic singers standing on a generic stage.

So my takeaway is it's fairly good at producing stock-y expected images, but if you want to get granular about the details of the image, or throw something unexpected at it in terms of proportion size or "something that shouldn't be in the room is present" it can't cope.

Stock images are where I can see this kind of thing taking off. I guess it's a huge enough market to go after. I just hope the developers have been scrupulous about the licensing of training sets - it seems a bit of a stretch to call a generated image a derived work, but a stretch is no impediment to long court battles for vested interests with deep pockets (e.g. Oracle versus Google).

On some of your specific examples, moral rights are an interesting one. If you can create a recognisable image of the sugababes then what restrictions do they have on how it is used? You'd probably be fine in certain contexts with some of the normal defences, but others could be tricky.

I've controlled for "it won't let you do famous people" - since I've had remarkable success at prompts including "Britney Spears holding hands with a clown" and "Britney and Rhianna kissing" (which is surprising it got through the filter as the final result is *nearly* lewd).

In terms of usefulness, I once did some work for a company whose big idea for a PR stunt was to get the lead singers of two notorious rival bands to sing together on stage (sponsored by the company of course). A photoshopper was duly appointed and spent a day creating a realistic looking image of the two rival singers loved up and crooning together in a duet (the company logo flying proudly behind them on stage). The image was borderline believable, though still photoshopped if you looked at it closely. Hence my interest in working with prompts like this. I've had situations where it would have actually been useful at work.

The type of images I've been generating today look absolutely nothing close to what the professional photoshopper was able to achieve in a few hours, and it really does feel like pot luck more than anything else. One of the images I generated gave me two sugababes, but one of them had three legs.

My overall impression of it is "meh, it's a bit of fun but it's wrong 9 times out of 10 and generates nothing close to what a skilled human can create, though using AI may well in the future cut down on a professional designer's workflow substantially (a lot of modern photoshopping is automated through ai tools, albeit guided by a human hand).

You’re using it wrong. It’s that basic

I'm giving it prompts similar to prompts I've given a real life person who is skilled in photoshop in order to put together key visuals for a PR campaign I was working on, in order to answer the question "could it replace that person's job?" and the answer is a resounding no.

I'm using it. Is there a right way or a wrong way to use it? Why is generating endless images of horrific clown faced children the right way to use it?

You're not an artist. You have no idea how to use it. This is not some poor drone-like graphic designer that you boss about

Within ten minutes of using SD, I realised it would be pretty crap at what you're trying, half-wittedly, to do. Tho i did produce a reasonable Boris Johnson-in-the-19th-century

So instead I approached it artistically, imaginatively - imagining what is it GOOD AT?

I had a sense it would be deft at producing frightening images, if fed the right precise prompts, honed over hours. I posted some of the best yesterday (I won't do it again in case I actually kill @Big_G_NorthWales)

They are genuinely horrifying. I know this because of the way people reacted on here and the way people have reacted today as I have shared them. Holy Shit is the usual response

So it is REALLY good at that. Terrifying imagery. There's quite a big market for that. My guess is it will be really good at lots of other things. It's only been in existence for a week and people like me have been using it for 2 days. 2 days!

I am sorry your Sugababe had three legs

I'm still trying to figure out why it seems better at some things than others.

You are right about scary images, it's come up with some truly terrifying things when I use the keyword "nazi" (works on the huggingface free version, the word is censored on the paid/credits version though).

Both versions are quite happy to churn out some hideously racist stuff that I will not go into detail here, circumventing the prompts with the right turn of phrase to generate some shocking, 4-chan level crap is laughably easy.

But I can't understand why it's still making basic like rendering a singer with three legs, or when I asked for "two men riding a lawnmower" it gives me two men standing side by side a flymo-style lawnmower (it's not even smart enough to spot that if people are riding a lawn mower, it should be a sit on)

And yet it has done phenomenally well at other things. Years ago when doing some work for (insert name of dying - possibly now dead) high street fashion chain, one of the things we came up with was creating a "selfie wall" of polaroid pictures inside the dressing rooms. And when I prompted diffusion to create a visual for that, it came up with something incredibly similar to what our professional photoshopper used to illustrate our presentation to the company in the end. But perhaps "a wall of polaroids in a changing room" is an easier prompt than "the sugababes at a death metal gig with the stage on fire".

All I can say is it seems to be very hit and miss, but the more weird and specific your request, the harder it is for the machine to process it.

Well that's more sensible. Yes it is good at some things- astoundingly good - and weirdly crap at others. It won't be ordered about

My sense is that you have to treat it as a brilliantly talented, superbly imaginative, rather retarded and incredibly drunk collaborator, who is easily bored. So if you ask it do to mundane, prosaic jobs it sighs loftily and coughs up mediocrity, or it sulks and does nothing, and vomits in the waste paper basket

But if you let its imagination run, encouraging it along the way, and nudging it helpfully when that is needed, you can get some stunning visuals

Despite the rigid rules supposedly built in, it has produced for me some ponographic and probably illegal images ((I certainly did not request this!). Quite disturbing. I predict some bizarre court cases in years to come, when people are tried for possessing images of things that never happened and involved no actual people

Leon said:

rcs1000 said:

Leon said:

I fed in this prompt


“A bunch of PB-ers cowering in a cupboard, staring in bewilderment at Stable Diffusion”

You have been warned once already.

I only posted this because others posted theirs, and they received no warning. So I plead innocence in this case. I was not trying to provoke, just illustrate

However, you're the boss, so I will desist - until and unless the ban is lifted

I wasn't on-line.

I am now.

Enough.