#sentient might not be the right word. sapient? idk

[hana-bobo-finch]

I feel bad for zommoth ima be real. I wish it was more sentient so it and leif could frolic through a field of flowers or smthn. Start a cordyceps support group or whatever. the siblings of all time

[ohnoitstbskyen]

I've recently seen some posts saying that arguing against AI art would lead to corporations cracking down on fanart and fanfiction. I've had this thought floating around in my brain ever since. Part of me wants to dismiss it, since I feel it isn't anywhere near the same. AI can't argue to have been inspired and to have added their own little heart into a piece, but you can't exactly define that in law. Most art is also conceptually not original. However, AI is assured to be using a combination of direct sample, just from too many sources. So... I don't know. I feel you are very well informed in these kind of matters and would like to hear your opinion.

There's a simple distinction there, which is that "AI art" algorithms are not people. They're not even AI, there is no artificial intelligence happening here. They are machine learning algorithms, not inherently different in nature to the ones serving you "ads relevant to your interests" on various websites right now.

"AI art" cannot be said to be creative because those machine learning algorithms are not people. People are creative. Sentient, sapient, thinking minds are creative. Machines are not. They simply execute whatever algorithm we've put in their black box.

The argument "AI" art enthusiasts very passionately try to make is that their prompts are creative, that the specific line of words they input into the machine which create the output, that is creative, that is transformative. And idk, maybe there's a court case to be fought over that, but to me that reads like saying if you manually input a Minecraft seed, you now deserve creative credit and copyright over the world that it generates, because your prompt is the generative element, not the underlying technology actually executing the output. Microsoft might have some expensive legal opinions about that idea.

The allegory I like to use is this: Imagine that you can't do a backflip. Then, someone sells you a robot which does backflips at the press of a button. Would you say that because you pressed the button that caused the backflip to happen, that means you have now done a backflip?

"I caused a backflip to exist, therefore I performed it!"?

I won't argue that it can be a tricky business to optimize an input for the art machine such that it produces a desired output, but the scope of what the machine can output is NOT defined by the person doing the input, but by the data-set that the machine has available to draw upon. You can tell an "AI art" program to produce "steampunk" artwork all you want, but if the machine doesn't have a big library of steampunk artwork in its database to draw upon, it will never produce steampunk outputs.

You can only prompt the machine to replicate that which has already been fed to it.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein and birthed the modern genre of science fiction because she had been disturbed by hearing stories about new experiments to stimulate dead tissue with electricity and seemingly restore it to life. To write it, she drew upon inspiration from everything from gothic horror to biblical themes to famous explorer's diaries. Mary Shelley created Frankenstein by synthesizing the accumulated experience of a lived life.

A machine learning algorithm could only ever create Frankenstein if you had already fed Frankenstein by Mary Shelley into its database.

[augustus-rok]

Timeline, what timeline? Fuck the timeline.

Idk what I’m doing at all. Here be

—————

Batman takes one look at the situation and gets a headache.

So Phantom clearly is utterly out classing Red Huntress and with the way she metaphorically gained power is making a territorial creature of debatable sapience power display. The ghost is, for lack of better wording, unfolded over the roof of the city hall… basking. The ghost’s actually terrifying like this, obviously not playing in the humanoid shape thanks to their invasion of its territory.

Phantom’s unflinching in the face of Red Huntress’s shots and belligerent attacks. It’s only when Superman touches down beside Bruce that the ghost stirs. Lazarus eyes land on them, and the ghost pulls its tail in like a giant snake. When it stops moving, peering down from the roof, the ghost is alarmingly different in size to its usual shape. At the length of two school busses and with a upper body now comparable to a small car Phantom is alarming to see, adding on the new extra arms and sparking gaseous almost fins.

Ah not the Huntress’s rise in rank, their arrival did this.

But… Batman has read everything he could find on this ghost and not even when it battled its king did it take this form. Phantom has always shown itself as human so what about them… when Superman touched down.

“Red Huntress fall back,” the girl heeds him even if it’s with a growl but she’s willing to listen to the adults at the moment so newly under their watch she doesn’t have the daring of the younger team.

“Why?” She’s keeping Phantom in her peripheral even as she addresses him.

“I was going to bring this up with you later but it seems Phantom beat us out in activity, Superman would you listen to this, don’t turn around, I have a theory backed by scientists outside the bias sphere.” Huntress shoots a look at the still Phantom, but is willing to sit on her still hovering board and listen closely. The named alien turns his back to the ghost and Bruce swears when the opening is given.

The large ghost swats the man out of the air with its tail, and Superman careens into the sidewalk. “Don’t!” Batman stops the teen beside him before she launches an attack.

Superman pops up from his spot looking at the ghost bewildered. Bruce sighs, “as I was going to say, Superman don’t look away from the ghost and stay out of swatting range, scientists outside of Amity Park have proven that Phantom is sentient and is proving sapient from a scientific perspective unbiased by the Fentons.” Red Huntress looks at him like she wants to argue so he pushes on, “At the very least Phantom is to be treated as a very dangerous predator, because that’s what it displays behaviorally. Phantom is a territorial Earth based ghost, likely not the same as those that come out of the portal. He’s a natural prevention to invasion, and has been defending his lair or home from invaders.”

The ghost hisses suddenly from its perch and Batman looks up in time to see the arrival of another ghost. The one obsessed with boxes. The small ghost is slow moving as it sets down a box in front of Phantom before booking it out of range. Unimpressed eyes stare after the Box Ghost, but Phantom doesn’t take up its regular pursuit of the invader.

“If that theory’s right why didn’t the damn thing go after Boxy,” and Bruce, The Batman, grimaces at the girl’s arrogance.

He doesn’t answer cause Superman has caught on and answers in her stead, “because I’m here. In the reports most properties damaged in ghost fights are damaged by humans. Occasionally electronics are fried, but ghosts typically move or steal items. I’m the big threat here cause try as I and other big name League members might, we cause a lot of property damage in our fights. That’s a territory threat to Phantom.”

The Red Huntress looks at Phantom with wide eyes behind her visor and the voice modulator makes the crack in her voice more pronounced, “I went up the totem pole when you came, this is a threat display. Phantom, sometimes said it had to stop play fighting before it would vanish. How literal would that be?”

Batman jolts at her words, “Very.”

He looks up at the entity that is watching the way the little ghost went.

And that is when the Mayor exits the building, walking out of a door only for Phantom to slam its arm down around him. The man, Vlad Masters, looks up at the ghost suddenly holding him hostage and sighs.

“Really?” His tone is conversational, and Batman wonders how he is so calm. “I have errands to run but if you’re going to be on the roof please let the office ladies do their work and Margerie needs to leave to get her son early.”

The ghost grumbles, but moves its arm, only to scruff the man by his suit jacket. Vlad Masters doesn’t so much as flinch as the ghost picks him up. “Seems I’m not talking to you heroes today, would one of you email me so I can talk to you distantly?”

Superman in his Midwest manners is quick to reply, “Course, uh do you need umm help there.”

“No, no,” drawls the mayor when Phantom has completed an arch around the heroes and set the man down by a vehicle. “Our city's resident ghost menace has decided that you’re after his humans, what with taking Miss Huntress under your wing. Now if you don’t mind I do have errands.” And the man gets in his car and leaves.

The Red Huntress clatters a little as she touches down on the ground. She looks small in her suit as she looks at Phantom, “So you’re as smart as Mini?”

Bruce wonders what that means but based on the screech Phantom let’s out it’s nothing good, and the fact Superman has to haul them out of the subsequent line of attack says more.

Once they’ve been successfully chased into the suburbs, Phantom twists and vanishes out of sight.

The new heroine stands in the middle of the street a conflicted air settled on her shoulders. “Show me that research.” She whispers, and Bruce wishes internally that he had the power to read minds.

A few hours later Amity, and Red Huntress specifically are under siege. And Bruce finds himself scrambling through books on gatekeepers sent by Constantine under a energy dome. The girl in question napping in an improvised cot desperately resting.

The ghosts fight by attrition, and evidently play fighting with Phantom has become a no go.

Prompt

The justice league FINALLY investigates Amity, and realizes that they’ve made a grave mistake by letting a burgeoning hero shoulder a large problem without any training or support. They rectify this immediately by offering a position in the JL along with an assortment of mentors and other teen heroes to bond with. 

Red Huntress receives this invitation in front of Phantom, while actively trying to hunt him down.