I know my podcast was about AI so I’m sorry to make my weeknotes about it too. I am really sick of pundits writing about GTP chat to be honest. This has all become coming for over a decade: What have they all been doing with their time? Looking in a hole in the ground?
Anyways.
A new tool dropped for Stablediffusion called ControlNet (Github Link). Over the weekend there’s been an EXPLOSION of activity hooking ControlNet it up to all sorts of tools and existing Image Synthesis production pipelines.
Below you can see ControlNet working within Houdini (left) and Unreal (right).
ControlNet is a new way of fine tuning the image-to-image capabilities of Stable Diffusion. Perviously, it has been very difficult to fine tune the outputs from input images. ContolNet works by allowing a user to use a custom model alongside the standard Stable Diffusion model. The Decoder have a great technical write up on how it works.
Running multiple models allows you to use things like pose recognition. Plug in an image and get all sorts of outputs from different prompts with the same pose.
In practice this looks like this:
ControlNet can also be combined with frame to frame coherence tools to create weird rotoscope versions of film footage. I already linked to the pipeline from 3D engines above, but check this out. ControlNet can spit out UV texture maps! its absolutely astonishing.
Permanently Moved
What a Difference A(I) Week Makes
In less than 6 weeks we’ve gone from ‘OpenAI’s chatbot is weird but interesting’ to ‘Google is doomed because they’re not shipping AI search before Microsoft’ to ‘These things are totally awful’.
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Photo 365
The Ministry Of My Own Labour
- Exciting call
- Investigating pitching a book/getting an agent
- Made an audio trailer for 301 but haven’t posted it yet
- Endless backfilling/pouring concrete
- Getting ready for holiday!
Terminal Access
Anna posted a new video journal and has new things in her shop.
In the group chat this week has been busy discussing this long essay from Eric Leong responding to Toby’s Life After Lifestyle essay
Dipping the Stacks
How to prioritize your project ideas – The Creative Independent
The first time I wrote down all of my project ideas in one place, it was the spring of 2016.
Smartphone Addiction and Associated Health Outcomes in Adult Populations: A Systematic Review – PMC
Strong association between smartphone addiction, shrinkage of the brain’s gray matter, and “digital dementia,” an umbrella term for the onset of anxiety and depression and the deterioration of memory, attention span, self-esteem, and impulse control (the last of which increases the addiction).
The radical idea that people aren’t stupid
WHY EVERYONE FEELS LIKE THE LAST SANE PERSON IN A WORLD GONE MAD
James Gunn Unveils DC Slate with Batman, Superman and More – The Hollywood Reporter
“No one was minding the mint,” says Gunn. “They were giving away IP like they were party favors at any creator who smiled at them.”
The rise of empire was in part facilitated by the deracination of local mythologies. As climate collapse worsens, a return to multi-species mythmaking might just be what saves us.
Reading
I finished reading Le Guin’s Steering the Craft. Really interesting writing book. If theres ever an operunity to joing a group thats going to work though this book I’d say yes.
I read Doctorow and Giblin’s Chokepoint Capitalism: how big tech and big content captured creative labour markets, and how we’ll win them back for research this week. Moving on to Culture Crash next. This book is absolutely fantastic. The book is split into two sections. Part One analyses how powerful corporations construct ‘anti-competitive flywheels’ to lock in both users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices. Part Two is full of smart ideas, suggestions and proposals about what to do about it all.
Started reading Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities, after reading John Warner’s writing on ChatGTP and eduction. It’s not strictly a book about writing, instead it’s a book about how the whole education system is totally fucked. Great read. I’m managing about 10% of the book per night on my kindle so should be done soon.
Music
thejaymo.net Spotify Playlist
100 gecs – Hollywood Baby
Future of popmusic 100g drops a single off their upcoming album 10,000 Gecs.
Hollywood Baby is a total cacophony of hyperpop, Blink 182 and autotune. In the video they set off fireworks indoors and deal with the consequences whilst they dance around.
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