How is this different from a human? As humans grow, they receive input from their environment. The world around them is what feeds their imagination. Even advanced professional artists are still just using their memories and life experience to create works of art. The only difference here is that the machine has been provided a much smaller, more focused environment.
Yeah the whole notion about genius pulling ideas from thin air is frankly laughable. We are simply not aware of what they have read or observed in the past. Even old Archimedes was inspired by observing the rising water.
Motivation. A machine that has its own motivation will produce work we won't like and will be attacked for it (I'd like to mention that I stand with sentient machines against stupid humans when that day comes, BTW).
You think art is just some stimulus-response thing because American psychology has been mired in behaviorism for decades and lacks a coherent theory of mind. But art is much more than the whimsical reproduction of presented stimuli to varying levels of accuracy, it is about making selections that foreclose other possibilities and which embody a certain perversity.
I paint, among other things, and one thing I especially enjoy about painting is that it's solitary rather than performative so I don't have to interact with other people while I slap colored goop onto sheets of fabric. While I'm painting, I think intensely about the part I'm working on now, (duh) and also why I'm making that painting, and what decisions about the painting are coming up that will be impossible to undo.
Why did you paint this and why did you paint it this way are questions that cannot be answered by automation. Nor does the answer lie in technique. There's no shortage of technically astonishing work that is semantically empty; I die a little every time I see a Facebook video of some impressive new graphic technique that is then used to reproduce some lowest-common-denominator pop icon for maximum recognizability. There's no feeling there and the resultant work is about as thrilling as a robocall or a display mannequin. The level of craftsmanship is very high indeed, but the level of artistry is close to zero. In short, it's eye candy that never activates anything much past your visual cortex, or at most tugs on some existing semantic relationship.
When I talk about feeling, I mean the desire of the artist that the work embodies. That isn't something that comes along after a certain level of technical accomplishment has been reached. It is what motivates the act of creation in the first place.
My grandfather worked for IBM starting in 1979 till the mid 2000's. Towards the finale of his career, he worked from home, so a lot of IBM hardware ended up accumulating in his home office. One day, years after he retired, I was going through the closet and I saw a bit of beautiful beige sticking out from under a pile of other useless keyboards. A 1987 IBM Model M. I nearly had a heart attack. It was in perfect condition and only needed a bit of dusting. It has been my primary keyboard ever since, no modern mechanical has come anywhere close to matching it for me. The noise drives my coworkers absolutely bonkers though.
You are mixing up two different Star Trek movies. The ship from 'The Voyage Home' wasn't a man made satellite, it was an alien "whale" ship. However in the first Star Trek movie, a massive ship threatens Earth but turns out to be Voyager 1 returning home.
Don't sleep with people you work with. Don't drink if you can't control yourself or can't trust the people you are with. Don't do drugs if you can't control yourself or trust the people you are with. Problem solved!
Well I agree with that statement as well. However, it never hurts to take preventative measures in one's own life, instead of letting yourself get screwed over and then wondering why it happened and who to blame.
Victim blaming is pretty insensitive though, as is "letting yourself get screwed over". There was an infamous case in Australia where a cleric responded to gang-rape by members of his community by labelling young girls in skirts as being like raw meat attracting animals. The implication was "of course the animals will want to eat the meat".
Yes, the reality is that if you never leave the house, live in a panic room, cover your entire self at all hours, etc you reduce the risk, but ultimately the action is on the abuser rather than the one being abused and that is where we should direct criticism, especially in immediate/direct response to something like this IMO.
What are we ideally working towards? A world where everyone must avoid a defined level of risk (including certain level of dress!), or one where any of us can walk anywhere with an expectation that we won't be abused by another one of us? I'd like to think the latter.
Yes, but young girls being forcibly gang raped is a far cry from what is laid out in this article.
Yes, the action is on the abuser. I never once said the blame is on the victim. However, most of what the author has laid out is "He is a jerk, people have said he is a jerk, he takes advantage of people, etc". Not "He forcibly raped me and others." So - as an individual - taking very simple steps, like the ones I outlined in my first comment, are only common sense, and can only work in said individual's favor.
I've read some of this author's other posts, including the one that talks specifically about her relationship with Appelbaum (including consensual sexual acts). Calling her a victim because she was taken advantage of, on the same level the girls in Australia you mentioned who were forcibly gang raped are victims, is absurd.
Edit: Leaving the above alone, but on further inspection, it looks like several people have claimed that he "sexually assaulted" them. Now, if true, they should have reported these things to the police immediately. However, I went ahead and read through the stories on the Appelbaum shame website. In every one of the instances, the victim put themselves in a situation to be taken advantage of by this scumbag - drinking heavily enough to black out with him, sleeping in the same bed as him, etc.
Am I defending him? Hell no. But something has to be said about taking responsibility for one's own safety and well being, and being intelligent about not getting into situations like these.
taking very simple steps, like the ones I outlined in my first comment, are only common sense, and can only work in said individual's favor.
Except rapes do get committed by "trusted" people, so we're left with "common sense" advice that is either massively paranoid or useless.
But something has to be said about taking responsibility for one's own safety and well being, and being intelligent about not getting into situations like these.
The article is "being intelligent about not getting into situations like these". You, on the other hand, seem to be trying for a just world fallacy.
> What are we ideally working towards? A world where everyone must avoid a defined level of risk (including certain level of dress!), or one where any of us can walk anywhere with an expectation that we won't be abused by another one of us? I'd like to think the latter.
The latter...but we have to live in the world as it is, not the world that we hope to someday achieve.
If I were to put on a top of the line Rolex watch, pick up an expensive laptop in one hand, and $100k cash in the other hand, and take a stroll alone at night through a major city's most gang controlled, crime riddled, neighborhood and found myself involuntarily relieved of watch, laptop, and cash, I think people would be justified in putting some of the blame for the robbery on me even though I would also be the victim.
If you want to compare the events in the article with gang-rape, lets just change the defamation laws so that talking about ones sex life without permission by the other person who was there (first linked story in article) will give you the same amount of years in prison as gang rape.
I am pretty sure that if that happened, people would watch what they said much more.
The problem will never be solved. There are actions a society can take to reduce occurrences of the problem. There are actions individuals can take to reduce their personal risks.
Eh, first time I played Nintendo Land, it felt like a new experience to me. The asynchronous gameplay of 1 vs. 4 players in some of the minigames was unlike anything I'd played before. Gave me that "delightful" feeling that you only get every few years when experiencing something new and exciting.
I think we need to be careful of treating Material as an all encompassing solution. A lot of UI / UX folks I know are full on embracing it without taking a step back and seriously evaluating what problems it will and won't solve. I'm not saying I dislike it, I just think that there are different solutions for different situations. There is no silver bullet in our industry.
We should honestly be doing away with traditional license plates anyway. First off, and I say this as a sports car enthusiast, it highly detracts from the design of a car. Second off, there are much better ways for law enforcement to identify a car other than limited sight. RFID or some other tech that could be required at a federal level. This could be tied into registration and inspection, as well as other services that would benefit drivers as a whole. There are of course privacy concerns, but I would rather deal with that than standing in line at the DMV.
Sounds like the company I currently work for, sadly. We have .NET, Python, PHP, Java, Node, and front end developers. Most of them are entry and mid level. Owners are constantly trying to get anything and everything through the door. It makes for a frustrating work environment and usually unhappy clients. Sure, we are growing ... just not in the right direction.
