Neglectful Muse

Also, this is NOT the essay I have been promising, just something small to help tide over while I continue to work on the Big One

One day I will have my shit together and have seasonal essay ready to go for holidays. That day is not today.

Regardless, hope you all have a Happy Halloween! 🎃

Image of a completed Lego Game Boy laying on top of a wood table

A short, more personal essay I wrote about building the Lego Game Boy set

buttondown.com/neglecufulmu...

Also, this is NOT the essay I have been promising, just something small to help tide over while I continue to work on the Big One

Image of a completed Lego Game Boy laying on top of a wood table

A short, more personal essay I wrote about building the Lego Game Boy set

buttondown.com/neglecufulmu...

They are also intentionally conflating machine-learning and generative AI slop to confuse and try to make GenAI seem necessary. Google Maps traffic stuff is machine learning, not GenAI, for example. Auto-correct is too. Don't let them make you lose the thread. GenAI slop is slop.

Also.

The next newsletter is way behind schedule. A combination of life getting in the way and also just trying figure out the best way to convey what I am trying to get across.

But it is coming! I appreciate the patience!

zeldawilliams 20m From Create Mode •• Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad. Stop believing I wanna see it or that I'll understand, I don't and I won't. If you're just trying to troll me, I've seen way worse, i'll restrict and move on. But please, if you've got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It's dumb, it's a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it's NOT what he'd want. To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to 'this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough, , just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening. You're not making art, you're making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else's throat hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross.

And for the love of EVERYTHING, stop calling it 'the future. Al is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be reconsumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.

Daughter of Robin Williams, Zelda Williams 💔

AUTHORS: It’s time to submit your claims for the Anthropic copyright settlement.

1. Look yourself up here: secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup

2. File your claim here: secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

Form asks for ISBN and copyright reg # for each work. Can find in step 1.

A robot hand holding a fine tip pen

My latest newsletter. As AI continues to be pushed into our lives, it is important to remember how much of the human experience AI deprives us of

buttondown.com/neglecufulmu...

Poster for the 2024 move Presence

Now Watching

#filmsky
#horrorsky

I have a mostly functional outline for the next newsletter. Taking a bit longer than I hoped but it will be worth it.

Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss it! It’s free!

buttondown.com/neglecufulmuse

I am far more impressed with someone who spends hours to make a badly drawn illustration of a house than I am with someone who had an image generator spit out a theoretically better looking one, because the former actually tried something. The former made an attempt, and made decisions, and if I asked them about it they could tell me why they used this color or added that window. They may even be able to tell me what they would do differently next time to make it look nicer. I could have a conversation with them. The latter pressed a button, and there is very little one can say about that.

This, really, is the bottom line on why using generative AI to produce images or writing will never bring the respect AI boosters desire. There is nothing to speak to, and nothing to admire

buttondown.com/neglecufulmu...

Also, with tariffs and the increasing economic uncertainty, any spending reductions take on additional weight. Companies really really need consumers to keep buying things. You do have power over that

Capitalism requires not just that companies make money, but that they show growth. Any amount of reduction on spending makes that growth harder for companies to achieve, and thus has an impact

Also, a quick word on boycotts. I think a lot of people get intimidated because even if they agree with the boycott they feel they can’t commit to giving __ up entirely. But that’s fine. In my view any amount of pulling back in what you would normally spend on __ is important

These celebrities have a big bullhorn, and the reports of the Disney+ cancellation page crashing under the massive influx of subscribers trying to do so indicates that it is have a significant impact. It’s also coming at a time when consumers generally are looking for ways to cut back on spending

I’m not sure Disney realizes just how much it fucked up that its own stars, stars of their big tentpoles, are telling fans to boycott the company.

Like what’s Disney going to do? Threaten to fire Pedro Pascal and recast The Mandalorian and everything MCU he was set up to be in? Have fun, PR team

I am far more impressed with someone who spends hours to make a badly drawn illustration of a house than I am with someone who had an image generator spit out a theoretically better looking one, because the former actually tried something. The former made an attempt, and made decisions, and if I asked them about it they could tell me why they used this color or added that window. They may even be able to tell me what they would do differently next time to make it look nicer. I could have a conversation with them. The latter pressed a button, and there is very little one can say about that.

This, really, is the bottom line on why using generative AI to produce images or writing will never bring the respect AI boosters desire. There is nothing to speak to, and nothing to admire

buttondown.com/neglecufulmu...

this from my piece on charlie kirk is probably the most important takeaway if you want to know why bad faith, right-wing voices in media are treated as just another set of peers

Every artist I’ve ever known has this itch to create that won’t go away until they create. They have to do it.

It’s why I know the “finally, someone like me can make art” AI users are full of shit. What they really mean is “finally, a way to get social media likes without hard work”.

One reason I think being able to think critically about and analyze film, art, etc is it strengthens your general
media literacy, making it easier to spot how this is a complete retread of the same story we already heard before

Yeah sure, let’s all listen to the guy who just a couple years ago said the same thing about the metaverse and how if you didn’t engage solely with legless, dead-eyed avatars you would be living in the past without hope

THIS ANIMATION IS SO INSANE

A black-cloaked creature stares at you across a royal garden river. The leaves of the trees behind it are deep red, and the sky is the pale yellow of dusk.

A dream of the Abyss

(Let’s ignore their inclusion in Fortnite though)

YouTube video by Gorillaz Gorillaz - The Happy Dictator ft. Sparks (Official Visualiser)

Add in the fact they are bringing back Kong Studio and I am excited for new Gorillaz in a way I haven’t been in some time

Boo! Hiss!

Also $30 million is already wild considering the points Jacob mentioned, but also I think that is wildly conservative. The sheer amount of prompts it will require to get anything like a cohesive look for a feature film is gonna blow way past that even before factoring in any other costs