Generic AI Thread

[SB]

It's 2024 and I finally jumped on the AI train. Besides telling me what to do as my assistant as well as the ability to play Diablo 4 for me, what kinds of things should I consider using it for?

Anyone have any experience or stories about modern AI to share with the rest of the class?

[Johncarllos]

Snare is using it in the MChat 2.0 thread under general to expand artwork.

I toy with it a little, but it's pretty much a novelty to me still.

[SB]

Huh, I didn't know Snare was using it like that. That's pretty interesting to learn as I just thought he was doing it all in paint somehow.

I won't get my AI device until around May or June this year, but I'm excited to see what all it can really do compared to what was advertised. Supposedly this thing has a learning mode on it and the devs taught it how to grind for them in Diablo 4 among other things, so it'll be neat to see what all it can do for me. I'm hoping to use it as a possible coding assistant as well as interested to see if it can help with music sheets among other ideas I have in my head.

[Johncarllos]

Only for the latest parts, with watercolors.

And AI device? Not a program? Or are you grabbing a higher end NVidia A-series graphics card?

[Majikn]

I haven't really touched it.

I'm not against AI but I'm hoping more that we move past this awkward phase where it's automating things that humans would find fun and fulfilling and would prefer to do themselves, but even supposing we don't, I hope at least that we carve a path forward where everyone benefits.

Generic AI, meet generic comment.

Though I wouldn't have considered having it play video games for me, I suppose that's not entirely a bad thing if the grind really is just boring and you would otherwise be spending time doing useful or fulfilling things.

[SB]

I'd prefer to spend time cleaning or even catching up on reading if it can actually automate the mundane skinnerbox elements of certain games, but I'm also skeptical until it actually comes out and gets in my hands since it's not too hard to oversell a product and its capabilities in this day and age. I don't want it to take over for me and do things I'd otherwise do, but rather to help me learn and develop new strategies and understanding of things to better myself. It's more fun to ask it for advice on how to add like an element to a website I'm designing compared to just going "Make me a website with these specifications" and having it automate it for me.

The thing I'm currently invested into is the Rabbit R1, since it's taking a PET approach to AI systems, but I'm worried it's going to be overhyped for a multitude of reasons. I just like the novel concept of having a personalized AI assistant that can carry out tasks for me I never would do normally, like pointing its camera at food to keep track of nutritional info as well as intake and possibly improving my diet as a result.

[Johncarllos]

Just did a little research on the Rabbit R1.

It's effectively a stripped down phone (specs wise) that uses an always on connection to act as basically a better version of the other major "AI" assistants. For $200 flat, it seems like a decent device, and I can see devices like it actually helping visually impaired people.

If all the integrations work flawlessly, it could definitely be a fun tool.

I use all android, have multiple google home/nest devices in the house. I don't need any of them, but they simplify stuff around the house (thermostat control from bed, dimmers for lights and controlling them). If I'm doing chores it's nice to have my podcasts/audiobooks playing synced on every one of them in the house. It should be noted that Google does keep stripping functionality from the default assistant, and most believe they will switch to a subscription based AI service (Bard) for all Nest devices to have 'improved functionality'. I'd argue that Nest devices get less reliable every year. Commands I have been using for 4 years just don't work any more, and it's integrations with music and TV commands are total garbage now. I can't trust it to play the correct song any more. If I say "Hey Google, Play Flowers by Miley Cyrus". It'll say, 'ok, Flowers by Miley Cyrus, playing on Spotify." then either the wrong song or a whole incorrect playlist starts. It's bad now. Rant over.

One thing I have decided though, is that I will not depend on any 'cloud connected' service. Partly because I'm out in the boonies, but partly because I'd rather just have analog backups and options for everything. Any cloud service or smart home integration I use is for convenience only. I've heard too many horror stories of trying to get Apple, Google, or IFTTT routines to be reliable, but a single authentication error in the pipeline can break the whole chain.

[SB]

The R1 people surprised us all by giving us a free year of something called Perplexity Pro to mess with while we wait for our devices and wow, AI is stupid it seems. It cannot understand what I mean by worst / least selling Megaman games and pulls results from youtube as well as reddit thinking I'm asking about the worst game, so I'm getting all kinds of bad data. One of the results even had sell numbers and stated BN4 was the worst selling BN game despite it selling the most in its respective series, and I even got X1 was stated as the worst selling MM game with like 1.16M units sold.

This has been with the "free" version thus far, since if I redeem the $200 yearly one then I may not be able to return or cancel my Rabbit R1 order, but I'm not impressed at all. It's just giving me google searches and pulling stuff like a wiki article as response on this Perplexity AI thing. The R1 is supposed to have Pro built in for free, but I can't imagine it being better than what I'm getting at this point in time.

Semi-related, but it links directly to MMM when I asked it about Megaman Matrix, though it was going on about fangames and fanfics instead of the website itself. I know, I'm creatively bankrupt on what to use AI for.

[Johncarllos]

Asking any AI for anything subjective is gonna be a bad time. Have you compared the free perplexity results against Bard and GPT?

The scary thing is that in this day and age, 'objective' facts are being obfuscated by the media for clicks, and a lot of AI's will take any stated fact as fact. They aren't great at dealing with comparing and contrasting sources for the best result. AIs specialize in making anything it thinks is a fact sound like a fact.

Also, probably 90% of "AI" branded stuff is just a gimmick in a package. It's all just really stupid trained algorithms. Honestly, I think the artistic and visually interpretive aspects are the strongest right now. The 'AI' algorithm for NVidia's DLSS is so flippin' good. It's ability to upscale and interpolate new frames constantly surprises me. I have a 4K OLED monitor and if a game has DLSS, I'm hard pressed to see a difference between native and balanced. Here are the native render resolutions that get upscaled to 4K, for reference.

Quality: 2560x1440p
Balance: 2227x1253p
Performance: 1920x1080p
Ultra Perf: 1280x720p

It's good enough that the new Switch is going to be using the same 'Tensor AI' cores on the custom NVidia Tegra processor for upscaling, and I betcha it'll be downright competitive, as Sony and XBox both use AMD hardware, and use AMD FSR for upscaling. FSR is improving constantly, and it's nice to play God of War Ragnarok at 90fps, but if it was on NVidia I would barely notice the upscaling where FSR can have some really ugly artifacts. I hope that they add the new FSR 3 Frame Generation technology on consoles soon, as it will really breathe life into them as they age and games push further into the 30FPS max range without upscaling. FSR is generally inferior though, as it takes from the GPU overhead as it doesn't have specialized pipelines specifically for that kind of 'AI' upscaling work.

[SB]

That's disheartening to learn that it spews false information as factually accurate as possible, but I suppose it is what it is.

I agree that the artistic side seems much better at this point, as I've utilized it for photography edits and enhancing some old images to much better and larger quality. I've also enjoyed the various odd AI generated images, though they all seem to have a certain look to them that gives it away, assuming extra appendages aren't there like hands / feet / fingers.

If the new Switch does all that, I'm sold on it already. I'm hoping it'll be like the Xbox Series X and PS5 by granting additional power to older titles, assuming it even has backwards compatibility. I have a few games I wouldn't mind playing again if they don't end up chugging on performance issues. I think my only real experience with DLSS so far is with Palworld, which is some new game that just came out on Unreal 5 and didn't have any real hiccups at all from what I seen while also hitting a high refresh rate with no tweaking needed.

Speaking of gaming, there's a fun AI game that I hope goes on steam called "Suck Up!" that uses a form of AI to dictate the way NPCs interact while also using it to transcribe what one verbally says to said NPCs with a very high success rate. It gives me hope for some of the future games that people can craft with care behind them, though I've also seen crazy tech like from nVidia where they allow one to talk with various NPCs in games not designed for it such Cyberpunk. Crazy times we live in!

[Johncarllos]

Apart from Tetris 99 and Switch Sports, I don't actually use my switch. I got one of the original switch runs that can be modded/hacked for a good deal on ebay, and I own TOTK on cart. I just ripped the whole shebang onto my PC because I refuse to play a AAA open world high end RPG at 720p 30fps. I've got TOTK running pretty flawlessly at 4k 60fps on my PC. Some areas have a dip, and there are a few weird issues, but overall it's such a better experience. On the switch itself, the occasional drops to sub 20fps were what I would call unplayable. If the new switch can use DLSS to keep framerates high, I'm all about it.

Thankfully, some of the huge pushes this generation are 120fps and variable refresh rate. I refused to get a PS5 until I had a monitor that could do those, as I'd be wasting the potential. 2 years ago I got the LG C1 48" OLED and it has been amazing for everything. No signs of burn in yet, and any weirdness is corrected by the automated 'pixel cleaning' routine.

Variable refresh rate (NVidia GSync and AMD Freesync) cannot be overemphasized. VRR is better at 40fps than raw 60-70fps, just because of the better frame timing consistency. No tearing, no judder, just an intelligent connection between monitor and GPU pipeline, syncing the current framerate to the monitor.

I think going with a specific AI upscaling algorithm for the new switch it'll be much harder to get consistent performance out of any emu-lators, and I think impossible without an nVidia GPU. As these 'AI' algorithms become more hardware dependent (chat GPT runs on NVidia), I think manufacturers are going to be able to sequester the market to the extreme determent of the consumers.

Even right now, wanna do AI locally? NVidia tensor cores. anything else? 1/3 that efficiency at best.

Fun thing, the word emu-lator without the dash still auto translates to "computer program of dubious legality". For the record (Mods), I did it all 100% legally and I own the hardware, I ain't no pirate.

[Snare]

Yeah I used Dall-e to expand the scenery of a few water color backgrounds.

Besides that, I only like AI for comedic purposes. Like making Peter Griffin sing songs, generating impossible Marge Simpsons, and printing instructions on making homemade cheetos in the bathtub

[Majikn]

Snare, question about the cheetos: Did the AI tell you to buy the sunflower oil directly or do you blend the seeds yourself or, just, like, how do you even feel about that?

I tried a bing search of "bathtub cheetos" but it... it didn't help.

[Snare]

Snare, question about the cheetos: Did the AI tell you to buy the sunflower oil directly or do you blend the seeds yourself or, just, like, how do you even feel about that?

I tried a bing search of "bathtub cheetos" but it... it didn't help.

Let's just ask my favorite text completion thingy...

(bold is my prompt, the rest is the output)

Here's a step by step guide how to make a giant bag of Cheetos in your bathtub:

1. Clean your bathtub and drain it.

2. Pour a little water in the tub.  You don't want the tub to be too wet because it's easier to scoop it out with a measuring cup.

3. Dump some salt in the bathtub.

4. Sprinkle some baking soda over the salt.

5. Finally, add in some dishwashing soap.  The dish washing soap will turn the salt and baking soda into an awesome bubbling mess.

6. Next, spray some food coloring into the tub until the salt mixture looks like orange Cheetos.

7. Pour some vegetable oil into the tub until it looks like a bowl of Cheetos.

8. Take a look at your giant Cheetos!

[TheRedPriest]

This is quickly turning into a snuff film.  We don't go in for that here.

[Snare]

That's right! You can't ban us all! *stands on desk* O CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN

[Snare]

[TheRedPriest]

That's a deep fake, the real Abe would have a haggis stained kilt.