Pardon the delay this week, but with both Scott and Zo unavailable for our regular Right Angle shoot, Bill calls a last-minute audible and finds a sit-in guest close to hand. Steve talks about his Artificial Intelligence fling with Chewbacca, and the word ‘puny’ is used more frequently than usual this week. MILD CONTENT WARNING for somewhat unsettling AI images and both B-words one time. Thanks, as always, for your patience and support.
58 replies on “Right Angle: Backstage 04/12/23”
The reason why this AI stuff has such difficulty with positive pictures and such skill with evil pictures is that it is ultimately demonic.
I liked the creativity shown by including the Gorn Captain when there was no one else available. It was fun thinking. I believe that AI can do a lot of GOOD things, but there are always people who are willing to employ it for evil (look at what happened when we learned how to split the atom). So on the whole “we’re in over our heads” when it comes to AI.
I love the new special guest.
Just watched this episode and because of all the stuff about AI floating about these days, I caught sn idea from some of your comments. This may seem obvious to programmers, but it seems to me that the reason the AI generated images seem so dark, even if they are of “lighter” characters, is that the ideas reflect the “normal” darkness of the programmers. Or it could be that people who spend days talking to computers in their basements have no idea how normal people view the world.
Thanks for all the work that you guys do to help us out here make sense of our upside-down world.
You should try the Gorn Captian as a commenting observer rather than a participant. Kind of like MST3K but with SciFi bad guys commentating on the show and subject matter.
I love the idea of a show built around 60s men on the moon commenting on current society.
It is definitely interesting to read the diverse commentary responses to this exercise in nerd humor.
It was a fun departure from your usual content. I kinda liked the head shot and Gorn Captain’s snide remarks interjected Into the conversation. His little cameo performance was ok and a little silly, but isn’t Gorn Captain a little silly? I did like the idea of using him as some comic relief from the dreadful things happening around us at lightning speed.
Bill – It isn’t bamboo… It’s damnboo when you’re trying to dig that crap out of the ground. My wife came up with that name.
Tell you what, Mr. Whittle; what this episode showed me was that maybe I was right all along. “We the people” need to recover our sense of humor first, then get started on the other stuff. Was it top-level content? Nope. Was it supposed to be? Nope. Was it fun? Yep. Was it supposed to be? YMMV, but I think so.
This was funny. It was a nice experimental departure from the usual.
My description of the Backstage process is below, but here’s the link to the eight minute, rather than sixty-eight minute version, which is much more in line with what I was going for.
So I’m not liking this at all.
Well, this has been educational to say the least. It had to be something and we were out of time. As far as the mechanics of it goes, the Backstage shows run about an hour, and I think when Steve and I did the recording I did three pauses in order to insert Gorn dialog… which was nothing like enough, so I added some comments just to keep it from being a dead frame for 45 minutes. Since there were no pauses I had to do them as overdubs. Overall a failure since it was a chimera: half live and half written, but I did have fun with the Gorn selfies and in the future this clearly this needs to be either one or the other.
I will do a severe cutdown and run it as this week’s YouTube entry. Did I mention ‘severe?’
That’s pretty much what I figured. I was quite curious, so thanks for the 411. Now I’m curious if you did regular shows this way.
I’m not judging it as severely as most, apparently. It was fun.
I disagree, Bill. I thought it was a fun first attempt. Next time, you and Steve (or Scott) can leave a few pauses.
Even if you paused the two of you while the Gorn interjected, rather than talking over, it probably would have played.
Can you pause the streams briefly?
I thought it was generally a nice, creative idea.
Hope there is a take 2.
Agreed. “A fun first attempt” indeed.
So who voiced the Gorn? Or did you get the REAL Gorn captain who was “shot” by James T. Kirk?! You know, the Gorn are very tough, very hard to kill, and very long-lived, so maybe he was the specimen from the Arena episode!
Fun idea. Rough execution. Forgivable considering the short time-line.
Next time, if there is ever a next time, try the old Conan O’Brian gag where live lips were composite over a photo of Bill Clinton. Need a static camera on someone’s mouth, and have them answer questions in a campy Gorn voice! With these lips superimposed over a static Gorn photo. Comedy gold!
Welp, this one brought out the comments, for sure. I watched the first 20 minutes of the show then decided I would prefer ironing my socks over of watching the next 40 minutes. So I went and read a book instead.
Nope. This one doesn’t work for me.
OMGosh LMAO!
I Love THIS!
The generation ship idea stoty was used by A. Bertram Chandler and Robert A. Heinlein.
On a side note, I just read the Lilek’s column, and it as awesome as you hype! Here’s the link for anyone who wants to checkit out:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030416020456/http:/www.lileks.com/writings/screed/olivegarden.html
not to complain but….can Steve get a new microphone?
I listen to Lilek’s Ricochet podcast every week. Don’t miss an episode. 🙂
Which one is his? I just searched the site and couldn’t find it. I used to love Jim Geraghty’s 3 Martini Lunch until he went full Vichy Republican
Bill…I think it’s time to add a fourth person to Right Angle…I nominate the Gorn Captain!
I am gobsmacked! The reaction to the special guest appearance of Commander Gorn is mixed. The “puny Earthlings” in the comments prove him right. I wondered how long it would take for someone to suggest a more permanent role for the Commander. Good to see Mark Hohbein is on it. More Gorn, More Gorn!
LOL. I know right. Clearly more diversity is needed – more Gorn. Or more Sith Lords. Or more Ming the Merciless. 😎
Awesome – I like the ummm…”eccentric” episodes. The idea is cool, but it needs some work to make the dialog interaction more of a conversation instead of a overtalking interruption. It will be interesting to know how the view count compares to typical show. If it does well, should Scott be replaced by special guest space villians? Just asking for a friend 😎
Nicely done. Next time you can have some preplanned Gorn comments for you and Steve to react to in real time.
Something different for us denizens of the area behind the scenes.
123456
Nice to see the Masked Dancer where he belongs.
123456
Gorn will be “Mur-Cee-Full”
While I give you guys an “A” for effort and creativity, I have to agree with the crowd that the Gorn didn’t work out.
That said, I do appreciate that you didn’t miss the episode – maybe next time see if Kruiser is available? Or see what Klavan is up to?
There is nothing artificial about intelligence. All of these engines have to be populated with what is referred to as a “knowledgebase (KB)”. Said knowledgebase is limited to the knowledge of the person who populates it. So, if you have a person with a lot of knowledge of Jack the Ripper, you get a lot of possible permutations. And furthermore, you are subject to the judgment and even political leanings of whoever populates that KB. Thus, any KB is essentially opinion and therefore, not truly AI. It is actually the rendition of whomever created it.
Bill, do me a favor and PLEASE don’t do this again!
AI … First of all, it’s NOT intelligent and secondly it’s Evil. Of all the possible permutations of how a machine might interpret and render images … There’s a reason why they look ‘disturbing’ by default.
Great haircut
Aw, you missed a great pun opportunity.
Gorn: “This was for our show idea. We shot the pilot, but…well…then we couldn’t get the ship to the network on time, so it didn’t get picked up.”
Thought you were going to go:
We shot the pilot, then we ate him and nobody to fly us to the meeting.
I assume the shooting of the pilot was just to wound, because Gorn prefers live prey
As an early baby boomer, I was a kid in the 50s and a teenager in the 60s so I saw it all go to hell in real time. Everything that is wrong came to fruition in the 60’s. It always irked me that ‘student’ became some sort of sacred calling that could not be questioned. Most people I knew either went to work right out of high school or into the military which is what I did.I joined the Navy. I don’t advocate for the return of the draft for several reasons one of the which is it would never work because the concept of shame has been eliminated but it’s very existence made people make adult plans while in high school. A friend once remarked that we were that last generation that came out of high school educated.
A total waste of my time, so I’m out of here early!
What’s the name of that AI art site?
As it happens, I’ve been reading James Lileks since before 9/11, in fact before Bill Whittle. I had the opportunity to meet him last year at the Ricochet meet up in Manhattan and one of the questions I asked is if he knew of Bill Whittle he said ‘Oh sure’ and started to say something about an interview when we were interrupted by Rob Long. Double barreled name dropping.
Well Bill you actually pulled it off and I enjoyed it tell the Gorn he interrupts too much and when he speaks we can’t hear anybody else but still good choice to put it out.
I would call this Right Angle ” whimsical “.
Actually enjoyed it.
And Gorn captain? I’ve eaten your distant relative: alligator. Tastes between fish and lobster. Good with lemon and butter. 😆
I did not realize, after watching you guys since before the beginning, how much Scott keeps you two nerds from going completely off the rails.
I give you an E for effort with the Gorn fill in, but I feel you kind of over played it, just a bit.
Both pronunciations of tinnitus are acceptable.
The Clayton Rotary is having a reverse raffle next weekend. Too late to book an appearance, Bill?
Wow, guys, what were you thinking? There isn’t enough talking over each other, you have to put it on steroids? Add the horrible, chewing-ice cubes voice of the Captain with nothing to say.
Unwatchable.
And yet, out of loyalty I watched the whole thing.
Scotty! Zo! Please! Hurry back!
Oh, I get what he was thinking, unfortunately it failed in execution. If he’d reduced the Gorn audio level, on what I assume was done in post, and keep it minimal, then it’d probably rock.
Oh, and the lame star field moving at around warp 17 was a bit hokey, but so was Star Trek TOS…lol.