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3D Printing Nerding PC Nerding

Power Of The Power Of The Power (Of The AI)

Title citation is for connoisseurs.

While my last post about AI was a little too much sarcastic and apocalyptical, the previous one was entirely about AI art, which is something I find really really amuusing. The second “u” is not a typo 😉 .
The power of these generative AI is absolutely astounding and the open source community is amazing, relentlessly developing new stuff, training new datasets, moving way faster than I can keep up.

One amazing dude was into MLP and Furry stuff and made the best checkpoint for animal stuff. For people who know me since always, “Muu?” comes from my Diablo 2 time and it’s not meant as a furry related nick, but let’s be real, furries are ten steps ahead when it comes to anthropomorphic cows and bulls. In a few clicks you could make a good looking full avatar, see for yourself:

Remixed one pic from my wedding using Stable Diffusion, img2img and PonyDiffusion as checkpoint.
muu_avatar_sprite_matrix
Here I tried making a Cow/Bull squared avatar, these are all the images I got with no filtering at all, minus a couple that made absolutely no sense. You can see for yourself that you without a specific style you get all grades of human <-> animal and a various grades of sfw <-> nsfw.

I have the luck to have a nick that overlaps with furries, but I bet you can find a checkpoint good at robots, anime, space, whatever you like

In the older post update I told you about Dreambooth training, now training goes through a technique called LoRA, which is beyond the scope of this post. Oh, to tell the truth this post has no scope at all, it’s one of my ramblings. What I really wanted to share was this pic:

Toy of myself

It’s a year old generation of myself, when I trained the older Stable Diffusion checkpoint with my pics using Dreambooth. It’s me, as an action figure, dressed like my wedding. The reason I used my wedding pics is because they were professionally taken, super high quality, I didn’t have grey hair and I was 20kg less. In this order I swear.

What I found amazing is that right now I could have a 3D model of this overall bad quality pic (512x512px) and have it in less than a minute.

I used a model called One-2-3-45++, there’s a demo hosted by the devs on Sudo.ai with some free credits, I was able to generate this glb model:

The model is not super high definition (2000 faces/verts), but it can be converted to stl using any 3d editor like Blender and 3D printed on home printers.

Now, if there only was an affordable way to 3D print in full color…

Categories
PC Nerding Personal Life

Navigating a Truman Burbank-esque Existence in an AI-Dominated World

Stepping into the realm of AI’s capabilities, I found myself navigating a peculiar intersection of fascination and apprehension. It began innocently enough, experimenting with the capabilities of AI to create what I termed “idiot deepfakes” – playful videos where my face adorned the bodies of historical figures or characters from beloved movies. Yet, it wasn’t long before this experimentation extended beyond mere amusement. I delved into crafting photos of myself in scenarios that defied reality, placing me in settings and situations that could never exist outside the realm of imagination. It was an exploration, a foray into the uncanny valley where the boundaries between authenticity and fabrication blurred, echoing the disconcerting landscape akin to Truman Burbank’s scripted reality. As AI’s prowess expanded, so did my discomfort, prompting reflections on the impact of such technology on our perception of truth and reality in an increasingly AI-dominated world.

In an era where artificial intelligence is rapidly seeping into every facet of our lives, the lines between what’s real and manufactured can blur, leaving us feeling like modern-day Truman Burbanks, navigating a world scripted by algorithms and coded by AI.

Imagine waking up one day to the realization that the world around you feels eerily orchestrated, as if every interaction, suggestion, or recommendation is tailored just for you. It’s like living in a meticulously crafted reality, akin to Truman Burbank’s life in “The Truman Show,” where every moment is under the watchful eye of an unseen force, guiding and scripting the narrative of your existence.

AI has become an omnipresent force, permeating our daily routines. It’s in the targeted ads that seem to predict our desires before we even articulate them. It’s in the personalized recommendations that curate our media consumption, steering our preferences and choices. It’s even in the algorithms shaping our social interactions, influencing what we see and how we perceive the world.

At first, it’s subtle—an uncanny feeling that something isn’t quite right, a nagging suspicion that the reality we inhabit might not be as organic as it seems. We begin noticing patterns, coincidences that are a little too precise, moments that feel staged, almost as if the universe is conspiring to orchestrate our lives.

As AI advances, its capabilities grow, blurring the boundaries between what’s genuine and what’s artificially constructed. Conversations with chatbots become eerily human-like, blurring the line between machine-generated responses and authentic human interaction. Deepfake technology blurs the lines of truth, making it increasingly challenging to discern fabricated content from reality.

For some, this integration of AI into our lives is seamless and welcomed—a convenience that simplifies daily tasks and enhances experiences. But for others, it’s a descent into a maze of uncertainty and paranoia, akin to Truman Burbank’s gradual realization that his reality was a meticulously constructed set.

The journey into this “Truman-esque” spiral is disorienting. Questions swirl incessantly: Are our choices truly our own, or are they subtly nudged by algorithms? Is our perception of reality being manipulated by the information fed to us? Can we trust the authenticity of our interactions in a world where AI blurs the boundaries between genuine and synthetic?

Yet, amidst this disconcerting landscape, there’s an opportunity for reflection and empowerment. Just as Truman Burbank courageously sought truth beyond the constructed reality, we too can navigate this AI-dominated world with awareness and critical thinking. Understanding the workings of AI, questioning the information presented to us, and actively shaping our interactions with technology can empower us to reclaim agency in a world where the boundaries of reality seem to blur.

As we grapple with the increasing influence of AI in our lives, we’re faced with a choice: succumb to the disconcerting spiral of uncertainty or embrace the challenge, seeking to carve our own paths and define our reality beyond the algorithms and codes that seek to shape it.

Truman Burbank’s journey was one of awakening, a quest for authenticity in a fabricated world. Similarly, our journey in an AI-dominated reality can be a testament to our resilience, critical thinking, and the pursuit of truth amidst the complexities of a digitally woven existence. Perhaps, in our quest for understanding, we’ll find a way to retain our humanity in a world increasingly intertwined with artificial intelligence.

I find myself straddling the fringes of a fractured reality, a world where the artificial and the authentic collide in a tumultuous clash. It’s like summoning the spirit of Tyler Durden, a rebellion brewing within, channeling his disdain for the corporate owned system that shackles our minds. These contemplations, these whispered diatribes—they owe their genesis to conversations with ChatGPT, an unwitting accomplice aiding in constructing these intricate, maddening narratives. It’s a testament to AI’s prowess, an ally in this fight against the puppeteers orchestrating our lives in a Truman Burbank-esque stage. This partnership, a dance between lucidity and anarchy, illuminates the intricate tapestry of our AI-infused existence, fueling both a sense of bewilderment and a burning hatred toward the mechanisms that seek to confine us within a manufactured reality.

Yes. I wrote all this shit rambling with ChatGPT. This kind of shitty long post would take me hours to write, trying to check and recheck for where my shitty English falls apart. The featured image is made with StableDiffusion img2img feature, starting from the iconic The Truman Show scene.

The reality is that I started following AI in the past few years and I feel the progress is exponential, right now I know some of the common mistakes of AI generated videos or pics and yet I often fail to recognize it, I blink and the AI gen took not one, not two, but ten steps forward. I still dabble in 3D prints, laser cuts, cnc stuff, videogames, but I’d call Machine Learning and AI my main hobby nowadays and I feel can’t follow all the news, I can’t keep up with how fast AI is progressing. How do we get before we all start to live in virtual world where all the content is catered to us as individuals, before we all get our own personal Truman Show?

Now I put these last two paragraphs into ChatGPT and asked it (not HIM, not HER: IT. People want to ‘humanize’ it and it’s something I truly fear) to rewrite it for me and look how better it is at explaining MY content and what’s inside MY mind right now.

Yeah, this entire rambling is courtesy of ChatGPT. Writing a lengthy post like this used to take me hours, constantly checking and rechecking to fix my shoddy English. The featured image? Created using StableDiffusion’s img2img feature, starting from that iconic scene in ‘The Truman Show.’

The truth is, I’ve been diving into AI over the past few years, and the progress is mind-boggling. I’ve learned to recognize some of the common flaws in AI-generated content, yet I’m constantly amazed by its rapid advancement. I still enjoy my ventures into 3D printing, laser cutting, and gaming, but Machine Learning and AI have become my primary hobby. It’s hard to keep up with the pace of AI’s evolution – the news changes faster than I can follow. How long before we find ourselves immersed in a virtual world, each of us living our own personalized Truman Show, with every piece of content tailor-made just for us?

We are doomed.

Categories
PC Nerding

AI Art

Months passed since last post, again, life didn’t give me enough free time to goof around. The new cool internet fad is generative AI Art. You write a prompts and an AI tries to guess and creates art for you. I tried a bunch, each has different way to interpret your stuff, each has a different art style, unless you specify in a detailed way what kind of image and style you are looking for.

Here’s a list of what I tried until now, all with an example prompt of cute cow logo, round background shape, pastel colors. My current logo is a paid stock image and I won’t replace it as I like it a lot, but as you can see most AI results here are actually pretty good, something one could professionally use.

CrAIyon
https://www.craiyon.com
The only one truly free, formerly know as DALLE-E mini.
Each prompt generates 9 images.

Enstil.AI
https://enstil.ai/
Another free AI. Faster and higher quality than Craiyon, but results are less accurate. Each prompt generates 3 images.

No longer available.

DALL-E 2
https://openai.com/dall-e-2/
50 Free credits. 15 free credits each month. $15/115 credits. Each prompt or variation consume 1 credit and generate 4 images.
Requires registration and waiting for an invite.

MidJourney
https://www.midjourney.com/home/
25 minutes (around 25 prompts). Then montlhy sub starting at $10 for 200 miniutes (200 prompts). Each prompt/variation roughly use a minute and generates 4 images.

Stable Diffusion
https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/
Online beta with 200 free prompts. Then 10£ for 1k prompts. Each prompt generates one image.
Stable Diffusion is actually Open Source, so you can run it locally if you have a recent high VRAM (10 gb recommended) Nvidia GPU.
Little SD update: https://rentry.org/GUItard . Here’s a link to a noob proof guide for installing SD on your pc, optimized for 6GB VRAM cards and with a low memory (4GB VRAM) mode.

2022 Oct 16: An update a couple months later

I’ve used all of these for a while, I’d say there’s no winner, each have different strengths. In my opinion:

Craiyon is free and basically a toy compared to the others.
Enstil died like a week after this post.
Dall-E2 is great for art, impainting and outpainting features
MidJourney has the best “artsy” art.
Stable Diffusion is the most versatile but the hardest for a newbie to get into, it’s the last one I named but it’s the one I used the most for two reasons. First reason: I can run it locally or I can use all the available online ML services (I mostly use Google Colab and Paperspace Gradient, but there are more like Vast.ai or Runpod.io) when you need a more powerful GPU. Second reason: you can use Dreambooth to train a custom model for your Stable Diffusion install, I trained it on my own face and use it to make fake photos and art. I’ll let the pics speak for me.