Just think how many more interesting movies there could be, if the costs to produce them were drastically reduced. There are pros and cons with AI actors
While this looks good on the surface. The stress and justifications a Director/artists makes to create a movie acts as an effective filter for quality work. Only with a lot of effort from a lot of people is that possible.
Without that effort and filters, We're going to have a deluge of poorly inspired, sloppy content.
My brain just switches off if I realize something is AI generated. be it blogs, videos or audio.
Theres already plenty of good actor making minimum wage serving coffees in LA while waiting for their breakthrough. Somehow, they are not hired, so I doubt that actor wages is the real issue at hand.
You think a human audience won't be able to clock an AI actor in an instant? A huge chunk of our sensorium is devoted to finding the slightest thing "off" about human interaction. AI actors will mess with our suspension of disbelief in ways even cartoon actors can't touch.
I don't need more movies. I want higher quality movies. And I don't think AI will work out any better for movies than it does for youtube documentaries. It's getting tiresome to find anything worth watching among all the slop.
This is like saying it's a bad thing that phone cameras are getting so good because expensive cameras were keeping out the garbage films.
Expensive cameras are still better. And yet, it's good that people who were never going to be able to afford those cameras have something else they can use to tell their story.
But more isn't necessarily better; if producing movies costs nothing, then watching it is worth nothing.
I can fire up chatgpt and have it write a thousand stories. Would you read it?
AI is good for generating content, but that doesn't make it valuable content. And we had low value slop before AI, just thinking of e.g. buzzfeed back when.
Anyway, go browse Youtube, plenty of interesting content that doesn't get enough views as it is.
It really depends how you view the actor’s role. Are they a human prop executing the director’s vision or a co-collaborator? I think AI will struggle to be the latter.
counter point, think of how much more interesting movies would be if there were only like 3 a year and the rest of your time you were waiting for one
i call this model: everything before 1990
i'm not appealing to tradition, i'm just saying what if our focus is the source of enjoyment... what if 1000 things to pick for dinner is exhausting but 1 that you think about all day always ends up good
For a better comparison, you could look at China which only allows for a few dozen foreign films per year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_censorship_in_China#Quota...); which films depends on whether the publisher thinks it'll be successful there, whether it passes China's censors, and whether China was involved in its production. It's a different audience though, for example the Warcraft film bombed in the west but was hugely popular in China, possibly because of the relative scarcity of western films there?
Didn't we learn anything with streaming? The costs will stay low until a new tech is fully established and then continuously go up after we're dependent. Just benefitting different parties. And with streaming the main difference between the old and new parties is that the new ones, being primarily tech companies, added surveillance capitalism.
One of the things that doesn't seem to be emphasised enough is that LLMs can be great as Tutors for students. E.g. They could really help students not understanding fully a section of Mathematics and really break down the logic.
They could, if you wouldn't have to expect them to make hidden mistakes that a learner isn't able to spot. Using an LLM when you are qualified to verify its output is one thing, but a learner often can not do that or only with extreme difficulty, making them unsuitable.
Especially with math, most LLMs will happy explain to you a "proof" for something that isn't proven or known false.
I am wondering if the best way to interview IT people is:
1. Give them an IQ test
2. Have a coffee chat with them about their experience and ask a few technical questions
If people are smart, and decent communicators and broadly have worked in the role you are looking for (doesn't have to be same tool) they will likely be fine. I don't think testing for coding skills is needed - but that's just my opinion.
> The only issue with linux I am wondering about is sharing my CV where most companies need a word file.
Maybe it's regional, but I've never been asked for a Word file resume.
I've never had somebody turn down a PDF. And all of the "Upload you resume" online applications I've seen also support PDF. A lot of them lately will even correctly parse out the info and auto-fill forms with it, but some of them mangle it.
For CV I use libreoffice and save it as a PDF/a. If it needs to be editable for some reason you can use docx or odt(odt might scare the average office worker so stick with docx).
For those who think they are decent at socializing, one book that may extend your skill further is ' Never split the difference'. Its a book about negotiating, but I think it does teach some key skills. Mirroring for example where you literally repeat back the last few words a person has said, I've found unexpectedly super useful - it almost allows people to expand on what they are saying and helps them go deeper into things. Basically the book (and other tools) has helped me become a better listener (I have always been decent at the talking side).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-...
Note: I only 'mirror' 2-3 times in a conversation. I've found over using it makes it have less impact. But that's just me.
Agreed that is a classic - I think the essentials are true but the language is a bit dated.
Definitely "trying to think positively about people and their actions/understand them", and giving people "a sense of importance" are very helpful social skills.
I definitely second that its a great book, especially if you focus more on the principles it's getting at instead of necessarily the examples.
Funny experience with that:
A big part of How to Win Friends and Influence People that I took to heart was "be interested in other people". Flash forward a few years and I'm in a bar with a group of people I had recently met when one of them says to me "Hey, we've been talking a lot about ourselves but not really that much about you." One of the other people interrupted "That's because they are polite! They are showing interest in what we're interested in instead of insisting on talking about themselves."
So at least some people do notice when you put in an effort to use good social skills!
To give my own view of Foundry and the products - pipeline buider, Ontology Manager, and workshop.
I think that pipeline builder is a good tool for building pipelines - however maybe its just my company but there is a sea of very similar tables that have been generated and pipeline builder makes things a lot messier. Personally I would prefer to use data bricks or even M$ Fabric to do pipeline processing - its like a lego version of those tools.
At my company I don't think that the ontological layer is really any more useful than a strict RDBMS warehouse system. It feels like marketing speak when I hear engineers/product managers talk about it. I certainly don't think that it has added any more insights/interlinking. I would like to see clear examples of benefits to this data structure over traditional warehousing approaches rather than hype.
I'm not blown away by Workshop - for reporting/visualization I would use PowerBI/Tableau (far superior). For app development (i.e. some kind of intelligent spreadsheet to allow opps people to use it) its ok - but quite clunky. Its a lego like system - and I'm not convinced as an app its better than excel on sharepoint (broadly speaking its worse). Again I think its all marketing.
The Last of Us Part II is a very marmite game - people either love it or hate it. Personally I didn't like the direction the story went down even if the gameplay and the graphics were amazing I was left cold. However I do respect that the story itself was pretty original and was catering to female/lgtb audiences (that's cool). Just not my thing.
It really wasn't, it just had a lesbian protagonist. There are still many prominent sympathetic male characters with agency. Plenty of women enjoy action movies targeted towards men, I always find it confusing when men feel they can't enjoy media with a woman in it.
Respectfully I don't agree with you. I do think that part 2 massively changed the story to one where it catered to female/lgtb audiences. Examples:
1. Ellie and her girlfriend
2. Abby (who I really wasn't sure if they were trans or just a very butch woman (turned out to be the later)
3. Abby's male forest friend (who turns out to be a trans-man).
I have no problem with game companies creating a range of stories (in fact I fully support it) but it was very much a game for female/lgtb audiences. I do also think that the difference in tone between part 1 and 2 was quite striking.
Personally I do think it was a very bold creative direction but I know I will not play part 3 - its not a series that interests me anymore. But that's just an opinon.
Respectfully I am not saying that, you are making that claim.
TLOU part 2 in my view was very different in tone to part 1. I didn't enjoy the story. This is an opinion.
The only examples you give of it 'catering to female and LGBT audiences' are the existence of some female and LGBT characters.
Also, Abby is just a regular cis heterosexual woman, and there is never any indication that she might be otherwise. I can't really see how the mere existence of a straight cis female character in a game could signal very much about its intended audience.
Respectfully I don't agree.
I didn't enjoy the story - so there's that (again just an opinion).
I literally thought Abby was a trans woman she was so muscular (and so have plenty of other gamers). She then later teams up with a transman.
What's interesting is how you portray Abby vs how I and a lot of others saw here (a massive hulk that was kind of a woman but kind of something else). Note I am talking about the video game.
Ellie and her girlfriend were very alike and there wasn't an interesting contrast between them. The lesbian element seemed very played up. I also didn't find her interesting enough to want to play as her. That's not to say all women characters are not appealing. Ellie just wasn't likeable in the game.
Hence... I do think that while there certainly a lot of over reaction from some men about the game. There are also some legitimate points that left wing types refuse to see (see above). There is a ton of other examples I could give on this.
But honestly part 2 was a lame story (for me). We can agree to disagree. That's ok.
As you probably know, the misconception that Abby was trans was fed by online commentary made before the game was released, when people had just seen the trailer and only knew that there was a trans character in the game. No-one who actually plays the game would get the impression that Abby is trans. For all that you play up Abby’s physique, I’m sure you’re perfectly well aware that cis women can have big muscles and that trans women don’t usually spend hours at the gym developing physical traits that would be perceived as masculine. But for some reason you’re repeating these nonsense complaints made years ago by people who hadn’t even played the game.
Your only specific complaint about Ellie and her girlfriend is that they’re lesbians. And you keep mentioning the fact that the game has some LGBTQ characters as if that in itself is some kind of gotcha that proves your point (“she then teams up with a trans man”). I’m not trans but I don’t feel that a game is any less aimed at me just because one of the characters is trans. Why on Earth would I?
You’re obviously entitled to have whatever subjective reaction you have to the game or the characters. But you chose to frame your reaction primarily in terms of the LGBT themes in the game, and that’s the part of your comment I’m responding to.
I played the game and didn't read any online stories about the game and experienced Abby as trans for a very long time into the game. I wasn't influenced by anyone. Her sexuality/gender was very unclear to me (this is about the video game).
There is no gotcha attempts in any of my writing (honestly).
I do think Abby (hyper muscular seemed trans), her transmale friend, Ellie having no interesting gravity and being a lesbian and her girlfriend being uninteresting and long romantic scenes of the two of them, all back up my perspective. But it's just an opinion.
What's undeniable is that these characters are a stark contrast to the original game. Naughty dog took the feel of the game in a very different direction.
I also know you will dismiss my viewpoint and insist I'm not seeing it "correctly". I will be strawmanned, my experience denied, and my opinions explained away.
But as I also said I have no problem with people making a diverse range of games.
TLOU2 is a very marmite game - and a lot of people loved it and a lot of people didn't like it. And the people it appeals to clearly is different from part 1. I appreciate you disagree.
Not sure why you are doubling down on this weird claim that Abby “seems trans”. Apart from that, you’re just making vague criticisms that characters “lack gravity”, etc. The only specific thing you don’t like about them is that they’re LGBT. Repeating over and over again that the game has (gasp!) a lesbian couple in it isn’t going to actually substantiate your claim that it’s not aimed to appeal to straight men.
Huh? Lara Croft, female Shepherd ( that is how I played it anyway ), Bayonetta all featured female protagonists. The difference between then and current crop and the games were enjoyable to its audience.
I personally disliked 2nd last of us, but that it is because, unlike the first one, it was missing something from the original. I absolutely disliked the 2nd act as the former antagonist despite understanding the need to include their portion of the story in the narrative.
I am lukewarm towards the end message despite it, oddly, aligning with my own personal views. It felt it was preachy.
And that, I think, some find off-putting. It is supposed to be entertainment.
Hell, Wick just released Ballerina that features strong female protagonist and.. people don't hate as much as other forced entries. I have theories as to why, but those, I think, can only derail this thread.
But Lara Croft and Bayonetta were made for the male audience. They were very palatable to males because that was their purpose especially visual wise. I don't think it's very representative of actual women and their experience.
> But Lara Croft and Bayonetta were made for the male audience.
That isn't really true, well at least in not the way you are implying. In both circumstances the motivations in development of the characters were to do something a bit different.
> Lead graphic artist Toby Gard went through about five designs before arriving at the character's final appearance. He initially envisioned a male lead character with a whip and a hat. Core Design co-founder Jeremy Smith characterised Gard's initial design as derivative of Indiana Jones and asked for more originality. Gard decided that a female character would work better from a design standpoint. He also cited Virtua Fighter as an influence; Gard noticed that while watching people play the game, players selected one of the two available female characters in the game almost every match he saw. Gard expressed a desire to counter stereotypical female characters, which he has characterised as "bimbos" or "dominatrix" types. Smith was sceptical of a female lead at first because few contemporary games featured them. He came to regard a female lead as a great hook and put faith in Gard's idea. Inspired by pop artist Neneh Cherry and comic book character Tank Girl, Gard experimented with different designs, including "sociopathic blonds, muscle women, flat topped hip-hopsters and a Nazi-like militant in a baseball cap". He settled on a tough South American latina woman with a braid named Laura Cruz.
Similarly with Bayonetta. The guy had made a bunch of games with Male Protagonists and fancied a change by the sounds of it.
> Given the suggestion to create another action game by producer Yusuke Hashimoto, project director Hideki Kamiya decided to create a female lead, having felt he had already done all that could be done with male protagonists. To this end, he told character designer Mari Shimazaki to create her with three traits: a female lead, a modern witch, and to use four guns.
It very much "damned if you do, damned if you don't" when designing characters because someone is going to criticise you for something or other and assume the worst reasons why you did it.
There's a very loud minority of people who think anything with a female or LGBTQ character in it is "woke-washed" or whatever, and apparently have tons of time to complain about it on social media. There's apparently entire subreddits dedicated to slagging on apparently "woke" media that has a GiIIiRRlllLL in it (eEEEeeeWWW!). People need a life.
If you have a fictional series/universe it is important it is internally consistent. Most people use fantasy/science fiction as a form of escapism. They don't want to be reminded about stuff in the real world while trying to escape it.
What frequently is perceived (rightly or wrongly) by fans of a particular franchise is that Female/LGBTQ characters are inserted into places where it doesn't make sense to fill quotas. People generally don't have problems with the characters being female or LGBTQ if the character is charismatic and it doesn't break the internal consistency of the Universe.
The reason why people are vocal is because they've heavily invest their time into something and when it fundamentally changes they feel like they've had the proverbial rug pulled from under them.
> Female/LGBTQ characters are inserted into places where it doesn't make sense to fill quotas
Every case of "ruined by woke" I have seen ultimately just boils down to bad writing, with people blaming "woke" for it when, well, it's just shitty writing. If you ignore the woke stuff and look more broadly usually the whole thing is at best mediocre.
Also sci-fi, fantasy, and horror have always been "woke." Star Trek was one of the first popular shows to prominently feature black characters in important roles and has always lampooned racism and other kinds of bigotry. Night of The Living Dead is pretty easy to see as a racism allegory, or at least it contains one as a sub-plot. Star Wars had an evil empire that was transparently a mix of Nazis and arrogant condescending colonialists. Alien was one of the first huge films I can recall to have a super competent female action hero with skills like engineering who didn't need any help from a man. The Expanse depicts a society that's so post-gender-mattering you don't even notice it, it's just the way it is (probably a good example of good writing in this regard). Etc.
> Every case of "ruined by woke" I have seen ultimately just boils down to bad writing, with people blaming "woke" for it when, well, it's just shitty writing. If you ignore the woke stuff and look more broadly usually the whole thing is at best mediocre.
No not really. Claiming this is a hand waving away legit criticism. Fans/Superfans have legitimate criticism of how it breaks the in franchise universes. Constructive Criticism has been claimed to be racism/sexist/homophobia.
> Also sci-fi, fantasy, and horror have always been "woke." Star Trek was one of the first popular shows to prominently feature black characters in important roles and has always lampooned racism and other kinds of bigotry. Night of The Living Dead is pretty easy to see as a racism allegory, or at least it contains one as a sub-plot. Star Wars had an evil empire that was transparently a mix of Nazis and arrogant condescending colonialists. Alien was one of the first huge films I can recall to have a super competent female action hero with skills like engineering who didn't need any help from a man. The Expanse depicts a society that's so post-gender-mattering you don't even notice it, it's just the way it is (probably a good example of good writing in this regard). Etc.
No they haven't. It so annoying when people point to some ideas that were slightly progressive at the time being an example of it always being "woke". It is quite honestly tiresome.
None of the examples you have given are what people refer to as "woke" today anyway.
Star Trek was certainly progressive, no argument there. But progressive != woke. When people use "woke" as a pejorative they mean extreme left-wing politics that is bordering on insane. Star Trek TNG was progressive, but none of the politics were seen as extreme even at the time of release.
Alien (like Terminator) were very well done horror movies. They worked because women are seen as traditionally vulnerable. It a well known trope in horror movies.
Also there have been femme fatales and heroines in movies well before Alien. I've seen it in a silent Japanese Martial Arts movie from the 1930s where the Heroine avengers her friend who was raped after going to Samurai master (can't remember the name of the film though).
Heroines didn't just pop into existence sometime after 1960.
> The Expanse depicts a society that's so post-gender-mattering you don't even notice it, it's just the way it is (probably a good example of good writing in this regard). Etc.
Never seen it, probably won't now. If a piece of media is going to pretend that someone's sex isn't important to at least some aspect of their character, than it is bad writing. The fact that the show had to be saved by a Billionaire, tells me that it probably wasn't any good in the first place.
Yeah, I think a lot of that's just bad writing. Changing things for TV/film is common, but if you do it badly or ham-fistedly it's bad writing.
The Expanse is great. The show has uneven production quality if you look closely but the acting and writing are good and that matters more than VFX or sets. Definitely a fun watch. The books are better, but a lot of the detail in the books would be way more expensive to film properly (like more realistic space sequences or the Belters with their altered physiology).
>Star Trek TNG was progressive, but none of the politics were seen as extreme even at the time of release.
Season 5, Episode 17 features a genderless species that enforces a type of conversion therapy on any member of the species that believes they do have a gender. It's very thinly veiled, if you could consider it veiled at all.
I think I would agree that TNG's politics weren't considered extreme at the time. However, it's easy to believe that some themes the show touches on would be considered "woke" today.
> I think I would agree that TNG's politics weren't considered extreme at the time.
They would be considered more extreme by today's right than they were in the 1990s. If that came out today it would be woke gender ideology propaganda or something. But today's right is trying to low key rehabilitate Hitler.
I loved the Uncharted games and have always thought that the first level of TLOU:PI is one of best set-piece intros in gaming history, up there with FFVII's "Bombing Run". If you suspect that this is me buttering you up for a takedown, you'd be correct. I have some major issues with TLOU.
Like a lot of modern zombie media, it eschews the genre's initial thrust towards satire of race/class issues to instead play them straight, presenting a survivalist power fantasy that edges a little too close to colonialist sympathies. The admitted beauty of its settings actually makes this issue worse: players are supposed to admire the despoiled wilderness, cities and towns rendered bucolic via violent depopulation. This is only broken by the continued clashing of human/formerly human fighters and soldiers; there are still too many people.
Finding out that one of PII's subplots was meant to be an allegory of the Israel/Palestine conflict made things click hard, especially remembering how PI's development difficulties (famously, Amy Hennig being forced to lead a push to force Neil Druckmann to change the original plan to make Clickers female-only) dovetailed "grossly" with the eventual story (one where almost every prominent female character is killed brutally on-screen). What was supposed to be a thoughtful exploration of human nature, as literary as it was interactive, turned out to be just another [redacted] [redacted] power fantasy along the lines of Call of Duty. Maybe worse, for the pretense.
My biggest beef with it by far was the lack of additional storytelling of the infection.
Gameplay was fun, graphics on PS5 were excellent. The infection is a character all by itself and it was basically completely neglected. This bothered me because it was such a central part of the first game.
Another game that actually did this well, Days Gone, will sadly never get a sequel.
Yeah I generally have zero interest in anything that caters to a female audience. Usually the motivations and outcomes are the exact opposite of what I tend to look forward to in movies/games in that case.
I do think some people are very good at reading others. And I also think that as we generally don't see ourselves we may not realise how we come across. There is a huge amount of information we send out by how we hold ourselves/talk etc.
Personally I think I am very good at reading people's internal state. But I also am aware that I can be wrong. Reading someone who is very quiet for example can be hard and more prone to error.
When I talk with someone I often do assess how much turn taking they do, particularly with a stranger. When I'm really engrossed in a conversation or I'm with a good friend I can sometimes turn off this assessment.
Final point - the article was a great read. I'd have been really interested in their views on gender differences in communication (there can be differences).
We all read people to an extent. Behavioural signs will show to a degree their emotional state, their status, their attention and interest in you/the conversation.
Combine it with how they use language and you get a good idea of how they think and how self aware they are. You can see if people monologue at you or if they are interested in turn taking. You can get a feel for how quickly people can grasp information, how relaxed/restless they are, how internal they are, how nice they are, how insecure they are, how aggressive they are etc.
I suppose I also look also for how real a person is. For example in a work setting some people are much more prone to wear masks and fake emotions and some people don't do that. I do try to factor in how much games playing some people do/don't do.
I remember being amused to learn that psychology folks call a real smile a “Duchenne” smile, and that the tell, to them, is that a Duchenne smile forms creases around the corners of the eyes.
To hear Ekman, father of the Facial Action Coding System, tell it:
That is true. But also covered in my last point about people wearing masks to an extent. If you have a limited amount of time with someone you can be fooled but a mask "can" slip if you really get to know someone. But yeah it's not fool proof and people can definitely be fooled. But having an understanding of the power dynamic between yourself and the other person can help.
But yeah some people can hide negative emotions (e.g. sadness) very well.
From what I've seen, a few people are intuitively correct at reading others.
Unfortunately many people think they're intuitive regardless of how poor they actually are at reading others (high self-belief, but poor ability).
We all notice how it takes high skill to recognize the very highly skilled in areas we are talented in.
That was the less commonly talked about part of the Dunning Kruger Effect. While the Dunning Kruger paper has been somewhat dismissed now as due to statistical artifacts, the DK effect seems to resonate with real life so we want to believe it.
There’s the evergreen genre of business-oriented instruments that are mainly cheery self-assessments (“I notice when people are feeling sad: agree, or strongly agree?”)—but I’m not sure how valid those get.
As far as interesting efforts that reach for more objectivity, I feel like the personality psychology people circulated a bunch of “EQ” instruments like this in the ‘00s and ‘10s, rooted in Paul Ekman’s work on facial expressions:
