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Show HN: I “wrote” a kid's book with ChatGPT and Midjourney

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Re: Show HN: I “wrote” a kid's book with ChatGPT and Midjourney

#401

Post by thih9 »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #135
thih9 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, “things got slippery” can be used metaphorically; and that meaning did appear in the story (mischievous Sparkles).

Well it’s a kids book. So I’m not sure it should be heavy on metaphors. It’s really not great though. On the last page the hedgehog becomes huge. And it makes no sense. Why was there too much butter? Why was some random girl in the house. How does butter make bread disappear? Why is one character a hedgehog and the other a human girl?

> Why is one character a hedgehog and the other a human girl?

Stories with animals that act as humans are a trend spanning from antiquity (Aesop) or earlier (myths) that just never went away (e.g. Guardians of Galaxy).

Re: Show HN: I “wrote” a kid's book with ChatGPT and Midjourney

#402

Post by makoto12 »

pixl97 wrote: post #311
makoto12 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mathematical concepts are in the public domain. The art used to train these models are not

I mean the concept of public domain is fungible when companies like Disney can pay off their favorite politicians to get 20 more years of monopolies on their ideas that 'steal' from the society they live in. Being that there is enough of a debate on this topic alone that's been raging for decades it's not easily decidable by a one liner.

true. Personally I think the concept of public/private domain is a good thing. But like all good things, they get abused by bad actors who are huge corporations. But the artwork and texts used for training these models are often coming from small independent creators. The same creators who will be sidelined by this new technology. Bitter pill to swallow

Re: Show HN: I “wrote” a kid's book with ChatGPT and Midjourney

#403

Post by dalbasal »

svantana wrote: post #288
dalbasal wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It usually trends to the way over time. When you're demonstrating or studying a tech (like we're doing with gpt now), there's a tendency to go "here's what it can do." Once people start using it for more mundane work, the focus becomes "here's what I can do with it." It probably doesn't matter what children's stories language models can write themselves. It matters what stories people can write using them. Same for s…

I think (and hope) you're right. Recently, someone coined the phrase "bach faucet" to describe the mundanity of an "AI" that can compose millions of novel bach fugues that are indistinguishable from the real thing [1]. At the end of the day that is just pointless - abundant art serves no purpose in society, and its value will be zero when considering supply and demand. [1] https://twitter.com/galaxykate/status/158390…

Precisely.

OTOH... using AI to create art shifts around supply and demand such that there will be practical implications. The way email correspondence between A customer and a bank may look very different once both are using GPT enabled email clients.

Re: Show HN: I “wrote” a kid's book with ChatGPT and Midjourney

#404

Post by mestelan »

snhly wrote: post #257
the_af wrote: post #221

As an experiment, this is cool. As actual usage? I enjoy making stories up (or misremembering existing ones) for my daughter. The human touch is valuable to me. I also wonder: many well-loved stories of today started as a story the writer was telling his/her children; one example is The Hobbit. What if Tolkien had thought "screw this, I'm overworked and tired, I'll just type some prompt for ChatGPT and it will be eno…

It is vaguely dystopian, true, but one thing I remember in order to sleep at night is that ChatGPT and the like are trained on human-written text. So we might currently be looking at ChatGPT at its very best, or close to its very best. Reasoning: from here on out, the stuff it trains on will be polluted with the automatically generated text. Photo copies of photo copies eventually lead to blurrier and crummier images…

It would be interesting to see whether a label emerges, to denote content created pre-chatGPT; ex: certified pre-2023 AI-free content.

Also, it would be possible to train bots on an archive of such material.(accordingly, out of date; so less useful in numerous ways).

Re: Show HN: I “wrote” a kid's book with ChatGPT and Midjourney

#405

Post by shagie »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #396
shagie wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many paintings that have been made following along to a Bob Ross video - using the same paints, the same brushes, and the same elements within the painting. Even after following along and gaining the confidence to paint on their own, they continue to use the same approach to painting. Are those paintings afterwards derivative works and to be treated the same way as an AI painting asked to create a scene wit…

That is largely hobby painting and learning to paint. You’re conflating human skill to learn and adapt and go through a relaxing exercise to AI generated. It’s not a serious argument.

My question is "what is a derivative work?" This is equally applicable to images generated for a hobby as it is for professionals. It applies to art generated with a paintbrush and canvas, on a painting app on a digital tablet, and as generated though an AI model.

The definition of a derivative work is agnostic to the means to create it. The final product is what is being evaluated.

If the answer is "but the Bob Ross paintings that are derivative works by amateurs are never sold and only hung at home - it would only be an issue if they sold them or tried to display them publicly as described https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106 " - then I would agree.

If I create an image through any means - be it paint on canvas, stylus on tablet, or prompt and ML and don't violate 17 U.S. Code § 106 then there shouldn't be any issue.

If, however, I publish that image - again, no matter how it is created - then there is an issue. But it isn't the maker of the paints, or Adobe, or the creators of whatever ML model generated it. A program cannot hold a copyright and cannot itself create a derivative work. ( https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-copyright-offic... ) and so the issue of creating and publishing a derivative work is upon the human who did it - not the computer.

If you want to sue someone for publishing an image generated as "create a landscape of San Francisco in the style of Pixar" then have Pixar go after the person who published that image. It doesn't matter what process created that image.

Re: Show HN: I “wrote” a kid's book with ChatGPT and Midjourney

#406

Post by the_af »

SamPatt wrote: post #392
the_af wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question is precisely that, what will we want to do if computers do everything, including writing, reading, critiquing, buying, selling and stealing art? We will be left to ponder our existence and meaning in the vastness of the cosmos? Nope: in this hypothetical future, computers will also be better at that than us. I'm not threatened by computers if they can design a car, or write a better programs (though my li…

If computers are better at writing novels than humans then what you gain is access to better novels. I enjoy reading novels, and I wouldn't refuse to read an excellent one because a computer wrote it.

I understand your point of view, but writing novels is an activity that is enjoyable for humans. This to me feels like "we developed an AI that enjoys food better than humans": do we need an automated improvement in food-enjoyment?

Think about whatever you enjoy doing: what if computers do it better, and become cheaper and faster at it, and you are no longer necessary? Sure, you could do it for your mom or partner to see, I guess. Disappointing, isn't it? Now repeat for every conceivable hobby or human activity. Do you see where I'm going?

> access to better novels

Are current novels bad? Do we have a lack of novels? Does the process of novel-writing need "disruption" by AI? Is mankind complaining, "if only we had more and better novels"?

Re: Show HN: I “wrote” a kid's book with ChatGPT and Midjourney

#407

Post by nemo44x »

the_af wrote: post #359
corysama wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we need another song about love? Do we need another library for formatting text? Do we need another bedtime story? No, we probably don’t. Won’t and shouldn’t stop people from making more :)

Excellent point. The world doesn't need another love song [1]. But the human composing it might need it, as a form of expression, even if the result is garbage or trite. Humans enjoy creating stuff, even if nobody wants that stuff. Writers write, or their minds will explode. The creation process is its own goal. This is not the case for ChatGPT; a LLM has no motivations. [1] https://youtu.be/jJHbJukQi8k?t=42

Go ahead and create, no technology is stopping anyone from doing that. But I don't see why you can't create while using a technology like ChatGPT. Coming up with the proper prompts, rewriting some of its output, using its output as an input, etc. There's a lot of things you can do to combine your own novel thoughts with the text generated by a machine. That's a way to create things that has never really been possible.

Imagine being an OK writer and now you potentially have an editor. Imagine asking it to come up with a few ideas regarding something you're working on and you can use one as inspiration. There's just unlimited ways people will work with and integrate these new tools that you or I can't even possibly dream up.

As for asking if we need more bedtime stories - why not? Maybe it would be cool if me and my kid could use some experience we had together to create a story that features him and his friends in the mold of a classic story.

Re: Show HN: I “wrote” a kid's book with ChatGPT and Midjourney

#408

Post by snhly »

mestelan wrote: post #404
snhly wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is vaguely dystopian, true, but one thing I remember in order to sleep at night is that ChatGPT and the like are trained on human-written text. So we might currently be looking at ChatGPT at its very best, or close to its very best. Reasoning: from here on out, the stuff it trains on will be polluted with the automatically generated text. Photo copies of photo copies eventually lead to blurrier and crummier images…

It would be interesting to see whether a label emerges, to denote content created pre-chatGPT; ex: certified pre-2023 AI-free content. Also, it would be possible to train bots on an archive of such material.(accordingly, out of date; so less useful in numerous ways).

China do have new laws requiring people on the web to indicate with a watermark (or similar) if their stuff was created with the help of AI. See: https://cacm.acm.org/news/267778-china-bans-ai-generated-med...

Even if western governments adopt similar laws, however, I'm not sure if they would be that effective. People would start messing with the definition of AI. E.g. 80 years ago a spelling and grammar checker would probably have fit society's definition of AI, and both of those techs arguably have a cultural impact on the web. Spellcheckers lead to less new words or dialectal variations of words coming into existence, for example.

Re: Show HN: I “wrote” a kid's book with ChatGPT and Midjourney

#410

Post by the_af »

nemo44x wrote: post #407
the_af wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point. The world doesn't need another love song [1]. But the human composing it might need it, as a form of expression, even if the result is garbage or trite. Humans enjoy creating stuff, even if nobody wants that stuff. Writers write, or their minds will explode. The creation process is its own goal. This is not the case for ChatGPT; a LLM has no motivations. [1] https://youtu.be/jJHbJukQi8k?t=42

Go ahead and create, no technology is stopping anyone from doing that. But I don't see why you can't create while using a technology like ChatGPT. Coming up with the proper prompts, rewriting some of its output, using its output as an input, etc. There's a lot of things you can do to combine your own novel thoughts with the text generated by a machine. That's a way to create things that has never really been possible…

> Go ahead and create, no technology is stopping anyone from doing that

Yeah, but where did I say that? That's not my point at all.

Here are my thoughts, rephrased:

- We, mankind, don't need AI to "improve" writing. This is a problem nobody has. There's a plethora of writing, both for children and for adults.

- People enjoy writing, so this isn't an activity we want to "optimize". There's no need for ChatGPT here.

- When computers take over creating everything, what is left for us humans? If/when books are being written and published by AI, sure you can go on writing for your mom & friends I guess, but something fundamental will be lost.

- When most "content" (I hate that word) is created like this, some sort of extreme Netflixization of movies and books taken to its logical consequence, we will become consumers. Isn't that depressing?

> As for asking if we need more bedtime stories - why not? Maybe it would be cool if me and my kid could use some experience we had together [...]

I do this every night with my daughter, without AI. It's called "parenting". You don't need gadgets or computers for this. ChatGPT isn't solving an actual problem in this case either.

"Computer, tell my kid a funny story about that time something fun happened to us; I think it was yesterday, it's in my mobile logs anyway."

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