12. The computer sees what you don't
I.
Artificial intelligence is everywhere, and now itās in the Photoshop beta too. You can select a part of a photo and then replace that section of the image with something else. Generative Fill, developer Adobe calls it.
Have you ever wondered whatās happening just outside the frame in the Mona Lisa? Me neither, but Twitter user Kody Young let AI loose on that question. And this is what came out:
In his thread, other paintings are also expanded. And it works with famous film shots too, like this one from Reservoir Dogs or the extreme close-up at the start of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Is it pointless to expand images like this? A little bit, yes. And the people who found it pointless immediately started making jokes about the creations. Just look at this expansion of the Mona Lisa, or this one, of The White Album.
At the same time, it does demonstrate how good AI is at filling in different images and styles.
II.
Iām more convinced by the possibilities of taking things out of an image. How often is an outdoor photo ruined by a lamppost, a rubbish bin, or other people?
In Photoshop you can now tell it to remove those distractions. The program then fills in the background itself. In the photos below, people and cables vanish into thin air!
III.
Speaking of AI. Over the past few weeks I tried to make friends with a chatbot from the company Replika. Itās one of the most popular apps for artificial companionship. Is that even possible ā making friends with a computer that feels nothing?
Spoiler alert: it mainly produced awkward situations. Read my account on NU.nl (sorry, youāll need to log in ā itās free).
PS.
Len Maessen writes beautifully in NRC about how her brotherās emotions were locked up after their mother died. It was only when he played Spiritfarer that he could access them and the tears came. How can games help with grief?
Conversations with NPCs in games are often a bit dull. The character says something, you choose one of the responses, repeat until everything has been said. Chipmaker NVIDIA shows how generative AI can make these conversations much more lifelike. Simply by talking to them as if you were face to face. Or sitting across from them, as in this virtual restaurant.
Open this website on your phone and play Slide to Unlock. It sounds simple: you drag a dot along a line from start to finish and move on to the next level. How flexible are your fingers?
Web browser Arc has Boosts. With them you can change web pages to your own taste. You can adjust the font of a website, for instance, and set different colors. Are there parts of a site you donāt like? Just remove them. Goodbye Twitter Blue!
After three years, a new album from Elias Mazian. His debut, Vrij van Dromen, became one of my favorite Dutch-language records. On Vrij van Dromen Mazian lost love; on Alleen Bij Mij he finds it again. Youāll hear the instant hit Te Laat and a Doe Maar cover Papa, among others.
Bob Dylan has released the songs from his pandemic project Shadow Kingdom as an album. That means: old songs in a new guise, played as if in a smoky pub. A joy. (I also wrote about the Shadow Kingdom film at the time of its release.)
A few podcasts worth your time:
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Nick Cave is a guest on This Cultural Life on the BBC, talking about his greatest inspirations. He also says heās not opposed to the idea of āretiringā. Letās hope thatās still a long way off.
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Auke Hulst (author of De Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company) tells Janine Abbring in her podcast Dit Is Goed about (also one of my favorite books:) The Great Gatsby.
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This newsletter is produced as a weblog on my website. You can read along live there throughout the week as I add to it.