The big event  for the day was going to the dentist.. I know it sounds crazy.. but I love going.. it feels good and I find it relaxing. 

All looks good.. dont you think ? 

nite all, nite sam

-je

Last Friday was the opening of the CoCreated: The artist in the age of intelligent machines show at Burlington City Arts. I was sad to miss the opening due to covid.. it sounds like it was a great party.. My friend Chris T has been workign on the show for over a year. I got a call from 7Days to be interviewed abotut he show. I figurted I’d better hurry and see it first… so Diane and I wen down aroudn noon to see it.It was really a wonderful collection of work.. My deep congrats to Chris and our friends Jenn K, Lapo, Donna, Jane ,. Mauro and all the other  artists and techs. The show has many facets..   The show was built around  the concept of generative AI .. that is AI that can create  new things.. new images, movies, sounds. physical shapes. It explores the transition we’re now experiencing where Artificial intelligence no longer just analyzes.. but it creates.. .. this was once just something humans could do.. what does that mean to art .. or any other form of creative enterprise.. going forward ? is it a threat ? is it a tool ?  The show didn’t try to answer those questions. .just form them in the viewers mind.
There  were so many interesting  pieces.. My friend Jenn did a generative peice that was trained on images of diseased plant leaves.   My freidn Lapo mad aa a really fin peice that used AI to do motion captire of peoples hand gestrues to manipulate a beautiful abstract form.. (I had fun workig on the cocept with Lapo). THere were severla cool genrative movie peices .. one by my good freidn Maru from the MIT-IBM lab tha will evolve throught he shows 3 mont run. Casey Reas, the creater of processing had a anotuerh evolving movie peice that will also evolve during the length of the show.  How cool is that .. I’ve never been to an art show that changes and evolves over the course of it s run. 

 

THere were some other thoguthp provinking peices.. Joshow Rohere had trained a chatbot based ont he GPT3 transformer model using the soceial media of another mans girlfreind wh’d died. The peice was called Jessica.. and you could intereact with it by typing.. It certainly felt liek a ‘personality’.. event though it was just responding with statistically likely  responses…  its not intelligent.. it’s a sophisticated illusion.  but if it gives soemone comfort.. I suppose thats a good thing..   I liked the way the show worked to help peopl e understand how generative AI worked. I particually like the simple explaination work that my freind aJanew had oen for the show .. bth as a poster.. and as an interesting artistic visualization of the latent space of a generative  machine. and what that means to explanabiliuty in decision systems. 

it’s so (!) timely a discussion .. I was recently appointed to the Vermont state AI commission. It’s an oversight group that will help the state make informed choices  about any sort of automated decisions systems  used by government agencies. As part of that I’ve been speaking to so many vermonters about AI.. Most of the the discussions center on the  fears of folks have on the way AI can harm us..  many  of these concerns  are real.. soem are speculative, but I rarely hear someone comment on the power AI has to improve our lives..   It’s clear to me that we need to have more nuanced discussions about about what AI  can and cant  do and what it..  should and shouldn’t do 

I think events like this show can help build interest and understandign of AI.. and can get people talking in helpful ways. 

Please go check out the show CoCreated: The artist in the age of intelligent machines at Burlington City Arts.  It running through May. I’d really like to hear what you think !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Today was valentines day.. not a day we do much to ,mark.. but today we decided to hike camels hump in the early morning. It was a weekday so we saw very few folks. The snow was great so we brought our butt sleds”.. they’re basically just plastic discs that you sit on and slide down.  TYhe hike up was great.. I could still feel soem covid in my breathing.. . It was beutiful, stilla nd sunny on the way up.. and we were warm as we were keepign a good pace. bet we still got up and down in 2 hours and 20 min.  It was COLDn and windy up tehre.. we couldnt stay on the peak long.. but what a view !

Sledding down was SOOOOO fun. .it was fast and steep.. high in Vitamin F (fun !) . we got all the way down to the parking lot.. and what an ab workout !

I got home in time  to get a good day of work in. We have a big meeting coming up in the next couple of weeks.. and we have a few demos we’re trying to finish up.. so I needed the time.  I celebrated the work day with a trip through the car wash.. so cool and trippy !

Our car felt happy !

We cooked a very red dinner. to celebrate V Day..  i’m so  happy and grateful  to be in a relationship where most days feel like valentines day 🙂 

nite all, nite sam

-me

Today was my first day back at work after being out for about 10 days. I I was still wearing a mask… I had a day of making stuff and meetings. It felt so good to see my friends..

I didn’t take a single picture today.. which means I was happoily busy !

nite all. nite sam

-me