WHIM the author's terminator. The start of the end for us all?

Venusian Broon

Venusian Broon

Defending the SF genre with terminal intensity
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Yes scientists are working on that illusive crucial element of being human: creativity.

They have produced WHIM or the 'What-if Machine' that in their words: "to build a software system able to invent, evaluate and present fictional ideas with real cultural value for artefacts such as stories, jokes, films, paintings and advertisements.", or to "automate fictional ideation"

http://www.whim-project.eu/

So after having a look at this, is Judgement day upon us artists?

Short answer no. Laughably no in fact. (Makes me wonder if it's just a joke, but the BBC have it in a 'Click' clip* so it must be genuine). Has the sophistication of a random sentence generator and it even requires us humans to evaluate the answers that it gives, to give the program a chance.**

Example of the program's output (which admittedly it quite tickled me):What if the world suddenly had lots more dissenters? Then there would be fewer whims, since dissenters topple the tyrants that act on whims.

If this was a terminator, then it would be made of cardboard and be armed with a feather duster. And require a human to push it about.

And this is getting funded by taxpayers money. How many hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds? Why bother doing this - do they not know that millions of us creatives and writers sit in our garrets and work for pennies??? :D

Of course this is just the WHIM model 1. We must be vigilant or before we know it the WHIM model 101 will be back...



------------------------------------------------

*see start of http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02hcjhj - if the website lets you on.

** If we, the human resistance, want to stop such abominations, then we should all go on and tick random boxes to completely skew their 'crowdsourcing'. :whistle:
 
I'm pretty certain that the novel-writing machines in 1984 worked like this.
 
Must be the season for it. R4 this morning had a program full of nonsense of creative computers, silicon neurons. Contrary to popular science, accurately simulating a neuron in a mix of software and hardware would probably not allow making a functional brain.
Any smidgen of creativity in computer programs is a combination of the Human programmer's ingenuity and the database of Human generated information.
 
Venusian Broon said:
Example of the program's output (which admittedly it quite tickled me):What if the world suddenly had lots more dissenters? Then there would be fewer whims, since dissenters topple the tyrants that act on whims.
Click to expand...

Is this whims as in whims, or as in what-if machines? I'm confused. Is the machine arguing that dissenters should be crushed because it wants there to be more like it? Is it warning us that it is a tool for tyranny? If so, is it the first sentient machine?
 
HareBrain said:
Is this whims as in whims, or as in what-if machines? I'm confused. Is the machine arguing that dissenters should be crushed because it wants there to be more like it? Is it warning us that it is a tool for tyranny? If so, is it the first sentient machine?
Click to expand...

Oddly I hadn't made the connection in that sentence with the word whims and the program itself (another thing for AI researchers to make their programs more human-like - stupidity due to lack of coffee in the morning ;))

I think I'd take your second suggestion that Tyrants are using Wh.I.Ms. We should dissent more.
 
Stephen Palmer said:
I suppose the Whim-software is a child of the modern belief that anybody can do anything "if they really really want to". No, you can't.
Click to expand...

There is truth in this. In 1978 my mum told me that if I ate my vegetables and worked hard at school I could be anything I wanted.

I ate my vegetables, worked hard at school, was nice to small animals and old people, and I still didn't get to be a Jedi.
 
Big Bang Theory already invented that -- it's the "Counter-factuals game":

Q: In a world where mankind is ruled by a giant intelligent beaver, what food is no longer consumed?
A: Cheese danish
Defense: In a world ruled by a giant beaver, mankind builds many dams to please the beaver overlord. The low lying city of Copenhagen is flooded. Thousands die. Devastated, the Danes never invent their namesake pastry.

Q: In a world where a piano is a weapon, not a musical instrument, on what does Scott Joplin play the Maple Leaf Rag?
A: Tuned bayonets
Defense: Isn't it obvious?
Click to expand...

:D
 
Pah! Hardly a new idea. Many decades ago I programmed one of the early desktop minicomputers in Basic to churn out random poetry. IIRC the results were amusing but not that great.
 
Actually, Jon agonised over his words for hours. Not the meanings, so much, but the sound of them.

I managed much the same result attempting to bypass the keyboard with dragon dictate.
 
Hi,

Ahh Quellist, why did you not listen to your mother?! If only you hadn't been nice to small animals and old people - then you could have become a jedi! Also you probably ate the wrong vegetables!

Cheers, Greg.
 
Reminds me of another generator that attempted to make academic sounding sentences. It was a little amusing until you realized it was just doing search and replace with a thesaurus based on length.
 
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