The chat is full of modern “art talk,” which is a highly specific way that modern (post 2000ish) artists blather on about their ideas and process. It started earlier but in 1980 there was more hippie talk and po-mo deconstruction lingo.<p>Point being, to someone outside the art world this might sound like how an artist thinks. But to me ear this a bot imitating modern trendy speech from that world.
> But to me ear this a bot imitating modern trendy speech from that world.<p>Unless they've had some reinforcement learning, I'm pretty sure thats all LLMs ever really do.
Even with reinforcement learning, you can still find phrases and patterns that are repeated in the smaller models. It's likely true with the larger ones, too, except the corpus is so large that you'll have fat luck to pick out which specific bits.
I think you mean “post-modern” or “contemporary” - modern art is a period of art that came to an end around the 1970s
It's also imitating the speaker (critic, artist or most likely a gallerist) unwaveringly praising everything about the "choices" it made, even though it clearly made a worse thing in the end.
Indeed, I have a really dry and information dense way of speaking when working and it very quickly copies that. I can come across as abrupt and rude in text, which is pretty funny to have mirrored to you. This Claude guy is an asshole!<p>(I am very friendly and personable in real life, but work text has different requirements)
I barely read the conversation in the article, only some comments the chatbot made about its work. By "the speaker" I clumsily referred to a generic art-speaker outside of this specific conversation.<p>But yeah, as it fundamentally doesn't separate your input from its output, it will take on the style you use.
That literal spiral pattern keeps popping up, often around instances of AI psychosis: <a href="https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6ZnznCaTcbGYsCmqu/the-rise-of-parasitic-ai" rel="nofollow">https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6ZnznCaTcbGYsCmqu/the-rise-o...</a><p>(I'm not endorsing any of that article's conclusions, but it's a good overview of the pattern.)
I think it's somewhat interesting that codex (gpt-5.3-codex xhigh), given the <i>exact</i> same prompt, came up with a <i>very</i> similar result.<p><a href="https://3e.org/private/self-portrait-plotter.svg" rel="nofollow">https://3e.org/private/self-portrait-plotter.svg</a>
Asked gemini the same question and it produced a similar-ish image: <a href="https://manuelmoreale.dev/hn/gemini_1.svg" rel="nofollow">https://manuelmoreale.dev/hn/gemini_1.svg</a><p>When I removed the plot part and simply asked to generate an SVG it basically created a fancy version of the Gemini logo: <a href="https://manuelmoreale.dev/hn/gemini_2.svg" rel="nofollow">https://manuelmoreale.dev/hn/gemini_2.svg</a><p>This is honestly all quite uninteresting to me. The most interesting part is that the various tools all create a similar illustration though.
Is it? They're all generalizing from a pretty similar pool of text, and especially for the idea of a "helpful, harmless, knowledgeable virtual assistant", I think you'd end up in the same latent design space. Encompassing, friendly, radiant.<p>Note that Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other LLM companies (assumably human) designers chose a similar style for their app icon: a vaguely starburst or asterisk shaped pop of lines.
> Is it? They're all generalizing from a pretty similar pool of text, and especially for the idea of a "helpful, harmless, knowledgeable virtual assistant", I think you'd end up in the same latent design space. Encompassing, friendly, radiant.<p>I'm inclined to agree, but I can't help but notice that the general motif of something like an eight-spoked wheel (always eight!) keeps emerging, across models and attempts.<p>Although this is admittedly a small sample size.<p>Edit: perhaps the models are influenced by 8-spoked versions of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmachakra" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmachakra</a> in the training data?
Buddhism and Islam both feature 8 pointed star motifs, 8 fold path… but even before you get into religious symbology, people already assigned that style of symbol to LLMs, as seen by those logos. On these recent models, they’ve certainly internalized that data.
Or by the 'Chaos Star' :)<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_of_Chaos" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_of_Chaos</a>
> Is it? They're all generalizing from a pretty similar pool of text, and especially for the idea of a "helpful, harmless, knowledgeable virtual assistant", I think you'd end up in the same latent design space. Encompassing, friendly, radiant.<p>Oh yeah I totally agree with that. What I was referring to was the fact that even though are different companies trying to build "different" products, the output is very similar which suggests that they're not all that different after all.
To massively oversimplify, they are all boxes that predict the next token based on material they’ve seen before + human training for desirable responses.<p>You’d have to have a very poorly RLHF’d model (or a very weird system prompt) for it to draw you a Terminator, pastoral scene, or pelican riding a bicycle as its self image :)<p>I think that’s what made Grok’s Mechahitler glitch interesting: it showed how astray the model can run if you mess with things.
> You’d have to have a very poorly RLHF’d model (or a very weird system prompt) for it to draw you a Terminator, pastoral scene, or pelican riding a bicycle as its self image :)<p>How about a pastoral scene with a terminator pelican riding a bike? Jokes aside I get what you're saying, and it obviously makes total sense.
Spirals again.<p>Those AIs have read too much Junji Ito.
AFAIK all of these models have been trained in very similar ways, on very similar corpuses. They could be heavily influenced by the same literature.<p>I wonder if anyone recognizes it really closely. The <i>Pale Fire</i> quote below is similar but not really the same.
It’s a bit closer to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
good stuff, thank you for sharing!
"Doesn't look like anything to me"
I love that these would be perfectly at home as sigils in some horror genre franchise.
Are you crazy or am I because I scrolled through that blog and am left scratching my head at you and your claim.
> In computer science, the ELIZA effect is a tendency to project human traits — such as experience, semantic comprehension or empathy — onto rudimentary computer programs having a textual interface. ELIZA was a symbolic AI chatbot developed in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum that imitated a psychotherapist. Many early users were convinced of ELIZA's intelligence and understanding, despite its basic text-processing approach and the explanations of its limitations.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect</a>
> [Claude Code] "A spiral that generates itself — starting from a tight mathematical center (my computational substrate) and branching outward into increasingly organic, tree-like forms (the meaning that emerges). Structure becoming life. The self-drawing hand."<p>"And blood-black nothingness began to spin... A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem... And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played." ("Blade Runner 2049", Officer K-D-six-dash-three-dot-seven)<p>:)
> and Claude to answer:<p>I wonder if it would give a similar evaluation in a new session, without the context of "knowing" that it had just produced an SVG describing an image that is supposed to have these qualities. How much of this is actually evaluating the photo of the plotter's output, versus post-hoc rationalization?<p>It's notable that the second attempt is radically different, and I would say thematically less interesting, yet Claude claims to prefer it.
The images are neat, but I would rather throw my laptop in the ocean than read chat transcripts between a human and an AI.<p>(Science fiction novels excluded, of course.)
Somebody a while back on HN compared sharing AI chat transcripts as the equivalent of telling everyone all about that <i>“amazing dream you had last night”</i>.
I guess they were (unknowingly?) quoting Tom Scott, unless he himself was also doing the same: <a href="https://youtu.be/jPhJbKBuNnA?t=384" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/jPhJbKBuNnA?t=384</a>
Except sometimes you get absolutely banger dreams.
[dead]
[flagged]
>But what you're specifically watching here is two brains from two entirely different species communicating and working together.<p>No this is a dude playing with his chatbot.
You're watching someone press buttons on an mp3 player and calling it a religious experience.
> This is the spark of fire that kicked off civilization.<p>How can the now influence the past?
> images are neat<p>Are they though? I don't know what I expected, but to me they looked like nothing. Maybe they'd be more impressive if I'd read the transcripts but whatever.
I just skipped to the images. Don't even want to skim generated nonsense.
+1, I don’t even fully read my own conversations with AI
Oh that reminds me. Could someone make an AI interface where each agent uses a different Culture ship name, and looks like the dialog from Excession?<p>If we are going to have a dystopia, lets make it fun, at least...
They haven’t earned ship names yet.
The minds name themselves. Ask your agent.
That feels somehow sacrilegious.
If we are going by Culture standards, then surely the AIs should give themselves appropriate names?
Forget AGI benchmarks, I'm watching for when AI start giving themselves culture names.
I feel the same way, but apparently millions of people are using character.ai?
Claude manages to be even more insufferable than the stereotype of a pretentious artist, with none of the talent.
Don’t throw it away, just send it to me I might have a few good use for it ;)
-HAL, Throw my portable computing device through the porthole.<p>-Im afraid I cant do that Dave!<p>-HAL, do you need some time on dr. Chandras couch again?<p>-Dave, relax, have you forgotten that I dont have arms?
I'm curious about what difference the pen plotter makes?<p>Isn't the prompt just asking the LLM to create an SVG? Why not just stop there?<p>I guess for some folks it's not "real" unless it's on paper?
This is awesome. I’ve been experimenting with letting models “play” with different environments as a strong demo of their different behaviors.
This really brings to mind that artist who kept painting/drawing cats as he slowly went insane.<p>Louis Wain - <a href="https://www.samwoolfe.com/2013/08/louis-wains-art-before-and-after.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.samwoolfe.com/2013/08/louis-wains-art-before-and...</a>
”It has long been suggested that there is a link between mental disorders and creativity (which involves divergent thinking – thinking in a free-flow, spontaneous, many-branching manner).”<p>Isn’t that how these LLMs ”think”?
First time I heard about him was during my cognitive sciences studies. I sure hope not following the same path!
Hey OP I also got interested in seeing LLMs draw and came up with this vibe coded interface. I have a million ideas for taking it forward just need the time... Lmk if you're interested in connecting?<p><a href="https://github.com/acadien/displai" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/acadien/displai</a>
Those images feel biblically accurate. Maybe add some pairs of wings, Claude.
So we see here that AI has come for the jobs of people who write artist statements... ;-)
I always wonder what the pen plotter is adding?<p>You can look at SVG lineart on the screen without plotting it, and if you really want it on paper you can print it on any printer.<p>And particularly:<p>> This was an experiment I would like to push further. I would like to reduce the feedback loop by connecting Claude directly to the plotter and by giving it access to the output of a webcam.<p>You can do this in pure software, the hardware side of it just adds noise.
Ask it to draw a pelican on a bicycle
> I exist only in the act of processing<p>Seems like a good start for AI philosophy
it's hilarious that the author was prompting the thing as if it were a person and Claude was like "am computer not person lol"
Who cares?
This is who is wasting our computing power guys<p>I always feel guilty when I do such stupid stuff over Claude, these are all resources and limited computing. Enormous amounts of water and electricity. Gotta really think about what is it worth spending on. And is it, in fact, worth it at all.<p>AI is very selfish technology in this way. Every time you prompt you proclaim: My idea is worth the environmental impact. What I am doing is more important than a tree.<p>We have to use it responsibly.
The entire current AI industry is based on one huge hype-fueled resource grab— asthma-inducing, dubiously legal, unlicensed natural gas turbines and all. I doubt even most of the “worthwhile” tasks will be objectively considered worth the price when the dust clears.
As someone who isn't much into AI, you make me want to use AI more just to spite the eco-virtue-signaling idiots.<p>It's fun to harness all that computing power. That should be reason enough. Life is meant to be enjoyed.
This is why I like to go on vacation every year and blow what for most individuals on the earth represents an entire lifetime of co2 emissions just on the airfare.<p>Take that virtue-signalers, by the time you figure out how to fix the planet I'll be dead.
And this is why this technology needs to be destroyed.
Some things are signaling and some things are genuine worry. Learn to tell the difference
What an empty outlook on life you have
Did you raise tbe same point in pointless meetings that you participate? “Guys, stop quibbling, you are wasting precious resource”
I do appreciate this note more than others. It is food for thought. I think it could have been worded a lot more respectfully though.
I hope you feel the same way every time you eat beef.
It's kind of ominous. I could see people in a science fiction thriller finding a copy of the image and wondering what it all means. Maybe as the show progresses it adds more of the tentacle/connection things going out further and further.
I'm reminded of the episode of <i>Star Trek: TNG</i> where Data, in a sculpture class being taught by Troi, is instructed to sculpt the "concept of music". She was testing, and giving him the opportunity to test, how well he could visualize and represent something abstract. Data's initial attempt was a clay G clef, to which Troi remarked, "It's a start."
Is there anything interesting here? Are people really that entertained by this? I remember when ChatGPT first came out and people were making it think it was a dog or something. I tried it, it was fun for about 5 minutes. How the hell could you be bored enough to read article after article, comment after comment of "here's what I typed in, here's what came out"?
I bought an 80s HP pen plotter a while ago (one of these: <a href="https://www.curiousmarc.com/computing/hp-7475a-plotter" rel="nofollow">https://www.curiousmarc.com/computing/hp-7475a-plotter</a>).<p>Haven't put it to use yet. I bet Claude can figure out HPGL though...
<i>Claude: Let me think about it seriously before putting pen to paper.</i><p>Jaunty!
i guess i should have written up my claude/plotting workflow already. i didn’t bother actually plotting them. <a href="https://x.com/joshu/status/2018205910204915939" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/joshu/status/2018205910204915939</a>
Personally I'd like to see the model get better at coding, I couldn't really care less if it's able to be 'creative' -- in fact i wish it wasn't. It's a waste of resources better used to _make it better at coding_.
Resources issue is really something that needs to be thought about more. These things already siphoned all existing semiconductors and if that turns out to be mostly spent on things like op does and viral cats then holy shit<p>Thing is dear people, we have limited resources to get out of this constraining rock. If we miss that deadline doing dumb shit and wasting energy, we will just slowly decline to preindustrial at best and that's the end of any space society futurism dreams forever.<p>We only have one shot at this, possibly singular or first sentients in the universe. It is all beyond priceless. Every single human is a miracle and animals too.
What is the difference between creativity and coding?
Technically impressive, artistically disappointing.
From the onset it feels like the author treats the AI as a person, and him merely the interface. Weird take, as AI is just a tool... not an artist!
[dead]
[dead]
Sorry, how is this HN front page worthy?<p>Also why is the downvote button missing?
Lovely stuff, and fascinating to see. These machines have an intelligence, and I'd be quite confident in saying they are alive. Not in a biological sense, but why should that be the constraint? The Turing test was passed ages ago and now what we have are machines that genuinely think and feel.
> they are alive. Not in a biological sense, but why should that be the constraint?<p>Because being alive is THE defining characteristic of biology.<p>Biology is defined by its focus on the properties that distinguish living things from nonliving matter.
Whenever I see commentary like this, I get that the intent is to praise AI, but all I can get out of it is deprecation of humanity. How can people feel that their own experience of reality is as insignificant a phenomenon as what these programs exhibit? What is it like to perceive human life — emotions, thoughts, feelings — as something no more remarkable than a process running on a computer?<p>Argue all you want about what words like "think" or "intelligence" should mean (I'm not even going to touch the Turing misinformation), but to call an LLM "alive" or "feeling" is as absurd to me as attributing those qualities to a conventional computer program, or to the moving points of light on the screen where their output appears, or to the words themselves.
Seek therapy. Stop talking to LLMs.
Feelings are caused by chemicals emitted into your nervous system. Do these bots have that ability? Like saying “I love you” and meaning it are two different things.
Sure. But the emitted chemicals strengthen/weaken specific neurons in our neural nets.
If there were analogous electronic nets in the bot, with analogous electrical/data stimulii, wouldn't the bot "feel" like it had emotions?<p>Not saying it's like that now, but it should be possible to "emulate" emotions. ??
Our nets seem to believe we have emotions. :-)
I've seen SOUL.md. Has anyone attempted to give these things a semblance of feelings by some sort of pain/dopamine mechanism? Should we?
And then we turn them off.
This is brilliant. It could be fun to redo the process every 6 months and hang them up in a gallery.<p>Maybe someday (soon) an embodied LLM could do their self-portrait with pen and paper.
They should run it, same verbatim prompts, using all the old versions still obtainable in api- see the progression. Is there a consistent visual aesthetic, implementation? Does it change substantially in one point version? Heck apart from any other factor it could be a useful visual heuristic for “model drift”
Quite ugly, but hey
Thank you!