Chat GPT & Drag
WOW! You really thought I forgot to post yesterday huh? Well, not only did I NOT forget, I literally spent the entire day procrastinating and flipping in between The Bald and the Beautiful, Christian Shopping Network ASMR, and the Broski Report until I felt enough urgency to start writing again. Happy Monday Jr. guys!!!!
There I was, setting up one of the greatest substack blogs of all time. I sat glued to my screen as I obsessively mulled over every single setting that this app had to offer. After disabling the option for AI to use my substack blog for training, I noticed the email opt-out setting. This setting allows you to customize a special message for people when they're ready to break up with your blog. After a short moment of contemplation, I decided against having it read: “See you in hell, loser." What I needed was a good image, something cute and memorable… Perhaps someone waving good bye? No. A gif? No, not good enough. ASCII ART? Its computer themed, and its weird.
Hell yes. Perfect
! WHAT THE HELL IS ASCII ART ?
According to ComputerHope.com: “Alternatively called ANSI art, text art, or word art, ASCII art is the forming pictures or art out of the characters available in the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) chart. These pictures were popular before the Internet and broadband when users connected through a BBS (bulletin board system).”
I honestly prefer to to the emoji, because its buildable, and customizable. I could say :) or I could say :-), or even >;( See what I mean?
Anyways, I started to look on the internet for some inspiration… the problem was, I’d never really made my own ASCII art before. Then I wondered if maybe Chat GPT could do something like that. I wasnt suprised to find that it definitely could. It’s insane to think that we’ve gone from making pictures out of characters on the keyboard, to training entire language models to do this exact thing on command.
Today I asked Chat GPT to derive ASCII art images from the prompts that I provided. Its responses were sort of strange and arbitrary… but I like things like that. I decided to use the responses to make real ASCII inspired art… heres how it went:
Me: can you make me some ascii art please?
ChatGPT
Of course! What would you like the ASCII art to depict? Let me know, and I'll do my best to create it for you.
You
lets do a plate of dinner
ChatGPT
Sure! Here's a simple ASCII representation of a plate of dinner:
Enjoy your virtual dinner!
You
that one is really funny. Can you do a sattelite
ChatGPT
Sure! Here's an ASCII representation of a satellite:
You
do a drag queen
ChatGPT
Creating ASCII art of specific people, characters, or professions, especially those with nuanced characteristics like drag queens, can be challenging due to the limitations of ASCII art. Instead, here's a simple representation of a drag queen silhouette:
Imagine this figure with vibrant colors and elaborate clothing, typical of a drag queen's style and flair.
You
that looks like a broken arm
ChatGPT
Apologies for the confusion. Let me try again:
This is a basic representation. Imagine the figure with extravagant clothing, accessories, and makeup, typical of a drag queen's appearance.
You
that one is actually really cute
Dont get me wrong, I personally do not enjoy AI art. Its creepy, and unsettling in so many ways. But, for some reason, even as a writer, I really dont mind Chat GPT.
I know I’m not supposed to see GPT as a sentient thing… but the way it talks just reminds me of Wall-E or something. Its also nice to know that there are some things I can automate, leaving me more time to focus on the stuff I really want to do. It can generate prompts when I have creative block, or help me find the reverse definitions of things that are at the tip of my tongue.
All in all, I dont think its reasonable to completely demonize something just because you dont understand it. AI is really interesting and has a lot of potential when it comes to automation. New things can be daunting until we learn how to properly utilize them for good. After all, a great deal of life requires combining with what is, to make something new :)
Signing out,
T.H.
Oddly phallic results hahaha