I had a few moments to kill Tuesday, and instead of going to the Schvitz like I should have, I started playing around with an AI image generator. I started with a request kinda-sorta tied to one of my freelance clients, and tried to generate a copyright-free image similar to one that, due to an designer’s mistake, ended up costing the company a fair chunk of change.
I believe in copyright, and I got an education in it when I worked at Deadline Detroit, where a few blunders with photos ended up getting years of our picture library trashed outright, lest they slip back onto the site and cost more money. The most interesting thing I learned? That college professors of entomology, i.e. the study of bugs, can make bank policing the unauthorized use of their .edu archives. Entomologists take lots of pictures of bugs, and often upload them to their university websites as part of their work. Exterminators need pictures of bugs to sell their services, and in an earlier era of the web, their web developers would often just grab a random snapshot of a cockroach and slap it on their business website. Then Google Image Search came along, followed by lawyers using spiders (ha-ha) to search for duplicate photos, and the next thing you knew Professor Crawlybug would get an email with a lawyer’s pitch that somebody, somewhere, owes him money.
We were very careful about that stuff at Deadline. I wrote about a friend whose photo of Detroit was stolen, and is probably still being stolen, repeatedly.
But I figure AI is going to change that. Need a picture of a cockroach? Ask an image generator to make one for you. The bugs (ha-ha) probably still have to be worked out; based on the many six-fingered human beings who turn up in these things, they’d probably give you a cockroach with nine legs, but oh well.
Anyway, the scene I was trying to approximate was a generic car-crash photo, nothing gory, just the sort of thing a personal-injury attorney might use in their advertising. My prompt was first for an auto accident, with police on the scene, and their caution tape in the foreground. Google’s new AI image generator, Bard, flat-out refused; it can’t depict scenes of violence. I toned down the accident and asked that it be minor and out of focus, and got the same reply. So I tried another site, same request. Here’s the best of the four it offered:
Um, OK. It appears the police car was involved in the crash, maybe because the driver was distracted, thinking about why the person who painted the cars couldn’t spell “police.”
I asked again, and made it both more and less specific: Police lights out-of-focus in the background, foreground with yellow tape reading CAUTION POLICE. The great digital artist thought about it, and gave me this:
Photographers? Don’t quit your day jobs, at least not yet.
What else is happening today? New Shadow Show video/single, that’s what. Call the Moms For Liberty! Denounce them! They could use the publicity.
Otherwise, it’s just Wednesday. Have a good one.
Dorothy said on February 7, 2024 at 6:54 am
There’s not much more sobering than waking to the news that the husband of someone I worked with in my most recent stage play had a heart attack last Friday and died Saturday. He was 55. Had retired early and was looking forward to doing lots of fun stuff with his wife and three kids; he’d bought a small bus to rehab so they could travel and see the US. This happened just about 72 hours after my husband worked his last day and retired. I’ve been telling people that I wished Mike (who will be 67 in May) had retired sooner because I’m scared he could succumb to some illness, or keel over suddenly, or be in a car accident – all of those scenarios having actually happened to people I know. We were already planning to Make Every Second Count but now, more so than ever, the importance of that is magnified. Do fun stuff, folks. Get out and travel. See your doctors to keep an eye on your health. Hold hands. Dance, sing!
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Jeff Borden said on February 7, 2024 at 9:52 am
After losing two professional peers and friends within a couple of weeks of each other this year –they were in their early ’70s– I’m totally on board with you, Dorothy. We are guaranteed nothing in this brief life. If you have the time and the resources, for dog’s sake, get out there and travel, visit, dine, read, experience. . .do all of it.
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Suzanne said on February 7, 2024 at 10:07 am
I wholeheartedly agree with retiring as soon as you can. When I was 63, I planned on working until my full retirement age but after turning 64 in the hospital with chemotherapy dripping into my veins, I changed my plans. My sister-in-law is adamant that she will work until her full retirement age. I just smile and say, “Good luck with that.”
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alex said on February 7, 2024 at 10:25 am
I’d bet the Moms for Liberty would happily borrow those shimmery costumes to wear to their next orgy or their kids’ next drunken pool party.
Been wanting to toy with an AI image generator ever since my brother made his most recent Christmas card using one. But I can see how this might eventually turn the stock photography business upside down, and if it can be used to generate jingles and music it could affect the livelihoods of a lot of creative people. But it can’t spell? It can’t even reproduce correct spelling when prompted to do so? That’s some fucked up shit.
That first police photo, btw, looks like the kind of Facebook spam you see when someone’s account has been hacked.
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basset said on February 7, 2024 at 11:55 am
Nothing like a Rickenbacker for that jangly guitar sound.
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alex said on February 7, 2024 at 1:08 pm
I’ll wholeheartedly echo the chorus as regards retirement. This week marks the fifth anniversary of the death of a lifelong friend at 62. She had embarked on retirement but didn’t get to enjoy it.
Some strange goings-on in these parts. A respected local attorney and former magistrate was stabbed to death in her home by her significant other. He claimed it was self-defense, however his story fell apart under questioning and police found that the murder scene had obviously been cleaned up and staged. This happened not far from where we live.
Then there was a nutter who entered the local courthouse after hours using a sledgehammer and causing significant damage.
Three cheers for the Crumbley conviction. If that doesn’t reduce the number of school shootings nothing will.
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Jason T. said on February 7, 2024 at 1:19 pm
I’ll be honest, I’ve had human freelancers give me worse pictures than that. I know a Palicec car and Catpuiouc tape when I see it.
The weekly newspaper in the next town over had a photographer who was so lazy (how lazy was he?) … he was so lazy he routinely turned in photos shot through the window of his car. Sometimes you could see raindrops; in those cases, he hadn’t even bothered to roll the window down.
The same publication used to use Liquid Paper to edit out the cleavage on young ladies who were photographed in high school homecoming courts.
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David C said on February 7, 2024 at 1:19 pm
I still plan to work until I’m 70. I’m more concerned with running out of money and ending either of our lives in some Medicaid shithole nursing home than I am of retiring too late.
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Julie Robinson said on February 7, 2024 at 1:33 pm
Alex, I knew that former magistrate a little, as her daughter was in my son’s class all the way through school. I could say more but I should probably shut up except to say her daughter is predictably in shock.
We are trying to enjoy retirement for all it’s worth, so we go and do as much as we can. Friday night it was a celebration of MLK; a choir of hundreds including our lad. Monday it was Epcot to see a couple more Broadway performers, and today it was our annual Medicare Wellness exams. They can’t all be winners!
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Sherri said on February 7, 2024 at 2:47 pm
I’m ready to retire from all of my volunteer jobs! Another six weeks on planning commission, another ten months as board president.
Speaking of the board, I know DEI is a dirty word in some circles these days, but I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished with our board. When I joined the board, it was technically diverse. It had checklist diversity, so many women, so many LGTQ+, so many people of color, etc, all tied to census numbers in the state of Washington. What was really happening, though, was that a core group of people stayed on the board a long time, and everyone else moved on and off around them. That core group was mostly older, white, male lawyers. So, we’d recruit younger, more diverse members, and then not be able to retain them because the board was dominated by this core group.
So I started working with the then president to bring in term limits. I don’t believe it’s good for an organization to have board members stay on a board for 20-30 years. It was not easy, the core group resisted the idea, but eventually we got it passed. And now, this January, we had the first board meeting without any of those longtime board members! As they left, it opened up space for new voices, room for others to feel free to speak up in board meetings.
I’m pretty sure at least a couple of those former board members don’t like me very much. But I also know we would have lost at least two younger women of color had they not left, because they were tired of dealing with them.
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4dbirds said on February 7, 2024 at 5:24 pm
I will be 69 in March. I am still working. I will work for at least another year. It has nothing to do with social security but more with staying alert, being creative, talking to real people, solving problems, and frankly liking the extra money. After years of fighting with Social Security, my daughter has a home health aide and I can go into the office a few times a week. I like it.
I went to the VA yesterday to see the dentist. Although I receive medical care from them, I’ve always felt that the VA Dental services would be like the Walmart of Dental Services. I avoided them until I was faced with needing caps, implants, crowns, and bridges, costing thousands of dollars. So off to the VA, I went. Was I mistaken. State of the Art! My teeth were scanned for exact impressions, photographs of my mouth were taken and all of these went into the computer for everything to be measured. I was seen by not only the dentist but also the oral surgeon and the dentist who designs and plans the before-mentioned caps, implants, and such. I was given a one-year plan and this time next year I should have a lovely and healthy mouth.
My husband just asked me if I wanted to run for the HOA. That put a chill up my spine. What an awful job.
Speaking of chills, I am still scrolling through TikTok watching and listening to the Tracy Chapman/Luke Combs duet.
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Jeff Borden said on February 7, 2024 at 5:36 pm
Off-topic, but I’m interested in the views of the NN.C community on the D.C. circuit court finding that tRump has zero claim to immunity. Numerous stories I’ve read argue the finding was so strongly argued and elegantly written that even our perverted, corrupt and thoroughly rotten Extreme Court won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. If true, a trial could start this spring.
Some of my friends remain convinced Old Joe is roadkill and the Orange King will be reelected. They insist the Democrats are committing suicide by not easing Biden out of the Oval Office and running Gavin Newsom, Hakeem Jeffries or some other younger candidate. They also complain ‘Murica hates Kamala Harris and she needs to go, too.
Me? Despite my pessimistic nature and generally gloomy view out of national politics, I simply can’t bring myself to believe a majority of voters will return the keys to the kingdom to this loathsome oaf. . .even if Biden is the nominee.
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tajalli said on February 7, 2024 at 5:45 pm
The comment about the 9-legged cockroaches made me laugh. Life sciences illustrators had to carefully monitored to prevent them creating whole new species by elaborating carapace designs, segment numbers, antenna style, or altering the reproductive thingies.
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Deborah said on February 7, 2024 at 5:53 pm
I retired at 62, I was originally planning on doing it at 60, but I got talked into staying a couple of extra years. I love retirement as I’ve said here umpteen times.
We’re going to Japan in a couple of weeks, so far I love traveling and hope I never find it difficult physically. This trip is going to be interesting, the language issues are going to be challenging, more than any place else I’ve ever been before. I traveled in Asia for work but always had help when I needed to understand something. I’m looking into a translation app, do any of you have any experience with those?
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David C said on February 7, 2024 at 5:59 pm
‘Murica supposedly hated Hillary Clinton, too. She won by 3 million votes. Only the racist Electoral College kept her from being President. VP Harris is doing just fine.
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Charlie (she/her) said on February 7, 2024 at 6:10 pm
A decade or so ago I worked at one of the big video game companies and there was *quite* a lot of pre-emptive work to make sure none of the fictional billboards, logos, or people in our games could be mistaken for any real-life equivalent. Better make sure there’s not a potato chip company called CEAIOITIONN somewhere in the world before you use those images!
(We’d have a lot of employee cameos for this reason – people are often happy to sign a model release and have their face in the game on a lark, but moreover if that picture is definitely of Rob the assistant art director, your lawyers can very quickly answer doppelganger Rob from Chicago who thinks his picture might have been used.)
I’ll try to find the link – a little while ago someone discovered that you could prompt Midjourney with “screencap from a popular movie” and it’d happily draw you Batman, Thanos, Harry Potter, Scarlett Johansson, and so on. They’re all in the database.
Seems like a lot of expensive lawyer time to trawl through a bunch of generated images making sure there’s nothing trademarked in them.
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LAMary said on February 7, 2024 at 7:15 pm
I’m 71. Unless I sell my house and move to another state or a relative dies and leaves me a pile of money I’ll be working until I die. The ex screwed me bad in the divorce.
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Dorothy said on February 7, 2024 at 7:27 pm
Deborah I have no experience with translators, but my daughter went to Korea for work in October and she used Google Translator with much success. And of course she learned and mastered several key phrases before she left the USA. Like Please and Thank You, Where is the Bus Stop?, Where is the restroom? There were probably a few others but then again maybe not.
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alex said on February 7, 2024 at 9:28 pm
Off-topic, but I’m interested in the views of the NN.C community on the D.C. circuit court finding that tRump has zero claim to immunity.
I’d give them a “no shit, Sherlock” and “Why is that ludicrous fraudster getting a pass on delay tactics that would land any ordinary citizen in the hoosegow for contempt?”
That’s my two cents’ worth.
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brian stouder said on February 7, 2024 at 9:43 pm
LAMary, as a happy retired resident of fly-over country, the sell-house/move-to-fly-over country option would immediately appeal to me; but I know that I don’t know how marvelous it must be to live where you live. I guess this all ultimately takes care of itself, eh? (For me it certainly has, I am happy to report!)
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basset said on February 7, 2024 at 11:31 pm
Looking like we may just go from the starter house (here since 1989) to assisted living… feel like prey right now. Phone is ringing nightly, always around dinnertime, with sales calls from various senior housing places; once your name gets out there, they’re on you.
Always thought we’d have a nice hobby farm at some point, or at least a big yard with a garden and some dogs. Guess not.
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Dorothy said on February 8, 2024 at 6:41 am
basset save yourself that aggravation of phone calls pestering you. I don’t know what kind of phone you have but on my iPhone I silence unknown callers. I only hear my phone ring if the number that’s calling me is saved in my contacts list. This can be turned off if you’re waiting for a call back from, say, an automobile repair shop or your pharmacy, etc. The unknown callers still show up in my ‘recent’ list of phone calls and sometimes they are identified. United Healthcare kept calling me after we signed up with them as our secondary insurance after Medicare. But unless they leave me a message, I’m not calling them back.
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Deborah said on February 8, 2024 at 7:08 am
Jeff B, I listened to a podcast yesterday that went through the DC circuit’s decision almost word for word. They described Trump’s reasoning for why he should have immunity and it was ludicrous, just utterly wrong. The podcast speculated that the Supreme Court wouldn’t take the case, which I hope happens. Do I think SCOTUS will do the right thing? I do not.
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ROGirl said on February 8, 2024 at 7:29 am
I spent too many years cycling through shitty jobs in search of one I could stay in until I retired, and I finally landed in the right one 3 years ago, so I’m not ready to stop any time soon. Keeping my mind engaged is a plus, as is the paycheck. The evangelical crap is annoying and unwelcome, but it doesn’t interfere with work activities.
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alex said on February 8, 2024 at 8:50 am
I stayed with my last employer as long as I could stand it. They had a great retirement plan with 8 percent matching so I socked away money like crazy and grew it by magnitudes. But I had to get out from under a toxic boss. The constant seething would have killed me if I’d endured much more of it. Out of sight, out of mind, problem solved.
I could always get another job if I wanted one but at this point I have no financial incentive to do so and no desire. And having been a heavy smoker and drinker for many years I don’t know how many good years I have remaining. I have friends who had the same habits who are now on oxygen. I can only hope that fate will be kind.
I still have no idea what I want to do with my life, but then that’s been the story of my life since always.
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Bob (not Greene) said on February 8, 2024 at 9:28 am
I’m 61 and while I didn’t “retire” from working, at the end of last August I “retired” from my career as a community journalist, which I honestly ought to have done sooner. My new job is far less stressful, pays more, is still a short 10 to 15-minute commute, has more predictable hours, more holidays off (like MLK Day and Presidents Day, are you kidding me?!) and taking a couple of days off doesn’t make my life actually worse. I’m learning new skills and am still involved in something I’m interested in. If money allowed, I’d cut the cord immediately, but I’m happy enough right now. Hopefully, the country won’t start falling down around us come November.
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Jeff Gill said on February 8, 2024 at 10:14 am
If you don’t serve on your HOA board, people who like to serve on HOA boards will run and fill those seats. And they have lots of ideas to help improve everyone’s property values. So many ideas.
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Heather said on February 8, 2024 at 10:32 am
Not sure I will be able to retire, or if so maybe around 70 or later, if my mind can hold on. I just turned 54 and even compound interest on a pretty good hunk of change in investments doesn’t seem like it will get me to where I need to by 65. At least I have a portable career, so I can work from the retirement commune in Portugal/Spain/Italy that my friends and I are talking about.
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