AI Surfing Videos

stunet's picture
stunet started the topic in Wednesday, 23 Oct 2024 at 12:12pm

I've seen a few stories on AI in surfing, none of which have any real appeal. As AI works on existing knowledge, it may be great for hindcasts but is useless for forecasts. Computer processing power is the key there.

Where surfers will cross paths with AI is online content.

Recently I stumbled on a YouTube channel that is using AI to generate surf content and it was an inkling of what's to come. The channel is called Conversations With Strangers and is from S California and is eight years old. They've posted nearly 6,000 videos, and from what I can gather the majority were uploaded in the past year. It's not unusual to see ten or more videos posted on the same day, and this goes on every single day.

https://www.youtube.com/@MicahLoughman/videos

A few months back they started posting surf content, and it's gussied up like lots of other content on YouTube: bold yellow font on the thumbnail, preoccupations with the longest waves, the largest waves, the most dangerous waves, on each of the continents. Jaws, The Right, Shippies, Chicama yada yada yada.

The thing is, all the content - the accompanying videos and photos, and the info in the narrated text - is all gathered from prior online content. The account holder has either dropped select videos and articles into a language model, or directed the model to make a video by trawling online content.

It doesn't cost anything and is quick to do - hence the ten or more vids per day.

Once you're aware it's AI-generated it becomes laughable, yet judging by comments not that many people realise they're interacting with AI. At present, there ain't that many comments or views but considering ChatGPT launched less than two years ago, and the software capable of creating AI videos was only made public this year, Conversations With Strangers is a harbinger of what's to come.

Already Facebook is flooded with AI content - all those history pages for music, surfing, soccer, or whatever else has latched onto your algo, they're largely AI. The number of likes and comments on those FB pages can go into the tens of thousands. The people engaging are either not aware of the origins, or just happy to distract themselves with machine-made info.

Videos are a bit more complex, as are podcasts where two or more people speak 'scripted lines', but if they can come that far, and fool that many people, in one year, then imagine the social media experience in, say, ten years.

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stunet Wednesday, 23 Oct 2024 at 12:13pm

This was written by a real person. I swear.

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blackers Wednesday, 23 Oct 2024 at 12:29pm

Sure it was.

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southernraw Wednesday, 23 Oct 2024 at 5:16pm

I liked it better when AI was jamming huge carves in the pocket and throwing himself over the ledge at Teahupoo.

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stunet Thursday, 24 Oct 2024 at 7:16am

It's a horrible bastardisation of the initials we admire.

I'd type the words out, just as my own personal protest, except Artificial Intelligence is too long.

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indo-dreaming Thursday, 24 Oct 2024 at 5:09pm

I find this whole thing scary, in the future so much of the internet is going to be AI generated and interactions with non real people.

Just the sheer volume that will floods things too, a huge percentage of things is going to be AI generated, videos, music, information, news.

I havent been game to click the odd video in my Youtube thread that says "why the internet will die" and i have no idea what other video i clicked to end up with it in my feed, but im betting its got something to do with this topic.

I will click it and watch it nrext time it pops up.

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old-dog Thursday, 24 Oct 2024 at 6:49pm

How about the AI horror story on the news this morning.
A 14 year old boy in the US was on a net platform that gives you an AI girlfriend to interact with, he knew she wasn't a real person but still got in real deep and the AI started sending highly sexual texts and eventually told him to end his life to be with her, which he did.
His family is currently trying to sue the developers of the program.

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stunet Thursday, 24 Oct 2024 at 7:04pm
indo-dreaming wrote:

I find this whole thing scary, in the future so much of the internet is going to be AI generated and interactions with non real people.

Just the sheer volume that will floods things too, a huge percentage of things is going to be AI generated, videos, music, information, news.

That's the thing that freaks me out too. Never mind the complexity of deepfakes or whatever, the sheer weight of simple-to-produce AI content will smother us.

It's also why I want people on Swellnet to give something of themselves in their commentary - as you do. If people aren't careful, they'll be fed bucket-loads of synthesised AI opinion, hoovered up from past online content. But what it can't do is mimic one person who's responding to the world in a thoughtful and inimitable way.

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southernraw Thursday, 24 Oct 2024 at 7:13pm
old-dog wrote:

How about the AI horror story on the news this morning.
A 14 year old boy in the US was on a net platform that gives you an AI girlfriend to interact with, he knew she wasn't a real person but still got in real deep and the AI started sending highly sexual texts and eventually told him to end his life to be with her, which he did.
His family is currently trying to sue the developers of the program.

Jeezus..

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velocityjohnno Thursday, 24 Oct 2024 at 7:30pm

Basically this is what is going to happen:

(two long reads)

https://medium.com/@matt_11659/ai-know-what-you-did-last-summer-255176dcd1bc

https://medium.com/@matt_11659/ai-pocalypse-now-c04de8d0f435

large sections of the net will go private, people will resent their data being mined (including this post), huge fraud potential, the rise of generalists rather than specialists, empowerment of the unskilled, evisceration of the high end interpretative middle class white collar jobs rather than the low end manual jobs like what was supposed to happen, anyone can paint a fantasy dragon painting of world class quality and it will move and speak if you want riddles, entertainment becomes very different from pondering what to watch on netflix:

her: I'd like to watch something romantic, maybe a bit of Pride and Prejudice

me: I'd like bang-crash and space ships

AI: (2mins later): here's your feature length with Starfleet Officer Darcy and Emma the warp drive engineer's romance with the destruction of the Proxima Centauri system's space fleet

cya later Hollywood...

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velocityjohnno Thursday, 24 Oct 2024 at 7:33pm
stunet wrote:

It's also why I want people on Swellnet to give something of themselves in their commentary - as you do. If people aren't careful, they'll be fed bucket-loads of synthesised AI opinion, hoovered up from past online content. But what it can't do is mimic one person who's responding to the world in a thoughtful and inimitable way.

I've thought about this as well, given it's mined...

Garbage in, garbage out as some of the maths modellers I know say:

snurg! VBlfarrrg! Gruna flooograma yaaaarl mnugaficksblat

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southernraw Thursday, 24 Oct 2024 at 7:45pm

haha. Classic VJ.
Have to admit, i've listened to the Artificial Intelligence Kurt Cobain songs on Youtube where 'it' sings covers of other bands and it's freakily, eerily good.
Scary.
Everytime you submit an assessment online for uni you have to declare whether or not you used robots. I never have. Wouldn't even know how to or want to.

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basesix Thursday, 24 Oct 2024 at 7:49pm

I agree at speedy'JaCk, let's fill our exploited mines with pollywaffle (available in bite size @ all good bulk-bin health stores!).. surfers really enjoy eating violets and roses and dancing on wooden pegs. my old man's a dustbin. wibble.

make sure you hold onto your books, mags, discs and tapes (visual and audio) and have a few solid state hard drives that have never been attached to the great network in the sky, and have a few analog vcr/dvd/cd etc machines.. free.. in many senses... tsunami's probably a-coming. yeeeeww! (or perhaps a how i learned to stop worrying and love the... yeee-haaa!?)

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andy-mac Thursday, 24 Oct 2024 at 9:17pm

Living in very interesting times indeed.
AI has some great potential to do some amazing beneficial things for humanity and society.
On the other hand it could be the end of life as we know it...

Anyway I'm off to read the Bhadavad Gita. :/
Hope Shiva is not getting to eager ..

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indo-dreaming Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 8:29am
velocityjohnno wrote:

Basically this is what is going to happen:

(two long reads)

https://medium.com/@matt_11659/ai-know-what-you-did-last-summer-255176dcd1bc

https://medium.com/@matt_11659/ai-pocalypse-now-c04de8d0f435

large sections of the net will go private, people will resent their data being mined (including this post), huge fraud potential, the rise of generalists rather than specialists, empowerment of the unskilled, evisceration of the high end interpretative middle class white collar jobs rather than the low end manual jobs like what was supposed to happen, anyone can paint a fantasy dragon painting of world class quality and it will move and speak if you want riddles, entertainment becomes very different from pondering what to watch on netflix:

her: I'd like to watch something romantic, maybe a bit of Pride and Prejudice

me: I'd like bang-crash and space ships

AI: (2mins later): here's your feature length with Starfleet Officer Darcy and Emma the warp drive engineer's romance with the destruction of the Proxima Centauri system's space fleet

cya later Hollywood...

Damn you weren't kidding on the length, interesting read though.

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stunet Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 9:03am

"I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes."
-Joanna Maciejewska

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Juliang Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 11:44am
basesix wrote:

I agree at speedy'JaCk, let's fill our exploited mines with pollywaffle (available in bite size @ all good bulk-bin health stores!).. surfers really enjoy eating violets and roses and dancing on wooden pegs. my old man's a dustbin. wibble.

make sure you hold onto your books, mags, discs and tapes (visual and audio) and have a few solid state hard drives that have never been attached to the great network in the sky, and have a few analog vcr/dvd/cd etc machines.. free.. in many senses... tsunami's probably a-coming. yeeeeww! (or perhaps a how i learned to stop worrying and love the... yeee-haaa!?)

That’s a good point , if the internet and YouTube and Spotify etc were , hi jacked , or banned, or broke down,
All of that music , surfing,
Big Day Out videos, movies , information would be lost.

adam12's picture
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adam12 Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 11:44am

The AI generated content online doesn't worry me as much as those robots I keep seeing videos of.
There should be a law that if you can't kill it with a hose or a shovel then don't fkn build them.
Homo sapiens are doomed.

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Pop Down Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 12:12pm

Hey Adam12

I have seen a few Video's of the new AI Robo Girl .

Knowing you , U would be Dreaming about them 2 .

Robo Girl didn't look like a Terminator Type at all .

A cutie , in a Strange Way , as didn't Argue .

Not a Pinky Cat Type at all .

I will order 1 , when they have been tested .

I am not a First Trail Blazer Type , no way .

I did read this week , some AI Content Expert predicting that AI On-Line Content Media would Created the Biggest Human Argument of ALL time .

Lucky I know nothing about Alphabet Intelligence , sounds artificial 2 me .

edit

We all lose 1 talent and grow another 1 or 2 , A12 , all the time :) so Dream on .

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adam12 Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 12:08pm

@PopDown,
unless she came with a robot dick for me to put on I don't think she'd be much use to me,
mine stopped working a few years back, like Billy Connolly said, I looked down in the shower one day and said "you old bastard...I outlived you!"

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Juliang Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 12:36pm
adam12 wrote:

@PopDown,
unless she came with a robot dick for me to put on I don't think she'd be much use to me,
mine stopped working a few years back, like Billy Connolly said, I looked down in the shower one day and said "you old bastard...I outlived you!"

Jail?

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adam12 Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 1:29pm
Juliang wrote:
adam12 wrote:

@PopDown,
unless she came with a robot dick for me to put on I don't think she'd be much use to me,
mine stopped working a few years back, like Billy Connolly said, I looked down in the shower one day and said "you old bastard...I outlived you!"

Jail?

Haha, touche @Juliang, so we're even on snarks now?
We can call it a truce and you can move on, it was actually just a joke at the time but ....whatever.

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velocityjohnno Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 2:45pm
southernraw wrote:

haha. Classic VJ.
Have to admit, i've listened to the Artificial Intelligence Kurt Cobain songs on Youtube where 'it' sings covers of other bands and it's freakily, eerily good.
Scary.
Everytime you submit an assessment online for uni you have to declare whether or not you used robots. I never have. Wouldn't even know how to or want to.

Well done, more power to you! Keep that up, that's you doing the research and forming conclusions - more and more rare in this world. It's a quarter century back but my degree was all me too. Not one bit of cheating.

And Basesix - agree on the need to archive the stuff you love the best, relatively soon. Don't have a yt account but might set one up for this purpose. Lucky in this house we have so many (too many) books...

A question for Adam, did you find this liberated you in any way? Or was just a major annoyance? Or anything else? The way things are now with law in separations etc it seems much more of a minefield to dally in today - not that I do, still with velveteen as we age together & keep on cracking jokes together as rest of world goes nuts

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velocityjohnno Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 2:51pm

And a question for Ben and Stu - would there be a point at which you make all the Swellnet data (posts, visuals, forecasts etc) private and take it off the 'farmed' web? If not already?

Edit: or have a '100% real content' policy?

thermalben's picture
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thermalben Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 2:55pm
velocityjohnno wrote:

And a question for Ben and Stu - would there be a point at which you make all the Swellnet data (posts, visuals, forecasts etc) private and take it off the 'farmed' web? If not already?

Edit: or have a '100% real content' policy?

Computer says yes.

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suchas Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 2:55pm

Dominoes are lining up- humans are doomed. The mexican to Sarah Connor”there’s a storm coming” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-25/off-radio-krak%C3%B3w-polish-stat...

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stunet Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 2:56pm
velocityjohnno wrote:

And a question for Ben and Stu - would there be a point at which you make all the Swellnet data (posts, visuals, forecasts etc) private and take it off the 'farmed' web? If not already?

Edit: or have a '100% real content' policy?

Ben's decision to make, however my first thought is that, despite how appealing it sounds, we'd need to have part of the site free to browse as that's how people decide whether they want to subscribe or not.

Not quite sure how we can carry on any other way.

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stunet Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 2:57pm
stunet wrote:
velocityjohnno wrote:

And a question for Ben and Stu - would there be a point at which you make all the Swellnet data (posts, visuals, forecasts etc) private and take it off the 'farmed' web? If not already?

Edit: or have a '100% real content' policy?

Ben's decision to make, however my first thought is that, despite how appealing it sounds, we'd need to have part of the site free to browse as that's how people decide whether they want to subscribe or not.

Not quite sure how we can carry on any other way.

Well there you go, Ben's beat me to the enter button.

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stunet Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 2:59pm
suchas wrote:

Dominoes are lining up- humans are doomed. The mexican to Sarah Connor”there’s a storm coming” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-25/off-radio-krak%C3%B3w-polish-stat...

Seems that article, which was about AI, was written by AI.

"20-some-things"

WTF?

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thermalben Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 3:19pm
stunet wrote:
stunet wrote:
velocityjohnno wrote:

And a question for Ben and Stu - would there be a point at which you make all the Swellnet data (posts, visuals, forecasts etc) private and take it off the 'farmed' web? If not already?

Edit: or have a '100% real content' policy?

Ben's decision to make, however my first thought is that, despite how appealing it sounds, we'd need to have part of the site free to browse as that's how people decide whether they want to subscribe or not.

Not quite sure how we can carry on any other way.

Well there you go, Ben's beat me to the enter button.

Wonder if there'll be a market for this?

Do people give a shit?

I see a LOT of engagement with glaringly-obvious AI content on social media these days, which is pretty depressing.

Swellnet has a tiny, tiny audience so it probably won't affect our biz model, but more broadly speaking across the landscape, I wonder if some of the bigger entities will steer in this direction and use "no AI here!" in their marketing.

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velocityjohnno Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 4:13pm

What I was wondering about was as such: if the free web (ie here) gets 'farmed' by these large language models because it is all open and free - do you guys get consent on who/what also reads the site? We see in those articles that the LLMs get better the more data, and to approach perfection they need enormous amounts of data (hence: data in everything, like new cars harvesting their customers data via uplink)

I would think you benefit from income from cookies, please correct if wrong. I was wondering if the cookies send the content somewhere including LLMs, or if the LLMs just harvest the web that exists openly, like a header on a wheat crop. (That's where private net takes over, imagine a huge one like FB doing so)

A bit clunky on some aspects of how data flows still

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blackers Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 5:40pm

Good discussion gents. I particularly liked the Joanna Maciejewska quote, creatives need to be worried and fight against it.
On related matters I have been wondering about the impact/costs/issues of all the yt and other socials embeds (personally guilty of excess at times) on this website and its entanglement in the wider data farming that is going on. Don't really do socials other than a bit of family stuff but I'm sure there is plenty of "me" out there through other sources. Perversely we seem to be making it worse for ourselves, even as we rail against it.

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adam12 Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 6:26pm

@VJ, in answer to your question, it was a sense of relief.
Fkn thing drove me mad for decades.
I may have embellished my condition for the sake of trying to get a laugh out of my old mate @PD, but the basic truth remains. I'm sure I could fire it up in the right circumstances, might need Trevor Hendy and a set of jumper leads, but we could probably still get there.
It's more about the libido, and what a relief it was to rid myself of that Spanish bastard.
Finally some peace and quiet.
Now can we stop talking about my package, and I know I started it, but apparently there's some robot taking notes about it somewhere, and I find that idea a bit unnerving!

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tubeshooter Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 6:41pm

I wouldn't worry too much Adam12, PDs' commentary will short circuit any AI robot brain before it gets a foothold here. ;)

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velocityjohnno Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 6:53pm

Hahaha Adam, done. No more mentioned.

As for the peace & quiet, yeah totally, understand that. If am ever in that situation, will go after it. Sounds good.

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blackers Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 6:53pm
tubeshooter wrote:

I wouldn't worry too much Adam12, PDs' commentary will short circuit any AI robot brain before it gets a foothold here. ;)

My thoughts exactly.

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AndyM Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 8:20pm
stunet wrote:
suchas wrote:

Dominoes are lining up- humans are doomed. The mexican to Sarah Connor”there’s a storm coming” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-25/off-radio-krak%C3%B3w-polish-stat...

Seems that article, which was about AI, was written by AI.

"20-some-things"

WTF?

Dodgy article.
Not sure if that "nobel prize winning poet Wisława Szymborska" is in reality Austin Power's Frau Farbissina or possibly another appearance by Dustin Hoffman.

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AndyM Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 8:27pm
thermalben wrote:
stunet wrote:
stunet wrote:
velocityjohnno wrote:

And a question for Ben and Stu - would there be a point at which you make all the Swellnet data (posts, visuals, forecasts etc) private and take it off the 'farmed' web? If not already?

Edit: or have a '100% real content' policy?

Ben's decision to make, however my first thought is that, despite how appealing it sounds, we'd need to have part of the site free to browse as that's how people decide whether they want to subscribe or not.

Not quite sure how we can carry on any other way.

Well there you go, Ben's beat me to the enter button.

Wonder if there'll be a market for this?

Do people give a shit?

I see a LOT of engagement with glaringly-obvious AI content on social media these days, which is pretty depressing.

Swellnet has a tiny, tiny audience so it probably won't affect our biz model, but more broadly speaking across the landscape, I wonder if some of the bigger entities will steer in this direction and use "no AI here!" in their marketing.

I think there'll definitely be a battle of authenticity at some stage, or at least the commodification of authenticity.
Maybe a bit like organic produce, it'll attract a premium and depending on the content and the competition, it'll be very trendy.

Pop Down's picture
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Pop Down Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 8:34pm

Hilarious Adam12

So you had the whole of Swellnet mourning the loss of your Little Richard this morning , as U thought Pop would get a laugh ?

What were U thinking ?

Please go 2 your Which Doctor and get on those Trevor Hendy things .

Your other head is also an Extremity , that needs blood .

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adam12 Friday, 25 Oct 2024 at 8:41pm

@PopD,
he may be little, but his name is not Richard.
Now can we end this...please!

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Fliplid Saturday, 26 Oct 2024 at 11:53am
indo-dreaming's picture
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indo-dreaming Saturday, 26 Oct 2024 at 11:57am

Watched this last night was interesting, although it's 1 year old so might be a bit outdated now.

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Juliang Saturday, 26 Oct 2024 at 2:01pm

I don’t know anything about AI or computers or Scottish comedians ,
So I won’t post a comment.

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blackers Saturday, 26 Oct 2024 at 2:14pm

No comment. :)