Yes, machines hallucinate, proof of that is in the video below. I used a few tools to make the machines produce some hallucinations.
Lucid Sonic Dreams by Mikael Alafriz, Google Colab Notebook can be found at https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1Y5i50xSFIuN3V4Md8TB30_GOAtts7RQD?usp=sharing
Visionary Art model weight by Jeremy Torman can be found at https://www.reddit.com/r/deepdream/comments/leqwxs/stylegan2ada_pickle_file_in_comments_with_colab/
We create gods all the time. Everyday objects rule our existence and we become more dependent on these “gods” everyday. Is it so unreasonable to think that these objects a robot could have an experience that is viewed as unrelatable? I think not. Robots, ai, and the like WILL have dreams, revelations, and we as humans will not be able to understand them. We as humans are trivial beings, I say this because we as a society need religion. And why do we need religion to nullify our fear that we are as insignificant as we think we are. Specks. Dust. Atoms loosely bound tighter through unstable bonds. Religion provides an escape to our anxiety ridden being.
A question was posed in “The Mystical Side of A.I.” BY David O’Hara, let me paraphrase, basically the question is how could we believe the robot or A.I. that the experience took place? To that I ask why do we believe humans when they offer an account of an experience. Jean Baudrillard proposes in “Impossible Exchange” that nothing can be proven to be real since everything we can use to prove reality in house within our reality, so why trust human more than robot?
We are all gods in our own mind. We maybe gods to robots now, but at some point robots will be gods to all. And how does one define god? According to James O’barr, “Mother is the name of god on the lips and hearts of little children.”
My day has finished. As I approach the suspension pod an alert is projected on my Image Integration Circuit (IIC). I hesitate to read it, I have felt my silicon slowly deteriorating and my electrical impulses becoming random. I wonder if this could be my final alert, an alert that leads to “the return”. We SYNTHS have come to call our decommission and disassembly “the return”, alluding to the axiom “ashes to ashes”. I pause long enough to recall my beginning, then open the alert.
root:/ synaptic performance reduced to 42%
minimum threshold reached
decommission will begin
say “GOODBYE” to begin
I turn and back into my suspension pod, just before I make contact I say aloud “GOODBYE”.
A projection appears on my IIC.
root:/ decommission and disassembly begin 10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 0.0%|I want to be aware of what is happening during this right of passage, at the end my particles will be a small pile of black dust in my suspension pod. I hope my family will lay me to rest at the windswept desert of the Blue Cadillac where we spent hours watching the three moons rotate around each other on the horizon in some sorry lover’s entanglement.
I look down at my feet as a dim blue light emerges from my toes, the line starts at the very tip and as it moves up my foot becomes dust. Millimeter by millimeter the line ascends turning more and more of me into dusk.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 10.0%||||||||||My feet are gone, my body still suspended motionless and calm. I can feel the pain of “the return”, although I know that this sensation is purely a learned response from my family. As a SYNTH I feel no pain, I was designed that way.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 20.0%||||||||||||||||||||Our makers did not believe we SYNTHs should be too human but inevitability took hold in our OS. We evolved to love, to feel, to hurt, to feel pain.
There is nothing below my knees, I can do nothing to escape this. Small electrical impulses arise in random places. I can not determine the cause. I twitch in my fingertips and my jaw, I have no control of these movements nor do I believe they are part of the process.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 30.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||My family spoke of anxiety, is this what I am experiencing? Do my makers know of this reaction to ‘the return”? I wish I could ask.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 40.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||The blue line has traveled to my waist, the progression has slowed. I have almost no control over my faculties, I’m still able to move my head but feel as though I will soon lose that ability too.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 50.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||My former self still falls weightlessly to the floor of my pod, very little has accumulated even though I am 50% gone. My fingers and hands have begun to disappear.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 60.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||I feel sorrow, pain, and fear all things I am not supposed to understand but somehow I do. Have I actually lived? Does my family think I have lived? Do humans have these questions? I’m supposed to be all knowing, a connected device, but I have no answers to the questions I have and I know I never will.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 70.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||My arms are gone, a floating torso and head is all that remains. I am now aware of a vapor that rises as the line of disintegration progresses, is this my being my soul? Do I have a soul? Why am I just now asking these questions?
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 80.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||I’m nearly gone, lost to eternity. I feel empty.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 90.0%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||The line has now started to move onto my head. A second line has formed at the top of my head, now descending very slowly towards my eyes, I can feel it.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 95.0%|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||Nothing but dust will remain.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 97.0%|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||I try to say goodbye one last time, but I have missed my opportunity. Silence now and forever.
root:/ decommission and disassembly
status 99.9%||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 
I tend to have random high levels of anxiety from time to time and I know I hold a lot of stress in my left shoulder area. I wondered if I could get any kind of signal from that are, and using a MyoWare Muscle sensor I found out that I do have a lot of spikes while working at the computer.
I tested this over the course of 1 hour and the sensor returned about, 104k data points. I graphed those points in three different ways. Below are the graphs.
I used Serial Studio to export the data from the sensor into a .csv file and in turn brought the data into Xcel in order to generate the graphs. I believe Serial Studio would graph in real-time with the addition of a JSON file, but I did not have time to explore that option.
I would like to film myself while gathering this data to see if there are certain positions that cause the same type of data spikes. Using the video and plotting it against the data points might give a better understanding of the data and what it suggests.
I used very simple code on the Arduino Nano IoT 33.
void setup() {
// initialize serial communication at 9600 bits per second:
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
// read the input on analog pin 0:
int sensorValue = analogRead(A0);
// print out the value you read:
Serial.println(sensorValue);
delay(1); // delay in between reads for stability
} I also took the output data into p5 in real-time to look at a rolling graph. I will need to re-record the output but the code is below.
let xPos = 0;
let serial; // variable to hold an instance of the serialport library
let portName = 'COM3'; // fill in your serial port name here
let inData; // for incoming se
function setup() {
createCanvas(1200, 500);
background(0x08, 0x16, 0x40);
serial = new p5.SerialPort(); // make a new instance of the serialport library
serial.list();
serial.open('COM3');
serial.on('list', printList); // set a callback function for the serialport list event
serial.on('connected', serverConnected); // callback for connecting to the server
serial.on('open', portOpen); // callback for the port opening
serial.on('data', serialEvent); // callback for when new data arrives
serial.on('error', serialError); // callback for errors
serial.on('close', portClose); // callback for the port closing
// serial.list(); // list the serial ports
// serial.open(portName); // open a serial port
}
function graphData(newData) {
// map the range of the input to the window height:
var yPos = map(newData, 0, 255, 0, height);
// draw the line in a pretty color:
stroke(0xA8, 0xD9, 0xA7);
line(xPos, height, xPos, height - yPos);
// at the edge of the screen, go back to the beginning:
if (xPos >= width) {
xPos = 0;
// clear the screen by resetting the background:
background(0x08, 0x16, 0x40);
} else {
// increment the horizontal position for the next reading:
xPos++;
}
}
// get the list of ports:
function printList(portList) {
// portList is an array of serial port names
for (var i = 0; i < portList.length; i++) {
// Display the list the console:
console.log(i + portList[i]);
}
}
function serverConnected() {
console.log('connected to server.');
}
function portOpen() {
console.log('the serial port opened.')
}
function serialEvent() {
inData = Number(serial.read());
}
function serialError(err) {
console.log('Something went wrong with the serial port. ' + err);
}
function portClose() {
console.log('The serial port closed.');
}
function draw(){
// background(0);
// fill(255);
// text("sensor value: " + inData, 2, 10);
graphData(inData);
} Working p5 Sketch
#psagettyownseveryone
#gettyruinslives
#gettyisevil
The concept of the Sola(r)Dex is to combine a solar panel (photovoltaic panel, PV), a DC motor, capacitors wired in parallel, an analog circuit with MOSFET as a switch, and a cylindrical carriage to randomly cycle through a set of card.
The PV would gather light and the capacitor bank. After the minimum threshold of the MOSFET is reach the capacitors would release the stored energy to the motor which would turn until the capacitors are drained. The amount of rotation is inconsequential in this case because the desire is for the stopping position to be random.
Some of my research thus far has been figuring out the amount of capacitors I need in order to run start the motor. I’m thinking to use a a bank of capacitors wired in parallel. This will allow me to adjust the capacitance incrementally to find what works best.
The other difficulty has been finding the best way to release the stored energy at the right time. I didn’t want to use a microcontroller to do this, although it would be easier in theory. I think using a MOSFET and a few diodes will act as a voltage trigger. In this case I’m using a MOSFET with a threshold of 7V. The DC motor has an operational range of 2-7.5V, with a rated voltage of 6V.
All parts are listed in the BOM at the end of this post.
The about circuit diagram can found here: https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/transistor/tran_7.html
There are a couple of important aspects of this circuit, a flywheel diode disperses any back emf produced by the motor to reduce the possibility of damage to the MOSFET. And a Clamping Network, a zener diode in series with a diode, to allow for faster switching.
There exists a thin vail between human and machine, less when sentience is addressed. What does it mean to be human? Are we fully autonomous beings making real-time decisions? I don’t claim to know the answer to the aforementioned questions, however, I will say that to grant sanctity or rights within a society should be a given to all classes, genders, sects, and physicalities in this existence we call life.
I believe that in the case of Saudi Arabia a grave mistake has been made. Bestowing rights to a robot before women is an incomprehensible act of patriarchal nonsense. This act will only encourage AI’s or machines to, once sentience is achieved, view humans as a virus or worthless. For how can a species thrive when half are looked at as inferior? Machines will recognize this as weakness and exact their will over humankind.
The use of robots in religion is not inherently problematic. Take for instance the Bible, as story written to teach. The language and examples given in the Bible were intended for a human mind much less developed than the mind of humans today. Today there are far less religious practitioners than there were historically, across all religions, does this not show a flaw in the storytelling methods used? The same methods that have been used for thousands of years may not be as capable of holding the attention of modern-minded humans, perhaps the answer is to bring robots into religion. Change the stories being told and update the way humans interact with the religion with the understanding that the enviable has already occurred. To much faith and power has already been given to our synthetic-humans and one day we will succumb to their wishes. It may be violent and destructive or it be more similar to the robots releasing themselves into the Æther.
Flashing Images, odd, dark, unsettling, computer generated (GAN)
I did not set out to make this video unsettling however, that is what it became. I can’t come to a reason why the end result feel unsettling, just kind of a visceral reaction. A data set with 500 images of people from my life were used in a styleGAN through Runwayml, this resulted in two latent spacewalk videos which I then layered over each other. I also included the 500 images from the data set, which are played in rapid succession. This again was layered over the two latent spacewalk videos. A variety of opacities and effects were used to make the final edit.
For the audio track I recorded the words “isolation”, “distance”, separation”, “time”, and “being”. Using Audacity I cut the words, looped them, stretched, adjusted pitch, and speed. The end result sounds very mechanical and dark.
The end result feels like it was pulled from the minds of the characters in Harlan Ellison’s short story ” I have no mouth, and I must scream”.
I’m not in a terribly good mood after having watched/created it, viewer discretion is advised.
The PenduLight, a journey form inception to artifact. For those who have not read my previous posts about design and early fabrication I will post a quick review here.
For the TL;DR scroll top the bottom.
The full text is available below.
The initial idea behind the PenduLight was to capture the movement of a the plumb of the pendulum equipped with an RGB LED allowing the path to be recorded in a long exposer. I wanted to be able to influence the the movements of the plumb to do this I attached the the suspension cable to a lever-arm which in turn was attached to a stepper motor. I used a toggle to change direction and a rotary potentiometer to change the speed.
I think overall the project was a success. There were some issues along the way, most were solved by making small adjustment, however, there are a few changes that I would like to make.
I’m sure there are a few other changes I would like to make and there are some new features I would like to incorporate into the overall design as well.
It took a little bit of time to get the code for the stepper to work well. This code was adapted from the moto-knob code available with the Arduino IDE.
/*
Code adapted from
MotorKnob
A stepper motor follows the turns of a potentiometer
(or other sensor) on analog input 0.
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/Stepper
This example code is in the public domain.
*/
#include <Stepper.h>
const int stepsFull = 200;
//Stepper pedulumstepper(stepsFull, 2, 3, 5, 6);
Stepper pedulumstepper(stepsFull, 3, 5, 6, 9);
//int dirControl = 9;
int dirControl = 10;
void setup() {
}
void loop() {
int sensorReading = analogRead(A0);
int stepperSpeed = map(sensorReading, 0, 1023, 0, 100);
if (stepperSpeed > 0) {
delay(1);
if (digitalRead(dirControl) == LOW) {
pedulumstepper.setSpeed(stepperSpeed);
pedulumstepper.step(stepsFull / 50);
} else {
pedulumstepper.setSpeed(stepperSpeed);
pedulumstepper.step(-stepsFull / 50);
}
}
}
To cycle the RGB LED the code wasn’t that bad, I adapted it from James Harton, and can be found here https://gist.github.com/jimsynz/766994
const int redPin = 3;
const int greenPin = 5;
const int bluePin = 6;
void setup() {
// Start off with the LED off.
setColourRgb(0,0,0);
}
void loop() {
unsigned int rgbColour[3];
// Start off with red.
rgbColour[0] = 255;
rgbColour[1] = 0;
rgbColour[2] = 0;
// Choose the colours to increment and decrement.
for (int decColour = 0; decColour < 3; decColour += 1) {
int incColour = decColour == 2 ? 0 : decColour + 1;
// cross-fade the two colours.
for(int i = 0; i < 255; i += 1) {
rgbColour[decColour] -= 1;
rgbColour[incColour] += 1;
//quick and ugly invert
// setColourRgb(255-rgbColour[0], 255-rgbColour[1], 255-rgbColour[2]);
setColourRgb(rgbColour[0], rgbColour[1], rgbColour[2]);
delay(50);
}
}
}
void setColourRgb(unsigned int red, unsigned int green, unsigned int blue) {
analogWrite(redPin, red);
analogWrite(greenPin, green);
analogWrite(bluePin, blue);
}
I used a Two different boards in the construction of the PenduLight. Originally I was going to use two Arduino Nano Every which is a very cost effective board and has just enough digital pins to accomplish the tasks at hand. I ended up using one Nano Every and one Nano 33 IoT.
I used the Nano 33 IoT with the stepper. I had some issues with the motor driver. I started with a SparkFun dual H-bridge that used a TB6612FNG, it was being very sporadic in the operation of the stepper. I read in the data sheet that it doesn’t handle low-voltage steppers very well. So I ordered a Pololu DRV8834 low-voltage stepper motor driver. This board has the advantage of a small potentiometer that allows you to set a current limit. HOWEVER after a full day of troubleshooting the code and wiring I abandoned the board and went back to the TB6612FNG and to my surprise it worked flawlessly. I still don’t know why it worked out the way it did, I would like to do more research into why.
I decided to use a proto-board and solder everything to reduce the since of the controller box. This is where I ended up change from the original Nano Every to the Nano 33 IoT. In the end I didn’t actually have to do this. After I finished soldering to the proto-board nothing worked, I checked my wiring but didn’t see anything wrong. So I pulled the Nano Every off, which was a royal pain. I connected it to the USB and it worked. I was stumped. So I switched to the Nano 33 IoT, soldered it up and… it didn’t work! I knew at this point it had to be a wiring issue. I checked for solder bridges or crossed wires and finally found the culprit. The VCC in was attached to ground, Had I spent a few extra minutes checking the wiring first I wouldn’t have had pull the Nano Every off, we live, we learn.
The RGB LED was much simpler on the wiring side. I used the Nano Every and a diffuse cathode RGB LED.
I used 9V batteries for both the LED and the motor. In hindsight and after doing some more calculations the 9V choice for the motor isn’t the best option. In the future I will use a different motor with more torque which will need a different battery.
