The HotSpot - Episode 396

Seems like the video is taking awhile to publish so going to post the audio version while it still encodes! Enjoy!

@vinny: Thank you Vinny!

Did anyone catch the link to Jeff’s game collection?

I get Alex's complete disregard for wanting to be remembered but I now have the image of him appearing in Coco saying "FUCK YOU SKELETONS! NO ONE CARES!"

Dick Warlock, Escape From New York, 1981.

The discussion about digital/virtual simulation and likeness rights is the major subject matter of the 2013 movie The Congress, starring Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm, Paul Giamatti, and others. It uh, really goes some places. If @alex or anyone else is interested in more questions being posited and not necessarily any good answers. This is not explicitly a recommendation.

I’m surprised Jeff of all people finds it strange that someone would so obsessively want to archive and recreate the past with modern technology. Having faithful virtual recreations of important historical figures seems like an interesting idea from an archival purpose. Years down the line future generations can bring up this “avatar” of Obama and ask it rudimentary questions about the government and have him respond just like the real person would have with all the speech patterns and mannerisms inherent to that original person. It is essentially the Mister for human beings.

It’s fascinating because culture changes and the way we as human beings talk and interact changes. We watch movies from the 50’s and those people seem like aliens with their speech and behavior and that’s only 70 years back. Being able to not only watch but now interact with these folks is a logical next step in technological advancement.

It took me a while to work out that James Dean was not Dean Martin and i was about to make a Cannonball Run 2 joke.
Also in a Star Trek holodeck inspired future, all those celebrities likenesses are probably public domain.

@humanity This reminds me of the Guy Pearce Time Machine movie that had an AI at the library.

50 minute mark: Yep... that is pretty much what I said...

DESTROY THE GRID!!!!

I myself am actually in a limbo of how to display my consoles. It can be a tough one. I would rather not touch systems hooked up via composite, yet the money one would have to spend to get clean signals and to upscale can get pretty high. Along with flash carts to avoid the inconvenience of swapping games.

I don't mind using my Mister instead, but I want to at least show them off and not have them just packed away.

https://cloud.collectorz.com/monsterdunk/games for those that want to see Jeff's crazy collection.

@jeff Stop putting off selling that Magical Chase!!

i could go for an 18 tb drive right about now

@wanaming0: Dick Warlock looks like he could be Drew Scanlon's dad from that picture.

In terms of James Dean movies, Rebel Without a Cause is quite good and worth watching, and the director Nicholas Ray got his start in film noir (specifically They Live By Night and On Dangerous Ground), so it has some of that feel to it. Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood are great in supporting roles in that one as well. Giant is fine, but its a tough sell because its so damn long. East of Eden is ok, but far inferior to the other Steinbeck adaptation Grapes of Wrath.

whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhooo is your daddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy wwwwwwhat does he doooooooooooooo

Good Jeff is trying to communicate to us from the Black Lodge.

@zoofame: like any modern technological advancements this sort of tech would require new laws and institutions to govern and protect the rights of a persons digital likeness. People can and will do ghoulish things and nothing will ever stop this because that’s human nature, but I do think there is a lot of potential good that could come out of technology that can realistically emulate a human being down to their speech etc. it’s just that the internet and well life in general has conditioned us to think of the worst case scenario first and foremost.

The only practical use I can see for using dead people in tech is something like a museum exhibit of history with notable public figures. Ben Franklin reanimated telling his history and showing the kite and key type thing.

Really struggling to see how they could see no positives of that tech. Right now I have a voicemail that I have saved of someone who passed and I listen to it when I want to connect with them. I would love something more tangible than a voicemail.

50:00 Hey, anarcho-primitivists are cool.

I honestly think part of why Tron Legacy got made was to develop that de-aging tech. Just like Guardians of the Galaxy had all these spaceships and dogfighting (rather than say folks in energy bubbles) to help dry run Star Wars FX for modern standards.

Fuck yes! GiantBomb SHOULD host Saltybet.

sexy nas tech scares

Jeff's audio is extremely crunchy in this one, maybe he exported at a lower bitrate?

I just watched through TNG again, and you know what, the Moriarity episodes suck!

Ok I mean as entertaining TV and mild philosophical excursions go, they're fine.

However, from a nitpicky nerd continuity perspective, I always hated how they completely and utterly undermine Data's existence. Data is supposed to be unique, for all intents and purposes the only known fully sentient/sapient artificial lifeform in the Federation's quadrant of the galaxy (apart from Lor of course), yet when Geordi asks the ship's computer to create an opponent to match Data, after like 2 seconds of processing it whips up a fully sapient artificial lifeform that is arguably more advanced than Data, on account of its ability to experience emotion.

The same thing basically applies to the Doctor on Voyager. At least there's some period of evolution there, but still. There's nothing special about a Soong-type android if a standard ship's computer can just spit out a fully sapient being with its own thoughts and emotions when you ask it to.

Nerd rant over :)

Banger episode.

I love it when these episodes go in the weirdest of directions

Seeing as Led Zeppelin's Moby Dick is an instrumental track, I'd love to hear what the internet thinks the lyrics are. (Seeing as Alex is a drummer, and it's 90% a drum track, I assume he knew that and that was the joke.)

that Moby Dick moment had me in tears

Okay, but what if, say, the gb crew all had robots, and they held ai-generated podcasts

@dlhgame: There's huge uses in the video game industry. Imagine indie devs being able to hire great voice talent and have them record just a small section needed to train the AI. Then they have full voice acting for their entire game without needing the actor to ever come back in, saving tons of money on their budget. Or hell, even big studios can use it. You just have the actor record a sample, train the AI, and then you have their voice for any future DLC or whatever without having them come in or having to schedule any time at all. Or even just use it as a utility where the actor still reads every line in the script, but when they rewrite a couple lines they can just fix it up. Right now I don't think the quality is good enough, but it's maturing faster and faster every day.

It is scary though, and there will need to be some new rights that have to get written into law. At some point I'd imagine actors would want to be paid more for having 50 hours of dialogue even if they only recorded a small sample. It would be bad if it turned into an exploitation of their talent by paying the voice actors as little as possible while still getting their game fully voice acted.

The future is weiiiird. At the same time, I don't think people should be so negative about it. I see a lot of people online talking about how it'll be impossible to tell and stuff like that, but we have people who are amazing with photoshop and video editing tools where you can still tell what's fake and what's real. We don't have the tools now, but I guarantee once it becomes a regular thing that people will start developing a skill for separating real audio from AI generated audio. Early CGI or photoshop looks silly and obvious nowadays even though people felt they looked real back then. I have a feeling it'll be the same for AI generated audio.

Anyways I wrote an essay! Thanks for reading if anyone did.

EDIT: Well, they actually talked about what I did but that's what I get for commenting before finishing the video!