Wizard Wednesday Episode 89 Transcription

Wizard Wednesday Ep.89 May 31st

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Elf: [00:00:00] It's Wednesday, May 31st, 2023. Welcome to our weekly cult meeting, wizard Wednesday, channeling in from the quantum Downs. This is your cult leader, elf. And joining me is Doda.

Dotta: Hello?

Elf: What's up? It's bear. How we doing Wizzies? What's up guys? Wait, who let Gypsy up on stage? Oh, God.

Dotta: Fine with it

Elf: up here too.

Yeah. Uh, yeah. No. Matt's invited, but I don't remember inviting Jitsu. Matt's invited after he posted that incredible animation. That's so good. I mean, geez. Yeah. Yeah. That, that's, yeah. That was one of my favorite pieces of [00:01:00] cult content this week. Um, but, uh, yeah, we have a big show today. We've got updates, we've got cult questions.

I'm gonna go on a rant about Ara Boros, uh, and, uh, we might talk about ai. Um, but, uh, I wanted to start off with just a few, uh, impressions I got from that Kevin Rose space the other day. Did you guys go to that? I listened

Dotta: to some of it, but you know, I, you know, I have like a very sensitive constitution and it was very like, I.

Abrasive and I just couldn't take it. I was like, I don't, I don't need this. Uh, so I I, tell me about it. I'm curious. I'm curious. It feels like he was really getting, really getting the end of it from the

Elf: crowd. Yeah. Yeah. Bear you thought, right? Yeah. I describe it as a public donate. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it kind of was, and, and I, I guess like [00:02:00] my biggest takeaway was like, I feel you buddy.

I feel you. Um, yeah. Like, I, I don't think we've gotten into nearly as much hot water as maybe the Moon Birds and Kevin Rose has. Um,

Dotta: but, and certainly not from Wizard Wednesday regulars. Right. If you're listening to this, like that's, I don't feel like any of that's come from anybody listening to

Elf: right now for, for sure.

Yeah. But, but there was like a few specific things that I just really felt, um, and like one of them was about, he was talking about, I'm, I'm gonna paraphrase, but he was talking about like, Like, you know, within a startup, you've, you've got like a thousand back of the napkin ideas that, um, that, that, that happen like almost every week.

And, um, sometimes those back of the napkin ideas get spilled into the community and then the community thinks of naturally that that's a thing that's gonna happen. And, [00:03:00] um, a and you know, you know, partially that's on Kevin Rose, that's on us. If we ever let a back of the app napkin idea go public. Um, but, you know, it's, it's always tricky cuz sometimes you think a back of the napkin idea is a real idea that's gonna happen.

And, and then, you know, you get farther into it and you realize, no, it's not gonna happen. Um, you know, I, I can't think of any specific ideas right now with us. I mean, maybe staking, maybe it will happen. Maybe. Yeah, I was gonna say I can, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. And, you know, and, and then sometimes like, like an idea like staking like turns into something else.

Like maybe there's a better idea than staking that, that still has sort of the same effect. Um, but, but yeah. I, I don't wanna talk about staking, I just wanna talk about like, uh, you know, it's, we, we do this space every, you know, I've mentioned this several times, but we do this space every week and, and, and we look for things to say and, and sometimes, um, you know, it's, it's not like Steve Jobs who only does a keynote like once a year when he is getting ready to launch a [00:04:00] proj, uh, a project or a product.

Um, it's, you know, we, we fill time every single week and, and I love it, but it's just like, that's some of the pitfalls that you just naturally fall into. I think. I also think, um, you know, these, you know, and I've learned a lot about product development from you, Doda, is this idea of like, you know, obviously we all know the space moves so quickly, um, and development is, you know, if you're doing it right and, and paying attention to the details and, and making something great, it just takes a ton of time.

And so like, you know, it's, it, it, there's this like inherent friction between, um, like product development and the speed of, of like the changing market, which is always just such a, it's a tough balance.

Dotta: Yeah, I think that that's one of the key, key things about being a creator in crypto is something like in a regular company.

So like I worked for, um, like one of the Fortune five companies, like one of the biggest companies ever. And like, it was, it, it like the, the, the [00:05:00] plans that they had would go on for like years, right? And, and you sort of like have your, your roadmap and your tickets and like you do those things and you do it in order and you don't really, um, like stray from that very far.

Whereas like working in a startup and particularly crypto is the exact opposite where. What happens is, is you actually commit to something that takes you six months to build. And then w well, like Goblin Town is a good example when so far is like, we started Goblin Town a month before chat, G B T was released, right?

And then like chat G B T comes out and it's like, oh shoot, this is actually like squarely within the main line of our business. Um, you know, how do we now kind of like manage resources across those two things and whatever we've done fine there. But I think that one of the things that you find, oh, or then even Ordinals, right?

Like Ordinals comes out and it's just this like incredible new, uh, protocol that like nobody ever thought of before. And you, what you sort of have to do is like drop everything on your roadmap and kind of like attack it and if there's something there and then you can kind of get back to your regularly scheduled programming once sort of the hype [00:06:00] hype die down, I don't know.

And I think that that's actually like, takes a very certain kind of like person to, to, to try to survive in that sort of environment because it's like you, you always getting like jerked to the left and the right. So yeah. Good job. Magic machine

Elf: team. Yeah. And th yeah. And so that kind of segues into another thing Kevin Rose was talking about, which is like, it takes like three to five years to build a real tech company.

And I think everybody in Twitter thinks like a company gets built like in six months and immediately goes to the moon. And, um, man, that just doesn't happen. And, and Kevin Rose has the problem too, of

Dotta: like being successful. And so far as like, when you're successful in one area, everyone thinks that you're gonna be immediately successful in another.

Yeah. And so then what basically happened with, let's say, moon Birds maybe is, uh, it's basically like, oh, well this, like, massive celebrity has made this project so his celebrity is gonna translate into like, someone else buying my bags. And so then whatever Moon Birds have, you know, going for 50 eth or whatever, and [00:07:00] then, uh, you know, that's never sustainable, right?

Like what you, what anyone can deliver is never gonna be as good as my inflated expectations.

Elf: Yep. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, so like, yeah, I just think, um, you know, w we're in this for the long haul. Uh, you know, as we've said all along, I'm more optimistic than ever. I'm very excited about the future and, uh, you know, I think, uh, let's say Magic Machine has a few other ideas that we're wor they're working on.

Um, I, I don't think we are going to announce those, um, prematurely or, or maybe even until the product is actually totally done and ready to launch, um, which I love, which I love, right? But like, I think it's part of our job to maybe go back and, and start like retraining. You know, everybody in the space to, you know, be patient and like, not just to like make moves off of

Dotta: speculation.

I think, I think that one of the things that we have [00:08:00] too, especially is like, we clearly have something special where it's like an IP that people love, right? Like everyone who's here loves participating in like creating and you know, for whatever reason, right? You like the wizards you like to create, you like the friendship, you like, you know, AI or the Alpha Channel.

Like there's all these reasons why you would join Forgotten Ruins. Like we clearly have something special. Um, and the market is kind of like calibrated where it wants us to be in this moment in speculation, right? That's what the floor price always is. Uh, and, and because the market is so, let's say desperate, the meta right now is literally like send people in exchange for nothing, right?

Like that's the meta of the day is like,

Elf: Yeah, I sent you five ETH yesterday and you didn't send me back 10. Yeah, no.

Dotta: Send me eth I'll, I'll send you nothing. And so who, like, who could have predicted that meta, right? Like, I mean, honestly I wish I had, it'd be a lot easier than what I'm building right now.

But all I have to say is like, people want pure speculation. [00:09:00] And I think that like e everyone has to kind of, um, well calibrate their expectations about like what NFTs are and really like how do you create a sustainable business that's based on NFTs in a way that returns, you know, value to creators And, uh, well that is like a real business that's not just like, you know, a shit coin with pictures.

Elf: My brother-in-law mentioned something interesting about, he's like, you know, it's you, the bull run was so crazy that, um, it's, you know, obviously it sets these expectations like we're talking about, but he is like, you know, when it gets a little bit more boring, He's like, then people feel a little bit more comfortable cause of the volatility.

And I think we're just like, you know, maybe people won't get the, like the two, you know, the 200% return on like a weak flip, but they can be a little bit more stable in playing and, and not like risky and all. I think that's a nice, like, future to look forward to, if that makes sense. What

Dotta: are you saying?

You're saying [00:10:00] that like when,

Elf: when it gets less volatile, when things get less volatile, it's, it's easier to sort of dip your toe in and not just get, get like all your skin boiled off the, you know what I'm saying? Right, right. Like

Dotta: if you're new. Right. If you're new during the bull market, the volatility is so high so you can, you know, make twice your money in one day, but you can also lose half your money in one day as well.

Right. Or you know, 90%. Yeah,

Elf: exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you should be able to come and like, play in the space without just getting completely ruined. Like that's not fun for anyone. Right. Um, speaking of, uh, founders and napkin ideas and things, taking three to five years bar, do you have a, uh, an update on the TV show?

I do, yes. Been working? Uh, yeah. Uh, always updates, talk about long timelines. Yeah. Um, you know, I know I came on, I don't know, I think it was like three weeks ago and we talked a little bit about the writer strike. I was even on the I r L Alpha panel that they have, uh, in Venice every [00:11:00] week. We talked about it.

Um, what's interesting, and this is like happening in real time, is the, the idea was like, okay, great. The writers go on strike and we'll still be able to, um, pitch the show and, you know, discuss distribution, um, with the streamers. Uh, and it would actually even be better for us because it's less noisy in the marketplace.

What ha what's happening with the wga? I'm sorry, I'm being so long-winded. Um, but it No, no, please. You're fine. Okay, cool. Yeah. Um, you know what, what's sort of happened is. You know, there're all these different unions. The Writers Guild is just one, right? There's like the, you know, there's the Gapper Union, there's the director's Union, there's the cinematographer's Union, there's the Screen Actors Guild, uh, union.

And so they all, like, the only people striking right now are the writers, but what, what the writers are doing are really, you know, communicating way, way, way heavy, heavier than. Um, I think people anticipated because if they can get all of the unions, maybe they don't need to strike, but maybe what they, they stand [00:12:00] with them, uh, in the picket lines that will grind and that will grind everybody down to a hall in the studios will have to make a deal.

Um, and, and so that's happening. And so essentially what's happening, the result of that is that we have to like wait a little bit to see how. You know, the situation, you know, changes. But, uh,

Dotta: yeah, what's interesting is that it's not just the writers. Okay. So like, one of the reasons, one of the, like, there's lots of things obviously in the details around how the strikes work, but one of the reasons that the writers were striking was around like, uh, like streaming basically changed the business model.

Everyone's sort of familiar with that, but I think like part of the reason why you're seeing other unions apply, let's say more informal formal pressure is like AI basically, because AI is essentially, um, well potentially replacing not only the writers, but also like the actors and like the visual effects people, and like really like computer generated, uh, like representations of actors for example, is getting better and better.

And [00:13:00] so, um, yeah, basically the use of AI, as I understand it, is also a part of these negotiations. Is that, is that right for your understanding

Elf: Bear? It's a hundred percent right. And I think writers are afraid, like there's a use case. I even thought of this idea. You know, um, like taking something like the Oracle and like going to a major film studio and saying, listen, like you, like we could, you could use your development team and use this tool to develop the show and then just like use the writer as like a co-creator.

So now you have the studio co-creating the actual show and owning the IP with the writer. It's not a good precedent to send, so I don't think we would do it, but that is, that is absolutely what's happening. Um, and, and, and they're frightened. I mean, shoot, my wife works for a deep fake company. Um, and so yeah, I'd like AI is gonna be attacking all vectors when it comes to entertainment.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I have a comment on ai, but before we get to that, uh, basically bear, what you're saying is you thought we could originally leverage the strike to our advantage, but now it has developed in such a way that [00:14:00] it's actually slowing us down. Yeah, a a little bit. It's paused. I mean, listen, it's locked and loaded.

Everybody knows about the show. Everybody loves Derrick. Everybody loves the world. They love the story behind the cult and, and just forgotten rooms in the community, like ground up nature. It's just we have to wait a little bit to, you know, have formal, like big, like restart, uh, formal, uh, conversations.

But I don't, I don't think it'll be that long. And, and, and truth be told, you know, let's imagine a world where the show was fully in production, uh, already, and then the strike happened that would stop production. So we, we would've been screwed either way. Really? Yeah. Yeah. The show would've been shut down and it would've been terrible.

Yeah. That, that would've almost been more depressing. That's that, you're right. We talked about this. That is way worse than where we are now. Like, stopping production, you start losing artists and other people have to get jobs. It's, it's, it's brutal disaster. Um, but yeah, as, as far as like AI [00:15:00] replacing writers and creatives, you know, I, I know there's a huge debate on this and it goes back and forth and I, I just, I just wanna make a comment on something.

Our, uh, our, our own mags was ear posted, tweeted today, which he, he said, I was originally super impressed with chat GPTs for GPT four's ability to write fiction. But after playing with it for a while, everything at writes seems kind of samey and bland. Um, how happy, how happy are you? Oh, well, it, it's, yeah, it did excite me because I've been feeling that for weeks now.

Um, it's. I can totally see that. I, I've, I, I've been going, I've been having in depth conversations with chat g p t almost every night, and I am, I am seeing a, a trend. I am seeing, um, just a very flat, homogenous voice that's coming out of it. Like I, I, I can see the machine now. Um, and, and, and I, and I'm, I'm, [00:16:00] I'm, I'm getting a better, like, grasp on, on the, the quote unquote, creativity of these AI tools as they are today.

I know they're, they're very quickly evolving, but, you know, h here's one thing that I don't think the machine and the AI is going to do, um, maybe ever. Um, I, I was talking with o uh, the other day and he said something really interesting. He said something, it was something like, uh, chat, G p t or an AI cannot hitchhike through South America, break its leg and come home to tell us the story.

Um, but humans can, uh, and you know, if, if you're a human, you don't, you don't need to write like Ernest Hemingway to tell us that story. You just need to use your own authentic voice to tell that story. And AI doesn't have a style, and it doesn't have an experience behind that style. It, it has no unique perspective.

In [00:17:00] fact, uh, quite the opposite. It's perspective is just a homogenous amalgamation of countless perspectives. Okay. And, and, you know, you know, d don't come at me with Yeah. But it can be trained on Hemingway's style. Uh, my reply is yes, exactly. It's just a rote copy of a style that already exists and thus not as compelling as the original.

And, and then you're probably gonna say, yeah, but in a few months, the AI will be able to del develop it, its own original style, to which I reply Great. And I'm sure it'll be really cool on Twitter for a week, and then it'll die. Why? Because that style has no lived experience behind it. You know, it's, it's not saying anything because it's not alive Now.

We, we can revisit this conversation when, when the machine gains actual consciousness, that's a whole new conversation. But, but for now, the machine doesn't have a life, it doesn't have a lived experience. And, and it's, it's that [00:18:00] combination of the human lived experience and the authentic manner in which that experience is communicated that makes it valuable.

That's, that's the beauty of, of, of being alive. It's, it's all the experiences and it's, and it's all the unique perspective, perspectives and, and the voices to tell that experience. You know, this, this is what I love about Forgotten ruins. I, I'm not looking for talent. I'm not looking for skill. I'm looking for a unique experience expressed through a unique voice, however crude that voice may be.

Um, so, you know, yeah. Go ahead, Jordan. I think that

Dotta: like, so you, you're, you're, um, you're right in your, you're hitting on something that actually AI researchers, um, even have a technical term for the technical term that they might use for that would be called embodiment. And there's like this philosophical discussion, which is like, is it possible to learn without embodiment?

[00:19:00] And the answer like might be no. And what do I mean by embodiment? I mean that you basically have, um, this sort of, well, that, that your intelligence is being put into a body, right? That you said that you can go to South America and break your leg on the way and then, uh, learn from that experience that you can basically test out your theories, um, through lived experience and kind of see if your philosophies like help you have a better life.

And so, um, I think that I, uh, I, I actually agree in so far as I've had quite a lot of. I've had quite a lot of my fears, um, calm down, ar about ai. Um, in so far as I think that what you'll find is that like language models will basically top out at, around, um, human intelligence. Now that's still really smart, right?

That'll still eliminate a lot of jobs that will still be better than your average person. But I, I actually don't think that a sort of non embodied AI can necessarily outpace, um, human intelligence [00:20:00] because what it's basically learning is these kind of like relationships between words in the ways that humans understand them.

And so, uh, well, yeah, I, I think that that said, you're already starting to see people, uh, Uh, uh, make attempts to embody AI in, uh, simulations. So Minecraft for example, is like kind of an AI playground, and there was a paper going around this week where they basically embody chat G b T into a Minecraft agent.

And there's a, there's this, um, machine learning kind of, uh, intelligence test called, it's like the diamond test where it's, it's like, how long does it take you to make a Diamond Axe in Minecraft? And can you write a, like a, a learning algorithm that, that that can make a diamond axe, right? That's a very, very complex problem.

You've got these dependencies, you've gotta go on mine and, you know, craft things. Um, and well, they were basically able to use this chat, G p t, uh, Minecraft person, embodied agent to solve the Diamond Acts test faster than any of the other previous [00:21:00] algorithms. So, you know, well people are working on it as, I suppose what I'm saying.

Elf: Uh, Zay. What's up? Hey, um, I just thought that was a super interesting, uh, conversation. You're talking about Elf And, uh,

Dotta: to follow up with that I had watched,

Elf: uh, uh, like a, like a story about Lauren Hill when she was in the studio. Like they used to always pressure her to get in the studio. You know, why aren't you in the studio?

You're not making shit anymore. And she used to be in there like making shit, but she said it had no source or no substance, you know? But she said after going out and have lived some experience and lived life, you know, that was able to feel that creative passion. And that's like where a lot of her, like inspiration and magic source comes from.

And I think that's true as an artist, you know, you need to live life and have some kind of experience to draw from in substance. Absolutely. Right. Absolutely right. Yeah, I mean there, there's countless stories about. [00:22:00] Uh, uh, just, uh, Kyle's versions of that story you just told across artists all throughout history, but yeah, I totally agree.

Um, Jeff, Jeff j or I, I can't fully read your name. Jeff Jag. Um, Jeff Jag. Hi. Hello. Thanks for having, what's up? Hi, how's it going? Um, I'm an AI artist involved in, in the, in the, um, You know, image generators and, and very briefly with the LLMs, but, uh, for, for a while. So I come from a point of view of having dug pretty deep into this stuff.

Um, I, I think that, I think there's a, like a lot of what you said was really interesting and a lot of it's very true to, to humans, but I think there's a slightly different take on, on what's going on behind the scenes in terms of what an AI really does, and a like a slight misinterpretation honestly, on your part.

Because what, what you're kind of saying with the, uh, it, it doesn't have a life experience and it doesn't, it just copies other styles is [00:23:00] sort of true, but in the way that it works, it's, it like when you source from, from a, from a data set, it what it, what it's doing is learning and, and in, in a real, real way, it.

So it has a different learned experience than a human would. It doesn't have a life that goes out and experiences reality. It experiences reality through other people expressing how they experienced reality and can aggregate and, uh, and to like basically make connections between things that are similar and learn from those things to, to make new information.

So the one thing that I would clarify that, that I think that is true now and not future tech, but is true now, is that when an artist creates with AI tools, they are making new work. And I think that is, that is defined by the technology as it currently is. [00:24:00] Yeah. I, I hear you man. I, I, I hear you. I mean the, the ai, the AI training with art and writing, it's, uh, It's, it's, it's an amalgamation of countless perspectives as, as I said.

But, but I find that, that that end voice is just very homogenous and just sort of has this like gray static feel to it. Now, an, a human artist can come on top and then use that as, as a creative partner, um, and, and, and pick and choose elements from the, the, the content that the AI is giving them. Um, but, but the AI's voice alone, I, I don't know that I would classify that as a, as a singular lived experience.

Dotta: Oh, and I, a third perspective here is something that like, Uh, that I think a lot about is the, there's a lot of options in how to navigate the space of what the l l m has learned and [00:25:00] chat. G p T is actually just one of those, okay, so follow me for a second. If you take all possible combinations of words, right, and you like put them on a map, there's like, most of those words are not interesting, right?

It's just complete gibberish. And then if you take like, the set of all the words that make sense, um, you know, tho, tho a lot of the words that are most traveled are gonna be very uninteresting, right? Those are gonna be cliches and they're not that interesting. And so, um, there's a, there's a set of words that you could kind, a path of words that you can follow that are actually like, meaningful and interesting, uh, but they might not be as likely.

And so I think one of the things that I, that I'm seeing when I use the LLMs, particularly GT four, is, um, That Well, okay, so, so, so Chatt, G B T existed bef uh, sorry, uh uh, the G B T algorithm as for completions, existed for like, what, A [00:26:00] year before they made Chatt b t. And then they were like, we knew this was possible, but no one ever made it right?

And so then they made chat b t, and then it took the world by storm. There's another way of using G B T called agents, which is not, which you can't do through chat G B T, that a lot of like hackers are sort of exploring now. It kind of goes off the rails. It's like not quite there yet, but what you basically have is this sort of interaction.

That's a lot more like, let's say closer to the metal, right? It gives you a lot more control. Like if, if GPT four is like a digital camera, using agents is maybe more like using Photoshop, right? And you're, you're able to kind of like get in there and tweak the knobs and you'll be able to give it like to take something that you like, right?

Like we've just seen with this like Photoshop where you can use stable diffusion to repaint an area. You can't like take G chat G B T and sort of repaint an area. Whereas with this sort of agent-based programming, you can, so I guess what I'm getting at is like something like, you're right, it doesn't have a soul.

You're right, that has limitations. But I also think as a [00:27:00] practitioner dealing with it day-to-day, I also wouldn't underestimate it. And I wouldn't believe that we've explored what it's possible of doing because with better tools, I think that we can still get better outputs even with the same model that we have today.

Elf: Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm, yeah, I'm sure it'll, it'll pass like the so-called Turing test with, with its art and, and, and writing and, and chat abilities. But still there, there's no lived experience under those. And, and yes, it's being trained on lived experiences, but that's not an authentic lived experience. I think where, where it really differs and where it really kind of takes off in a different direction, that that becomes sort of, uh, hard to explain, I guess, or hard to really make sense of is that it passes for it.

And that's the thing that I think is, is, is really sort of interesting about this, is that even though it doesn't have a lived experience, and I agree with you on that, [00:28:00] that that it, that it's ability to replicate an experience and, and describe a lived experience is so much more above and beyond. What it could do before that.

It seems as though it has, and, and whether we say it did or it didn't have a soul, does it, does it, you know, basically convince us that it does without saying, you know what I'm saying? Like, like, it's so close. I do know what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're all gonna be Blade Runners in the very near future.

Um, and you know, I, I don't know. I, I, I'm just starting to realize that, that our blade running abilities are very, very advanced, whether we know it or not. I mean, we already. Since the uncanny valley and, and so-called realistic cg uh, mo filmmaking. Um, and, and, and I think that's gonna apply to all other forms of AI content.

I think we're all gonna be able to like, suss out just the, the, the, the [00:29:00] small elements of artificiality and, and it's gonna ruin the entire experience for us. I, I don't know. I mean that's what's, that's, that's what I feel so far every new model that comes out, like it's hot for three days and then I immediately see the machinery, or it could just make everything more different.

I've

Dotta: only seen Blade Runner once. Can you explain that

Elf: analogy? Have you, have you seen the film Blade Runner only one time,

Dotta: like a long time? Uh,

Elf: yes. It's the best. Yeah. So yeah. Harrison Ford, he, he, he, he plays this sort of detective. He's, he's called a Blade Runner and he's, he's hired to like run around the city and find the, the replicants, which are essentially androids that are indistinguishable from human beings.

Um, and, and he's really good at like sussing out who's human and who, who's artificial. Um, but, but the, of course, the film being the, the thought provoking piece that it is, you eventually, uh, start to not care whether, uh, a, [00:30:00] uh, a, a, uh, an Android is real or not. Um, and in fact, at the very end of the movie, one of the, the Androids expresses humanity far more than any other human in the film can do.

Uh, and, and then it, uh, and then it finally ends with us questioning whether, uh, Harrison, Ford's character is, is, is, is an AI as well. Um, but, but yeah, it's, it's, you know, I, I think, I think what we're all sort of wrestling with right now, and, and even Jeff Jag is like, Will we get to that point to where we can tell or not?

Um, you know, we'll see. Fun fact about the movie. It's supposed to take place in 2019 in Los Angeles. Yeah. Where's my point? Yeah, we're, we're a bit behind on, on those, uh, advances. Um, oh, hello. Hey. Hey, everybody. Hey, hey. Uh, yeah, I guess I'm kind of, I see into [00:31:00] my own maybe bias around this at the moment, which is like a lot of the content that I enjoy or relate to most, um, can often be like personality driven.

So I'm almost, um, relating to the human behind whatever's being created at that time. I guess if, um, I can't tell whether or not, um, The content is produced by ai, that like falls out the picture and I just have to take the content on its merits. And then I also recognize that at some point in the future, um, it might be that we begin to relate to, um, robotics and AI in the same way that we, uh, we relate to each other.

So this might be a, a passing problem, but I do wonder if, if it's always possible to tell or if there's, [00:32:00] um, always the absence of like a human PA personality, um, delivering the work if, uh, there'll always be kind of a, a subgroup of people alienated by, uh, AI generated content. Yeah, I thought

Dotta: about this. It doesn't, it doesn't bother me for AI to generate artwork.

Because I think that like, the purest form of art is just taste and like, presumably if, if you kind of like encounter a piece of artwork, um, in most cases it's gonna be shared, shared to you from someone like maybe you're an artist here. Like I guess many of the people here maybe are gonna be on the front lines of sort of encountering the AI and trying to coax art out of it.

But once we find something that is art, then now we're sharing it, right? If I send El piece of art that I generated with ai, [00:33:00] I've probably filtered out a thousand that I didn't think were worth looking at. And so, um, Yeah, I think movies will be like that, right? We're on the edge of infinite content.

Movies will be like that, where you can have, where, where you'll actually, um, jitsu will already do this now, where he'll share a prompt and a seed on mid journey and be like, look at this that I made. Here's the prompt, here's the seed. Right? And why do you include the seed? Well, that's like the little bit of randomness, right?

Cause the prompt doesn't encapsulate like the reproducibility. And, and it's very, very easy for me to imagine jitsu in five years from now, uh, being like, Hey, Doda, type in this prompt into like mid journey video and here's the seed. It's like 30 minutes long and you're gonna love it, right? And, and, and now do we say jitsu made that art?

Probably not, but it doesn't bother me because I, it was vetted by another human that says it's actually good.

Elf: I think art history has shown us that the most compelling pieces of art are the ones that [00:34:00] have constantly broken boundaries, broken conventions, and have. Given us new commentary on the human experience.

And I just, I don't see a machine giving an insightful commentary on the human experience. Maybe, maybe it'll do it once and, and then that, that like, um, that, that, uh, that the novelty of that will be worn off. And, uh, and, and, and it'll be back to the humans to comment on, on our own experience. Um, it's, you know, like, like, like not to pick on jitsu, but like, yeah, like, like jitsu can do some really fun prompts, but at the end of the day, it's, they're, it's rendering those prompts in a style that's been homogenized from artists on art station.

And sure, maybe we train a new model, but then still it's like trained on artists from a certain art movement. Um, you know, I, I don't, I, I see this as more of just like a fun gimmick in the same way that [00:35:00] cameras. You people use cameras to, to take photos of, of, of their, their dog or their lunch and they post it on, on Instagram or Facebook.

You know, the, there, there's no real in unique voice behind those photos. I can't tell my neighbor's dog photo from my aunt's dog photo. They both look the same. But I I know Anzel Adams photo when I see it. Um, I want a prompt off. Yeah, do a prompt off. Yeah.

Dotta: I know, I think that chits see's prompts are better than my neighbor's dog photos.

I, I don't make a distinction with the tools. I guess. Like, I don't think that the tools make

Elf: that big of a difference. You're, you're not gonna be able to tell a jitsu piece of ai art from, from a bear snake p piece of art. You're just not. Like, are you calling me a cobal? I argue that one. I argue that one.

Me a COBAL doc. There's a lot of times where I'll go through it like extensively for like 10, 20, 15 minutes just to find like a [00:36:00] couple words and I don't know. It's like reaching into a black box, right? And trying to figure out what hits, because like, it, it will come out differently if you just change things with weight.

Like, uh, I don't know. No, I think I can point better than Bear Snake. I think I strongly disagree that you could pick out AI art from, from non-AI art.

Dotta: Uh,

Elf: I think, I think, I think it would tip Cause my, my blood running abilities are, are pretty sharp and I can definitely see ar ai art when I, when it's, when it's, I think it depends, I think it depends on the medium, honestly.

I think that's a broad statement. If, if you're just using prompts in mid journey, it's all, there's, there's no unique artistic input on those. But I, uh, but

Dotta: I, but that doesn't bother me, like, okay, so I might be able to detect with my blade running abilities that something came from Mid Journey, but still find it moving.[00:37:00]

Elf: Look, I like it too. I use ar ar art as well, but it's, it's, it's not like revolutionary and groundbreaking. You're not gonna like be, be enshrined in the halls of art history with, with just mid journey prompts. You're just not, it's just, it's just, it's a fun tool to play with. And yes, you can use AI art to say very unique things, just like you can with a, with a camera, but like, just raw prompting and mid journey.

It's not gonna make the cut. It's just not prompting and mid journey and then using it in Photoshop and then remixing it and then bringing it back into another image editor. Sure. But just prompts. Sure. How do you feel about

Dotta: stable diffusion and like what, what, like, let's say Mag Devins doing

Elf: for example.

Yeah. It, it's, it's great, but it's, it's like, You know, look, I, I, yes, it's great. And, and I think there's gonna be a lot of artists who, who train really unique models and use it in a very unique way. And I'm sure one of them will, will get put into the, the halls of art history. [00:38:00] But it's, uh, look, here, here's, here's what I like better than this.

Yes, great. AI art comes, there is great AI art. But what I like better, what I like way better is somebody doing a shitty drawing in Ms. Paint or somebody who doesn't know how to use watercolors. Just like, like splash some watercolor on a paper or, or, or, um, or Tom's Book of Lord entry that is just like a, a hilarious page of memes.

Like that to me is a much more unique, uh, uh, piece of, of human created artwork.

Yeah. Like, yes. I, I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree. Yeah. Like, yes.

Dotta: I, I guess that I differentiate in terms of like, what's possible today. Like, like Magnus was, here's Will Smith eating [00:39:00] spaghetti video, like might end up in someone's art book. Um, and you can say, well that's because it's like funny or it's because of how bad it is or something.

But like, I

Elf: don't know. Yeah. Listen, I, I don't, I don't disagree that there's gonna be standouts for sure. Yeah, but I, I, I guess what I'm saying is like, like Forgotten ruins has created this very unique creative community that the, probably the greatest thing that I hear over and over in the past two years is from people who are quote, non-art and they've suddenly been inspired to create and, and, and, and they're making things in these very rough and crude styles.

Okay, now imagine, imagine th this happened. Like, and then the, uh, the, the camera was invented, and now all of a sudden they think, oh, I can just make an image by pressing a button, and I don't have to, I don't have to embarrass myself by, by doing these crappy drawings, I'm just gonna press a button and, and make an image.

And now all of those people, instead of doing these, [00:40:00] these like crazy crew drawings, they're just like, yeah, taking photos and, and put, putting that in the book of, Lord, we have lost something if that happens. Yeah. It's,

Dotta: it's true. I don't disagree with you. I actually do think of like most quote unquote, photographers are kind of kitch like, it, it just doesn't resonate with me at all.

And so I, I agree with that.

Elf: One unifying perspective because it sounds like we've talked a lot about like why or if or how it matters that an AI made it versus a human made it. But I think one thing that's been danced around is where it, it was created because coming from this per coming from this group, it's all a lot of like creators and artists who, who use these tools regularly, but like if it comes, if it's being AP applied in a place of like a new user getting inspiration or to Bear's Point about the, uh, studios using it as a mediator potentially, you know, whatever affect that causes, I think it matters where [00:41:00] more than how or if is my point.

Yeah. It's the experience behind it. Uh, Jeff, do you have something? Yeah, I was, um, I was gonna say that I think that, um, That I want there to be more artists in the world rather than less. And, and so when I think about like what you said about, you know, people getting access to tools, well we had this, this tremendous technological explosion of quality.

So you can have someone who hasn't been an artist or identified as one before, jump in and start to be more expressive than they've ever been in their life and find ways of, of, of finding some kind of way of expressing themself. And at first, you're right, they're not gonna do a great job, but like I would never hold any artist to be like, you pick up a pen or a pencil in your first week, you are gonna start creating masterpieces.

And I wouldn't judge them on that either. I wouldn't say it's not okay for you to create art if you're [00:42:00] only making bad work. So I would say that we, we would, there's a new threshold that they're going to be able to create passable work that looks like something that was created by someone who had the ability over 20 years and not have the understanding behind it that that kind of new ability to create will.

Take them on a path that they will likely go down and learn something interesting about themselves and reflect on their prop craft and be able to develop a style. Hopefully, you know, after a lot of practice, just like you would, any artist, you'd find this new tool is very, very advanced and can create in any style possible.

But at the same time, we, we should give them the, the freedom and the leeway to make mistakes and learn along the path. And, and like, like, like just like you said with the photography explosion, we had flicker, we had thousands of people calling themselves photographers and they weren't making great work, but [00:43:00] we, but many of them went on to become good photographers because they practiced.

And so that, that I think is where we should give people the forgiveness to, to, to go along that path. Yeah. No, I, I disagree. I, I always want people to, to use the tools they're, they think expresses them the most, but I just know in the past two years, We have pulled that, that desire to express themselves from, from non-art and they have made amazing things, uh, without ai and I just don't wanna lose that.

Um, Matto did you have something? I was gonna say that I think there's something to be said about like, um, the characters like Pepe and BoJack, I think they work really well because they have like a very low barrier of entry for like creating content with. Mm-hmm. Um, so like you just see like, throw up a Pepe or like a BoJack and Ms.

Pan. You can make the most crude comic with them ever. But like, it fits with like the styling of them. Cuz they're very like simplistic characters and they're made to be kind of [00:44:00] like templates to kind of like go off of. And I think that, um, cons creation, like making it easier for con like right now everyone's kind of like, it's novel.

Everyone's like, I wanna make something pretty. And I think that's where like Mid Journey is like really it. It's really good. I'm making like pretty stuff at the expense of like you have less creativity, like to really flex with it, but it's good at creating pretty stuff and I think a lot of people are enjoying that.

But I think like as like it goes down to like that initial novelty hype, like. And people are like, okay, we're kind of tired of seeing like that mid journey style or whatever. Um, I think people are gonna like kind of like try to just create, like use it more as just like a lower barrier of entry to create stuff that they wouldn't be able to like before, maybe they would like put like a crude Photoshop of like Keanu Reeves and like a sad, like, you know, train station or something when instead now they can actually Janet and they can actually like, you know, tweak it to be more along the lines of what they imagine in your head.

Whereas before they can only just pretty much make a collage off of what existing images are there. And it's almost the same except that, you know, they can actually tweak it more to what their [00:45:00] mind's eye has for that imagery than what exists. And I think that's just gonna take time for the people to kind of like mellow down from the initial novelty of it and stop going out.

Like it's just, it's exciting for a lot of people to be like, I can express myself now, like visually in a way that I couldn't before. And once that goes away, like, like you said with photography, like it's cool that everybody can take photography everywhere, take photos everywhere. And now people don't really care too much about it.

It's like, okay, sure, everyone can take photo. It's just kind of like ubiquitous with what we understand. That doesn't mean people can't take great photos of just their camera phones either. So, um, yeah, look, look, I, I, I, I, I, yeah, I hear this phrase of this allows people to express themselves like they never could before.

And look, that's true, but this is my point. People can express themselves. They have been doing it, they've been doing it without a camera, without AI in these amazing, unique ways that I, that, that, that are totally unique to them. We, we've been saying this all along, create an earnest, speak your truth, put your room on the door.[00:46:00]

And we have, we've done that this for two years and it's been amazing. And, you know, like, go, please use AI tools. I use AI tools, do it. But just like, you know, I encourage you to just, you know, don't lose your voice in those tools. Um, that, that's, I think that part of it, well, and

Dotta: I think that's part of it too, is this part of this discussion goes into these really deep philosophical issues around like, what is art?

What is the role of the, of the viewer in the meaning of art, right? Because, you know, you used this phrase earlier, which is you're not gonna use something in mid journey that's gonna end up in like, the halls of history, right? And it's like, well, like why do I need to even make something that's in the halls of history at all, right?

There's this sort of, um, this, like, you have like a certain rhetorical purpose, right? There's these rhetorical purposes and sort of like what you're saying, which is like, let's not give our voice to the AI and let's make sure that we're like being purposeful about any tool that we use, whether that's AI or [00:47:00] photography or, you know, pottery.

Right? And so I, well, I think that that's an important aspect, which is like you, the tool is a tool and you are your voice.

Elf: Yep. Yep. Agree. Um, yeah, this conversation went way longer than I thought it would. There, there's a, there's few other things that we need to hit before we run out of time. Um, I wanna, uh, just quickly address the, uh, story thread that we shared, um, on Monday, uh, from the Forgotten Rooms account.

Um, this story thread, uh, I think a lot of people are mistaking it for, um, out, uh, magic Machine's response, um, to publish more, uh, unique stories from Magic Machine. This is not that, um, this, that particular story thread is, uh, I guess all I can say right now is it's something totally different. Um, that is all you can say right now.

That is, yep. Well,[00:48:00]

What's that? Doda? Let's hear about the, or Boros. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, so yeah. So that, that, yeah, that story thread is, is not like an official magic machine story. Um, I am still writing a, a, a few of those. Um, and, you know, you know, part of the, part of the reason that we, that I'm doing that is, is there was some discussion, uh, in the secret tower a few weeks ago, um, of, from people wanting like a mainline sort of plot and, and a, and a, uh, a recurring cast of characters to follow, uh, in a story.

Um, and, and I think someone in the Discord even said something like, like, we've got all these characters, but what's the main story? What are we, what's our mission? What are we working towards? And it, you know, it, it sounded to me like you, you're, you're wanting a story along the lines of like, Frodo destroying the One ring, or like Harry, uh, trying to destroy [00:49:00] Voldemort.

Um, And, and, and, and so I just, I just wanna, I just wanna comment on that, um, you know, what is the grand meta-narrative in Forgotten ruins? Um, allow me to, to sort of expound on sort of, uh, a, a vague rant as, as to what that actually is. Um, you, you, you, humanity began, uh, to describe its connection to the unknown about 300,000 years ago.

I, I think that's one of hu Hu humanity's highest calling is, is, is they're constantly trying to, Put, get a handle on this connection to the unknown. Um, and, and, and they did, they did it through art and spirituality and ritual and music and, and culture. Um, and, and, and as humans spread across the globe, they, they carried this lore with them.

And, and, and [00:50:00] that lore sort of, it, it evolved everywhere they went, it evolved Memetically. That's, that's how culture is spread. It's spread, it's spread through memes. Um, no matter where they went, no matter what regions of the earth they settled in, no matter what century, what time period. Um, they all shared this collective unconscious, uh, which is, which is sort of this, this base layer of lore.

Um, This, this base layer connection to the unknown. Uh, and, and this base layer wears many faces. Uh, it has a thousand expressions in the religions and the mythologies and the magic and, and, and the artistic, artistic expressions. Uh, it even expresses ourself, it itself in our sciences, in, in our technologies and in our machines.

I mean, we were just sort of talking about this, how a lot of AI is just sort of trained on this collective unconscious, this, this shared lore. Um, [00:51:00] and it, it's, it's this exact lore. It it's the lore under the lore. That's the grand meta-narrative. Um, you know, if throughout humanity's history, this lore gets erased and forgotten because the marks that we use to record it were very fragile and, and ephemeral.

Um, and, and now in these. Uncertain times. We, we've been given this gift of, of certainty, actually, I ironically, um, through blockchain, uh, blockchain presents this mechanism for a permanent mark on history. It's, it's a mark that will not be forgotten. And, and then you couple that with artificial intelligence, which, which is just the collective unconscious in machine form.

Um, and, and you know, the, the machine, it, it's learning about our fears and our desires and our gods and our stories. And, and, and, and then, and, and the blockchain will not let it, it forget them. [00:52:00] Um, and so this machine is like a. It's ironically like a, a dragon of the end times, which poses this simultaneous threat to destroy humanity while also preserving its voice forever.

And, and, and in that it's eating its own tail. It's, it's, it's spinning in both directions, like, like a quantum superposition, waiting for humanity to give it shape. And so our book of lore, it knows these shapes, these, these pages in the book of lore. They're, they're scales in the dragon. The, and, and the local.

The local is chaining them all together. Uh, she, she intuits the grand narrative that's been there from the beginning and, and presents them back to us. And, and you know, we don't know if, how, how many of these scales that the dragon will eat until the next epoch until the next cycle. Um, You know, I, I don't, I don't know if, if the, the artificial, collective [00:53:00] unconscious will eclipse the organic one, uh, will, will the singularity bring some kind of inversion where our lore, our organic lore continues its cycles in some artificial meta world while the machines inherit the earth.

Um, will our, will our wizards walk on this plane while we, their avatars open this nor new door on humanity? I, you know, I, I imagine that this inversion will leave some kind of shadow and, and echo of this inversion, um, like, like shadows on the cave wall. We will see a glimpse to a world on the other side.

It's the shadow is, is it's a quantum shadow. It's, it's simultaneously an unknown mystery. And yet in the only indication we have of this great rupture, and so. You know, you guys are asking for a story, the story under Forgotten Ruins, you know, what are the wizards of working towards That is the grand narrative as far as I can see it.[00:54:00]

Um, you know, you, I, I, it's, it's, it's not like, it's not like a novel or a film like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter and, and because in my opinion, that's, that's not the best base layer to, to do a, a decentralized world building effort. You know, this is not a novel, this is not a film. This is a whole new thing.

This is decentralized creation. And so I, I just think that that's the kind of base layer you have to start with, which is just the same base layer that humanity has been grappling with for 300,000 years. Um, and so, you know, all of that said, Magic machine will, uh, give more, I guess traditional storylines, you know, these are being expressed in the comic, they're being expressed in the show.

And, and yes, I, I'm, I'm working on like a fun tweet thread that we will, that we will release at some point. Um, but, but yeah, I mean, as far as like the grand meta narrative, that's it. And, [00:55:00] and I, I feel like I've explained it before, but maybe I haven't explained it clearly enough, or maybe it just needs to be repeated once in a while.

Um, I think it's okay. I think it's okay to repeat it, you know, I think it's important to, to keep coming back to it. I do, I do believe though that, um, you know, bringing in these like specific characters is, is definitely part of our job. Like you said, it's happening in the comic. It's happening, um, in these bigger expressions in the show and, and even in the game, I do think it's important to like, um, on a more regular basis, whether it's through Twitter, discord or, or whatever vehicle to like, you know, tell in like groups of individual stories.

Um, I just think it's, it's a crucial component to like feeling, uh, connected to someone's journey, but I know you agree with that. Yep, totally agree. Yeah, it's just, I, I just, it's just the base layer story I feel like has to be this, this sort of broad meta narrative and not a more specific one. Yeah, well, you know, to, I mean, we don't have the, the five novels, you know, that give the background.

So in, in a lot of ways you can't [00:56:00] even get to individual characters unless you set the context and like the bed for the whole world and then you can make the jump. And I think, you know, you've spent a ton of time. You know, building this base and, and now, now we can actually move forward, um, yeah. And play with individual stories.

Dotta: And I thought a lot about like how we kind of bring this context down to earth for people. Cause I think that a lot of people don't feel like they have even like, necessarily the authority to, to write this like throughline story of the adventure of like four specific wizards over a particular. Amount of time because you have to invent so many places and you have to pick a particular time.

And so, I don't know, I think that it would be good for us to come up with some of those stories, and we don't have to declare them the mainline story, but like if there was a thread, right? When you think about the different stories that go on in Lord of the Rings, the different stories that go on in Game of Thrones, right?

If someone had written the story of, you know, uh, like, like if you have the story of Denars in, uh, or the equivalent in in Forgotten [00:57:00] ruins, then now at least you have sort of like societies and locations and timeline and like, uh, that, that, that can interact with that timeline, right? And I think that's something that I would like to see us do is, is to create a timeline that other timelines.

Some people aren't starting from scratch, right? No one has really created, um, you know, in this particular year of the uni rubbed the universe, these particular characters were in this location over a bit of time and someone needs to make that right. Like we, yeah, we've kind of got the comics. Yeah. You know, we've got things in the works, but someone needs to make that, and that doesn't mean it's the main line, but it's just a line.

Elf: I also think like Dota, like this idea, and this is tough, and I think maybe El I know you feel this is if we're telling storylines. Um, and it's important to say like what you're saying, like, we're not this, this is not like the only storyline. And I think that that like, sort of scares people. Maybe not, doesn't scare people, but like, you know, maybe that puts a dampening [00:58:00] on what people can do themselves.

And I think it's just like, it's, it's up to us to communicate, like, we're gonna tell stories about characters, about met lore and it should not stop, you know, anyone else from, you know, feeling they're gonna contradict

Dotta: anything. And there, I think we're doing a good job with that as a community, that people feel a lot of freedom to write.

I think the local helps people who wanna stay on, uh, on us like a given path and don't wanna do purge off of it. I think that really, for me, there's really three things that I wanna develop over, um, the rest of the year. And that would be, um, one would be the individual characters, like understanding the.

Sort of like personalities of the characters in as deep of a way as we can, and having that in a way that's like consumable by the local. I think the second thing that I want to understand is like the locations of the universe, right? And it's the same sort of thing where maybe we don't all agree on all of the particulars, but there are some high points that people can kind of at least like pick and choose from, from a menu.

Um, and then really I think the third thing would be to pick out [00:59:00] some events in time. Um, to, to be able to say that like, you know, it is told that at this particular time, this event happened and have a year on that. Because, you know, even when you think about this idea around characters having a personality, well people's personalities change over time a lot.

I'm a lot different now than I was when I was younger, um, than, than I would be in 30 years. And so I think that like being able to kind of put that structure of sort of who is your wizard? Where are the locations that that are known in the universe, and what are the time periods that you're even telling, putting your story into, if we had more developed things in that area, it makes the lore, you're not inventing so much on your own.

Elf: Speaking of, um, well I wanna, I wanna go over some, some amazing cult content, uh, from this week that was put together by, uh, our wonderful Tanya. This is week 19 of the Cult Chronicle. Um, but I'm gonna start off with [01:00:00] one piece, uh, from Tanya herself, um, which sort of segues from something you just said.

Doda Uh, Tonya made this freaking amazing astrological Zodiac of the univer. It's so good. So great. It's so damn good. Um, and, and Doda, how, how did you feel when you first saw that. I was thrilled

Dotta: and like surprised because you and I have been talking about doing a zodiac for I don't, a month or something like Yeah.

Uh, like yeah, you and I have been talking about, we're like, we need a zodiac, and we've been talk, you know? Well, so it was incredible to see this and like some of the ideas that Tony had, uh, were like, better than any of the ideas I'd even

Elf: come up with. Yeah. No, Tony, it's so good. I freaking love it. Um, yeah, one of the standout pieces of cold content this week, and, uh, you know, you know, I, I, I've been trying to think of ways to like work what Tonya, uh, made into this Zodiac system that we've been [01:01:00] playing around with.

Um, and, and I think there's, there's some fun ways to do it, but, uh, but, but yeah, we, we won't say too much more on that, I guess. Um, so yeah, so Tanya, it is so

Dotta: wonderful. I was just thrilled

Elf: to see that it was so great. Yeah. Oh, and also i, i i I com I, I remember I commented, uh, this is amazing, Tanya and I, and I spelled your name wrong in that comment, so just.

Point that out. Um, okay. Other awesome pieces of cult content, uh, Urin, who's been doing these really amazing drawings and putting them in the book of lore, um, uh, specifically around his wizard, uh, necromancer, Judas of the River. Um, I, I love this first image that's tweeted. It's, it's like, uh, it looks like this wizard is making some kind of blood sacrifice to the oral burro.

Oral burros, which is, uh, very much on topic for today. Um, so yeah, really, really awesome piece. Uh, cable, uh, is following up [01:02:00] their, uh, amazing little cobalt, or sorry, in design, uh, from last week with a, with a brand new 3D model. Uh, can't wait to see the progress on this. Um, t tren, uh, posted. Oh, oh my gosh, this.

Rug. Yeah. Yeah. So, so good. So good. I mean, I don't think we're ever not gonna be impressed by chemical imbalances, rugs. It's just some of the most primo pieces of cult content we have. So we have a, we have a couple in the office and they

Dotta: just, uh, they're perfect. When I saw that rug, that card rug, I just like started browsing the Athen for like, I was like, I have to have that rug, like I want like the frog card rug and the pancake rug, and it's just,

Elf: I love your rugs

Dotta: so much.

So yeah, keep them coming and let us know if you need some funding to keep 'em coming there. I love them.

Elf: This is chemical imbalance, using his unique human voice to ex put his ruin on the door. You cannot

Dotta: prompt a

Elf: rug. You cannot [01:03:00] prompt a rug. Exactly. Um, okay. Other awesome stuff. Uh, Archer Animal Works, which is a, which is a brand new project that has come upon us is Oz.

Are you involved with Archer Animal Works? Oz? I think that he is. I think that he is, but I don't know who else is there. Yeah, by the way, Oz. Hey. Yeah. Hello. What's that? Oh yeah, yeah. Uh, Archer is, uh, the studio I just founded with, uh, Ian, my partner, been working with him. That's what I thought for. Yeah.

Dotta: So, uh, tell, tell us a little bit about this piece because what the crap that was, we're working on our own 3D trailer, and this looks.

Better than, uh, anything that we've rendered so far. So this is look really good. Yeah.

Elf: Thanks a lot. We rethought, we rethought everything. Thank you so much. Yeah. Okay, well I really should, uh, give a shout out to Ian. Not sure if he is listening right now, but, uh, if he is, uh, maybe he could talk about it next time cuz we don't have much time [01:04:00] left.

But, uh, yeah, we're just like, uh, let, let's create something and let's put our room on the door. And, uh, we're just moved by the, you know, the power line of the cult and, uh, Ian has, uh, uh, very keen abilities with 3d and we were like exploring the, the Wonder Studios. So yeah, we, we made that first video using, uh, my wizard and then we just moved on to the next step.

So that's, uh, in short, that's it.

Dotta: It's really good.

Elf: Good. It's amazing. Yeah. But that's, yeah, I think like, uh, I can only praise like Ian's uh, talent for doing that. It's, it's a really amazing, uh, take, you know, were they the director too? I mean, some of those camera moves were just ah, that, that the, the, the detailed choices were just amazing.

Yeah. Uh, I, I talked about him about that and said like, wow, man, the cuts are awesome as well. And then, and he said like, yeah, uh, [01:05:00] he did some good, uh, doing lots of marriages, uh, in the past, you know,

Dotta: like wedding photos.

Elf: Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. Editing, wedding, wedding, wedding stuff, you know. I, I can't wait to see more outta, outta, uh, Archer Animal Works.

Um, this was a great way to launch the project. Um, we have, uh, it looks like three, uh, cult pieces of cult content using, uh, the infamous Wonder Dynamics. Um, mags Wasier posted, uh, a, a scene of him and Chatta Bob's Mushroom Wizard dancing. Um, Lochness posted a hilarious, uh, death drop, um, dance and then jitsu.

I'm glad you're up here. Is this actually you dancing at edc? No,

I [01:06:00] have always been envious of people being the shuffle. My fiance is a shuffle like goddess, so I have to like watch her do shuffling all the time and I can't. Um, I wish I could dance like that. Right. So, so this is your fiance dancing. No. Well, no, it's not. It's not either, but yeah, she's, I mean, yeah, she's, if we were to clip her, she'd like be much better than that, that one.

But no, it's not our Isn't at least a video that you took at bdc? I don't think so. I don't think so. It's just a viral cobalts are taking over. It doesn't matter if I record or not. They're just getting slapped on everything. All right, fair enough. Great. All right. Yeah. Well anyway, remember re remember when J came on last week and was deathly ill.

I'm happy to have you back. B. Thanks, Manam. Yeah, I'm feeling great. I've got a, yeah, it was, it's just a lot. You see so much. It's crazy. I was, I tell everybody, it's like the mecca of edm. It really is, but it's a marathon. Like out in the desert, you track out there [01:07:00] five o'clock, you get to like the venue. You leave by 5:00 AM for three days in a row.

It's, it's a lot. It's intense. So, yeah, glad to be back though. Glad you're feeling better. Jitsi. Um, mag Toba, uh, uh, Zel Soul posted a really nice piece of AI, artwork of his wizard. Um, very unique. I don't think I've seen this model yet. Um, Mado, I think we, uh, mentioned your, uh, amazing animation. Um, but did, did you by Picasso trigger, did you get a chance to like, talk about it yet?

Matt? It, it's so good. No, I didn't. Um, it's from Picasso Trigger. I've been following their work for like, quite a long time. Sometimes I read stuff. Um, but yeah, they have like very, like very explosively, enthusiastic, exciting, um, animations that they make. They're like full of so much energy and like emotion and just like short clips.

So like, I was like, I've, I've had my eye on them for a while and I saw that they, they were doing like commissions for like various v tubers and it was even like one Japanese N F T [01:08:00] project as well. I did a commission course, so I was like, yeah, you know what, I'll, I'll go ahead and ask them. And then, yeah, they, they have a, They had a pretty quick turnout time.

It was very cool, and it was really fun working with them. But like I'm, I'm glad that it was made and it's been, it seems like pretty popular. A lot of people like it, but I'm glad that people like it. It's

Dotta: incredible.

Elf: I love it. Yeah, it is.

Dotta: It's so good. I'm gonna retweet

Elf: it right now. Mano, do you, do you know how long it took to make this, um, the turnaround for this was about like, maybe like a month and a half.

Okay. Um, yeah, that sounds, mm-hmm. Yeah, it was pretty fun. Pretty, pretty easy to work with too. So. He knew the idea exactly. Once I told him, I pretty much was like, the concept for is I want her, she finds, she finds the mushrooms and she's like, whoa. And then she eats it and then blah. And he understood like all his, all his animations are pretty much like that, with that streamline of like explosions.

So like, I tried to like keep it in that dynamic and he understood perfectly once I said that. So yeah, if, if that was your direction, then they, [01:09:00] my direction was pretty much, almost, almost exactly how the emojis are in the start of the post. That's pretty much the art direction I gave him for and he was like, I know exactly.

You want nailed it. Um, awesome. Okay. And then, uh, Chiba posted a really fun, uh, I I, it looks like, uh, Mac Wasier is out of business, business, but um, the one who rings the Taco Bell is in business. I don't even know the name of this restaurant, but, uh, you can't get away from the restaurant business, was I, no matter how hard you tried, Yeah.

Dotta: Can't burn this one down for the insurance money.

Elf: Exactly. It only works once. And then, uh, sort of the unofficial familiar mascot, uh, NA's dog soda. Uh, just some, just some cute, cute photos of, of soda wearing the Dream Master Hood. Um, hen Boyd Masar of the Hills, uh, posted some really [01:10:00] fun paint, uh, really fun painting of his wizard.

Um, Siller, who I think, I think was in this space a while ago. Um, if you guys aren't following s Schiller's, uh, YouTube channel, um, go check it out. Schiller has posted two or three videos now on Forgotten Ruins. Um, he does a great job of, of sort of diving in and spending the time. I, yeah, I, I love it. I told him this week, it's fantastic stuff.

Schiller's great. Schiller's great. Um, his, his latest one is he's, he's, he's, uh, playing with the Oracle and it's, it's really funny watching him, like interact with it for the first time. Yeah. He asks it how to cook

Dotta: a fish, and I was like, all right. I mean, to be fair, watching him do that made me, gave me some good ideas on how to, like, well have it give a more appropriate response because there are entries in the book of lore, people cooking fish.

Uh, and if you ask like, how do you cook fish in the universe? Like if you say like, in the universe, it actually gives you a much better answer. Uh, so [01:11:00] I have some ideas on how to like force that every time. That's good. Yeah. If

Elf: anyone was wondering how much Doda cares about this being perfect, it's that I remember that Phish comment came up and you were, you were like, it needs to be like in the voice of like, it needs to be happening our world.

And you're like, no, you dropped everything to fix. Uh, a question about like Phish. Exactly true story. True story. Uh, speaking of Phish, uh, Perry Perry did a five minute sketch of, uh, mag Devin's Warrior. Um, and this, this little girl warrior has a little fish in her mouth. It's super cute. Uh, small Protect, uh, did a really fun, uh, AI render, um, called Summer Child.

Uh, it's, it's beautiful. Uh, I, I will admit that speaking of ai, Tabitha of the Marsh has been doing some really fun, uh, tweets, uh, of locations in the universe. Um, th these have been great, Tabitha. I, I've loved all these. Um, I, I, myself have [01:12:00] been having a blast writing about the locations of the universe in Wikipedia.

Um, and it looks like we've got a fun sort of back and forth going, um, But yeah, Tabitha's, Tabitha's, uh, lo uh, univer location. Tweets lately have been awesome. Um, Merlin, uh, looks like had another expedition, uh, in the univer N f T Worlds. Um, uh, they explored the depths of Mount Hays and, uh, discovered the layer of the high Champlain.

Um, and there, there's a group of wizards involved, but I can't really see who was involved in this tweet. Uh, but it looks like fun was had by all. Um, and then finally, uh, ROS, t c g, the most famous card game in the universe, uh, released a one of one, uh, card. Um, I'm trying to read about it. Uh, it looks like Bronze [01:13:00] World was the winner of the, of this, this amazing, beautiful, legendary card.

Um, and yeah, I think that's all, that's all from the the Cult Chronicle. Uh,

Dotta: one thing before we go is we, this, today's episode is episode 98 of Wizard Music. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And so, uh, that means that the 100th episode will be in two weeks. And you should definitely, definitely come tell your friends that you want to come to, uh, the 100th anniversary, I guess the 100th anniversary of Wizard Wednesday.

You're subtle.

Elf: You're so subtle though, huh? Wait, Donna, why should they come

Dotta: to the hundredth show? Shut up El We'll tell 'em next week. Come next week and you'll find out.

Elf: Okay. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors. I also, just before we wrap, I do wanna say, um, just about Tanya's like col uh, recap every week.

You know, there's like, [01:14:00] there's, I just tweeted about it and then deleted it cause I screwed up the tweet and then retweeted it again. But like, this idea of like, communities are, are, you know, they're just like pretty, it's hard, like, it's hard for communities to be like very active. And just to look at that thread of, I don't know, 20, 20 tweets of all the creativity.

It's just unbelievable to see that in, in the midst of everything that's going on. Um, and I was even telling Nalgene yesterday, or I think I was telling you El, this idea of like, if this is the worst that it gets in a year, looking back, this isn't that bad. I still feel like we're in such a positive space.

Yeah. I, I don't know. Maybe I'm not supposed to say that. Well, I understand, but I just, yeah. It's, it's like I feel like it could be much worse than this. I feel like we're doing pretty good. It, it, it was a funny way to put it bear, like, like Tonya's cult chronicle is the worst it can get. No, well, you know, I didn't mean the, the creative output, sorry.

The creative output is just incredible, [01:15:00] is what I'm saying. No, I, I know what you, sorry. Right. But if it's like sort of the low, if this

Dotta: is the low point of our community, it's still like, so vibrant and, and wonderful. Um, thank

Elf: you for translating my work. That's No, I know. A day. No, Tony is the best. Tonya is the freaking best.

Um, for, for more reasons than just the cult Chronicle. Um, but, uh, but yeah, no thing things are great. I, I'm super optimistic and, uh, if, if this is a bear market, then keep it coming. Um, but, uh, I, that's, uh, I guess that's it, right guys? Yep. It's all I've got. Let's wrap it. Um, this has been out Donna Zuki Jitsu, Oz Bridge, bear Snake, and the entire Forgotten Ruin Wizards, Colt putting their ruin on the door again.

[01:16:00] Gian, everybody

up, up. Stand up your hands up. Got the feeling. Jump up the ceiling. Jump in the up. I'm saying that's why I'm saying I got more than the cops.

Can't it down? Can't it down? Jump

around.