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Add text templates for figure and pullquote shortcodes
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ref #316
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rlskoeser committed Sep 5, 2023
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23 changes: 3 additions & 20 deletions content/issues/3/mapping-latent-spaces/index.md
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Expand Up @@ -62,29 +62,12 @@ I agree with the authors of "Stochastic Parrots" that neural language models are

Consider the surprising art scene that sprang up when CLIP was released. OpenAI still hasn't released the DALL-E model that uses the numbers CLIP assigns to text to find a corresponding point in a latent space of hypothetical images.[^11] But that didn't stop graduate students and interested amateurs from duct-taping CLIP to various generative image models and using the contraption to explore visual culture in dizzying ways.[^12]

{{< figure src="images/AngelOfAirUnrealKomatsuzaki.png" alt="A computer generated picture of a candle. The automatically generated text description reads: a picture containing candle." caption="The angel of air. Unreal Engine." attr="VQGAN + CLIP, Aran Komatsukaki, May 31, 2021." attrlink="" >}}
{{< wrap class="txt-only" >}}
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| FIGURE. A computer generated picture of a candle. The automatically generated text description reads: a picture containing candle.
|
| CAPTION: The angel of air. Unreal Engine.
| ATTRIBUTION: VQGAN + CLIP, Aran Komatsukaki, May 31, 2021.
| LINK:
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
{{</ wrap >}}
{{< figure src="images/AngelOfAirUnrealKomatsuzaki.png" alt="A computer generated picture of a candle. The automatically generated text description reads: a picture containing candle." caption="The angel of air. Unreal Engine." attr="VQGAN + CLIP, Aran Komatsukaki, May 31, 2021." >}}

Does the emergence of this subculture make any sense if we assume that CLIP is just a failed attempt to reproduce individual language use? In practice, the people tinkering with CLIP don't expect it to respond like a human reader. More to the point, they don't want it to. They're fascinated because CLIP uses language *differently* than a human individual would --- mashing together the senses and overtones of words and refracting them into the potential space of internet images like a new kind of synesthesia.[^13] The pictures produced are fascinating, but (at least for now) too glitchy to impress most people as art. They're better understood as postcards from an unmapped latent space.[^14] The point of a postcard, after all, is not to be itself impressive, but to evoke features of a larger region that looks fun to explore. Here the "region" is a particular visual culture; artists use CLIP to find combinations of themes and styles that could have occurred within it (although they never quite did).

{{< figure src="images/UnderwoodClockworkangelrockycoast.png" alt="A picture containing text, water, ocean, shore. Description automatically generated." caption="The clockwork angel of air flying over a rocky coast, Kodak Portra film." attr="Ted Underwood, using Katherine Crowson's cc12m_1 diffusion model, December 28, 2021." attrlink="" >}}
{{< wrap class="txt-only" >}}
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| FIGURE. A picture containing text, water, ocean, shore. Description automatically generated.
|
| CAPTION: The clockwork angel of air flying over a rocky coast, Kodak Portra film.
| ATTRIBUTION: Ted Underwood, using Katherine Crowson's cc12m_1 diffusion model, December 28, 2021.
| LINK:
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
{{</ wrap >}}
{{< figure src="images/UnderwoodClockworkangelrockycoast.png" alt="A picture containing text, water, ocean, shore. Description automatically generated." caption="The clockwork angel of air flying over a rocky coast, Kodak Portra film." attr="Ted Underwood, using Katherine Crowson's cc12m_1 diffusion model, December 28, 2021." >}}


Will models of this kind also have negative effects? Absolutely. The common observation that they could reinforce existing biases is the mildest possible example. If we approach neural models as machines for mapping and rewiring collective behavior, we will quickly see that they could do much worse than reinforce existing biases: for instance, deepfakes could create new hermetically sealed subcultures and beliefs that are difficult to contest.

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8 changes: 7 additions & 1 deletion themes/startwords/layouts/article/single.txt
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Expand Up @@ -36,10 +36,16 @@
| {{ .Parent.Date | time.Format "January 2006" }}
|
⩩-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------⟩

{{/* .Plain | htmlUnescape */}}

{{ .Content }}

{{/*
{{- $rawContent := .RawContent -}}
{{- range .Site.Data.article_txt_replace.args -}}
{{- if not .skip -}}
{{- $rawContent = $rawContent | replaceRE .pattern .replacement -}}
{{- end -}}
{{- end -}}
{{ $rawContent }}
{{ $rawContent }} */}}
12 changes: 12 additions & 0 deletions themes/startwords/layouts/shortcodes/figure.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@

#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| FIGURE. {{ .Get "alt" }}
|
{{- with .Get "caption" }}
| CAPTION: {{ . }}{{ end }}
{{- with .Get "attr" }}
| ATTRIBUTION: {{ . }}{{ end }}
{{- with .Get "attrlink" }}
| LINK: {{ . }}{{ end }}
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6 changes: 6 additions & 0 deletions themes/startwords/layouts/shortcodes/pullquote.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@

#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
{{- $text := .Get 1 | markdownify -}}
| {{ $text }}
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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