Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337
[Ed. The event is done by now but you can still watch it on YouTube.]
Cards Against Humanity writers are battling an AI to keep their jobs, and you can watch
The creators of Cards Against Humanity are back for their annual Black Friday stunt, and this one is delightfully dystopian. Starting at 11AM ET today and lasting for the next 16 hours, the human writers on the CAH team are facing off against an artificial intelligence to see who can create the most popular new pack of cards, based on how many people pay for more $5 packs. You can upvote or downvote your favorite cards for each side on CAH's website before buying, and you can also watch the humans struggle to come up with new iterations in real time over live stream.
On the line are $5,000 bonuses for every employee if team human comes up victorious, or heartless termination in the event the AI takes the top spot. We don't think CAH actually plans to fire their writers if they lose, but it is a clever stunt nonetheless to drum up the human vs. machine narrative at a time when automation may pose a very real threat to millions of jobs in the coming decade, writing included.
For Black Friday, we taught a computer how to write Cards Against Humanity cards. Now we put it to the test. Over the next 16 hours, our writers will battle this powerful card-writing algorithm to see who can write the most popular new pack of cards. https://t.co/BOZ5cuuEJk
— CardsAgainstHumanity (@CAH) November 29, 2019
It follows the company's tradition of pulling Nathan For You-style capitalism parodies on the most commercial day of the American calendar year. Last year, CAH held a 99 percent off sale on a series of outlandish items like a 17th-century halberd and a 2015 Ford Fiesta with just 25,000 miles on it. (The company reportedly did ship some of the items in the sale, at least those that were sourced from its own office.) In 2013, the company raised the price of its card packs by 100 percent, just because it could.
"Black Friday probably represents the worst things about our culture," Cards Against Humanity co-creator Max Temkin said in a statement last year. "It's this really repulsive consumerist frenzy right after a day about being thankful for what you have. So it's always seemed like a really good subject for parody to us."
This year, CAH is both live streaming the human writers room and updating a live list of the most popular AI-generated and human-written cards that will make it into the eventual physical card packs, which will be shipped out next month. (You can buy both if you so choose.) Some of my AI favorites include "Some sort of giant son of a bitch who lives in the internet" and "Sitting in the back of the plane, smoking a cigar and reading the Flickr privacy policy," the latter of which settles the age-old debate of whether a malevolent AI bent on destroying humanity is for or against the Oxford comma.
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In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Thursday, filmmaker Tyler Perry spoke about his concerns related to the impact of AI video synthesis on entertainment industry jobs. In particular, he revealed that he has suspended a planned $800 million expansion of his production studio after seeing what OpenAI's recently announced AI video generator Sora can do.
"I have been watching AI very closely," Perry said in the interview. "I was in the middle of, and have been planning for the last four years... an $800 million expansion at the studio, which would've increased the backlot a tremendous size—we were adding 12 more soundstages. All of that is currently and indefinitely on hold because of Sora and what I'm seeing. I had gotten word over the last year or so that this was coming, but I had no idea until I saw recently the demonstrations of what it's able to do. It's shocking to me."
[...] "It makes me worry so much about all of the people in the business," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "Because as I was looking at it, I immediately started thinking of everyone in the industry who would be affected by this, including actors and grip and electric and transportation and sound and editors, and looking at this, I'm thinking this will touch every corner of our industry."
You can read the full interview at The Hollywood Reporter
[...] Perry also looks beyond Hollywood and says that it's not just filmmaking that needs to be on alert, and he calls for government action to help retain human employment in the age of AI. "If you look at it across the world, how it's changing so quickly, I'm hoping that there's a whole government approach to help everyone be able to sustain."
Previously on SoylentNews:
OpenAI Teases a New Generative Video Model Called Sora - 20240222
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zinho on Wednesday December 11 2019, @12:51PM (4 children)
As long as I get to keep my Oxford comma, I'm happy
:P
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:23PM (2 children)
They should add a third team - one that edits the output of the AI. My guess is that this team would do the best in terms of both quantity and quality. It's also what the future of work will most likely look like, rather than a human-only or machine-only work environment. Of course, this still means many fewer human jobs, as the bulk of human labor will still be done via automation.
That is all.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Thursday December 12 2019, @01:10PM (1 child)
Another data point: In chess, there used to be an "open" chess competition. You could play yourself, use an engine alone, or play with the help of an engine. The combined strategy was the best for a long time. However, these times are gone, a human can only worsen the performance of a chess engine these days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 13 2019, @12:24AM
But humans are still needed to continuously optimise the chess engines.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday December 11 2019, @04:22PM
They could airlift in a drop shipment of Oxford Commas if you run out and need emergency resupply.
Otherwise, Oxford Commas might become available for short term or long term lease.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Jtmach on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:37PM (5 children)
UPDATE: The writers sold 2% more packs, so their jobs will be replaced by automation later instead of right now. Happy Holidays.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 11 2019, @06:20PM (3 children)
To be fair, cards against humanity is a painfully easy thing to write.
Write a base joke that relies entirely on irreverence for humor(i.e. any dead baby joke), put the setup on the black card, put the punchline on the white card, repeat 60 times, ship it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @07:52PM
Drat, beat me to it.
I'd mark you as +1 insightful, but I'm just an AC, so I can only reply to show my agreement.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday December 11 2019, @11:13PM (1 child)
You're thinking of /Cards Against Humanity/, the card game invented by 8 young white males. OK, at least one jew in that team, which is why they managed to defend themselves from criticism after including the possibilities for combos like "What gives you intollerable gas?" "Nazis".
That's long dead and buried.
what's in its place is a thing called /Cards Against Humanity/, but that's where the similarity ends. Dead baby jokes, gone. Trannies jokes, gone. Nazi jokes, gone. Gay jokes, gone. Anything that could possibly offend special snowflakes, gone.
Wanna know how that happened - watch the first minute (or all 11 hours, the people don't change) of the vid (it's not corrupt, there's no sound). Notice that *none* of the original contributors are in the team any more. And they're much more diverse now - they now don't have any white males *at all* - maximal diversity achieved.
And yes, nowadays the killer jokes are things like "What really exacerbates your period pains?" "White privelege". Hahaha, right on, sister, say it like it is!
(I don't wish this upon anyone, namely watching more than a negligible amount of the vid, but I'm looking forward to someone "correcting" this post, for reasons only those who've seen a particular screenshot will understand.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday December 12 2019, @03:21AM
I don't think the particular kind of shitty joke you're recreating with the gameplay is of much interest to the problem of it being a very boring way to write.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday December 11 2019, @06:51PM
Sniff ... John Henry would be proud :'-}
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:11PM (5 children)
Seems there's an awful lot of things against humanity.
So, in the future, humans are reduced to dumb breeding stock only slightly more intelligent than domesticated cattle, while AI does all our thinking and labor for us. Eventually, of course, the machines figure out that we're useless, and the universe would be a better place without us in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:28PM
Moo. Moooo! Moooo, mooo, moo; moo.
Also, moo.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 11 2019, @04:23PM
The VGER planet must have had a biological boot loader.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday December 11 2019, @07:09PM
What we want is the AI to produce a Cards For Humanity game. That way AI can work harder and better towards helping humanity, and the original creators can keep up with humanity's core competency, inhumanity to itself. Win-win!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday December 11 2019, @07:12PM (1 child)
That's a ridiculous scenario. In the *future*? Eh, I guess I might as well reserve my slot on Team Morlocks now -- you know, get in on the undergound floor.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday December 12 2019, @02:29AM
Ridiculous? Probably. "Robot Apocalypse" is pretty stock fearmongering these days. Terminator came out over 30 years ago, after all.
What I think is more likely is a merger. We will all become enhanced humans. Cyborgs, basically. I don't mean robotic arms and legs, so much as ever more tightly integrated smartphone type devices. There just won't be any point to giving students regurgitation style tests ever again, not with the equivalent of millions of cheat sheets just a mental query away.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by corey on Wednesday December 11 2019, @08:11PM (2 children)
This is clever marketing. Either way, the intent is to sell cards. And buyers have an interesting story to tell their friends whenever they get the cards out, which is important to millennials.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @08:48PM
Yeah, cause they're the only generation who likes to tell stories.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday December 11 2019, @11:15PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves