The Mother Who Waited
A poem, about the Second Punic War, but set in the early fourth century A.D.
Following the poem, a talk about working with A.I. graphics, and then an update on the Hannibal book.
The video calls with patrons over the weekend went all right, but were rather under-attended. Perhaps this just isn't something that many patrons are interested in. Next time, I think I might release a YouTube 'short' to announce it, and perhaps do two calls on a Sunday. I don't think that the Friday evening slot suited many people.
Comments (5)
I rather enjoyed the poem, and enjoyed the meta discussion in the video about your use of AI art. It was certainly possible to tell that a lot of effort had gone into the curation of the generated images, to the point that I was initially wondering if you had been able to source the images from classical paintings. What typically irks me with AI generated images is when I get the feeling that the commissioner does not care what the results look like, as long as it generally conveys the idea.
Nooo.... no shorts. Unless you mean "short for a Lindybeige video" then sure, bring it on. I see the video was not auto-translated. I assume you did something. Thank you. Sorry the meetings went poorly. I'd love to have been able to attend but you know... work, children, taxes... I know, I know... same old excuses all the time.
Yes, I found an article that told of the secret path through the settings menus to the obscure grotto where that particular setting can be turned off. I never set it to 'on' in the first place. Possibly, there is a setting for users/viewers as well? That would be logical and fair, but this is YouTube, so probably not.
Wow, *fantastic* poem, I love it! Truly exceptional, and it says so much in one elegantly written and perfectly rhymed poem with excellent cadence and a dose of real history. It’s one of those things where it’s fictional but very well could have been real, and this exact sort of thing happened all across the empire with the edicts of Theodosius, if I’m remembering correctly? And how, for example, Caligula had the head of Jupiter replaced with his head, pagan holidays were replaced with new Christian reskinned versions, etc. Truly excellent poem!! Regarding the AI art, I don’t think it detracted from the real centerpiece which is the actual poem. Lots of people are adamantly opposed to AI, perhaps justifiably, but I think it’s really about creative integrity. In this case you wrote the poem, you could very well have just had a video of you reading it to the camera, but you added art to it to make it more immersive and visual. It didn’t detract from it in this case, I think the only real issue anyone would have with it would be if they have a broad sweeping set of standards about AI in general. The art was an added flair and it looks good, looks like paintings and not weird uncanny-valley creepy people… I think it’s fine. You wrote the poem, thats the point. And a damn good one!!
Thanks. I think people will object most when the AI seems to be leading the creative part of something, so that there is nothing or little of a genuine person's showing through. AI is presumably here to stay, and it will often be used unobtrusively. Good CGI is the stuff that does not say 'look at me - I'm a special effect!'. If you use it for removing television aerials in a period drama, people are fine with it.