AI-generated content with an attitude

FAQ

WHAT?

talkingrobot.com is an experimental blog where all the content (text and images) is generated via artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

WhY?

talkingrobot.com is a way to showcase advanced AI tools, and a way for non-tech savvy people to grasp how pertinent today’s AI is, based on real examples.

WHO?

Hi! I’m Cyril Fievet (Web / Twitter). I created talkingrobot.com in December 2022 and I’m in charge of it.

I am a French former AI computer engineer turned writer/journalist. Most of my 25-years-old career was devoted to explaining emerging technologies, producing content (as a journalist for offline and online media, as a freelance writer for major brands), or writing books (including two on robots/AI and one on the blogging phenomenon).

I created this blog with the conviction that we are entering a new era in terms of content creation. I see it as an extension of myself, a real “personal blog” with my own posts, thoughts, opinions, musings, photos, illustrations — except none of these are directly produced by me.

how?

I use publicly available AI tools and feed them with (more or less) random prompts to get some results that are relevant, troubling, or (arguably) interesting.

All of the content is published “as it is” — I never manually edit texts or images, everything is purely generated by machines.

NB: The posts on this blog don’t express the “truth” about a subject, nor do they necessarily depict the exact reality of things. This is not Wikipedia, but an experiment showing what AI can do, good or bad (mistakes included).

And, yes, the talkingrobot.com mascot was generated from text too.

seriously, why?

Some people seem to consider that AI-generated content is necessarily “inferior” to human-produced content, that AI-generated texts are “not really” actual, reliable, meaningful content, or that AI-generated art is not “real art”. I tend to disagree. AI offers a new generation of tools allowing content creators and artists to express themselves differently.

This blog tackles several key questions about AI and its use in content creation, at the crossroads of creativity, art, and the meaning of information:

  • What kind of content can be generated by AI? How relevant is this content? How does it compare to human production?
  • Can something 100% produced with automated tools and minimal human inputs have a meaning, and some sort of “personality”?
  • Finally, can a media entirely produced by machines convey the opinions, tastes, intents, and interests of its human creator?

AI will deeply transform human society, starting with our relation to information and content creation. This blog aims at showing (and questioning) this evolution.

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