Ian Eck

New prompt technique -Create two opposing bots to debate a topic -Give them both acid

@dmiller62 @LinusEkenstam The glass ui is pretty clearly a step towards an AR future. They’re taking their time on AVP 2, shrinking it down to something actually wearable, and in the meantime they’re unifying a design system around spatial computing. —a system for the AI/AR reality dissolution to come.

@LinusEkenstam As a very long time Apple user and developer with deep insights after all of these decades: I agree. The glass UI is the first indicator. Prove me wrong but “cool” and like physical glass objects doesn’t equate to “better”. This is a solution looking for a problem.

My thoughts on today’s Apple Event. Apple has clearly missed the mark for far too many times now. I feel today was yet another one of these occurrences. Sadly Apple is trying too hard to do too much. There is too much fat, need to trim down all that fat. Back to basics. Apple desperately need to reinvent itself or become the new Nokia. During the first 40 minutes there was nothing that made me feel wow. Actually there one thing after the other leaving me with way more questions than answers. Genmoji? Backgrounds in group messages? Visual Intelligence? Apple Games? And what is up with the new unified design language? The Glass UI is a UX nightmare, visual after visual in the presentation is worse than the previous. Honestly, I’m so underwhelmed. It’s NOT a stunning new design. Apple needs to go back to its roots. Make really good OS, make really good scaffolding for others to make the apps and stuff that lives on the device. Apple is frantically trying to find new ways to bump revenue, getting into very corner o your phone, trying to have an app alternative to basically everything. Actually does not stop with an App, but literally bloating the operating systems with all sorts of fringe random use-cases that either only applies for like 3% of the users or only works in 9 states in the US. Like seriously, truly thought we had left this era behind us. But I guess it’s MAGA all the way here. One of the core updates IMO was to unify the naming of the different OS options. Plus making the iPad more worthy of its processor. Finally. But thats it. Complete and utter lack of excitement. I'm completely underwhelmed, Apple needs a step change to their entire existence if things are going to turn around. Sure I'm typing this on an Apple device, because there is not options out there. But clearly this WWDC might go down as the most boring one ever. Go back to hosting a massive crowd live in Moscone, have live flaky demos on stage. Feel the vibe. This whole produced thing just makes everything so much less human, and I know this has been going on since Covid times, but the vibe is gone. I think Altman and Ive will nail it next year. Might be the end of an era.

@francoisfleuret The venn diagram of humanities-type people and AI-interested people is most likely filled w/ designers or researchers within the AI space itself. i.e. they're too busy working to talk

Serious take: how comes there is such a dominant silence from the humanities on what to expect from / how to shape a society with AIs everywhere.

7.) The future affordance of all this is the ability to make this content more dynamic, reactive, and alive. Gen-AI will enable nonlinear storytelling, more like games than movies.

6.) This is a new flavor of creativity that feels more like discovery. The skills it rewards are curation, taste, writing, editing, patience, and an open mind. We’re about to see an explosion of “AI dreamers” that will have more in common with bedroom DJs than traditional film-makers.

Here’s a short film I made with OpenAI's new Sora video model. I was lucky enough to be a part of the Sora Alpha Creator program—testing the interface, diving into the tool’s capabilities, affordances, and shortcomings. Here’s some takeaways (a thread):

@c_valenzuelab @AnthonyCReyes AI-native game engines will become like sandboxes for anyone to build, compete, and collaborate in. Gaming and "content" mixing in new design patterns resembling the best parts of Tik Tok, Roblox, QQL (qql.art), etc.

@AnthonyCReyes games are rendered with game engines. Everything is pre made. You don't need a game engine where we are going.

Runway is not an AI company. Runway is a media and entertainment company. And I actually think the era of AI companies is over. It's not because AI failed - quite the opposite. It's because AI is becoming infrastructure, as fundamental as electricity or the internet. Calling yourself an AI company today is like calling yourself an internet company. It's meaningless because it's universal. Every company uses the internet; every company will use AI. For Runway, our focus is art, media, and entertainment at large. We began Runway almost seven years ago with a vision that remains largely unchanged today: AI is a necessary tool for storytelling. To achieve that vision, we had to work backwards to build the best research team that could deliver the best models on which we could build the best products. I often talk about our work as a new kind of camera. Not in the literal sense of capturing images, but in terms of its historical impact. The camera didn't just create photography - it birthed entire industries, economies, and art forms. Cinema, television, TikTok - all children of that first revolutionary tool that could capture light and time. I think the work we are doing at Runway is part of a new foundation for an entirely new media landscape. Just as the camera transformed how we capture reality, AI is transforming how we create it. The models and technical capabilities we've built are just the beginning - they're the equivalent of those first daguerreotypes, primitive yet pregnant with possibility. The mistake many make is seeing AI as the end goal. It's not. AI is the mechanism, the underlying infrastructure that enables something greater. The real revolution isn't in the technology itself but in what it enables: new forms of expression, new ways of telling stories, new methods of connecting human experiences. Media has traditionally operated like a one-way street. Creation flows down established channels to reach consumers. Even when distribution was disrupted - first by social media, then by streaming - the fundamental pattern remained: someone creates, others consume. The roles were clear, the boundaries defined. But we're witnessing something different now. Imagine watching something that generates itself as you watch it - truly dynamic content that responds to you, understands you, creates for you. Universal Simulation and world building. The distinction between creation and distribution dissolves when content can shape itself in real-time. That is the foundation for an entirely new media landscape. It's about fundamentally reimagining what media can be: interactive, generative, personal - yet simultaneously shared and universal. This is also why pure AI companies are becoming obsolete. The interesting questions aren't about the technology anymore - they're about what we build with it. The next wave of innovation won't come from companies focused on building better models. Models are commodities. The technical foundations are now well-established and known by everyone. There are no secrets. The wave of change will come from those who understand how to use these tools to create new forms of media, new types of experiences, new ways of telling stories. The infrastructure is laid. The foundation is built. Now comes the exciting part: creating something meaningful with it. The end of AI companies marks the beginning of something far more interesting: the birth of truly new media. Not just new platforms or formats, but entirely new ways of creating and experiencing content. We're not building an AI company. And that's a far more exciting mission. Like it has always been; back to our roots.

@TolgaBilge_ Well one thing you should know is that Miami is barely the US. More like the capital of Latin America

I'll also use this thread to document my Miami culture shocks, as it's my second time visiting the US:

I'm in Miami this week to attend the Apocalypse-themed Hereticon, who should I meet? So far I've found these two strange creatures pictured below. I have orthodox opinions on everything, so I will be a true heretic in this context :)

@twizzles7 @kattrisen @PickaxeProject 👀

You know what's been missing from most AI apps? Capybaras. So I made an AI-powered mental health app featuring capybaras. Check it out: capybaraaffirmations.ai Shoutout to @kattrisen and the low-code/no-code community for the inspiration!!

@c_valenzuelab Generative ai flips the equation into more an act of exploration and discovery rather than capital S ‘Self Expression.’ And you sorta realize that maybe the creative act was always more like this than we realized. Not something to be owned, but found.

I've been watching too many people immerse themselves for hours using Gen-3, and there's this pattern that keeps popping up. It's like this: You start with some vague idea in your head. But as you play around, you end up in totally different places. It's weird - the twists and turns become more interesting than what you first thought of. It's not like you have a clear destination. You're just... going. And as you bump into new stuff - things the model mashes together in ways you didn't expect - you change course. You explore. It's like the model is saying, "Hey, what about this?" and you're like, "Huh, never thought of that." There's a buzz to it. A thrill in not knowing what's coming next. You're not trying to make some big, fancy project. You're just poking at your brain, seeing what comes out. It's like stretching a muscle you didn't know you had. It's a new form of creative dialogue. The rapid-fire generation speed allows for a true back-and-forth, a conversation in visual language. You prompt, the model responds, sparking new ideas in your mind, leading to new prompts, and on it goes in a virtuous cycle. It's a form of "generative daydreaming." The boundaries between your initial concept and the model's output blur into one stream of continual discovery. You're not crafting a singular, static piece of media, but rather exploring possibilities. And it's joyful and fun. This process taps into a part of our brains that craves novelty and surprise. It's not about the pressure to produce a film or a masterpiece. It's about flexing our creative muscles simply for the joy of the exercise. Like going to a gym for the mind, each session with the model leaves you invigorated, your imagination stretched in ways you didn't expect. When the tools are swift enough, you enter a flow state, a creative dialogue. A form of play and discovery that's as rewarding as any final form. It's not about reaching a predetermined endpoint, it's more about reveling in the serendipitous exploration.

@jamalichaidani Went to 3 neighborhoods and a fuckin e/acc party and declared everyone undateable lol

@jamalichaidani Kinda tired of people ragging on California for taking on the overflow of the rest of the country’s homeless. California is where lost and searching people “end up.” It’s more a facet of the weather and cultural temperament than it is some grand moral failing of the city.

@rainisto Midjourney Alpha is still by far the smoothest interface for quickly discovering and iterating on aesthetic ideas

@rainisto Are you reducing style and going RAW? You also need to use image input prompts (delineating between style, composition, etc.) along with weighting the different image components

Subscribed to MidJourney again for a month to generate some init images for a movie. MidJourney feels like the weakest link again. It's really bad at following prompts - it's fine if you want images of people with vacant expressions staring into distance, but for prompting people to do specific actions, it's frustratingly hopeless. It tries to do this Jedi Mind Trick by creating something nice that's not following the prompt at all. Need to look into SD3.