Pretty much this is how TV and films are already, feels like it's getting more intense - in terms of docu-dramas and so on that on the face of it are dramatisations of real events but in reality are mostly fiction where the writers have imagined what might have happened. Recent-ish things of the kind I mean - that [awful imho] Churchill film with Gary Oldman, the [excellent, imho]Spencer film about Diana, probably the Lady Gaga film about Gucci - and you can probably add in there pseudo-historical stuff like Bridgerton [which I tried to watch but failed to get beyond a few minutes]. Add in the political slants that writers and journalists put onto historical dramas anyway - even without fabricating encounters and conversations and inserting contemporary issues into old stories - and a lot of the contemparary consciousness and belief about current affairs and context, and especially history becomes something of a miasma, it ain't what you think.
AI just adds another layer of confusion.
So for me - it's a big SO WHAT.

You assume all the websites and documentation we have now will survive into 2050 for an algorithm to browse and interpret.

That reminds me of a documentary about how to treat old dying people on their death beds.
That documentary created a fictional scenario in which actors came into the room,
all pretending to be family members of the dying person. A daughter, a son, the grand children..
The idea was to let the person say goodbye and die in peace.
In truth, same person was alone and had no family.
But is that right or wrong to do, from a philosphical point of view ?

Edit: At its heart, that's the same what's "to the moon" is all about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Moon
It's a little known gem, I think.

I suppose it's somewhat like visiting a "living museum" Say a medieval castle, pioneer village, etc.
It may give of a somewhat similar feeling, but if nothing else hygiene dictates you can't have the open sewers, people will be much cleaner and healthier therefore the whole experience will be much more pleasant then it really was.

Most importantly sounds like I'll be happy enough in my 70's though 😉

ratfink wrote on 2023-05-09, 18:35:

Pretty much this is how TV and films are already,

interesting observation, that a lot of human 'creative' output is indeed mediocre and mundane, dressed up in the current cultural lens. that makes a challenge for AI - could it really make a 90' movie if it has been trained on audiences with differing expectations and perspectives

Unknown_K wrote on 2023-05-09, 19:09:

You assume all the websites and documentation we have now will survive into 2050 for an algorithm to browse and interpret.

i am at the same time surprised by how much of the 90's web still exists and aware of how much has disappeared. i chose the 90's as going much before that hits a digital/analog divide wherein the more distant past is not amendable to being AI scanned

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-09, 19:25:

That reminds me of a documentary about how to treat old dying people on their death beds. That documentary created a fictional s […]
Show full quote

That reminds me of a documentary about how to treat old dying people on their death beds.
That documentary created a fictional scenario in which actors came into the room,
all pretending to be family members of the dying person. A daughter, a son, the grand children..
The idea was to let the person say goodbye and die in peace.
In truth, same person was alone and had no family.
But is that right or wrong to do, from a philosphical point of view ?

Edit: At its heart, that's the same what's "to the moon" is all about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Moon
It's a little known gem, I think.

what a great little gem indeed, i hadn't heard of it - one of those heartfelt story-games

i guess in some ways it may appear kind to the dying to present them with falsehoods / illusions. If it is kind then why wouldn't it be kind earlier. seems a thin end of a dystopian wedge. we tend to see old age as if it is in final conclusive judgement of the worth of life - but any moment of life is as valid as any other. if someone loved life from 0-80 but then suffered misery for another year and dies we wouldn't say it was a bad life, how they felt a random day at 19,39 or 79 is as valid as how they felt in the last day at 81. what is special about the last part that we need to provide illusions or is it just that the illusions have less consequences (nothing to be dispelled later on!), interesting thoughts indeed

chinny22 wrote on 2023-05-10, 10:16:

I suppose it's somewhat like visiting a "living museum" Say a medieval castle, pioneer village, etc.
It may give of a somewhat similar feeling, but if nothing else hygiene dictates you can't have the open sewers, people will be much cleaner and healthier therefore the whole experience will be much more pleasant then it really was.

Most importantly sounds like I'll be happy enough in my 70's though 😉

i guess a living museum is a good analogy, complete with the elements that are a pretence (eg in my imagined story the 'computer' is just a box with 'components', it isn't doing anything - in fact the computing done isn't emulating 90'd tech either, it is simulating it just as it would simulate and a game or film

i don't think i would be happy in the imagined scenario though, i would know something was off, would know this was all generated on the fly and none of it really existed back then, just has strong similarities to it

.
in reality generative AI may never reach the point of being able to simply generate any number of convincing computers, games, movies, songs, books and so on along any mix of genres - but it seems to be heading that way. People who think we will buy AI novels or watch AI films like we read and watch these things now are missing something - there would be no sense of shared history, a billion films could be generated with any number of recreated and imagined actors - we would never encounter that shared moment "did you see terminator 2!"

in fact maybe people further into the future would never be able to relive their past nostalgically, everything having been generated and lost in a billion other generated things, preserved by no one because there is no mass shared experience of it

hmm, back to tinkering with stuff now, too much thinking .. 😀

gerry wrote on 2023-05-09, 14:12:

*although if prompted the AI will generate a convincing online community who have 'seen', 'heard' and 'played' the games and will happily discuss it with our protagonist, whether by chat, forum, voice or video call

I think we are getting close to this one already... For now it falls on the "convincing" part but the AI chat bots are plentiful and seem to enjoy discussing retro hardware and games.

2050, so ~25 years from now. Judging by the expectations of people in 1985 for 2000 vs reality, there's always a chance that vogons stills exists and someone necroposts in this thread using their beige computer, because beige has become the new black. Heck, I'll add a google calendar notification for 2050 in case myself and google are still alive for an epic necropost!

konc wrote on 2023-05-16, 07:26:

2050, so ~25 years from now. Judging by the expectations of people in 1985 for 2000 vs reality, there's always a chance that vogons stills exists and someone necroposts in this thread using their beige computer, because beige has become the new black. Heck, I'll add a google calendar notification for 2050 in case myself and google are still alive for an epic necropost!

25 years would have meant 1975 expectations of the year 2000 - there was still some belief in humans on moonbases and the like back then, maybe something about the 'year 2000' but overestimating the impact of new technology is always a factor

it happens the other way too, i don't suppose many online and using cell phones in 1998 would have guessed at the incredible reach and impact of the internet combined with 'smart phones' on life for actual billions of people in 2023

i do hope vogons is around in 2050 and peopled by people not convincing AIs...

Me in 2050:

gerry wrote on 2023-05-16, 09:50:

25 years would have meant 1975 expectations of the year 2000 ...

Oh of course! But I think this backs up my silly thought even more

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-09, 19:25:

Edit: At its heart, that's the same what's "to the moon" is all about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Moon
It's a little known gem, I think.

Man, I loved that game. Great soundtrack too. I still think of toy platypus.

gerry wrote on 2023-05-10, 17:41:

i guess a living museum is a good analogy, complete with the elements that are a pretence (eg in my imagined story the 'computer […]
Show full quote

chinny22 wrote on 2023-05-10, 10:16:

I suppose it's somewhat like visiting a "living museum" Say a medieval castle, pioneer village, etc.
It may give of a somewhat similar feeling, but if nothing else hygiene dictates you can't have the open sewers, people will be much cleaner and healthier therefore the whole experience will be much more pleasant then it really was.

Most importantly sounds like I'll be happy enough in my 70's though 😉

i guess a living museum is a good analogy, complete with the elements that are a pretence (eg in my imagined story the 'computer' is just a box with 'components', it isn't doing anything - in fact the computing done isn't emulating 90'd tech either, it is simulating it just as it would simulate and a game or film

i don't think i would be happy in the imagined scenario though, i would know something was off, would know this was all generated on the fly and none of it really existed back then, just has strong similarities to it

.
in reality generative AI may never reach the point of being able to simply generate any number of convincing computers, games, movies, songs, books and so on along any mix of genres - but it seems to be heading that way. People who think we will buy AI novels or watch AI films like we read and watch these things now are missing something - there would be no sense of shared history, a billion films could be generated with any number of recreated and imagined actors - we would never encounter that shared moment "did you see terminator 2!"

in fact maybe people further into the future would never be able to relive their past nostalgically, everything having been generated and lost in a billion other generated things, preserved by no one because there is no mass shared experience of it

hmm, back to tinkering with stuff now, too much thinking .. 😀

If ai were to compose a song on the fly that I would think is awesome, there'd be no way to ever hear it again unless I recorded it >.<

Tetrium wrote on 2023-05-17, 08:22:

If ai were to compose a song on the fly that I would think is awesome, there'd be no way to ever hear it again unless I recorded it >.<

yes that's a possible 'feature' of generative AI - things will be individualised

at the moment some people may think that an AI song might be produced and becomes available to all, but not necessarily - it could be a one off generated on the fly and never repeated (and never heard by anyone else)

same with novels, films, art, games - everything

that would be a huge change from the present and past - where in we all have some shared 'culture' due to the relatively small pool of songs, art, films etc being shared among millions

how will be talk about our experiences of a future "half life" game if we don't have such shared experiences anymore?

I enjoy my retro hobby, I really do.
But I hope that in my twilight years I have better and more poignant things to reminisce over.

Hope no freudians end up here or it'll soon be a cash flow in deep psychoanalysis.
My transference on a beige P233MMX 😀

In 2050 we'll probably have high priced components or ultra high tech replicas. I go for replicas. In 2100's the scenario will be more like "remnants" of the old era of beige.
An AI can probably already rewrite code to make old programs compatible with newer OSes, I guess better emulators will show up.

2 cents

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-05-17, 14:23:

I enjoy my retro hobby, I really do.
But I hope that in my twilight years I have better and more poignant things to reminisce over.

yes indeed, part of the fondness of memories is the people we remember, and the shared things we had - a small but significant part of that is our shared experiences. You're right that we shouldn't be too attached to particular vintage things though

Nexxen wrote on 2023-05-17, 14:42:

An AI can probably already rewrite code to make old programs compatible with newer OSes, I guess better emulators will show up.

possibly, there is emulation and simulation. we can use an emulator of a SNES in order to accurately play a Mario rom for instance or just simulate the Mario game such that it looks and 'acts' exactly like the real thing

i suspect AI may lean towards the latter - ie to get to the end point its own way without building the underlying mechanics for accuracy

Nexxen wrote on 2023-05-17, 14:42:

Hope no freudians end up here or it'll soon be a cash flow in deep psychoanalysis.
My transference on a beige P233MMX 😀

Lol. That reminds me of Frederick Pohl's Gateway.
There's an VR program with a psychiatrist, too.

Source: Mobygames.com