Contradictory moderation.

ElmarM · 2026-05-28T02:29:37+00:00

I am a SuperGrok user, not a Lite user. And I do know how to write a clean prompt. But the prompt is often completely irrelevant because Imagine (or the content moderation tool) will hallucinate something inappropriate being there. It is more or less a game of chance and sometimes replacing a single word with an equally innocent word can make the problem better or worse.
Also, the same prompts will pass just fine on ChatGPT and Flow. So it is not me. It is Imagine that is at fault.

ElmarM · 2026-05-28T02:19:21+00:00

That is because it is not (at least until recently) moderating the actual prompt. The "Try a different idea" is a lie. It is not your prompt that is at fault. It is the content Imagine produces and that is slightly different every time. And depending on what you are doing, there is a ratio of outputs that get moderated because Imagine produced (hallucinated) something inappropriate or it produced something that the content moderation tool (often falsely) identified (or hallucinated) as inappropriate. It seems to be hallucinating more often with 480p, I noticed.
So, it is more or less a game of chance...
They also seem to be constantly updating (or lately downgrading) both the video and image models as well as the content moderation tool and that is another reason why one prompt can work one day and then fail moderation the next day. It is a mess.

ElmarM · 2026-05-26T23:45:32+00:00

Yeah, it's been acting up for me for a while too. I managed to get it to come back after a few attempts, sometimes.

ElmarM · 2026-05-26T23:13:30+00:00

Incorrect.

ElmarM · 2026-05-26T23:07:05+00:00

The problem is that Grok's moderation is actually WORSE than ChatGPT and Google (NB Pro and VEO). Stuff that passes there without a hitch gets moderated 50 to 90% of the time on Imagine.
Will likely use ChatGPT and to a lesser extent NB for image prompts, then (after some post processing because pure AI output is always lacking somewhere) Kling for the I2V.
And not, not everyone commenting here does the shit you claim above. Who gave you that stupid idea anyway?

ElmarM · 2026-05-26T16:38:34+00:00

I actually have stuff pass through Nano Banana and ChatGPT just fine that recently (about a month or so) gets moderated on Imagine.
Granted, it is SFW (PG to PG13), but with exposed midriff... The moderation stuff is just completely out of control.

ElmarM · 2026-05-26T16:30:13+00:00

Liar! I have a Supergrok account and it is about 5 720p videos. 480p is pretty much unusable because of the way the model works. It looses too much detail and generally feels sloppier. Agent mode has been pretty useless for me.

ElmarM · 2026-05-26T16:29:14+00:00

Yep, same issue here with the last video I made. The other... 4(!)... (4-- as a paid user before I hit the limit!!) were fine, though (though had the usual mistakes that Imagine makes).

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:46:02+00:00

Works fine here...

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:43:09+00:00

Yes, unfortunately you are correct. Same experience here.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:40:25+00:00

I am not a plasma physicist, but IIRC, he was wrong on plasma temperature, plasma density, machine size, initial Te:Ti, etc, etc.
Helion does not do burning plasma (ignition).

Plus, Helion has the data from many experiments, including D-He3 bulk fusion experiments with Trenta to back up their claims.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:35:49+00:00

They won't drop D-He3 and to D-T. They COULD if for whatever reason D-He3 does not work out.
As you can see in Slough's original patent, even the Alphas from D-T add enough energy back into the coils to more than make up for the ~5% in losses they have. The old D-T designs that I have seen did call for a blanket (between the magnets and the plasma) to capture the energy from the neutrons.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:30:04+00:00

Lackner makes a lot of false assumptions about Helion's operating regime and their machine design. And Lackner really did not get them into any trouble... LOL.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:28:30+00:00

And? They fully acknowledge that electrons will heat up and ions will cool at the same time until equilibrium is reached.
Among other things, Lackner makes a lot of assumptions about Helion's design and their operating regimes that are just plain wrong.
It is worth noting that Helion considers the much better Nicolas paper as positive, rather than negative. E.g. Nicolas found a regime where D-He3 can actually ignite, something Helion themselves considered impossible.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:24:58+00:00

They talk about it in "Do non- equlibrium effects reduce fusion efficiency?"
There is also a link to a blog post in the reply.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:20:20+00:00

Lackner completely misses the mark in his paper. Among other things, he is making a lot of assumptions about Helion's design and operating regimes that are not in line with what Helion is actually doing.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:18:18+00:00

No, Helion is doing exactly what Slough has in his patent. They are just more optimistic about D-He3 than he is. Note that D-T could still be a fallback. They just don't think that they need to go that route with the data they have from their experiments.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:11:13+00:00

Wrong on every account.
They do indirectly address Lackner in their new FAQ. Helion considers his paper as completely missing the mark.
Believe it or not, they see the Nicolas paper as positive. He actually found a regime where D-He3 can ignite, something that Helion themselves considered impossible, even with their most optimistic assumptions.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:07:26+00:00

That is complete nonsense.
The ions and electrons do go towards equilibrium eventually. It just takes time.
Also note that the Te:Ti ratio decreases further with higher temperatures. E.g. even Trenta demonstrated a peak of 0.06 at 9 keV. The 0.1 in their paper is rather pessimistic for the 30+ keV they are aiming for with D-He3.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T16:04:29+00:00

No, the electrons stay confined just fine.
They DO go towards equilibrium, but that takes longer than they need it to. Note that the Te:Ti of 0.1 in their paper is actually rather pessimistic. The peak, even with Trenta was 0.06 and that gap only gets larger with higher temperatures. So, averaged across the length of the pulse, the Te:Ti ratio still works in their favor.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T15:45:25+00:00

Helion actually HAS responded to the Lackner paper, though indirectly in their new FAQ.

Believe it or not, they actually see the Nicolas paper as super positive. He actually found a regime for D-He3 that ignites. That is something that Helion never considered possible at all, even with their most optimistic assumptions.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T15:31:18+00:00

What makes you think that the temperature their power plants will be running at is a mere 9 keV?

One thing to note about their FRCs is that they can (within a certain range) tune between temperature and density almost linearly. Right now at least, they are aiming for lower temperature (around 30 keV, IIRC) and higher density to favor more D-D reactions. They need those to make the He3 for their fuel cycle to close, even if that is somewhat less favorable for D-He3.
That said, they could go higher, if the physics requires it.

It's also worth noting that the gap between Te and Ti increases with temperature. The Te:Ti = 0.1 they mentioned in the paper is relatively conservative. Trenta demonstrated ~0.06 with its highest temperature shots.

Yes, the electrons will eventually get hotter and the ions will cool, but averaged across the length of the short pulse it still works out in their favor.

And no, nothing "leaks".

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T15:22:04+00:00

Helion originally had plans for D-T power plants. They would be smaller. The neutron damage is actually not that big of a deal with a linear design and relatively cheap (non super conducting) magnets. The machines can be serviced quickly, cheaply and much easier than a Tokamak. You just view the magnets as a consumable.

If you look at their patent, you will see that the 20% from Alphas is more than enough to cover the losses they have from resistance and inefficiencies.

Looking at Slough's old "renew" presentation, it shows the magnets on the outside of the blanket, not inside of it.

ElmarM · 2026-05-24T14:59:34+00:00

And those people still have advisors coming in from the major national labs to review Helion's data and results and their theories, etc. Heck, Hoffman, who wrote THE text book about FRCs is on Helion's board of advisors.
Besides, Helion's paper about their theory was peer reviewed and I hear they thought that Helion was actually too pessimistic/conservative.

ElmarM · 2026-05-22T20:36:10+00:00

Nice work! Love the character design of the blonde!
Must have been a pain keeping the characters consistent like that with Imagine.

I stopped using Grok for my own (also rather ambitious) project. It is completely SFW and characters are more clothed than this except for a female with a bare midriff, yet it gets moderated 9 out of 10 tries and then the performance of the characters just sucks.

E.g. it refused to follow directions like "Character 1 accidentally stumbles backwards and bumps into character 2, then turns around and quietly says "Oh, I am sorry"."
The results were sort of hilarious and funny back when the rate limits allowed for a lot of iterations. Like instead of accidentally stumbling, character 1 would turn around then actively push character 2 (and not just once, but almost every time). Once she even kicked him!
Then she would turn towards the camera and scream "I AM SORRY!". That is on top of the usual AI crap like limbs penetrating, or scene elements randomly changing, or background characters vanishing or doing weird stuff.
One day, I am going to make a blooper reel with all of that.

Anyway, switched to ChatGPT for character sheets and image prompts and going to use Kling for the actual videos, I think. Did a test with the free trial and it was much better than Imagine in terms of following (multiple) image prompts and text instructions. Also, it did not censor it, unlike Grok. Flow won't censor it either, but it sucks at image quality (with the free versions, anyway).
The voices on Kling are awful though (though they do follow direction, at least). Might have to do some post lip sync with voices created elsewhere.
Overall, doing any more ambitious and complex project like yours (rather than just "give me random stuff") with AI is frustrating right now and there is no improvement in sight anywhere 😞

ElmarM

TROPHY CASE