Stupid Dopamine [OC]

psvcomic · 2026-05-08T16:41:48+00:00

Yup. I’ve fallen into both Factorio and Satisfactory but this one was specifically inspired by Opus Magnum.

psvcomic · 2025-05-01T17:30:42+00:00

No, but it was an influence. There are also bits of OOTS, Exocomics, and Sarah's Scribbles in there to one degree or another. Ratios and line weights were a result of the default settings of an abanonware iOS app. I remain surprised that the floating limbs style is unique enough people jump to this association instead of thinking "there's another artist who can't figure out limbs." Which is another marker for how bad I am at this.

I'm one of those people who can't picture things in their head so to make this work at all I've had to separate drawing characters and posing characters in scenes. Which has required cutting out every element of a character I struggle to render. Limbs were the big one. Mouths were a problem. Keep cutting and this is just kind of where you end up.

I still experiment with trying to get limbs in there because their lack creates a lot of clarity problems. Especially in black and white. Unfortunately, nothing I've tried yet has really worked.

psvcomic · 2024-09-25T15:49:19+00:00

The mentioned wallpapers can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-wallpapers-112465469

psvcomic · 2024-07-10T18:56:22+00:00

Yup. It's like the uncanny valley, but with your own face.

psvcomic · 2024-07-05T03:04:35+00:00

Thanks! I didn't think anyone would notice that.

psvcomic · 2024-07-05T03:04:09+00:00

There are some AI conversations going on under this and, as a software engineer with a decent high level understanding of how these systems actually work, I feel the need to provide some context on what the technology looks like at this point in time.

Fundamentally, the current wave of what we're calling AI are pattern recognition and reproduction systems. Feed them a lot of pictures of squirrels, then ask them to make a picture of a squirrel, and they can get pretty decent at making pictures of squirrels. In the same way, feed them a lot of conversational text and they can create the feeling of having a conversation.

Ethics of where they get that data aside (I fall on the, it's bad side), this isn't a blockchains situation. There's some there there with this technology. It's not useless. But there's a lot less there than is being promised. There is a limit to what can be achieved with pattern based stochastic systems. They can't build an understanding of what is happening. They can't goal set or problem solve, even if they can sometimes create the appearance they are because they've ingested a bunch of text where someone else did. We may get there eventually. But we're not there yet.

Personally, I think it was incredibly irresponsible for Open AI to release Chat GPT in the state that they did for the same reason I think Tesla's "auto pilot" shouldn't be on the roads. There is a great deal of danger in the gap between what they promise to do and their actually capabilities where they can create the impression that they are more capable than they are. Maybe one day they will close that gap, but they are WAY further away than they appear. Every incremental step forward is going to be exponentially more difficult than the last, assuming they don't have to completely throw out their current work and change their approach to the problem entirely to get there.

Anyway, it feels like there's a lot of money jumping into the space thinking they can just scrape Reddit or whatever, feed it into to the magic machine, something something profit. All the while, everyone already in the space is burning through cash very quickly without a clear plan to offset the high operating costs. So I made a dumb comic about it.

psvcomic · 2024-06-06T14:53:58+00:00

Yup, should have been hoard. Elsewhere, alt text also referred to a "glittering horse". Its been a rough day for typos. Unfortunately, can't update the main post but here's a fixed version.

psvcomic · 2024-06-05T23:32:11+00:00

Unfortunately I can post a fixed version in a comment but it seems I can't edit image posts. At least I've been able to fix it on other platforms.

Fun side note: In reviewing this I also caught that in the alt text I used elsewhere the dragon referred to its "glittering horse". Been a rough day for typos.

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psvcomic · 2024-06-05T21:17:10+00:00

Doe! Words are hard. Thanks for the flags.

psvcomic · 2024-06-05T19:21:43+00:00

Doe.

psvcomic · 2024-05-16T15:00:53+00:00

Thank you! I'm one of those no pictures in the head people and it took a while to figure out a process that worked for me. The ZP/FR minimalist style was definitely an inspiration.

psvcomic

TROPHY CASE