Loab, the internet’s latest urban legend | Hacker News Reader

Loab, the internet’s latest urban legend

hyperallergic.com

36 pointspetecooper14 comments

> Supercomposite’s original description of her as a “devastated-looking older woman” betray a faint penumbra of the unquestionable ageism, sexism, and repro-normativity rooted in a culture that has basically always discriminated against women, and is most recently attempting to return uterus-bearing members of society to a forced-birth state.

Is this really an article about AI art?

If you read about the author, one of her roles is "activist". I think she worked some activism into the article there.

I work all day where it’s taboo to talk politics. I read my hacker newspaper and the butler is kind enough to remove the politics section for me.

Is it too much to ask, Martha, sips scotch for you to have my slippers and pipe ready, a hot dinner on the table, the children ready for bed, and to not mention, chugs the rest your fucking activism?

What's starting to be creepy is how easily people are ascribing meaning to statistical models. Loab is essentially a single image that resulted from statistical noise and her creator iterated on. It reminds me of the researcher from Google who thought their models were sentient

Sometimes urban legends are just fun bits of ephemera meant for entertainment (for example, scp-wiki). This is pretty much just creepypasta in the DALL-E era.

What's starting to be creepy is how easily people are ascribing meaning to statistical models.

When people don't understand something, which for all intents and purposes appears to them to be like magic, that's a natural consequence. They want to believe there's something deeper. This isn't anything new; it used to be called religion.

> This isn't anything new; it used to be called religion.

Computers have been used for divination for about as long as they've been around. I'm sure that people will be worshipping AI chatbots soon.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/worlds-first-c...

https://www.sapiens.org/culture/digital-divination/

I see this more in the same vein as Slenderman or The Backrooms - no one is taking this seriously, it's just the right mix of creepy and expansive that makes it perfect for the internet to iterate on.

Sooner or later, probably sooner, someone is going to type in "Muhammad", get a good picture out, and the Islamic world will freak out.

Not unless it's prefaced by the word prophet, otherwise it's just a random name.

I'd be grateful if someone could explain why this has been flagged so I can avoid it in future. Thank you.

Not a flagger, but I think: The story was posted before though on a different publication, and the entire thing was completely debunked in the comments of that prior posting.

Thank you - I appreciate that beyond an upvote (but you have that too).

Relevant Penny Arcade: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2022/09/09/lisa-loab

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