Dall-E Mini, the AI-powered text-to-image generator has taken over the internet. With its ability to render nearly anything your meme-loving heart desires, anyone can make their dreams come true.
DALL-E 2, a portmanteau of Salvador Dali, the surrealist and Wall-E, the Pixar robot, was created by OpenAI and is not widely available; it creates far cleaner imagery and was recently used to launch Cosmpolitan’s first AI-generated cover. The art world has been one of the first industries to truly embrace AI.
The open-sourced miniature version is what’s responsible for the memes. Programmer Boris Dayma wants to make AI more accessible; he built the Dall-E Mini program as part of a competition held by Google and an AI community called Hugging Face.
And with great technology, comes great memes. Typing a short phrase into Dall-E Mini will manifest 9 different amalgamations, theoretically shaping into reality the strange images you’ve conjured. Its popularity leads to too much traffic, often resulting in an error that can be fixed by refreshing the page or trying again later.
If you want to be a part of the creation of AI-powered engines, it all starts with code. CodeAcademy explains that Dall-E Mini is a seq2seq model, “typically used in natural language processing (NLP) for things like translation and conversational modeling.” CodeAcademy’s Text Generation course will teach you how to utilize seq2seq, but they also offer opportunities to learn 14+ coding languages at your own pace.
You can choose the Machine Learning Specialist career path if you want to become a Data Scientist who develops these types of programs, but you can also choose courses by language, subject (what is cybersecurity?) or even skill - build a website with HTML, CSS, and more.
CodeAcademy offers many classes for free as well as a free trial; it’s an invaluable resource for giving people of all experience levels the fundamentals they need to build the world they want to see.
As for Dall-E Mini, while some have opted to create beauty, most have opted for memes. Here are some of the internet’s favorites:
pic.twitter.com/DbLoe1s00c
— Weird Dall-E Mini Generations (@weirddalle) June 8, 2022
pic.twitter.com/cxtliOrlHz
— Weird Dall-E Mini Generations (@weirddalle) June 12, 2022
no fuck every other dall-e image ive made this one is the best yet pic.twitter.com/iuFNm4UTUM
— bri (@takoyamas) June 10, 2022
pic.twitter.com/rEBHoWR7lH
— Weird Dall-E Mini Generations (@weirddalle) June 12, 2022
pic.twitter.com/RSZaCIDVV7
— Chairman George (@superbunnyhop) June 9, 2022
back at it again at the DALL•E mini pic.twitter.com/iPGsaMThBC
— beca. ⚢ (@dorysief) June 9, 2022
There’s no looking back now, not once you’ve seen Pugachu; artificial intelligence is here to stay.
The Las Vegas Massacre: One Year Later
Is America finally headed towards real gun reform?
Tonight, the iconic Las Vegas strip will go dark to mark the first anniversary of the mass shooting that killed 58 people.
Fans were gathered on the Strip for the Route 91 Harvest Festival, listening to Jason Aldean close out the night's performances. Meanwhile, Stephen Paddock, equipped with semi-automatic firearms, was in a room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. At 10:05 p.m., Paddock opened fire on the crowd. For the following ten minutes, pandemonium ruled as victims fell and survivors scrambled to avoid the spray of bullets. More than 400 people were injured by Paddock's bullets, and hundreds more were hurt trying to flee the scene.
In the wake of the shooting, many legislators pledged to make strides to reform gun laws. Now, a year later, little has changed. An Associated Press review of all the firearms-related legislation that passed this year shows mixed results. In some states, gun control bills did pass, but the "year was not the national game-changer that gun-control advocates had hoped it could be," AP reports.
Many Americans are using the anniversary of the Vegas massacre to remind the public of the need for meaningful gun reform. Zach Elmore, brother of Alicia Elmore, who was a victim of the Vegas shooting, marks the anniversary by asking people to vote in November. In a letter published in the Seattle Times, Elmore says that voters can help to end gun violence "in just a few weeks by electing gun-sense candidates up and down the ballot. It's critical that we elect candidates who will stand up and take action rather than just accepting shootings on our streets, at concerts, at playgrounds and in our homes."
The Press-Enterprise
Elmore is not alone in his sentiment. Students and activists gathered in D.C. Sunday to remember the 58 victims of the massacre and demand national gun reform. Robert Disney, the organizing director of the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence, attended the protest and said, "I'm here because I'm sick of the way the NRA has a chokehold on Congress, I think for the first time in my lifetime, we have a chance to break the chokehold, and I am doing everything I can to help that to happen."
Law enforcement officials said that at least a dozen of the 23 firearms found in Las Vegas were semi-automatic rifles legally modified to fire like automatic weapons, using an alteration known as a bump fire stock. Nevada law allows the purchase of machine guns and silencers in compliance with federal law and regulations, so Paddock's possession of the guns used in the attack was lawful, but perhaps not for much longer.
This morning President Donald Trump said in a speech addressing the anniversary that rapid-fire devices like those used in the Las Vegas massacre will soon be "ruled out." He stated, "We are knocking out bump stocks. I've told the NRA. Bump stocks are gone."
CNN
NBC News reports the Justice Department's confirmation that a proposal to ban bump stocks was sent late last week to the Office of Management and Budget for review. After a review of up to 90 days, the proposal will be published in the Federal Register and made available for public comment. The proposal would ban the manufacture, importation, and possession of bump stocks.
While reforms of this kind have been proposed and shot down multiple times since the Las Vegas massacre, this is the first that's been backed by President Trump.
Brooke Ivey Johnson is a Brooklyn based writer, playwright, and human woman. To read more of her work visit her blog or follow her twitter @BrookeIJohnson.
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