Do you need a lathe to be a woodturner?

[Emiliano Achaval]

These past few weeks, I have seen an incredible number of computer-generated AI (Artificial Intelligence) postings on Facebook. What's more, this nonexistent turner receives an incredible response. What is his end goal? Some are so obviously fake, others you have to really look. The comments are the best: " I have never seen grain like that, what wood species is this"? He never responds to any questions, no matter how simple it is.
So. it appears that you can build a large following pretending to be a woodturner, no lathe needed, no shop that needs to be cleaned,

 

[john lucas]

yep. abd it's only going to get worse. I get all these photos of really exotic cars that I know don't exist. like a mustang pickup truck that's obviously fake. imagine what teachers in high-school are going to see abd have to put up with. I'm having a website built. maybe I should enhance all my images.

 

[Jon Rista]

This is just the dawn of AI... I have been frustrated lastely, because I am a nature photographer myself, landscapes is one of my things, and I love seeing other people's landscape photography too. I've noticed lately, that the photography scene is being innundated by AI generated photos. At first I did not realize it...then I started reading comments stating "This is an AI generated image. It was based on this stolen photo from real photographer X over here." You then find an original, and see the AI generated with extra stuff that adds some extra "wow!" punch, but then you start seeing the indicators... And you start seeing how fake they actually are. So now, every time I see a landscape photo, instead of enjoying the beauty of nature, I'm scrutinizing, trying to figure out if someone's lying to me or not... Its depressing.

I'm also an astrophotographer. A few months back, someone shared a really unusual photo on an astrophotography site I'm a member of. People were wondering what the heck this NEW nebula (which is what it was called!) was! Then a larger sized image was found, and it was proven to be a complete fabrication. Not a new nebula at all...it was actually a wild and clearly fake AI generated image. Doesn't happen a lot in astrophotography...we tend to be an analytical bunch and we are pixel peepers, so we often look really closely, especially at anything new (which sometimes happens, supernova, or some newly discovered ultra faint nebula that older cameras were too noisy to pick up compared to modern cameras, stuff like that.) Still, worries me that, fakers are trying to use AI to "find new nebula" these days...

I am a bit borderline on AI as a tool. It CAN be useful. I use AI denoising algorithms myself, and they work pretty well, although sometimes you can see their estimation of "real details" is still sometimes wrong. But, generating ENTIRE WORKS with AI, and then particularly if you try to pass it off as your own real work? Whatever it is. Photos. Woodworking. Whatever. I don't like that. I think it diminishes....everything.

But this is only the dawn of AI.....

 

[John K Jordan]

These past few weeks, I have seen an incredible number of computer-generated AI (Artificial Intelligence) postings on Facebook.

Yikes, yet another reason for me to never use Facebook.

There apparently are people everywhere whose ego is way up there with their shamelessness.

You should see some of the AI nonsense posted on an accordion forum I frequent. In that field, AI has yet to get fingers and keyboards to look right.
As a former software developer, I can't get past that AI is not "intelligent." It's software built from algorithms, complex, learning algorithms, but still algorithms. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
I'm not all that impressed yet except with it's potential for deception and evil. It's all good fun until someone gets hurt.

Maybe 40 years ago we wrote software that had video "eyes" and mechanical "fingers" and learned to adapt to certain limited industrial inspection tasks.

But when I saw the title of this thread, and before reading any posts, I immediately thought about a man I met in Venice, Italy who had a tiny shop. We didn't speak the same language but communicated anyway.
He made many amazing and creative things, mostly from repurposed "junk", but some turned. He was interested in my woodturning pictures and when I gave him a couple of finger tops he indicated for me to wait, and went in the back room and brought out his "lathe". It was a Dewalt electric drill, clamped to the workbench, a piece of wood with a nail for a tailstock, and tools ground from old screwdrivers. Amazing!
Not AI, but HI - Human Intelligence!



JKJ

 

[Ron Solfest]

Critical thinking has continued to become a more important skill as computer technology has advanced. 20yrs ago it wasn’t difficult to spot fake pictures, but you still had to look and apply critical thinking before accepting things. Now technology has advanced to where it’s difficult to distinguish fake information or pictures. Societies critical thinking hasn’t advanced at the same pace while fake pictures are fed to us on social media like water from a fire hose. It’s incumbent on each of us to apply context and skepticism. Most fake info/pictures are obvious with a little effort; unfortunately it’s getting harder and harder and as more and more are fooled it encourages more and more fakes. A viscous circle that we need to find a sharp gouge to cut through…

 

[Jon Rista]

You should see some of the AI nonsense posted on an accordion forum I frequent. In that field, AI has yet to get fingers and keyboards to look right.
As a former software developer, I can't get past that AI is not "intelligent." It's software built from algorithms, complex, learning algorithms, but still algorithms. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
I'm not all that impressed yet except with it's potential for deception and evil. It's all good fun until someone gets hurt.

Technically, its not the AI that's deceiving...its the people using AI doing the deceiving. That's the part that really gets to me. PEOPLE are using AI to be deceiving. Worse, a lot of the photography is actually either an augmented version of some LEGIT photographer's work, or the result of AI being trained on a lot of that work (before people figured it out, I'm quite sure many of the AI trainers were just consuming everyone's data without asking and without compensation, so sadly a lot of AI generated images look like certain particularly popular photographers work that's visible on the web, even though its copywritten work and all that.)

I've had my work stolen by people, but you can often figure that out (i.e. bad crop jobs to try and crop out logos, watermarks.) I know plenty of photographers who have had their work stolen. As in, directly STOLEN and then put up on another web site and sometimes even sold, as though it were another person's own work. Terrible stuff. The AI thing is different, though. AI has been trained such that they can seamlessly remove watermarks, then augment enough that its tough to tell if its an original by a different photographer, or effectively stolen work. And people are generating SO much AI junk these days...its so hard to tell anymore. I still get duped...sometimes I'll see a photo, think its real, favorite, share, etc. Then someone comes along a while later and says its their photo with some AI added additional content (i.e. foreground leaves on the ground that weren't really there, is a popular one at he moment with it being fall.)

I'm thankful that ATM, AI can't produce physical works of art! Guess that might mean woodworking is safe for the time being! Robots are on the way though...so, I wonder for how long...

 

[Michael Anderson]

I'm thankful that ATM, AI can't produce physical works of art! Guess that might mean woodworking is safe for the time being! Robots are on the way though...so, I wonder for how long...

We’re pretty much there. Big controversy (maybe it’s big?) in the stone sculpting world is robotic carving. Create a digital model, and it gets carved. Artisans do the finish work. See this short video:

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M49BiWTb0s0


From there it’s not too much a stretch to imagine a setup where you type a phrase, press a button, and a certain number of hours later you are rewarded with a marble sculpture. Or wood. Or clay (3D printed). Etc… And as technology improves, the amount of finishing work needed decreases.

 

[Jon Rista]

We’re pretty much there. Big controversy (maybe it’s big?) in the stone sculpting world is robotic carving. Create a digital model, and it gets carved. Artisans do the finish work. See this short video:

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M49BiWTb0s0


From there it’s not too much a stretch to imagine a setup where you type a phrase, press a button, and a certain number of hours later you are rewarded with a marble sculpture. Or wood. Or clay (3D printed). Etc… And as technology improves, the amount of finishing work needed decreases.

😢

Makes me sad. Classic arts are vanishing. Traditional crafts have all but vanished. Classic hobbies are vanishing (I am also an N- and HO-scale model railroading fan...been out of it for a number of years, but I love it...and wow, its a hobby that seems to be contracting and maybe vanishing FAST.) So many traditional arts from many cultures throughout the world, are getting to the point were just a few people still know how to do them, with all their ancient traditional techniques. Some even have just one person, one guy, one woman, who still know the true art of the craft, and there is no one to replace them when they are gone.

So very sad... Humanity is abdicating its own skill, capability, artistry, talent and knowledge...to AI.

 

[Brian Gustin]

Makes me think that George Orwell's fantastical vision (Or even the movie Idiocracy) really isn't too far into the future now... LOL I too see this all the time on Facebook to the point that other than for communication with KNOWN people and/or FB Marketplace (and being ready to weed out the scammers, which really aren't difficult to spot if you learn to have a high level of paranoia) the rest of it is pretty much just ignored.

 

[hockenbery]

He never responds to any questions

So what makes you think it is a he?
Is it a person? Might just be a turningBOT on the loose in cyberspace.

 

[John Ames]

So what makes you think it is a he?
Is it a person? Might just be a turningBOT on the loose in cyberspace.

Does AI care about pronouns? I can’t wait until those arguments start up at dinner parties…

A few years ago (maybe 5 years?) I was reading a number of articles about how AI generated photos and “paintings” were winning rather prestigious art shows…. Typing in keywords or sentences and letting Ai fill in the blanks

“Jaguar sitting in dense foliage stalking an unknown alien prey in a galaxy far away approaching sunset with two moons in the distance and a goddess overseeing…..”

The images created by the computer were mesmerizing but the artists who actually created work via putting paint/ink to paper/canvas by hand were very very angry…

I would assume that AI will be able to “use” machines in the near future (if not already). CNC and 3d printing are ripe for this evolution.

 

[John K Jordan]

Technically, its not the AI that's deceiving...its the people using AI doing the deceiving.

I strongly agree. That’s why I preceded that with “There apparently are people everywhere whose ego is way up there with their shamelessness.” I should have inserted “and greed”.

Some years ago, just for fun, I took some macro photos of my bees working a Golden Rain tree (difficult to get even half-way decent photos since everything is moving! Took 400 shots to get 6 good ones) I posted them in a forum or two - I haven't even checked but I wouldn't be surprised if someone "borrowed" some and sold them to a bee keeping-related publication or web site.

Here are some:




JKJ

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

You never did need a lathe to produce woodturning type art. You just hire some one to make your designs. The concept of hiring artisans to make your art has been common and accepted in the arts community for many years.

From Emiliano's descriptions it sounds like the individual is only producing pictures of turnings. Is that right?

 

[Emiliano Achaval]

So what makes you think it is a he?
Is it a person? Might just be a turningBOT on the loose in cyberspace.

The name is Aundra Townsend, on Facebook. Check it out and see what you think. Its hard to believe how many comments his fake turnings receive.

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

The name is Aundra Townsend, on Facebook. Check it out and see what you think. Its hard to believe how many comments his fake turnings receive.

Could you post a sample of his/her fake turnings for those of us who avoid Facebook like the plague?

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

Thanks Kent.

I don't see anything offensive about them. Does Facebook pay like Youtube for those with a large following?

The pictures seem a bit out of focus,not great depth of focus, is that due AI?

 

[John K Jordan]

The pictures seem a bit out of focus,not

And tilted!

 

[Dave Hulett]

The name is Aundra Townsend, on Facebook. Check it out and see what you think. Its hard to believe how many comments his fake turnings receive.

He isn't hiding anything. his main page has his profile as "digital creator" but many others are or will be deceptive. makes a mockery of the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words"

 

[Paul Paukstelis]

I don't see anything harmful or offensive in these. For me, they are just pointless. We know they aren't turned. The creator knows they aren't turned. Not a single person commenting on facebook will ever hold one of those pieces, and the likelihood that they are holding out in buying a locally turned piece in order to get their hands on one of those is very close to zero.

Also, the digital creator has likely never had the joy of sending shavings flying from a piece of green wood with a freshly sharpened gouge. They would probably ask themselves why they wasted their time with the digital process.