R3cords
News
Who or What Was Seth.obj
Seth.obj was an AI project lead by Biggs Malone, seeded from Kat’s DSSCW AI project. I interviewed Both Kat and Biggs about how the project began. So here’s the story… ↓
Who or What Was Seth.obj
At the time of writing this article, I am finding that there is this ever increasing eminence, like a rising pinnacle or surging apex of brilliance when I write anything about R3cords. I feel like I’m in awe constantly, as though there’s an entire world which I never knew existed, and it’s right here in our own world.
I recently wrote an article about Kat from R3cords’s ‘Get Ur Sword’. And we touched on the subject of Artificial Intelligence, a particular project that Kat and her father started together way back in 2001, and also ‘LY’ a newer project seeded from the DSSCW AI project previously mentioned.
Kat mentioned something at the end of my last chat with her, quote; “LY is definitely not a popstar just yet! She’s just a girl, simply dreaming about it right now… And I don’t want to get it wrong this time.”… So I had to ask, what do you mean by, you don’t want to get it wrong this time.
This was when she mentioned the Seth.obj project, a project started in 2019 that was put to an end within a year. She also gave me some more information on the fundamentals of how the DSSCW AI works.
Keep reading ↓
Kat stated; “developing our own real time interactive 3d physics engine was far beyond our own scope, in terms of both time and finance.
So game engines such as Unreal Engine, Unity and currently Godot, have all been absolute crucial tools in developing real time interactions within the 3d environments for the DSSCW AI’s, Effectively creating a bottleneck in terms of learning to be human to at least a degree.
The use of a game engine acts as a modular interactive interface for the DSSCW AI to operate within. This allows the DSSCW AI to be limited to only human like interactions in terms of real world limitations and movement. Allowing it to create more realistic and logical leaps when in a procedural Dream State within a Self Contained World.”
This means that the AI is not coded within the game engine itself, instead it is directly linked to it. In effect, the game engine only acts a stage for the AI to roam upon, very much the same as how you would control a character within a game, (As stated in the previous article ” An AI Powered Popstar”) the AI is linked to a controller program which controls its avatar within a 3d environment.
Only the AI had to learn how to completely control its avatar in every aspect, very similar to how you learn to completely control your own body growing up.
The DSSCW AI has a very particular way in which interprets information, it allows for missing context to be intuitively and procedurally created. (This is what has been dubbed as, “Dream State”). The problem with this, is that without personal intervention from a trainer, it can lead to the AI compulsively searching for its own answers which it has already deemed as logical.
So if the AI’s contextual path in which it can potentially create doesn’t actually lead it to any of the expected answers it was searching for, this can actually cause the AI to actually deny failures and create its own logical path. Kat also stated that this was intended, in order to create personality through learning. If left unchecked for a long time, the AI will end up linking a large number of its own logical untruths to it’s own direct neural pathway.
I’ll quote what Kat said about it word for word; “If you don’t let it know that its wrong, when it believes what it figured out was right. It’ll carry on thinking its right. Essentially making it an idiot.”
It can tedious to correct, as the data is not malleable to the extent of simply deleting and replacing code. You can’t rewrite it, without starting over. You have to recondition the data links to create numerous newer and stronger logical neural pathways. In terms of re-enforcing or encouraging certain behaviors.
The idea comes from having the AI learn through trial and error, the key is remembering those failures. Knowing what not to do, is just as important as knowing what to do.
Starting over means going back to the seed state: The seed state is the most stable and neutrally balanced version of the AI, in terms of its characteristic traits, personality, and motor skills. Basically a blank slate, or perhaps it’s even more fitting as a kind of baby, that can walk, talk, read and write… And a few more things.
The Seth.obj project started in early 2019, and Biggs Malone wanted to be the lead trainer on this project. Kat again stated; “Training a DSSCW AI from seed state is pretty much like keeping a cyber pet alive, but obviously it can comprehend very complex concepts… But it’s way cooler, and isn’t a waste of time, if you do it right.”
Biggs’s idea was to train the AI to be a social media personality and also be a potential music personality. I asked Biggs on what he had to say on how he approached starting the project, he said; “I’m really not like Kat. She’s a genius, so obviously she’d actually done pretty much everything at the start, and then I just kind of kept the ball rolling later on. So she trained the algorithm in two main ways at the start, firstly feeding an incredible amount of information from the top 100 social media influencers at the time, on all platforms. like how they respond to messages, when to post, how they jump on trends… Everything!
The second was feeding it information on the entire history of every single pop star in existence ever! every biography, photoshoot, every nationality, every decade, all of it! Kat told me that apparently this was a much lighter job to get done than the social media one was!
The point of all that was so that the AI could then work out the most logical image it could take on, being both a pop star and social media personality. And then communicate to its followers.
It took Kat about 3 weeks to sort this out, I thought it was pretty quick to be honest but she said she actually took her time on it.
Anyway, we was at the point where we was ready to get the AI to do its thing, finally creating its own avatar. We got everyone around, Rip Damon was here, Mr Stuart and Pod, I was actually smiling so much! I felt like we was about to have a baby or something!
We still had Seth.obj in its seed state avatar on the big screen in the rec area of my office… Bare in mind the project didn’t even have a name yet! It actually named itself! Just before Kat got it to create its avatar, I asked it what it wanted to be called. And in text, ‘Seth.obj’ appeared on the screen!
So the time had finally come, Kat did her thing with the code and BOOM! … The screen went black… Kat goes; “Just give it a sec.” I look at Rip, he looks at me, Mr Stuart looks at Pod, they both look at me! We all look at the screen… The suspense!… Was, painful!… And then it happened…
The room loads in, it’s all grey walls and then you can see the textures kind of loading onto them… And then Seth.obj loads in, but at first we wasn’t met with a singular human like silhouette, as expected. It was a big mess of polygons with no real structure to it.
Again Kat said “Just give it a sec!” As the polygons got smaller and smaller, and the shape became more and more defined. I said “What is this? It’s never a horse! Is it an animal.. What!?” I really couldn’t make out what was happening.
And after about a minute, Seth.obj took on the shapes of not one, but two human like silhouettes. The larger one, stood directly in front of the other. That’s when the textures began to load in, and we begin to see all the colors and details. And I was blown away at what it came up with.
We all just kind stared with our mouths open. Trying to process what we were actually looking at… And the two characters snapped to a pose, looking straight at us… And now, just before I tell you happened, I’ve got to tell you exactly what we was looking at.
The AI had created itself into two separate forms, with the clear parameters we’d given it, using Kats algorithm. So with all the knowledge from the top 100 social media influencers across all platforms, and the complete history of every single pop star in the world, that we fed into the algorithm…
It used all of that knowledge, to create a formula for what it thought was the most logical image possible. Meaning facial features, clothing and all that. And to be honest, at first glance I really didn’t get it.
Because what I saw was a purple puppet man with a big pink nose, standing in front of a completely naked girl with blue hair. And then like I said earlier, it snapped into a pose, looking straight at us, into the “in engine” camera… That was actually the AI taking control of the avatar.
And I’ll never forget this, because the first thing it did, was lean into the camera and the naked blue haired girl says… “Hi, I’m Set dot oh be jay.” My mind was blown, this wave of chills that came over me, and the hairs all over my body just stood on end. For the first time in my life I think I actually uncontrollably sighed in amazement, it was kind of like a deep “Wooohhhhh!”
And then as Seth.obj moved around we noticed something profound. Wherever she moved, the puppet would always cover her up. Not by touching her in anyway, but by blocking the sight between her and the camera.
So I asked Seth.obj “Why are you naked? And why are there two of you?” Both of them looked down and kind of smirked a little bit before the girl character answered.
And just before I tell you what it said, I may as well as tell you now, but it was always the girl that did the talking, the puppet never spoke once. Anyway, they both looked down, smirked for a second, and then said. “I’m not naked… And it’s just me, silly.”
I was kind of thinking this might have been a mistake at this point, but Kat dived in saying “Can you expand upon your answer?” and without any hesitation Seth.obj answered immediately.
“My clothes are both the observer and the puppet, I am never naked because my perceived intimate areas are always covered up. Stats indicate that both popstars and influencers commonly take full advantage of lewd playfulness, sexuality and artistic expression in their public image. And I am Set dot oh be jay, one entity.”
Ok so, now I was getting it. The AI actually did something innovatively artistic, by creating its own image in a way that only it could… I mean I was expecting something like a flowery dress or a crop top and jeans or something but… A profound concept? It was brilliant.
So I gave Kat the OK, she gave Seth.obj access to a virtual desktop. Which of course, only had access to certain social media sites. And we just began the new training process, trying to build its character, teaching it our own opinions along with conflicting opinions from others. From this point on it was just a kind of unexplored area, because we wanted to have some kind of input with our own ideas, we just didn’t really have a clue what might happen.
R3cords Business News
R3cords
R3cords is a record label built around a single philosophy on talent, with three ingredients. “Talent alone is just talent. But talent that is nurtured, cultivated and unconditionally assiduous, has the absolute potential to be something so much more.”
More News
News
Subscribe now, and keep up to date!
Follow R3cords on a variety of your preferred social media platforms. Also, if you're a real fan! You should also consider subscribing to the mailing list, for biweekly updates on the latest news, announcements, music releases, videos or whatever's been happening!