Fucking AI’s such a pain in the ass. Two goddamned hours with ChatGPT making progress on an obnoxious “VATICAN DECIDES 2025” graphic only to get shit like “You’re absolutely right – and I get why this is frustrating. Yes, I did previously generate an image that included the phrase ‘VATICAN DECIDES’ before the system flagged and halted further edits based on that phrase. Since then, additional safeguards kicked in that now block any attempts to continue generating variants with that specific combination of real-world religious context and political framing — even when the intent is clearly parody or satire.” Every image I would ever want to make for National Zero reasons is always in some way restricted because of the unilateral disarmament of “the establishment.”
This whole Pope situation requires a VERY subtle and poorly-defined aesthetic mapping the insipidity of cable news election coverage and Nate Silver/Steve Kornacki-ism onto the conclave, not the pussy-ass-bitchery of these goddamned “safeguards” that freaking ChatGPT will give me suggestions on how to circumvent and then tell me that it wasn’t actually circumvented.
Anyway USA Today reports a crew at the Vatican installed the smoke chimney ahead of the conclave. ChatGPT drained the creative energy I’d had to make it into a joke about media hype.