Tag Archives: man-machine

A few thoughts on AI (and a bit of history)

Posted on Monday, 14. July 2025 by hmvh

While benign and belligerent robots and machines have existed since the dawn of science fiction, it was about ten years ago that I had some sort of epiphany and gradually began saving and/or bookmarking various online articles about artificial intelligence following recent worrisome developments in that field: chatbots were showing signs of coherent speech, Boston Dynamics’ robots had started doing backflips and parkour — but it was demonstrations of autonomous weapons systems that I took particular issue with. I wanted to keep the articles as “evidence” and “for future reference” — such as for essays like this one, and to backtrack how we got to where we are now. Continue reading →

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Photo restoration through AI? Nope!

Posted on Monday, 21. August 2023 by hmvh

Despite the recent incredible developments in artificial intelligence and image generation, I remain steadfast that AI still has no role in the workflow for digitising personal snapshots on prints, slides or negatives. While I obviously made basic edits like cropping, or adjusting brightness, contrast, white balance and colours so that the viewer can actually see what’s going on in a photo, my experiences with AI services (read: face enhancing) have done nothing but confirm a phenomenon that’s already been termed “identity shift”. Continue reading →

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The Matrix remembered

Posted on Sunday, 29. September 2019 by hmvh

2019 rings in yet another anniversary. The Matrix movie is twenty years old. Had the film been released now, in 2019, it would still be a terrific actioner and perhaps even more relevant than it was then: the matrix will be instantly recognised as an obvious allegory to the always-connected, domesticated, utilitarian social media of today. Surveillance by machines is a pervasive theme, and much of the computer jargon that would have befuddled viewers two decades ago has since entered mainstream speak. Continue reading →

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Being Human

Posted on Thursday, 20. August 2015 by hmvh

Today I learnt a very valuable lesson about humanity. We need not fear machines. We need to fear those who steer them because those who control the machines pursue not death and mayhem but, rather, take aim at commercial targets. And what’s more human than greed? Empathy. Continue reading →

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Finding Bora

Posted on Monday, 3. July 2006 by hmvh

In Europe, the Jetta Mk4 is known as a Bora. It’s an attractive car. It has a large boot, ample interior space, good performance, adequate handling, fair fuel consumption, and sufficient features. Strangely, the Bora is a bit of a dark horse around these parts and not nearly as popular as its Golf IV counterpart. Continue reading →

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Cyberia 10: Maschine

Posted on Saturday, 1. February 2003 by hmvh

The lands of the future are Cyberia. It’s a machine’s world now! “Cyberia is where humanity confronts and emerges from its larval and pre-foetal, grub-like state. Where we erupt painfully from the swarming biomechanical cauldron, all the Earth will become … Continue reading →

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Cyberia 9: Monster

Posted on Saturday, 1. February 2003 by hmvh

Starting off with perhaps one of the longest and most symbolic introductions ever, this album finally concludes the journey to Cyberia — a trip which began with a crude sexual seed and has subsequently mutated into a malformation of abysmal … Continue reading →

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