Ooo! Upscale!
I’ve got to do some large posters for work, so I’m learning to use an upscaler. That’s a clever bit of AI to make images bigger but not fuzzier. Oh my lord, how I could have used this in the past!
I tried several before alighting on this one, for no particular reason. Bills itself as free but tries to get you to subscribe to actually download the image.
Why, oh, WHY does every service on the internet now insist on making you purchase a year’s subscription? I mean, I know why, but there aren’t that many functions I need on a regular basis. Anyway, if you search for it, you can usually find a pay-as-you-go option, at a stupid price.
So far, it’s doing a really good job upscaling sharp images. Making an already fuzzy image sharp, not so much.
Posted: June 9th, 2025 under personal.
Comments: 3
Comments
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: June 10, 2025, 9:19 am
Tries?
Can we presume you used real intelligence to get around it?
😋
Has anyone figured out, other than as an extremely costly vanity project, what the precise goal of this bitcoinesque drive to create true machine intelligence is?
How about a nice game of chess?
Otherwise it’s calling a computer program, like your upscaler “intelligent” just to sound cool and froody.
It’s no more intelligent than a turbo tax program, it’s just doing what it’s programmed to do.
Just because it sometimes surprises us with answers, or art, or whichever, it’s still just a very expensive program.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: June 10, 2025, 6:06 pm
It’s worse than that. It’s a bunch of Google searches with a executive summary after.
After it lied to me the other day, I’ll never trust it for text again. But I’m sure having fun with the art function.
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: June 11, 2025, 9:50 am
Okay, I relent, a little, sort of, because it has a productive business use.
#1 Son works for a company that does front ending for job placement. They sell it as a service. They have a very pleasant automated phone system that will narrow down job applicants for hiring. I’ve heard it handle calls and it can pass the Turing test with most people although it will happily, and I mean it sounds happy you figured it out, admit it’s automated if you twig on.
But, it’s still just a program.
As for the building of nuclear power plants to run city sized data centers that house programs that can write a lucid news story, or even ones that make a cool movie….I think there are ways we could better invest in the future of man.
Write a comment
Beware: more than one link in a comment is apt to earn you a trip to the spam filter, where you will remain -- cold, frightened and alone -- until I remember to clean the trap. But, hey, without Akismet, we'd be up to our asses in...well, ass porn, mostly.<< carry me back to ol' virginny