I can’t explain the why I did this much less why I am blogging about it, but I aim to skip some of the blather, and let you, humble visitor, just take a click at what I hatched yesterday (warning note, there are images that shake and flash a bit).
So yeah, I have this SPLOT thing I spun about maybe two years ago, a collection of what I call the sad (maybe pathetic) use of robotic metaphors for AI– mainly created with GenAI to talk about AI. It was hardly my original idea, it came to me when discovering the quite beautiful and useful Better Images of AI. It seems quite curious that the only visual symbols we can come up are robots and big blue glowing brains.
This seemed ideal for a TRU Collector SPLOT – a way for anyone, the whole world, to toss in the worst examples of AI metaphors. Make a big pile of ’em. Alas, I’m maybe the only one who does the tossing.
Somewhere, like one of those cartoons where a lightbulb blinks on over a cartoon me, I remembered this experiment I did a few clicks back, where I was able to add into the SPLOT mix, a thing that would allow an external web site to create a “glitched” effect version of a random image from a TRU Collector SPLOT.
I could hardly remember what (or again why) I did this, but I had baked into the code for TRU Collector a a custom WordPress REST API endpoint that would return via Javascript, a random image along with its metadata from a SPLOT. I am looking at that now and can hardly understand what I did.
But see for yourself from a direct call https://splot.ca/collector/wp-json/splotcollector/v1/randy/1 Wow, right? But that was what was needed, along with some crude HTML/CSS to make it work via https://lab.cogdogblog.com/glitchsplot/
Since somehow I had made this all generalizable code (perhaps by accident), first I could use the same API call to get the data for a random Sad Robotic Metaphor https://sadlyrobotic.cogdogblog.com/wp-json/splotcollector/v1/randy/1 and really without too much trouble (well I was compelled to rejig some of the CSS to have the meta data overlay the dancing image– Look Ma! It’s a random glitchy Sadly Robotic Metaphor for AI.
Go ahead and click, how can you resist? https://lab.cogdogblog.com/glitchbots/ Each visit or reload, you get a new glitchy robotic metaphor. Or if you prefer a wee bit screen capped as a visit, maybe one of the most forelorn sad robots
So as Clara would ask, “Where’s the Beef?” and I cant really answer. This was some joy in finding old code that still worked. That I could rework myself, vibe free.
It’s all very replicable, though i can maybe count on one finger all the people who might actually know enough to spin off of it.
Now with some dust falling, and peeking again at that GitHub code for the REST API stuff I duct taped together, I do recall that I had an idea to rejig a version of pechaflickr, which creates improv like slideshows with random photos with a tag in flickr, that could set up a TRU Collector SPLOT that could then be the source for images, rather than the weird wild pool of flickr.
The code is there- this API url gets 5 random sadly robotic metaphors tagged “brain” (from a whopping pool of 7) https://sadlyrobotic.cogdogblog.com/wp-json/splotcollector/v1/pechaflickr/5/tag/brain – this could be all the data needed to spawn a run of pechaflckr.
In theory. Now as I am mulling, while there is so much I have not learned to do with code that maybe I should do, but there’s likely as much I have done before that maybe I ought to relearn. Put that in your vibe coding pipe and smoke it because that’s not how I want to create at all.
On the other hand, maybe I should just keep looking for new Sadly Robotic Metaphors to add to the SPLOT, add ’em right here!
But for now, I have added to the web site menu, an extra link for Get ’em Glitchy. Amusing myself to life.
Featured Image: A screen grab of one sadly robotic metaphor getting the glitch effect (enjoy the original)
