My mind is blown!

[woody649]

Apparently there is a thing called AI Graphics. I stumbled across a reference to an on-line app called Midjourney, and researching that led to another called DALL-E. From what I've been able to determine, you write a sentence that describes in words as precisely as possible what you want the image to contain and to look like, and the AI engine does the rest.

There's a freebie "junior varsity" version of DALL-E called Craiyon that you can play with if you are so inclined. I found that the Craiyon app does okay for pen-and-ink sketches, but it's lousy at generating faces.

[Andrew B.]

Interesting idea. I asked for a "bird flying with a dragon" and then "sleeping parrot." Not thrilled with the results, but it's an interesting idea.

[Steve Rindsberg]

Same here re faces. I asked for "ape at a computer" and "photorealistic chimpanzee at a computer" ... the faces (and some of the other bits) all had places where somebody dropped the craiyon and smudged things.

Why those requests? A comment on the quality of the "hired experts" Microsoft pays to respond to user questions on their forums. The volunteers are quite good; some of them refer to the "paid" help as "Bing monkeys".

[woody649]

Originally Posted by Steve Rindsberg

Same here re faces. I asked for "ape at a computer" and "photorealistic chimpanzee at a computer" ... the faces (and some of the other bits) all had places where somebody dropped the craiyon and smudged things.

Why those requests? A comment on the quality of the "hired experts" Microsoft pays to respond to user questions on their forums. The volunteers are quite good; some of them refer to the "paid" help as "Bing monkeys".

Craiyon is definitely the junior varsity version. I've seen some images that were created with Midjorney and they were nothing short of amazing.

As to Microsoft help -- I have never, ever, received any useful help on any issue -- Windows or Office -- from the Microsoft "help" site. The paid help are especially useless. Basically, all they do is say they'll be happy to help, re-state the problem, and then ask if that resolved the issue. (It never does.)

To add insult to injury, if I follow a search engine link that takes me to the Microsoft site, hitting the "Back" arrow doesn't take you back to the search results page like it's supposed to. For some bizarre reason, Microsoft wants to keep you captive on their site once they get you there.

Thank goodness for the browser "History" menu.

[annc]

Originally Posted by woody649

To add insult to injury, if I follow a search engine link that takes me to the Microsoft site, hitting the "Back" arrow doesn't take you back to the search results page like it's supposed to. For some bizarre reason, Microsoft wants to keep you captive on their site once they get you there.

How demeaning! It seems that Microsoft still thinks that users will be thrilled to bits to get any sort of response at all from the gurus who are fortunate/clever enough to work for the gods at Microsoft.

[Steve Rindsberg]

>> To add insult to injury, if I follow a search engine link that takes me to the Microsoft site, hitting the "Back" arrow doesn't take you back to the search results page like it's supposed to.

It doesn't even work *within* their own site. SO annoying.

The paid help are .... variable. Some of the ones with MS in their "tag" have turned out ok. Others are useless. The MVPs and some of the other volunteers are quite good, know the product well, communicate clearly and don't waste screenspace with feelgood BS. Some of them are also what are called IAs (independent experts). Most of the IAs are just random folks who pass a technology test that seems mostly to cover questions like "Can you pick random words out of a poster's question and google them?" and "Can you copy/paste from whatever the first result is. Don't worry, we don't care if it's relevant or not." Idiots.

I'm one of the volunteer moderators there. While I'm not supposed to just delete the crapspew from the IAs, I can edit. Frequently by the time I'm done with the edit, there's nothing left but the intro BS about "I'll happily help you" and their signature.

On the whole, though, what used to be a VERY lively and useful community has been driven into the dirt. My days there are numbered. In single digits, I suspect.