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Hey, Wowzer fans, Mindy here.
And before we start the show, I gotta let you know that this November, with a special new episode featuring our friends at Circle Round and Terrestrials on Radiolab for Kids,
And don't miss when Elmo from Sesame Street stops by Wow in the World to make us all belly laugh on November 24th.
Oh, but that's not all, Reg.
On December 1st, we are sharing our 250th episode of Wow in the World with all of you.
We think this one is going to be music to your ears.
Literally.
Did I mention it's a musical?
And if you're a member of the World Organization of Wowzers...
Oh boy, do I have a surprise for you.
You can listen to our 250th episode early with me and other members from around the world on Saturday, November 22nd, at 7 pm.
Eastern.
That's right, we are throwing another listening party.
Join us as we dance along to our new songs.
React to the episode with other members in the chat and more.
Grownups.
If you want your wowzer to join this members-only listening party, you can sign up to become a member today at Tinkercastcom.
Slash wow.
Already a member?
Well, you can find the link and password to join the event when you sign in at Tinkercastcom.
Slash wow.
That's it.
It's going to be a November to remember.
But for now, let's get on with the show.
Woo!
Yeah, it's summertime.
No homework, no school.
Yeah, it's the hottest season.
Me and Reggie are keeping it cool.
But Dennis is cooler than Reggie.
School's out, sun's out, time for fun.
Hanging with my friends and everyone.
No, I got it.
I'm good.
I'm good.
I'm good. to Wee Wow!
Summer Week!
Summer fun forever and ever!
That's right, Reggie.
This is the week where we have all kinds of summer fun, but we couldn't think of anything to do, so we're going around the neighborhood and bothering.
I mean getting inspiration from everyone else.
Are you ready to go find someone to talk to, Reggie?
Okay, let's go!
Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk!
Snooping, snooping, snooping...
Oh, hey, look, it's Grandma G-Force.
Hey, Granny G. Where'd you come from, boy?
What do you want?
Well, I'm just out having summer fun forever and ever and wanted to check in on my favorite, Minty's grandma.
Well, I'm just busy painting this diaper house still.
Oh, wow.
It looks great.
And it's going to stay that way.
Now get away.
Now get back.
What are you painting?
Some kind of mural?
Yeah, it's me and my electric guitar riding a saber-toothed tiger.
Oh, come on.
Can I paint a picture of me on there too?
No.
Can I paint sunglasses on the tiger?
No.
Can I paint calligraphy flourishes and whirls around the edges?
No.
Well, then what can I do?
Uh, well, you can wash my brushes.
Here, take them.
Hooray!
I'm useful!
What? and get to cleaning.
Okay, I'm just gonna swish the brushes around in this bucket of water here.
Swish, swish, swish.
Oh, that's real nice.
And now, Reggie, you take the brushes and shake them out, okay?
Reggie!
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!
Reggie, you got multicolored paint water all over my white linen clothes.
Well, I think that's an improvement, actually.
No, it's not.
My ensemble is ruined.
It's, uh, wait.
Actually, you're right.
It is an improvement.
That's what I just said.
It's like tie-dye.
Hooray!
Look, Granny G, I'm a cool, groovy dude.
Whatever, Woodstock.
Summer fun!
Gosh, boy.
Okay, devoted listeners.
Grandma G-Force and I are going to go strut around in our tie-dye.
No, I'm not.
But in the meantime, we want to hear your summertime wows.
We do?
Yeah, like maybe a vacation you went on in the past or a summer experience you're having right now.
I don't know who you're talking to.
So, if you have a wow summer memory you'd like to share with us...
Call us at 1-888-7-WOW-WOW.
That's 1-888-7-WOW-WOW.
You just might hear your Summer of Wow moment featured on Wow in the World this summer.
Oh, that sounds fancy.
Oh, good idea, Reggie.
Let's listen to an episode of Wow in the World right now.
Well, I was thinking in the spirit of artwork that we listen to this one.
Wow.
It's Wow in the World Season 8, Episode 29, called AI, AI, Oh, Wow!
Is that the one about the artificial generated art?
Uh-huh.
Well, okay.
All right, here we go.
And play.
WeWow will be right back.
Grown-ups, this message is for you.
Hey, grown-ups, it's Mindy and Guy Raz here from Wow in the World.
Mindy and I have some Brand new Wow in the World toys out in the world just in time for the holidays.
Made for the kids who love science and for the ones who don't yet.
From our 100 experiments, that wow kit to the telescope and astronomy kit.
Our Wow in the World toys help your wowzer learn about their world through play.
What?
That's it.
Now pause.
Mindy?
Hello?
Mindy?
Oh, that's so good.
Now try adding a top hat.
Huh?
Great idea, Dennis.
I know.
What in the...
Nothing much, Mindy.
I just wanted to show you my new electric toothbrush.
Oh, wow.
Then I heard all the commotion coming from the other side of the door.
What's so funny?
Oh, nothing.
Mindy, what do you mean nothing?
You don't think these photos are funny anymore?
Dennis, shh.
What are you talking about?
Nothing.
Don't worry about it.
Everything's fine.
What are you doing at the computer, Mindy?
Mindy, let me see.
Be careful, Guy Raz.
You'll ruin our precious artwork.
Artwork?
What in the... Fine, you got me.
Mindy, what is all of this?
It's you, Guy Raz.
Can't you tell?
It's art.
Guy Raz art.
I can see that.
Here's an image of me as a firefighter, and I guess here's one of me as an astronaut.
And look, here you are riding a giant taco.
Oh, yeah, that's a good one.
Mindy, what's going on here?
What's going on here is that Dennis and I have been churning out digital Guy Raz art all morning long.
Well, it's very impressive Mindy, but you really should be asking permission from someone before making art with their face all over it.
I did ask.
Didn't you get my permission slip?
And bottle what?
No huh, i wonder if thomas fingerling and grandma g-force got their permission slips.
Wait a minute, you've been making grandma g-force and thomas fingerling art as well.
Oh yeah here, check it out.
Uh dennis, bring up that one of thomas fingerling and grandma g-force playing pickleball.
Oh yeah, that was my favorite.
Whoa, is that Grandma G-Force and Thomas Fingerling playing pickleball on a giant pepperoni pizza?
Sure is.
I wanted it to be a sausage green pepper pizza, but the toppings threw off the color balance.
And you made all of these this morning?
Yeah, pretty bonker balls, huh?
It's incredible, Mindy.
I didn't realize you and Dennis were such talented digital artists.
Well, we had a little help.
Oh, yeah?
Help from who?
From a little thing called AI.
AI?
You mean artificial intelligence?
What?
That's what AI stands for?
Mindy, you told me it stood for apples included.
What?
No, I didn't.
Then where did all these apples come from?
So, wait a minute, Mindy.
You're telling me you made all of these images with an AI program on your computer?
Yeah.
Want to try it out?
Sure.
What should I do, Mindy?
Okay, so first you're just going to want to open up this prompt box here.
Okay.
And now just type in the first thing that pops into your head.
Okay, let's see.
Dennis, can I use you in the image?
Yes, you may.
All right, let's see here.
Hooray!
I'm involved!
Okay, I'll type in Dennis in a pair of yellow overalls riding a giant turtle through space.
Ooh, nice prompt, Guy Raz.
Yeah, it's so ridiculous.
I wear yellow pants, not yellow overalls.
Okay, and now hit enter.
Okay.
And now we wait.
It's done.
Whoa.
Look at that, Mindy!
It's Dennis riding a turtle through outer space!
And wearing yellow overalls!
Wow, this is pretty incredible!
You're telling me!
But Mindy, isn't this basically like a more advanced version of Zoodle image search?
Well, not quite, Guy Raz.
How is it different?
Oh, I'm so glad you asked.
Um, story time!
So...
When you go to Zoodle Image Search.
Hello, and welcome to Zoodle Image Search.
And give it a request.
One photo of an ice cream, please.
Certainly.
One moment, please.
Searching, searching.
The search engine goes off and looks for that image on the internet, bringing you back the results.
Searching.
I have found 1.2 trillion results.
But with these AI generators, it works a little bit differently.
Instead of going out and looking for images on the internet, it creates a brand new image, something that's almost certainly never been seen before.
One picture of an ice cream, please.
Certainly.
Setting up easel.
Applying paint.
Complete.
One painting of ice cream.
I love it!
Yay!
And that's basically how it works.
Wow.
Well, hang on a minute, Mindy.
I understand how these AIs are different from a basic internet search, but I still don't get how it works.
What do you mean?
Well, if you were an artist in the real world, you might go to school to learn how to draw and sketch and paint.
Uh-huh.
So how do these AIs learn how to make these images?
How do they know what an ice cream looks like and how to draw it?
Oh, looks like we're heading back to story time.
Two stories in one day.
We're so lucky.
So, just like how human artists might go to school or a university to train to become an artist, these AIs also have to train at the University of the World Wide Web.
The University of the World Wide Web.
Of course there's not a University of the World Wide Web, Dennis.
Mindy is just using it as a storytelling device.
Ah, right.
I knew that.
Anyhoo, the AI shows up for its first year at the University of the World Wide Web.
Wow.
U-W-W-W.
I finally made it.
I'm going to be the best AI art generator ever.
So in order to become a fully-fledged AI art generator, this AI has to first take some intro classes.
Intro classes?
Yeah.
Class number one is... Object recognition.
Object recognition?
Yeah, which is exactly what it sounds like.
It's teaching the AI to recognize objects.
Pay attention, class.
This is a picture of a ball.
This is a picture of a person throwing a ball.
Person.
Ball.
Throwing.
Got it.
Now, imagine doing this for trillions of images or pictures across the internet.
Now this is a person juggling balls.
This is a person kicking balls.
This is a person shooting balls.
And once it's had a look at all of these trillions of images, it needs to learn how to sort them.
Which brings us to our second class.
Welcome to Sorting 101.
Yay!
Now the AI has to look through all the images it's learned about and sort them into hundreds of different groupings.
Huh, like what?
Well, take a banana.
Okay, this is yellow.
Therefore, bananas go in the yellow box category, but it sorts these pictures into hundreds of different categories, like their shape, their size, their shininess, their brightness.
The banana also goes in the long category and also also goes in the medium-sized category and the non-shiny category and the fruit.
So at the end of this class, the AI knows both what these images are.
That is a ball.
But also the characteristics or things that make up that image.
The ball is white.
It has stitches.
It is round.
It is used in the game of baseball.
Wonderful.
You're now ready for semester two, creation.
Yay!
I finally get to make my own art.
So now when you type a prompt into the machine... Ahem.
One picture of an ice cream, please.
Hmm.
Okay.
Ice cream.
Round.
Colorful.
Moist.
Shiny.
It then arranges a bunch of pixels into a shape that has those characteristics like shape quality and shininess.
And pixels are the...
Tiny dots on a screen that make up an image.
Exactly.
Hundreds of thousands of these little colored dots that all come together to make a picture.
And the AI shuffles these around based on what it knows about the object you asked it to generate for you.
Exactoritos.
Doug, what do you think, Mrs. Teacher Man?
It's horrible.
Oh, no.
The first attempts are never good.
But then the AI goes away and improves it, moving the pixels around just a little bit.
And it does this over and over and over again, thousands of times a second.
How's this?
No.
This?
No.
This?
No.
This happens over and over and over again, improving little by little.
That's what I call an A-plus ice cream.
Excellent.
Here you are, ma'am.
One picture of ice cream.
I love it!
And that, Guy Raz, is how you train an AI generator to become an artist.
Ah, wow!
That was quite a lot to take in, Mindy.
So let me get this straight.
This AI program is taught what images look like.
Uh-huh.
And then it's taught the characteristics of those images, like its size and color and shape.
Uh-huh.
And then it puts a bunch of pixels together that have those characteristics.
You know it.
And then the AI keeps rearranging those pixels over and over again, making slightly better images every time, until it has a brand new picture of whatever you asked for.
Yep, that's it in a nutshell.
Wow, that's kind of incredible.
Yeah, almost as incredible as Reggie riding a skateboard over the Grand Canyon.
Check it out.
Okay, what should I put in next?
How about... I've got it!
How about three best friends?
Uh, sure!
Yay!
Three best friends!
But Mindy, aren't you worried about these machines replacing artists in the real world?
I mean, it might take a real human artist months or even years to create a piece of art like this.
But these machines can do it in the blink of an eye.
Well, that's a good point, Guy Raz.
And some people are worried about these machines.
I mean, on one hand, you can see them as just another tool for artists to express themselves.
Right.
Because these machines aren't creative...
To them, these images are just a bunch of pixels and numbers.
It's us humans who input the prompts to make them generate art.
Huh.
But, on the other hand, some people are worried about these AI generators copying real-life artists and not giving them credit for their work.
What do you mean?
Well, remember how AI generator had to go to art school to learn how to generate?
Yeah, the University of the World Wide Web.
Right.
Well, when it's learning how to recognize and sort objects, it's doing that based on millions and millions of images from the web.
Uh-huh.
And a lot of those images are created by artists who never gave their permission for their art to be used to teach robots.
Right.
And I'm guessing that when these AI art generators are asked to produce a work of art, It can sometimes end up looking very similar to those artists it was trained on.
Exact Doritos.
So is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Well, it's a new thing, Guy Raz.
It's up to us humans to make that choice of how we use it.
It's done!
It's done!
The three best friends!
Look!
All right.
Oh, look, there's Mindy, and that's Guy with his glasses.
But wait a minute.
Mindy, I think this machine is broken.
Oh, boy.
This one in the middle doesn't look anything like me.
It's got a tail and feathers and a beak.
Ah, Reggie.
Grownups, if you like Wow in the World, you can listen early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.
Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Wondery Kids Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
Wow in the World is written by Mindy Thomas and Tom Van Kalken with help from me, Guy Raz.
Original sound design and music editing is done by Tyler Thole with help from our supervising producer, Jed Anderson.
You can also hear Jed Anderson in the voices of Dennis Thomas Fingerling, Reggie and many of the other silly characters you hear on our show.
Jessica Bode keeps our facts straight as our fact checker and Meredith Halpern-Ranzer powers the wow at Tinkercast.
Our theme song was composed and performed by three-time Grammy nominees, The Pop-Ups.
Find them at thepopups.com.
Special thanks to Steph Sosa, Henry Moskal, Ruth Morrison, Rebecca Caban, Kit Ballinger, Sana Ali Muhammad, Anna Zagorski and all of the other tinkerers at Tinkercast HQ.
To keep the wows rolling, visit us at Tinkercast.com.
There you can learn more about becoming an official member of the World Organization of Wowsers.
Learn about upcoming events, shop our wow shop, find our best-selling books and learn about all of our other amazing podcasts.
And if you're a kid with a big wow to share with us...
Call us at 1-888-7-WOW-WOW for a chance to be featured at the end of our show or an upcoming episode of Two What's and a Wow.
Thanks again for listening.
And until next time, be fun wowing.
Wow in the World was made by Tinkercast and sent to you by Wondery.
