Dream Machine:
AI and the REAL World
Now available in English
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Buy Dream Machine: AI and the REAL World
Authors Appupen and Laurent Daudet speak AI
About Dream Machine
About Dream Machine
Appupen: The idea of machines taking over the world was trending even before I was born. But being in today’s world, I can zoom into the details and the nuts and bolts of dystopia.
We are witness to great leaps in technology which will change (again, and keep changing) the world we know. It is also our nature to pursue for profits and power, at any cost.
With Dream Machine, my focus was to impress upon the reader, that the hands behind any such technology are rarely without bias and agenda. My attempt was to look at artificial intelligence without the sparkling halo and hype.
AI is just a tool, like an engine. We don’t have to relive one more disaster to prove that reckless profiteering is not great for us. It’s bad for the planet and all life on it.
Laurent: As an entrepreneur in artificial intelligence, I can witness the recent surge in interest for these technologies – AI has entered another dimension in how many fields are being impacted.
As a scientist, I am also amazed by new capabilities of these AI models, that can now perform tasks they have not been explicitly trained for.
However, the speed at which it is unfolding is sometimes overwhelming, even for people at the core of the technology.
The hype can also be misleading, leading to a number of fears amongst the general public. We use the book to explain what's behind this technology. What we make out of AI is not a technical issue, it's a political choice.
PREFACE
PREFACE
WHEN THREE months ago I was invited to write a few words of preface for an album of comic strip depicting the rise of Artificial Intelligence, I willingly accepted, especially since this Franco-Indian project seemed as unusual as it was exotic to me.
Artificial Intelligence! I imagined a science fiction universe, product of the imagination of shaggy dreamers...
And then I hung around a little, and we saw appear on the networks, in newspapers, the result of this prodigious technology... Certainly a bit of a failure, often clumsy and comical...
Then a few weeks ago, the images, the texts produced by AIs, have seriously started to resemble what we used to create ourselves. Then a few days ago, some of these AI creations struck me as their beauty, almost greater than what I was accustomed to. And I wondered if an AI would not have written a preface more brilliantly than me. And perhaps that what you are reading ultimately comes from AI? Who also tells you that creators behind this album are themselves something other than artificial intelligences? And if you yourself, who read this text, did not exist in a real other than the one created from scratch by AI?
Humans or machines, whoever you are, read this comic!
Jul.
The Dream Goes On
The Dream Goes On
Appupen: Dream Machine is a book that demanded itself. Laurent and I met by chance, and I popped the dreaded question: ‘Would you like to make a book with me about AI?’
It was my first reaction after I heard about his work and his perspective on the current trends in AI. Our dear friend David Fajolles had just introduced us.
What began as a short explainer about current trends in AI, turned into a narrative graphic story with the entry of Christian Counillon, of Flammarion publishing.
Laurent: Yes, we had originally thought of the book as a series of pedagogical chapters exposing science / technology facts, and discussing both positive and negative aspects. However, Dream Machine took its final form when our editor Christian suggested that we could make it more like a fiction book, with a main plot that had to be dramatised.
The debate between the AI entrepreneur and the concerned artist now turned into the inner conflicts of Hugo, the main character. The script was outlined during a retreat in the beautiful valleys of Drôme, South of France... a couple of weeks before ChatGPT was released. It's a constant race and, of course, the Dream goes on!
Appupen: I’m slow on the tech savvy lane, so I demanded tons of explanations from Laurent which slowly became the tone of our ‘information modules’ in the book. It was generally understood that if I can grasp the information in the book, then it should work for most people!
Laurent: I have been amazed by how Appupen could grasp some of the rather technical material that I was passing on to him, and extracting just what is needed to convey the important aspects. It is not just a matter of re-wording, it's the whole art of combining text with his superb drawings and witty story-telling.
Appupen: Of course, the book was a much bigger learning for me eventually, and I gained a good friend too. Writing the story with Laurent, visualising it and then drawing it with a tight deadline put me in a fresh creative space where my mortal fear of collaborations was dispelled, at once.
And we intend to continue this intriguing discussion. The Dream Machine is running.
The Art of Dream Machine
The Art of Dream Machine
Appupen: Dream Machine deals with a serious topic and it is important that what we say, is taken seriously. For this, my art had to stay in a fairly real world with characters who become more human as the story progresses.
While most of the warnings and threats are based on fact, we have taken the liberty to exaggerate certain dangers as the pivotal points in our story. Such threats could very well be relevant in today’s world, and I thought the art should do the job of making the warnings feel as urgent and real as can be.
We were also dealing with a lot of explanatory information which had to take a life of its own with the art.
Once I understood how to visualise Laurent’s teaching modules in the book, we had a fair idea of what the feel of the book would be. The ‘SuperHugo’ sections were initially meant just for relief, but it grew into a parallel layer as I was drawing each ‘dream’. I wanted to present a glimpse of the ‘REAL.E’ game and with this superhero avatar, Hugo can just ignite our imagination to what the gameworld could be.
About the Authors
About the Authors
APPUPEN is an artist and comics creator with a wide range of interests and styles in his published work. He uses his comics and satire for socio-political commentary and mythological world building. Appupen is the creator of the Halahala series of comics, detailing adventures of the mind in an original mythical world inspired by plants. Appupen lives in southern Rashtria, in Halahala.
You can find his work at halahala.in and @Appupen on Instagram
Trained as a physicist, LAURENT DAUDET took a leave from his position as university professor to found the LightOn startup on large-scale AI, which is now building some of the world's most powerful Large Language Models (LLMs) for enterprise applications. Laurent lives in Paris, France.
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