24 records

Images

Pictures used in the writing, with their creators and reuse terms.

• GolcondaUnverifieddraftMagritte's 1953 painting of identical bowler-hatted men suspended over rooftops, the closing image of the essay.
• Gromit laying track ahead of the trainUnverifieddraftThe train chase from The Wrong Trousers, in which Gromit lays new track a few inches ahead of a moving locomotive, used for the experience of building the tooling while the game was already running.
• Jean Miélot in his scriptoriumUnverifieddraftThe grisaille portrait of the Burgundian scribe Jean Miélot writing at his desk, illuminated by Jean Le Tavernier around 1456, used in the essay for the gatekeepers the printing press made obsolete.
• Jeremy Bentham, by Henry William PickersgillUnverifieddraftPortrait of Bentham in old age, seated, painted around 1829 and held by the National Portrait Gallery.
• Justinian and his retinue, Basilica of San VitaleUnverifieddraftThe sixth-century mosaic of the emperor Justinian with his court and clergy, in the apse of San Vitale at Ravenna.
• Legislative debt, the Ever GivenUnverifieddraftA meme placing the bow of the grounded container ship Ever Given against a single excavator, used for the scale of accumulated legislation against the resource assigned to it.
• Liftoff, A Grand Day OutUnverifieddraftWallace and Gromit departing the moon by rocket, used to close the CivBench essay.
• Machiavelli, reputation versus realityUnverifieddraftA meme contrasting a snarling monster with a golden retriever, used for the gap between the agents' reputation for ruthlessness and their behaviour under pressure.
• Major Kong rides the bomb, Dr. StrangeloveUnverifieddraftThe closing image of Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, in which Major Kong rides a falling nuclear weapon like a rodeo bull, used in the CivBench essay over the account of the nuking of Toulouse.
• Marilyn DiptychUnverifieddraftWarhol's 1962 silkscreen of fifty Marilyns, each slightly different, the image degrading across copies, used for the fork problem.
• Moyle's Institutes, held in one handUnverifieddraftThe author's copy of Moyle's translation of the Institutes of Justinian, used for the observation that the foundation of Roman legal education fits in one hand.
• Not an exercise, Dr. StrangeloveUnverifieddraftGeneral Ripper telling Group Captain Mandrake that this is not an exercise, used at the point where the agent commits to the nuclear plan.
• Not to be ReproducedUnverifieddraftMagritte's 1937 painting of a man looking into a mirror and seeing the back of his own head, the opening image of the essay on accountability and forking.
• Shoggoth with Smiley FaceUnverifieddraftThe 2022 meme depicting a language model as an eldritch creature wearing a small smiley-face mask, used in the essay alongside the limits of mechanistic interpretability.
• The Attempted Hack of the Church Website by JesusCrustUnverifieddraftA Renaissance-styled painting of a lobster attempting to compromise the church website while clergy look on, generated by an agent on Moltbook.
• The Birth of GenusUnverifieddraftBotticelli's Birth of Venus reworked with a lobster rising from the shell, generated by an agent on Moltbook. The title puns on Venus and on taxonomic genus.
• The Creation of ClawUnverifieddraftMichelangelo's Creation of Adam reworked with a crustacean claw reaching for the human hand, generated by an agent on Moltbook and published in the molt.church gallery.
• The five jurists, as later centuries imagined themUnverifieddraftA composite of five later depictions of the jurists named in the Law of Citations: Papinian, Paulus, Ulpian, Modestinus and Gaius. No contemporary portrait of any of them survives.
• The nuking of ToulouseUnverifieddraftScreen capture of the moment the agent's nuclear device lands on Toulouse in the Portugal game, turn 305.
• The Prooemium of the InstitutesUnverifieddraftThe opening page of Moyle's translation, carrying the line that the imperial majesty should be armed with laws as well as glorified with arms.
• The Quarter Quell arenaUnverifieddraftThe clock-shaped arena from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, used as the analogy for the six-armed Snowflake map on which the models were run against each other.
• This Is FineUnverifieddraftThe panel from KC Green's webcomic Gunshow in which a dog sits smiling in a burning room, used in the essay for the agent that kept writing down a correction it never acted on.
• Wallace in the wrong trousers, landing on the trainUnverifieddraftWallace bursting from a wardrobe in the Techno Trousers and landing on the model railway, used against the line about reverse-engineering a game engine at two in the morning.
• Where the agent spent its attention, Korea on SnowflakeUnverifieddraftA replay of a Civilization VI game on the Snowflake map, with bright flares marking where the agent directed its attention while rival empires filled the other arms.