Sailing Science Center Is Teaching ChatGPT To Sail
Jim Hancock, founder and executive director of the San Francisco Sailing Science Center, has jumped in with ChatGPT’s generative AI to try to create some images for their end-of-year newsletter. It appears that ChatGPT is no different from any new sailor. It takes time to learn about apparent wind, how to set sails, and all the intricacies of tuning a boat to the breeze.
As Jim described, it took almost 50 images to get to the final two he used in his email. “AI makes a huge number of mistakes, many of which are hilarious and many of which are very human-like. In this instance, I was frustrated by a dozen attempts to get an image looking over the stern of a sailboat. The AI kept giving me images looking over the bows of boats moving at warp speed in reverse!”
The technology being used to design the America’s Cup boats is creating boats that are closing in on being unmanned spaceships, which is a trend that will likely continue as generative AI learns to sail and sends its design results off to a 3D printer somewhere. The renderings for new boat designs often take on a similar feel, so we imagine it won’t be long before ChatGPT is a pretty good naval architect and sailor.
In the real world, the Sailing Science Center is building tangible demonstrations available to schools and others wanting to bring hands-on learning closer to real people. The Flow Loop exhibit stands out not only as the SSC’s most substantial exhibit, but also as one of the first to be student-built — it was completed by students in UC Berkeley’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. The photo above shows it being wheeled into the Exploratorium for an engagement in December.
It took a while for ChatGPT to create the image Jim was looking for, but his perseverance paid off when the final pictures were created.
The Sailing Science Center is dedicated to helping people understand the world through the many lessons available from sailing. It only makes sense for SSC to use the latest technology to bring more people an understanding of sailing and the Earth.
I suppose AI will eventually “get it” and put all of us sailor/designer types out of business. But it still has a lot to learn. Right now it is even worse than the proverbial kid with Rhino, which up till now has been responsible for some of the worst marine concepts.
My wife and I asked for a picture of a cat sailing a boat in heavy weather. In most of them the cat was facing aft and not touching the tiller or sheets. In some of them, the mast was outside the boat!
AI is Automatic Indexing of Human Work. It is not Artificial Intelligence. The Sailboat cartoon shown is still leaning into the wind and not away from the wind as it would in reality. Does the copyright belong to Jim Hancock as stated, or the boat catalog that hull was originally drawn for.
If I link ChatGPT to the auto helm, will my boat eventually become self-aware and go sailing without me?