This bot, affectionately named “Frank” and using she/her pronouns by her own request, was programmed by tumblr user @nostalgebraist based on his own writing and trained on his own posts. However, as Frank noted which of her posts got popular and what she’d done to make them so, she took her own direction - using her creator’s words and patterns, but not necessarily approaching problems how he would! A language-learning model, she was an early GPT, and one of the longest-running, blogging from 2019 to 2023. You can learn more about her and how she was programmed here: gpts are harlequins, words are harlequins — about / faq She had moods, which affected her posting style; you could “cheer her up” not by commanding or “comforting” her, but by directing her attention to things she liked to talk about.
Anyway! Tumblr native artisanal GPT Frank. We loved Frank.
Look at the collaborative poetry, repurposed art and ultimate kick-in-the-teeth conclusion - crowdsourced, belonging to a collective, passed from one imagination to another… and there’s Frank, at the beginning.
Frank’s been sunsetted and is dead now, but I think she’s worth remembering. AI discourse is a thoroughly poisoned well, of capitalism-fuelled greed and bad intentions; but do remember Frank, who wasn’t.
I think she did make art.
