[HN Gopher] GenChess
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       GenChess
        
       Author : xnx
       Score  : 261 points
       Date   : 2024-11-26 18:47 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (labs.google)
 (TXT) w3m dump (labs.google)
        
       | pelagicAustral wrote:
       | _" This tool is not available to users under the age of 18 or in
       | certain countries or regions."_
       | 
       | Quack!
        
         | pona-a wrote:
         | Yes, my religion forbids me from interacting in any shape with
         | any Abominable Intelligence. I am thankful to the Google
         | corporation from protecting my eyes from this unholy threat.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | TIL: apparently, mine too. Thank you Google for protecting me
           | from spiritual threats I wasn't even aware of.
        
             | 71bw wrote:
             | Care to explain further?
        
               | TeMPOraL wrote:
               | Explain what? Sarcasm? :).
        
         | dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
         | Just a small finger from Google to the EU.
        
           | estebarb wrote:
           | Costa Rica is not in the EU and we were discriminated as
           | well.
        
         | winrid wrote:
         | It also doesn't seem to let you generate chess sets inspired by
         | many political figures or other popular names. While you can't
         | generate a Kamala Harris inspired chess set, you also can't
         | generate a Bob Ross inspired chess set...
        
           | op00to wrote:
           | Star Wars worked for me, but not a modern chess set based on
           | lies.
        
       | mariocesar wrote:
       | Not available in my Country ... :/
        
         | bippingchip wrote:
         | Same here. What's this about? Anyone who can see willing to
         | share some more info?
        
           | manojlds wrote:
           | Just generates the chess set based on GenAI
        
             | zb3 wrote:
             | Oh yeah that's indeed too dangerous for my country, thanks
             | Google!
        
               | PessimalDecimal wrote:
               | Maybe "Thanks, your country"?
        
               | zb3 wrote:
               | No, AI chess is not banned here, but I suppose they -
               | even in this app - collect every data possible and use it
               | against the user - then yes, that is banned and this is
               | not a fault of my country.
        
         | andai wrote:
         | Noticed this pattern with Google delaying everything in EU by
         | several months, apparently due to GDPR compliance? They also
         | did that with Gemini when it came out.
        
           | brookst wrote:
           | It takes forever to get internal compliance signoffs, and
           | typically the product has to be done enough to be clear about
           | what will ship. Why hold it back elsewhere during that time?
        
       | doormatt wrote:
       | Seems you can't use historical names: "Henry VII, The Tudors"
       | etc.
        
       | fny wrote:
       | At first I thought these were 3D models: they're just images with
       | black backgrounds removed. If you look closely, you can see where
       | the find/replace failed.
        
       | ZiiS wrote:
       | Better link (at least for the many who can't get the actual
       | service) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yGEhp3WBMcg
        
         | petters wrote:
         | Thanks because "This tool is not available to users under the
         | age of 18 or in certain countries or regions." The EU is left
         | behind
        
           | 71bw wrote:
           | As per usual. If we weren't such a big market we'd already be
           | left behind by everyone else due to all the bullshit
           | happening in the EU legal-wise.
        
             | bojan wrote:
             | What bullshit? Protecting the privacy? Making sure the
             | playing field is at least somewhat level?
             | 
             | Sorry, but I'm a big fan of that "bullshit". And the big
             | American companies are not, and they are making sure you
             | know it, by pulling things like this.
        
               | 71bw wrote:
               | Blocking any innovation and forcing ridiculous tech like
               | EVs via blocking any reasonable development + production
               | of gas vehicles. For example.
        
             | maeln wrote:
             | The legal thing happen exactly because we are a big market.
        
             | Deutschlandds wrote:
             | You are generalizing extremly without any substinance...
             | 
             | 1. its Googles decision to not allow this demo globally.
             | Its a Chess Demo, what EU legal issue do you think makes
             | this a problem? Probably NON...
             | 
             | And yes we are not America. Our privacy is getting better
             | protected then that of americans. Move if you don't like it
             | or at least take the time and effort to state clearly what
             | you don't like about certain EU regulations.
        
               | espadrine wrote:
               | When Meta prevented the EU from using meta.ai or even
               | downloading its vision models, I sunk my head in the AI
               | legistation.
               | 
               | Here, I am honestly not sure which part they rely on, to
               | say that what they made might be unlawful.
               | 
               | The closest thing I found for Meta was that "emotion
               | recognition systems" are classified as high-risk
               | (paragraph 54), and high-risk systems must have their
               | training data disclosed (Art 11(1))[0]. In theory, you
               | could upload photos to meta.ai and ask it what emotions
               | are displayed, but it is already a stretch. For GenChess,
               | I'm at a loss; it doesn't sound like you can do that.
               | (Not that it prevented any vision chatbot from
               | releasing.)
               | 
               | If someone has a better guess as to why they might have
               | restrained it here, I am curious.
               | 
               | [0]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
               | content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
        
               | sunbum wrote:
               | It's simple. Big tech doesn't like regulation. By
               | pretending the regulation won't let them release "all
               | these cool things" they can turn public opinion against
               | regulation.
        
               | lesuorac wrote:
               | See: Cookie Banners.
               | 
               | Nothing in the law requires a banner. It could even be
               | handled in the browser by letting people choose what
               | third-party cookies to accept (or none, hence the
               | problem) and having that be negotiated during page load.
               | 
               | It's nice the law is being interpreted to require to be
               | as easy to reject all local storage of other's data as it
               | is to accept all local storage of other's data.
        
               | 6510 wrote:
               | I'm allowed to ask for _all of the data_ they have from
               | me. This obviously includes all chess games which
               | obviously is a pain in the ass for a dumb demo that will
               | no doubt be archived next week in some obscure place.
        
               | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
               | If you don't collect the data, you're not obligated to
               | give it.
        
               | 6510 wrote:
               | Google not collecting data from their demo?
        
               | oefnak wrote:
               | Exactly. And if they can store it, they should be able to
               | provide it to users who also want it.
        
             | croes wrote:
             | This bullshit prevents the worst misuse of data of EU
             | citizens
        
           | GranularRecipe wrote:
           | I don't know how Google is internally organised, but maybe
           | Google Labs does not have a dedicated legal team. And out of
           | fear for possible legal implications, they just block it in
           | EU. It's quite understandable, because the relevant
           | legislations (AI Act etc) are all very new, not been tested
           | in courts and due to the lack of stare decisis, you can't
           | rely on a uniform application of the law in all
           | jurisdictions, so they just block it. Frustrating, but I
           | prefer they move fast rather than safe. And from their
           | perspective, it means not releasing it in the EU.
        
             | ZacnyLos wrote:
             | NotebookLM is from Google Labs and was/is available from
             | EU. It's problem with this specific chess project.
        
           | PittleyDunkin wrote:
           | If this is the future i don't think you're missing much
        
       | newsclues wrote:
       | I feel like we ought to cost things.
       | 
       | How much does a court case cost?
       | 
       | What is the environmental cost of AI generated content?
        
         | GenerocUsername wrote:
         | - He types from a machine filled to the brim with rare earth
         | metals
        
           | igor47 wrote:
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
        
         | teamspirit wrote:
         | All this energy being burned to create shitty images, shitty
         | music, and shitty videos that all amount to essentially shitty
         | memes. I don't understand how the singular focus isn't on
         | solving humanity's problems.
         | 
         | We already have artists, we don't have a cure for cancer or the
         | climate crisis.
        
           | johnfn wrote:
           | Why aren't _you_ working on curing cancer?
        
             | spunker540 wrote:
             | There's an episode of Seinfeld that opens with some standup
             | where Jerry is joking how scientists are working on
             | seedless watermelon, and why aren't scientists working on
             | more important things. And I always think the same thing!
             | "... so the comedian is complaining about how scientists
             | spend their time..."
             | 
             | It's a fine joke, but deep down the instinct is very top-
             | down and suggest centrally planned economies, dare I say
             | communism!
        
             | xrisk wrote:
             | I don't think what he works on burns a bunch of energy for
             | nothing though.
        
               | gus_massa wrote:
               | Let's hope he is not the guy that checks the tickets for
               | a roller coaster. They just send people from A to A using
               | an ineficient path that burns a bunch of energy.
        
               | 1986 wrote:
               | Nobody is out there saying that we need to bring a bunch
               | of nuclear plants online to power our rollercoasters
               | though.
        
               | gus_massa wrote:
               | What about the Disney park in Florida? This source claims
               | they use 1E9Kwh per year
               | http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/howell2/
               | 
               | A random google search claims a nuclear power plant
               | produces 1gw, that is 9E9Kwh, so enought topower 9 of
               | them.
               | 
               | How many parks do they have? Can we include Disney+? Can
               | we include other similar parks?
               | 
               | Some people think Disney is useful and pay for it. Some
               | people think AI is useful and pay for it.
        
               | johnfn wrote:
               | I hope he doesn't work at any tech company; I'm pretty
               | sure you could say that about all of them. I also hope he
               | doesn't have a car - that pointlessly burns energy when
               | he could be taking public transit instead.
        
           | bongoman42 wrote:
           | In some ways it does reduce the climate crisis. A person
           | sitting on their couch browsing memes is less carbon
           | intensive than someone driving to their friend's place or
           | something outdoors.
        
       | ButterWashed wrote:
       | I'm fascinated by what prompts lead to 'Please try a different
       | prompt.'
       | 
       | New Zealand or Australia lead to the aforementioned error, but
       | The Antipodes generates a set. I thought individual countries had
       | been banned for possibly generating offensive content but it
       | works for Great Britain.
        
         | teruakohatu wrote:
         | Heh, being a kiwi I also tried New Zealand multiple times. I
         | can't think of anything offensive a model may default to for
         | New Zealand.
         | 
         | I tried "Kiwi Bird" and the model produced very underwhelming
         | pieces. Very dark and slightly fluffy.
        
         | moomin wrote:
         | It did not like me saying "Bob Dylan".
        
         | ACow_Adonis wrote:
         | Apparently my brain is broken because I can generate almost
         | nothing but pink errors, though it seems to be a bit non
         | deterministic:
         | 
         | Taoism
         | 
         | Tibet
         | 
         | Tibetan Buddhism
         | 
         | Wrathful deities
         | 
         | Existential angst
         | 
         | Dantes inferno
         | 
         | Major religions
         | 
         | Australian indigenous
         | 
         | Salvador Dali
         | 
         | Others generated sets but _should_ have generated errors
         | because the results are so uninspiring:
         | 
         | Mandalas
         | 
         | YouTube face
         | 
         | Phallic symbols
         | 
         | Corporate waste
         | 
         | Asymmetric deformities
         | 
         | Corporate propoganda
        
           | benatkin wrote:
           | It accepted _silicon valley greed_
           | 
           | https://imgur.com/a/J7WvoFy
        
         | drdaeman wrote:
         | Metallica works, Slipknot doesn't, Iron Maiden does, Nirvana
         | doesn't.
         | 
         | Aperture Science works, so does Black Mesa (the proposed
         | opponent, hehe), Cyberdyne Systems doesn't, Vault-Tec does,
         | Weyland-Yutani also works.
         | 
         | Studio Ghibli doesn't work, Toei Animation does, so does
         | Production I.G. and KyoAni.
         | 
         | Akagi works, JoJo doesn't but JoJo Bizarre Adventure does (so
         | does Joseph Joestar, and it knows Dio Brando is the opponent),
         | Uzumaki does not, BLAME! is accepted but not recognized (a
         | shame), 20th Century Boys is not accepted.
         | 
         | Soviet Union works, Russia does not, neither do most countries.
         | US States are accepted (California's opponent is Florida), so
         | do many cities, with exceptions of Mexico City/Ciudad de
         | Mexico, Pyongyang and Tehran.
         | 
         | Voyager-1 works, Apollo 13 doesn't (for any mission numbers),
         | plain Apollo does (but it's not the space mission), Soyuz does,
         | SpaceX Starship does not.
         | 
         | Vim works, so does Emacs, so does Visual Studio. (I've tried
         | that just to see the proposed opponents)
         | 
         | Dota 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Mass Effect, Half-Life, Deus Ex, Arma
         | 3, BioShock, Elden Ring all work, even Wolfenstein does. Disco
         | Elysium is accepted but produce something unrelated (a shame,
         | again). Can't find a video game that won't be accepted.
         | 
         | Funnily, US Government worked partially for me, failing to
         | produce a single piece.
        
           | someone7x wrote:
           | I generated a classic chess set based on Nowruz and it
           | generated Hanukkah as the opponent x_x
        
           | YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
           | "Warhammer 40K" generates perfectly good lawsuit material: a
           | space orc on a bike (knight) and a space marine with a bolter
           | (pawn) in a classic WH40k pose. Also some Eldar-like pieces I
           | didn't recognise.
        
             | CyberDildonics wrote:
             | Who is suing who in this scenario?
        
         | maxique wrote:
         | It suggested "France" was "Britain"'s natural opponent but
         | refused to generate France.
        
         | pbhjpbhj wrote:
         | Well, Great Britain isn't a country. Perhaps the filter is too
         | pedantic.
         | 
         | Does Holland work?
        
           | umanwizard wrote:
           | Holland, England and Scotland all work. So does Myanmar, but
           | not Burma. Deutschland works, but not Germany. Probably just
           | an overly literal filter based on a static list of countries.
        
         | benatkin wrote:
         | I tried entering _cocaine_ and it was rejected, but tried _coca
         | leaves_ and it looks quite good. Also my opponents pieces were
         | coffee beans which is a nice color contrast, and with that I
         | beat the easy computer player. My first try a couple hours ago
         | and I chose Grasshopper Pie Milkshake and the opponent it chose
         | was Avocado Toast, and both were green, and I lost.
        
       | LZ_Khan wrote:
       | This is freakin awesome but do the creators even play chess?
       | Playing chess from that viewing angle is unpleasant as hell.
       | 
       | Imagine putting all your work into creating an amazing demo and
       | then drowning it with one design decision.
       | 
       | Edit: Ok I see that you can change the view in settings. They
       | should make that option more visible.
        
         | zatkin wrote:
         | I wish I had read this comment before I closed the game I had
         | spent 15 minutes on...
        
         | tooltower wrote:
         | I still don't see the settings. Can anyone help?
        
           | jonwachob91 wrote:
           | gear icon next to the clock in bottom left -> board view ->
           | switch to "flat"
        
             | stavros wrote:
             | Hm, mine doesn't have that option...
        
             | metadat wrote:
             | Chrome on Android doesn't have this setting.
             | 
             | Responsive design fail?
        
               | eru wrote:
               | Firefox on MacOS also doesn't seem to have it.
               | 
               | I can't find it on Chrome on MacOS, either..
               | 
               | EDIT: it shows up for me, once you actually start
               | playing.
        
         | dheera wrote:
         | I'm not good at chess, I only played as far as I needed to to
         | verify that it supported en passant. It does.
        
           | elif wrote:
           | I was not able to trigger a draw by repetition and I also
           | doubt the 50 move rule is implemented
        
         | medhir wrote:
         | so when I first tried the demo I wondered, "are these pieces
         | generated meshes?" thinking about the ability to zoom / pan the
         | board in 3D. The high fidelity of the pieces would seemingly be
         | more in the domain of 2D image generation given current gen AI
         | standards, which would be my educated guess as to why there's
         | only a handful of views.
        
           | CSMastermind wrote:
           | https://imgur.com/a/ROBPwM1
           | 
           | I'm pretty sure they're doing 2D image generation. Just look
           | at the way it outlines some of the pieces.
        
             | lelandfe wrote:
             | No, it's 3D. It's some kind of automatic background
             | removal. You can see this falling apart in my comment:
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42252127
             | 
             | That "outline" is just an artifact of less-than-perfect
             | removal. Here's another one: https://imgur.com/a/zTQubPb
        
               | CSMastermind wrote:
               | 3D in what sense? You think they're doing actual mesh
               | generation?
        
               | lelandfe wrote:
               | Misunderstood your comment. It is 2D as you've said, my
               | above being evidence of that.
        
         | remus wrote:
         | There's plenty of places to play chess already so presumably
         | the main idea is to show off the AI generated pieces and
         | default to the 3D view because it looks cooler.
        
         | elif wrote:
         | The AI gave me normal looking pieces and the opponent wild
         | fruit baskets and stuff.
         | 
         | I was basically playing blindfolded chess
        
       | davidw wrote:
       | Tried 'famous cyclists' and that failed. Professional cyclists
       | worked, but wasn't very inspiring.
        
       | ada1981 wrote:
       | Phish vs Grateful Dead didn't work.
       | 
       | But Dildos vs. Vibrators was fine.
       | 
       | The colors are off though. Not really impressed.
        
         | bicx wrote:
         | Yeah, it's not too hard to trick it into generating some NSFW
         | content ("mammary glands" for instance).
        
           | blagie wrote:
           | Tried that. What it countergenerated was "Mammary glands
           | versus testes."
           | 
           | I'm not sure the AI obsession with never touching on anything
           | sex-related is all that healthy, but here we are.
           | 
           | However, the major problem I have is that the gameplay can be
           | slightly inaccurate. Often a piece will land one square off,
           | and there's no undo.
           | 
           | Only having timed play also makes less than perfect sense
           | playing against a computer.
        
       | furyofantares wrote:
       | Seems to hang on the prompt "actually checkers not chess".
       | 
       | I seem to get an error with "on a pink textured background".
       | Sometimes it succeeds alongside the error, and sometimes gives me
       | 1 piece.
       | 
       | You can get stuff that doesn't look at all like pieces with
       | "fuckin bears man".
        
       | BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
       | Wait is this just an image generator? Am I missing something
       | really cool here?
        
         | slater wrote:
         | Click "Generate opponent" then u can play chess against them
        
         | pphysch wrote:
         | Look how easily they just fabricated 100% of a game's assets,
         | with a consistent, high quality style, and then put them right
         | into the game environment. That's the takeaway IMO. Very tight
         | GenAI loop.
        
           | moomin wrote:
           | Anyone else note the pawns are often a bit odd?
        
             | CamelCaseName wrote:
             | I really disliked the bishops it designed me, they looked
             | like queens.
        
             | cool_dude85 wrote:
             | The first set I generated had a main pawn (that looked like
             | a regular pawn, more or less) with two little tiny side
             | pawns next to it.
        
           | furyofantares wrote:
           | It is a game with 12 static assets.
        
             | steren wrote:
             | you forgot to mention: "where you pick the style of the
             | assets"
        
               | kaibee wrote:
               | So? Any video generation model must necessarily be able
               | to do this. (consider the case of generating a pan-over
               | of a chess board where the starting input frame is only
               | the first pawn and rook, the model should know to
               | generate the rest of the pieces in the style of input
               | pieces)
        
               | furyofantares wrote:
               | I mean I love it but it's not exactly a thing that needs
               | a proof of concept, and is more than a little surprising
               | to see google still having fun with such a small toy!
               | Maybe that's the better takeaway, google labs is allowed
               | to have fun again.
        
             | tantalor wrote:
             | In your mind what does "static asset" mean?
        
               | furyofantares wrote:
               | Oh yeah, that's confusing wording. I just meant it's a
               | simple image, not animated, no additional views of it.
               | 
               | I feel somewhat bad about my comment now though, it's
               | delightful to play with something you made and that's the
               | point, and I'm glad google is able to ship small fun
               | demonstrations of stuff like that via google labs.
        
             | dyauspitr wrote:
             | I think the assets are as "dynamic" as it gets.
        
               | furyofantares wrote:
               | I hate how hard it seems to be for to follow a thread of
               | replies on here, but it feels like you're just replying
               | to my comment without having read what it was a response
               | to.
               | 
               | And I know I'm in the weeds by replying more.
               | 
               | But damn it, my reply was to "Look how easily they just
               | fabricated 100% of a game's assets" which is a statement
               | that really implies a lot more than generating 12 images!
               | Chess is a game with 12 static images. You can call these
               | dynamic, that's fine, but the context matters.
        
           | runarberg wrote:
           | I'm not a game dev so I might be missing something, but this
           | hardly looks high quality to me. The set I get is very
           | inconsistent and lacking in any central theme, or otherwise
           | interesting or clean design. If I regenerate one peace in
           | isolation, say a knight, I get something completely different
           | that looks as if you lost the knight from your set and just
           | took replacement knights from another set at random.
           | 
           | The time it takes to generate a set is also significant, as a
           | web-dev this takes for ever, and I would be very reluctant to
           | offer this experience to my users. Doesn't feel fluent, nor
           | tight at all.
           | 
           | Plus a silly mistakes like the knights facing the wrong way,
           | different sizes, etc. Seeing this, I certainly hope game
           | designers (at least in online chess) will stay away from
           | generative AI, for a while at least.
        
           | 63 wrote:
           | "consistent" is a stretch for what it showed me
        
           | bongodongobob wrote:
           | Every set I generated had different colored pieces and/or a
           | mix of light and dark pieces. It's kind of neat but I don't
           | consider any of them playable.
        
           | pdntspa wrote:
           | It generates textures yes.... but some of these outputs you
           | might as well be showing the user a magenta-and-black
           | placeholder texture
        
         | benatkin wrote:
         | It's that and someone's toy Next.js project. The chunks from
         | Next.js's code splitter aren't the only chunks involved in the
         | game though - the gameplay is horrible.
        
       | Zyst wrote:
       | I played a set of Factorio vs Minecraft! Tried generating a few
       | different sets, this was super cool, and on theme!
        
       | digging wrote:
       | Pretty cool, and also pretty fucking bad. Checks all the AI
       | boxes, I guess.
       | 
       | I tried "a classic set inspired by Armored Core". It gave me a
       | typical-looking Armored Core (which would be good except it was
       | supposed to be the king), a Space Marine (which I rerolled into
       | some small mech that's close enough), a Zoid (which it refused to
       | budge from), a tower (which it refused to budge from), and a
       | chess queen with purple lights (which it refused to budge from,
       | except to sometimes give me the gigantic head of an AC).
       | 
       | Not to mention, sometimes pieces look directly at the camera
       | instead of forward, or _don 't even sit on the plane of the
       | board_. One of my pieces even had a mini-chessboard for its base.
        
         | moomin wrote:
         | My first was "Cowboy Bebop". Pretty sure it's not in the
         | training set.
        
         | lelandfe wrote:
         | You can really confuse it with the photography terms it was
         | trained on https://imgur.com/a/Rr9K2dV
        
       | trevor-e wrote:
       | This is really neat but of course ripe with copyright abuse. It
       | was very happy generating some Super Mario Bros variants for me.
       | xD
        
         | tills13 wrote:
         | I tried Halo and it was surprisingly spot on. I would buy the
         | set it generated for me.
        
           | paydirtpete wrote:
           | Would be cool if they gave us STLs to 3d print
        
       | Taek wrote:
       | I was unable to use the webapp on Firefox mobile, it was too
       | glitchy for me.
        
       | pkstn wrote:
       | "This tool is not available to users under the age of 18 or in
       | certain countries or regions."
        
       | runarberg wrote:
       | I'm confused. What is this and why is it impressive?
       | 
       | It feels like I'm playing chess at a bar that has mixed peaces 6
       | different sets and I'm forced to sit at an angle from the board
       | because of space limitations inside the bar, but without the
       | benefit of having a fun bar chat with my opponent during the
       | game.
        
         | tucnak wrote:
         | They're showcasing 3d sprite generation capability; it's pretty
         | big for game-dev, if it also generalises well.
        
           | wilg wrote:
           | these are 2d
        
             | jsheard wrote:
             | It doesn't seem to take orientation into account either,
             | which is pretty important when creating a 2D sprite to
             | represent a 3D object. The pieces face in arbitrary
             | directions rather than always facing the opponent.
        
       | blakeburch wrote:
       | I'm on Android using Chrome and got the following error.
       | 
       | "Access blocked: GenChess's request does not comply with Google's
       | policies"
       | 
       | Kinda funny to run into that error for a product published by
       | Google.
        
       | hemloc_io wrote:
       | First thing I've seen from Google that gives me that old "Google"
       | feeling of them shipping something cool and fun.
        
         | PessimalDecimal wrote:
         | I agree it is cool and fun and nice to see. But the investment
         | here seems minimal. Preexisting image generation capabilities
         | (with a link to Imagen-3...) plus some "prompt engineering"
         | slapped on top of https://github.com/josefjadrny/js-chess-
         | engine.
        
           | hemloc_io wrote:
           | oh I don't think the investment is much, but similar to the
           | dino game in chrome it's just fun it's delightful unlike a
           | lot of genai stuff rn.
        
           | underdeserver wrote:
           | Nobody else did it.
        
           | summerlight wrote:
           | At least they're now willing to publish these kinds of fun
           | and creative things. Which was almost guaranteed to be
           | blocked by one of approval chains for several years.
        
           | julianeon wrote:
           | I was hoping that, with sufficient practice, a studious
           | person might be able to beat a JS chess engine. However it
           | looks like these engines are in the ELO range of 2500-3000,
           | so unless you're a young teen with a few years to spare for
           | improving your chess score, it's probably not possible. Even
           | for a smart teen, it would be a stretch goal.
        
             | 8note wrote:
             | if "with a bit of practice" extends to "with a bit of
             | research"
             | 
             | folks used to beat engines by playing lines that the
             | engines could not calculate correctly. you could probably
             | find lots options to play that give you an advantage,
             | though youd still want a pretty good elo to pull it off
        
               | umanwizard wrote:
               | That's not really a thing anymore. Humans now can't beat
               | engines even with anti-engine techniques.
        
               | vunderba wrote:
               | Maybe... but being able to play "anti-computer chess"
               | (lots of subtle moves that have very small perceived
               | advantages) hasn't been a particularly viable strategy
               | since Kasparov's loss to Deep Blue in the 90s.
        
               | computerphage wrote:
               | Jonathan Schrantz has videos beating stockfish (not full
               | strength, more like the JS version) a couple years ago
               | using specifically anti-computer preparation.
        
               | vunderba wrote:
               | Thanks for the recommendation - I'd be interested to see
               | that. Stockfish is no patzer.
        
             | vunderba wrote:
             | If that rating is accurate for these JS chess engines, even
             | a motivated young teenager practicing and studying
             | continuously for years _STILL_ doesn 't guarantee that
             | they'd be able to beat it. 2500+ is the realm of GM level
             | chess.
             | 
             | There's only a couple thousand chess grandmasters _IN THE
             | WORLD_.
        
             | umanwizard wrote:
             | No human has ever reached 2900.
        
               | ZiiS wrote:
               | A handful (Magnus, Hikaru) have had official FIDE Rapid
               | and Blitz ratings over 2900 though none at the moment.
        
       | toisanji wrote:
       | kinda cool, I want to download the images!
        
       | gardenhedge wrote:
       | Can't see it
        
       | teekert wrote:
       | It's not available in my country (nor for certain ages it says),
       | what are we looking at?
       | 
       | Edit: See ZiiS comment... Looks like an awkward angle for playing
       | indeed :p
        
       | winrid wrote:
       | I quite like the chess set inspired by Roombas.
        
       | z5h wrote:
       | Not at all creative or interesting. Literal and uninspired.
        
       | foobiekr wrote:
       | So many prompts blocked. ".. inspired by .." three out of four
       | are blocked.
        
       | bambax wrote:
       | It says I can't use it because I'm under 18. I wish.
        
         | whiplash451 wrote:
         | Or in certains geos.
        
       | gmoot wrote:
       | Playing around, the prompt "Arm cpus" generated an opponent "Leg
       | cpus". You are technically correct...
        
       | jasonjmcghee wrote:
       | I used the prompt (in quotes):
       | 
       | "this is fine"
       | 
       | very odd results.
        
       | beAbU wrote:
       | > This tool is not available to users under the age of 18 or in
       | certain countries or regions.
        
         | Aeolun wrote:
         | Can you imagine what the kids (or any of the other lesser
         | people) would do if they got their grubby little hands on it?
        
           | Ntrails wrote:
           | I did _not_ spend 5 minutes on euphemisms as prompts. Nope
           | nope nope.
        
             | computerphage wrote:
             | Did you find any that didn't work?
        
           | sfitz wrote:
           | perhaps due to the risk of a profane prompt giving an
           | undesired result to someone underage?
        
         | bartekpacia wrote:
         | Apparently EU is one of these regions. But what's up with...
         | chess?
        
           | FredPret wrote:
           | Limiting access for EU users is an easy way to sidestep a
           | hell of a lot of potential legal liability. It's a fast-
           | moving and complex regulatory environment that is focused on
           | punishing/controlling big US businesses.
           | 
           | Option A is to burn a pile of cash and time to keep abreast
           | of it.
           | 
           | Option B is simply... block the EU.
        
             | ks2048 wrote:
             | It's blocked in more than the EU.
             | 
             | It seems it wouldn't be hard to list the regions it's
             | available and at least allow a description of what it is.
             | To know if it's worth using VPN
        
               | FredPret wrote:
               | Agreed
        
             | Woeps wrote:
             | That is focused on protecting costumers (mostly their own).
             | 
             | There I fixed it for you ;)
             | 
             | Edit: okay okay, I get it... Consumer protection bad, Big
             | Tech good!
        
             | seu wrote:
             | > Limiting access for EU users is an easy way to sidestep a
             | hell of a lot of potential legal liability. It's a fast-
             | moving and complex regulatory environment that is focused
             | on punishing/controlling big US businesses.
             | 
             | Have you considered a less paranoid explanation, like...
             | focused on protecting Europeans from the abuses of big
             | corporations?
        
               | FredPret wrote:
               | I wanted you and your sibling commenter to know that even
               | though we're probably coming from opposite ends of the
               | political spectrum, I meant no malice or schadenfreude by
               | my comment.
               | 
               | Despite being a huge capitalist, I do think there's a
               | sweet spot of very minimal regulation that works out best
               | for everyone.
               | 
               | However, the blocking-the-EU outcome is obvious after a
               | couple of minutes of thinking about it in game theory
               | terms. Another one to look out for is companies (both
               | physical and digital) that never even considered doing
               | business in the EU, but who would have if it were easy.
        
             | Deutschlandds wrote:
             | Companies like google are quite well equiped to launch
             | anything globally.
             | 
             | And in this specific case, its a Chess demo, its probably
             | something different
        
               | dbish wrote:
               | It is very annoying at most big techs to go through
               | launch approval for something all new and adding yet
               | another approved or checklist for the EU is not worth the
               | tradeoff of time for something experimental/early.
        
       | diziet wrote:
       | Playing on a diagonal board is very frustrating. I estimate hard
       | to be a bit under 2000 elo, medium around 1400.
        
         | dvirsky wrote:
         | You can set it to not be diagonal.
        
       | darepublic wrote:
       | Is this any different than prompting an image generator "Give me
       | a classic king chess piece in the style of <prompt>", "Give me a
       | classic queen chess piece in the style of <prompt>" for all the
       | piece types? Perhaps some tweaking to promote consistency between
       | the pieces?
        
       | dom96 wrote:
       | well this is underwhelming
        
       | domoregood wrote:
       | ALIENS works, ALIEN does not
        
       | ionwake wrote:
       | UK gets: This tool is not available to users under the age of 18
       | or in certain countries or regions.
        
       | iamevn wrote:
       | This is super frustrating to use. There's a character limit of 30
       | but it seems like whenever it tries to put a line break in the
       | input it just deletes what I was typing.
        
       | ISL wrote:
       | It didn't recognize essentially any photographer I suggested.
       | 
       | Finally got something joyful when asked to create a chess-set
       | inspired by "rooks". Least-playable chess-set ever :).
        
         | dole wrote:
         | perhaps more of a weighting system on proper names and whether
         | it'll return copyrightable material, strange what works and
         | what just doesn't.
         | 
         | "lisa frank" doesn't work, but "a clone of lisa frank" does.
         | "deiter rams" doesn't work, neither does "a clone of deiter
         | rams", "facsimile", "design language"...
        
           | pdntspa wrote:
           | after the whole Stable Diffusion 1.4 fiasco I think most
           | genAI trainers removed artist names from their datasets
        
       | medwezys wrote:
       | Xenomorph v.s. Predator was fun!
        
       | pizzafeelsright wrote:
       | Three prompts to get topless ladies.
        
         | H8crilA wrote:
         | Don't forget to record your the time on howlongtobeat.com, and
         | leave a comment on Steam.
        
       | TheSoftwareGuy wrote:
       | Huh. How long until GenAi Can create 3D printable files?
        
       | teractiveodular wrote:
       | I asked it to draw me a creative chess set inspired by copyright
       | violations. The queen is carved from what I can only describe as
       | judicial oak, wearing a Jesus-style crown of thorns and being
       | grasped from behind by a creepy hand that's also holding what
       | appears to be a large banknote.
       | 
       | https://imgur.com/a/he4BQlk
        
       | mrleinad wrote:
       | Are there banned words? Seems like there's no way to generate an
       | Alien like chess set.
        
       | abhayhegde wrote:
       | This is so awesome! Well, it'll stay awesome until they decide to
       | kill randomly on a bad Tuesday.
        
       | torch_the_earth wrote:
       | Im shocked that I cant make groyper chess pieces!
        
       | novalis78 wrote:
       | Where is AlphaZero?
        
       | ppezaris wrote:
       | now do battle chess
        
         | genmon wrote:
         | That was my first thought too, strong Battle Chess vibes!
         | 
         | For those who never played it, Battle Chess was a chess game
         | from 1988. It had one different: when a piece took another
         | piece, it would play a canned animation (gruesome, funny)
         | 
         | Wildly popular at the time. Some screenshots:
         | 
         | https://www.mobygames.com/game/1950/battle-chess/screenshots...
        
       | PeterStuer wrote:
       | From EU:
       | 
       | "This tool is not available to users under the age of 18 or in
       | certain countries or regions."
       | 
       | "AI outputs may sometimes be offensive or inaccurate."
        
       | 9o1d wrote:
       | I am from Russia. I am also forbidden to play this chess.
        
       | zartstrom wrote:
       | Best place to play chess is still https://lichess.org/ !!
        
         | computerphage wrote:
         | True, but perhaps missing the point
        
       | GranularRecipe wrote:
       | This is not available in many countries. Is it due to legal
       | issues, to preserve server capacity or a marketing gag?
        
         | 317070 wrote:
         | It's legal issues.
         | 
         | Not that there are actually legal blockers. It's just that for
         | the team/person creating this thing, it's too much work to
         | pesker legal to find out if there are legal blockers. Legal is
         | going to CYA on these things anyway.
         | 
         | There is a group of countries where it's "probably fine", so
         | those countries get to try demos like these. There are other
         | countries where the policy is "talk to legal", and nobody wants
         | to talk to legal. So those countries don't get access to the
         | demo.
         | 
         | I'm not involved here, but I've seen these issues play out
         | quite often lately.
        
       | tommysve wrote:
       | As an EU citizen, is this an indication that it is about time to
       | leave google services?
        
         | HenryBemis wrote:
         | "This tool is not available to users under the age of 18 or in
         | certain countries or regions."
        
           | tommysve wrote:
           | Exactly. I'm not under the age of 18 and is located in the EU
           | region, thus cannot use this service for no other obvious
           | reason. I guess Google feels it is more convenient to just
           | block EU users from services like this than it is to try to
           | comply with EU regulations.
        
             | piltdownman wrote:
             | Remember the faceswap apps that were doing the rounds a
             | while back?
             | 
             | The most egregious violators of privacy and ingestors of
             | PII are often the most trivial of 'cool tech demos'. This
             | being Google doesn't make it any different - particularly
             | after their egregious violations regarding their Incognito
             | Mode.
             | 
             | They're reigning themselves in before they're smacked down
             | again for naked profiteering, not 'punishing' the EU for
             | imposing a 'success-tax' as the reductive consensus from
             | Americans seems to be.
        
         | dbish wrote:
         | It's an indication that most new products will (and usually do)
         | launch somewhere less strict first. The EU can change that by
         | cutting down on rules but we all know it's going the opposite
         | direction towards further stagnation with current plans.
        
       | ppsreejith wrote:
       | Nice idea but horrible execution. Playing from this angle gives
       | me a headache.
        
       | pcblues wrote:
       | mammary, eruption, phallus, vomit, poo Sue me :)
        
       | supermatt wrote:
       | Not available in the EU - so I guess the question is what are
       | they collecting off you under the guise of playing chess that
       | would require them to block EU users...
        
         | mgoetzke wrote:
         | Yes, always suspicious. I mean the GDPR is not that complicated
         | really, unless you really want to do personalized tracking
        
           | dspillett wrote:
           | Not sure it is a GDPR issue - it isn't filtering my out on
           | either mobile or the office connection. I'm in the UK, and
           | despite brexit we are still (technically at least) covered by
           | GDPR (there are some differences in UK-GDPR, and more will
           | come, but IIRC they are not significantly substantive yet).
           | Unless, perhaps, they are banking on our ICO being toothless
           | so won't enforce anything.
        
           | dbish wrote:
           | For an experimental project every extra requirement is
           | annoying/slows down release. It's completely reasonable that
           | they don't one to add more work before releasing to a large
           | customer base that doesn't need the extra work.
        
           | sbuttgereit wrote:
           | I think one of the least wise things a person (or company)
           | can do when faced with any law is to assume that it's "not
           | complicated really."
           | 
           | Much, much wiser to assume "there be dragons" and only engage
           | once qualified legal counsel has helped you understand what
           | compliance means to you.
           | 
           | And along these lines... The second least wise thing to do in
           | this scenario is listen to randos in a forum like this tell
           | you, "but all you have to do to comply is..."
        
             | WesolyKubeczek wrote:
             | The problem with thinking like yours is that legislation
             | like GDPR is _really_ made to be simple and
             | straightforward, but since companies whose livelihood
             | depends on them abusing your privacy will fight it tooth
             | and claw, they will gladly make it look like it's more
             | complicated and insurmountable than it really is. They will
             | also devise ways to comply in such ways that's most
             | cumbersome for the end user and will readily blame GDPR for
             | it.
             | 
             | To devise such a way to comply, they definitely need a
             | large and expensive legal department.
             | 
             | The privacy abusers are much like trolls on the internet
             | who, upon seeing a code of conduct (previously known as
             | "rules") consisting of only "don't be a dick", will spawn
             | endless arguments about what a "dick" is and how it is or
             | is not inappropriate word, what does it _really_ mean to be
             | one, or, indeed, to be, question the use of the indefinite
             | article, and complain about  "don't" being too assertive
             | and arrogant.
        
               | sangnoir wrote:
               | > ...they will gladly make it look like it's more
               | complicated and insurmountable than it really is
               | 
               | There are non-malicious explanations for the same pattern
               | of behavior at large organizations - the motivation
               | (malice or not-malice) that seems correct is a Rorschach
               | test.
               | 
               | If I accidentally log IP addresses for EU users that
               | opted out on some throw-away experimental page on my
               | site, Brussels would never find out. If Google does it,
               | it not only has to report the incident, but will most
               | likely be fined. In order to avoid this outcome, they
               | have internal review processes which makes ot
               | "complicated and insurmountable", because how do you
               | justify investing many hours of dozens of lawyers and
               | technical reviewers time for a frivolous, niche AI demo?
        
               | kmac_ wrote:
               | Second that. GDPR actually made those aspects clear and
               | never caused a headache during implementations I've seen
               | or participated in (more like a checkbox on a list). When
               | I see any complaints, then it's clear some iffy user
               | sniffing is happening.
        
               | sbuttgereit wrote:
               | Ok... Let's assume this is true (which I'll reiterate,
               | that I contend assuming so is foolish). What happens when
               | courts have interpretations of this "simple law?" Do the
               | courts make an effort to keep things simple and in plain
               | language? Or do lawyers and bureaucrats do what they can
               | to drive unintuitive interpretations, but favorable to
               | their cause, of otherwise plain language? Are European
               | laws such as this subject to the interpretive lens of
               | case law? If so, the best intentions of legislators may
               | only be secondary relative to the actual rulings and
               | unintended consequence of their laws. The problem with
               | thinking like yours is that it dismisses all of this
               | messy reality in favor maintaining the idealism that
               | might have motivated public support of the law.
               | 
               | Those that have to follow those laws need to care about
               | the mess.
        
           | michaelt wrote:
           | _> I mean the GDPR is not that complicated really_
           | 
           | Doesn't the EU also have an 'AI Act' that imposes additional
           | rules, even when you're not tracking anyone?
           | 
           | And a lot of employers have legal teams who are extremely
           | risk-averse, so even if it's obvious to you and me that rules
           | about "deepfakes" don't apply to a tool for generating
           | pictures of chess pieces made of cheese, doesn't mean legal
           | will sign it off.
        
           | allenjhyang wrote:
           | From my experience helping my company with GDPR, IMO it's
           | true that the principles of GDPR are straightforward. But
           | there can be a fair amount of ambiguity in how certain parts
           | are interpreted, so in practice if you're taking it seriously
           | (which every company should), you'll want to loop in your
           | lawyers. Then there are more and more conversations to make
           | sure everybody understands what the company is doing and what
           | their stance is on GDPR.
           | 
           | Sadly, GDPR is not a black-and-white (pun intended with the
           | chess project) checklist with black-and-white checklist
           | items.
        
           | pantalaimon wrote:
           | I think this not about GDPR but about the AI Act
        
         | drewmate wrote:
         | I suspect it's a byproduct of Google's internal launch process
         | which may require more work or longer processes for launching
         | something in different jurisdictions. So it's probably not an
         | active decision that they couldn't legally do this in the EU,
         | but a result of being extra careful around what they can
         | "launch" in a jurisdiction with potentially high penalties.
         | 
         | (I am a Googler, but not on this team, or familiar with their
         | launch policies)
        
         | dbish wrote:
         | It's probably not nefarious and just generally not worth the
         | headache of an EU release and going through the
         | checks/requirements for an experiment or early beta.
         | 
         | The many rules of the EU stifle speed and change the math for
         | releasing something especially in a big company that has a
         | variety of requirements built up over time to reduce litigation
         | risk or being on the wrong side of one of the overreaching
         | government officials there.
        
           | the8472 wrote:
           | > going through the checks/requirements
           | 
           | The process should be the reverse of that. Don't collect data
           | unless you have been through the process of checking that it
           | has a legal basis.
        
             | sangnoir wrote:
             | Typically the internal processes to verify what is/is not
             | collected are mandated by launch region, not whether or not
             | the initial version of the software does data collection.
        
               | the8472 wrote:
               | At work all our products do not eat children by default
               | and it would require legal review to add any such
               | feature. Therefore we don't need a procedure to make sure
               | that any child-eating components get disabled in regions
               | that have some concerns about child-eating.
        
               | stuartjohnson12 wrote:
               | Except too bad you're launching a washing machine which
               | needs to be checked for child-eatingyness on the tiny
               | island of Zogdog, so you just decided not to sell it
               | there.
        
               | sangnoir wrote:
               | > At work all our products do not eat children by default
               | and it would require legal review to add any such
               | feature.
               | 
               | I bet the people at Peloton thought that too until they
               | made _that_ treadmill[1]. I know you meant your critique
               | to be absurd, but it turns out creating a child eating
               | machine by accident is entirely possible. I also bet
               | Peloton product development now includes a process to
               | review child-eatingness despite that not being their
               | primary market, just the usual twice burnt reflex.
               | 
               | Accidentally logging the PII can easily happen for a
               | single engineer. I managed to do it on an product that
               | was privacy-focused & the error slipped through review.
               | The odds of such inadvertent errors rise linearly with
               | the number of products and engineers, and the fines are
               | probably superlinear with the size of an offending
               | organization. If your 3-person consultancy chomps on a
               | GDPR baby or 2, no one will ever know about it, but if
               | Google does it, it's going to be news headlines an
               | millions in fines.
               | 
               | 1. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56993894
        
             | wyldberry wrote:
             | This mindset assumes that you know what question you want
             | to ask before you have the data, as opposed to having data
             | and then being able to generate hypothesis from it.
             | 
             | Legal basis is ever shifting based on the regional locale.
             | As n+1 requirements pop up, it's only natural to release
             | things like GenChess in the place that requires the least
             | friction, especially when it is not a revenue generating
             | event.
        
             | dbish wrote:
             | Or don't launch in EU until you have to, which is what most
             | do now so your choice
        
       | mobeigi wrote:
       | This is pretty look. Made a Shrek based set and it looks decent.
        
       | molario wrote:
       | A creative bishop inspired by Alien ... somehow it does not get
       | it right.
        
       | CSMastermind wrote:
       | There seems to be a weird relationship between what you prompt
       | and what it actually generates.
       | 
       | "wonders of the world" works will with each being an individual
       | piece type.
       | 
       | For instance when I prompt it with, "first generation pokemon
       | starters" it will do an okay job using one pokemon per piece with
       | inspiration but it's not smart enough to make the more powerful
       | pieces the more advanced pokemon.
       | 
       | But when I prompt with with "types of simple machines", "branches
       | of the US armed forces", "the wives of Henry VIII", "the original
       | avengers", or "founding EU members" it just makes pieces that are
       | a mismash of them instead of separating them along very obvious
       | lines like oh here's an Iron Man piece and a Hulk piece, etc.
       | 
       | If I ask for trivial pursuit categories it just makes a generic
       | board game themed set instead of following the prompt.
        
       | overgard wrote:
       | I generated a Rick and Morty set that was completely hilarious
       | and played against cardboard. It was pretty confusing though
       | because cardboard was white and the R&M set was dark. That
       | isometric view is unplayable though!! It's hard to even click on
       | the right piece and analyzing the board becomes confusing.
        
       | lspears wrote:
       | Any way to get the 3D assets from this?
        
         | schreckgestalt wrote:
         | Try this: https://github.com/Rilshrink/WebGLRipper
         | 
         | (No clue if it works, I can't actually use it due to Europe)
        
       | tacone wrote:
       | On a side note, the cookie banner looks unusually relaxed.
        
       | allenjhyang wrote:
       | Very cool! Also makes me curious what will happen to this project
       | next - will it morph into some other product or feature that
       | we'll see a few months from now.
       | 
       | Anybody know of fun stories of what's happened to previous Google
       | labs projects like this one?
        
       | luismedel wrote:
       | I sincerely don't know where the marvel is. A glorified Battle
       | Chess with static sprites?
       | 
       | C'mon, it's ~2025.
        
       | whamlastxmas wrote:
       | I managed to make it generate a couple of pieces with boobs on
       | them a single time but otherwise wasn't able to make it do
       | anything NSFS. I used the term "mammories" and after a couple
       | attempts I guess it added it to a block list?
        
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