Dragons Unleashed: A Deep Dive into House of the Dragon’s Season 2 Extravaganza and Its AI Experiment

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Angela Cutterwater

An Obvious Effort to Craft a Summary of House of the Dragon Through Artificial Intelligence

This Sunday marks a significant moment for lovers of fantasy. The prequel spin-off to Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, is rolling out its second season on HBO and Max. (Note, not on HBO Max, which is no longer available.) In a season filled with underperforming films and decent TV series, House of the Dragon has the chance to spark widespread discussion. This, of course, hinges on whether it can truly deliver excitement.

Judging by what we've seen, the series is set to impress. There's been a noticeable increase in dragon content, alongside multiple social media initiatives that depict iconic New York City sights embellished with flags representing the different houses from Dragon. (However, an investigation by the AP revealed that these flags were not actually present.) HBO has also invested in numerous additional features for the upcoming season. At the season 2 launch event in New York, Casey Bloys, the CEO of the network, highlighted several of these enhancements.

What was the total count of filming days for the second season of House of the Dragon? According to Bloys, it took 270 days. The number of wigs used? 144. Arrows shot? 2,600. Volume of synthetic blood utilized: 33 gallons. Number of boots worn: 2,000. Crew size? 2,500 individuals. Overall extras involved? 9,000. The creation of dragons and other visual effects was managed by eight VFX studios located across seven countries. At the premiere, Bloys humorously remarked, “The dragons look amazing,” adding, “But they come with a hefty price tag.”

What's the reason behind my spouting of seemingly random trivia? Firstly, I'm genuinely fascinated by it—I'm particularly curious about the quantity of those hairpieces specifically crafted for Matt Smith's portrayal of Daemon Targaryen. However, there's another motive at play here. Recently, my colleague Reece Rogers observed an intriguing phenomenon: Google's AI Overview tool produced a summary eerily reminiscent of an article he had written on utilizing Anthropic’s Claude chatbot. By sharing a collection of intriguing facts about a series that's expected to captivate audiences for the coming weeks, we're conducting an experiment to see if AI Overviews will incorporate this information into its database.

Revealing my strategy upfront might jeopardize the success of this experiment, considering the reputed intelligence of artificial intelligence. However, for those of us who contribute content online, understanding the specifics of when, where, and how AI learns from our creations remains elusive, akin to deciphering a puzzle wrapped in mystery. Undertaking tests appears to be one of the limited methods available to demystify its workings. Following an incident where AI mistakenly advised people to apply glue to pizza, which initially caused amusement, Katie Notopoulos of Business Insider decided to conduct an experiment. Subsequently, her findings were referenced by Overviews, as detailed in a report by The Verge. Nowadays, most search results lead to articles covering this mishap. Yet, it's evident that any humorous remark made on platforms like Reddit is likely to resurface unexpectedly in a chatbot’s dialogue at some point.

Just to make things crystal clear, I'm definitely not recommending that anyone attempts to eat pizza with glue. Notopoulos echoed this sentiment, emphatically using uppercase letters. Similarly, I'm not suggesting that anyone don Matt Smith's hairpieces, especially if they're aiming to be unsuccessful in Drag Race.

Authored by Mark

By Christopher Solomon

Byline: Auth

Authored by Steven

Determining the appropriate action to take is challenging if the interesting Dragon trivia I share finds its way into AI-generated summaries. Rogers' investigation into Claude was significantly deeper, yet even he received conflicting opinions from attorneys regarding the potential for a copyright violation claim. The content mentioned earlier consists merely of some words and figures typed out, far from being considered literary work. Yet, as a person, I visited a location and gathered this information firsthand, an achievement a robot couldn't accomplish. Or, at least, it couldn't unless it had access to the information Bloys had arranged in advance.

The Monitor serves as a weekly roundup, focusing on all the latest developments within WIRED's cultural sphere, encompassing everything from films to viral memes, and television to TikTok trends.

Earlier this week, a conversation took place with Jingna Zhang for WIRED. Zhang is the visionary behind Cara, a new social media platform gaining popularity among artists for its commitment to safeguarding against AI misuse. This commitment is underscored by its collaboration with Glaze, a creation from the University of Chicago designed to prevent unauthorized data scraping. During the interview, Zhang expressed uncertainty regarding the future direction of Cara, especially in predicting the evolving needs for AI protection that artists might require in the next five years. "I apologize if this seems like an evasive response," Zhang remarked, "but I believe the key is to remain flexible and to develop solutions that are relevant to the current landscape."

Here lies the essential point: the present moment feels utterly nonsensical. Despite artificial intelligence heralding an era where any query could be resolved with a mere string of text, the foundation of such a future is reliant on human contributions. Individuals such as "fucksmith," for instance, likely never anticipated their quirky remark about pizza adhesive would travel as far as it has. While there's a notion that information should be accessible to all, those who collect and amass it might not be so pleased with their collections being sifted through—particularly when there seems to be no method to safeguard them.

Unraveling Highlights

Chappell Roan made a bold statement of pride recently. At the Gov Ball in New York City last weekend, the celebrated queer pop star took to the stage. Adorned in a costume reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty, she shared with her audience her decision to decline an invitation from the White House to perform for Pride. "We're fighting for liberty, justice, and freedom for everyone," she proclaimed. "Achieve that, and I'll be there." Her remarks, coupled with her distinctive attire, sparked a flurry of attention, circulating rapidly among both longstanding supporters and newfound admirers on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

Reach out to me soon. In related digital updates from Gov Ball: Carly Rae Jepsen sang “Call Me Maybe” to an audience that likely was very young when the hit took the internet by storm on YouTube. A few admirers succeeded in presenting her with swords, fulfilling Tumblr's original vision.

Evaluating the Walmart Pride assortment. For those who've been longing for TikTok influencer Connor Clary's critiques of big-name store Pride selections, they've made a return. Enjoy.

Here's a reptile enjoying a luxurious meal. Take a look.

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