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Yahoo
2 minutes ago
- Yahoo
'Diaper Diplomacy': YouTube channel features AI baby versions of politicians
Move over E*TRADE Baby — a new generation of talking tykes is going viral, but instead of stock quotes, they're politicians discussing foreign policy, the economy and bickering in congressional committee hearings. Making its debut on YouTube, Diaper Diplomacy videos use artificial intelligence software to transform some of the nation's most well-known political figures, such as President Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.), into irritable infants while using the actual audio from the interviews or press conferences. With more than 67,000 subscribers and over 40 videos, the channel has garnered millions of views and a loyal following through its recreations of viral political moments, starring "babyfied" politicians of both parties. Diaper Diplomacy has recreated videos of a variety of notable figures in American politics, ranging from Trump visiting a construction site with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez testifying before Congress, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., explaining how he discovered and placed a dead bear cub in his car - among others. "Trigger Warning (for everyone): I roast both sides," according to the channel description, "Because let's be honest —our politicians act like toddlers, and it's time someone put them back in time-out." While some videos are for "members only," the channel's creator has widely shared numerous videos as fundraisers for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, allowing "babies to help other babies."USA TODAY has contacted the White House and Booker for comment. But who runs Diaper Diplomacy? According to a bio on "Buy Me a Coffee," Diaper Diplomacy is run by a "regular guy" who is chasing his dreams as a video creator. "[I am] trying to keep my head above water while raising three kids — including a 10-week-old who seems to think diapers grow on trees. If one of my videos gave you a laugh, I'd be super grateful for your support," the bio says. "Every little bit helps me keep making more content (and helps keep my little dude stocked up on diapers)." When recently asked by a viewer in the comments section whether the channel had become a full-time gig, the response was that it's been a "wild ride," and, hopefully, "getting close." "It's not paying all the bills yet, I've got a lot of mouths to feed and actual diapers to buy, but I think within a few months it can," was the response. "We'll see." The channel also touts video-specific merchandise, membership-only perks and access to "Diaper Doppelgänger GTP," the AI tool used to "babify" politicians on both sides of the aisle for $9.95. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is 'Diaper Diplomacy?' AI videos of baby politicians go viral
Yahoo
2 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tapology's new system ranks every single UFC fighter — which may be welcome news for some, but not others
Tapology has removed vibes from the UFC rankings. Those little numbers next to a fighter's name? At least on Tapology, long a trusted online record-keeper in the sport of MMA, human beings and their fickle feelings will no longer have a say in the hierarchy. Instead, Tapology's new system uses a proprietary algorithm to rank every active UFC fighter — which in some weight classes means tracking more than 70 fighters through the ups and downs of in-cage competition. 'We want the system to be consistent and unemotional,' Tapology founder Gregory Saks told Uncrowned. 'That sounds a little bit boring and robotic, but it is, we think, the best thing when you're talking about rankings. You wouldn't want vibes to control which NFL teams make the playoffs and which one has home-team advantage. It has to be a robotic system that says, 'These are the rules and we don't care how excited the Eagles fans are by how they looked last weekend.'' These new algorithm-based rankings have been roughly five years in the making, according to Saks. The goal was to create an automated system that would focus only on the important data to create a ranking for every single fighter in the UFC. But that's more challenging that it might initially seem, especially in a sport like MMA. Other such systems used to rank chess players, for instance, had the benefit of large sample sizes to draw from. A typical UFC career might span only a few fights, or it might include 20 bouts spread out over the course of a decade. And then there's the question of what weight to give to each outing. Does a quick knockout win over a lower-ranked fighter count for more than a close decision victory over an established opponent? What about wins that come against once-great fighters now on the decline? And what's it worth to beat an opponent who took the fight on short notice? The many intangibles of the fight game have long proved to be an impediment to any automatic or computer-based rankings systems. At the same time, if the MMA world agrees on nothing else, it's a disdain for the current 'media rankings' system employed by the UFC. Even UFC CEO Dana White seems to hate the rankings produced by a small body of little-known media members that includes local radio stations and obscure websites. White has even discussed coming up with AI rankings system with the help of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Anything to replace the current system. But according to Saks, artificial intelligence won't solve the problem, in part because it doesn't know what matters and what doesn't in this sport. Tapology's system looks at each UFC fighter's last six fights in the promotion. It also measures strength of schedule, the quality of each win or loss, as well as various other factors such as short-notice opponent changes. The exact way it balances these variables is Tapology's own 'secret sauce,' Saks said, making it a proprietary company secret that he declined to reveal. But after much tinkering over the course of several years, including some experiments with the kind of rating system developed by chess master and physics professor Arpad Elo, Saks believes the system is now capable of producing rankings that are accurate and fair. 'The early versions were unsuccessful and not very good,' Saks said. 'Like many people out there, both sort of hobbyists who like stats and playing around with data, as well as more serious people who are running websites about this kind of thing, we started with an Elo rating system because this is kind of the go-to mathematical approach for how you might rank competitors in competitions. These are used in chess and tennis. These used to be used for college football. The Elo ratings are kind of the default place to start. We tried that and we were not getting results that were acceptable. I mean, lots of it would look good, but then you'd have way too many things that were just ludicrous, where a fighter that nobody would think was a top-15 fighter, not even close, would appear as number three for some strange reason.' Ultimately, Saks said, his team decided that they needed to build their own system that was specific to MMA and its many quirks. The result is interesting for a couple different reasons. For one thing, unlike the UFC's media-generated rankings system that only concerns itself with the top 16 fighters in each weight class (one champion, followed by a numbered list of 15 ranked contenders), the Tapology rankings track every single UFC fighter. This means that each fighter on the roster can now see exactly how far he or she has to go, at least according to Tapology. Someone like Michael Chiesa might previously have only known that he was lurking somewhere outside the top 15. Now he can look and see that Tapology currently has him as the promotion's No. 17 welterweight, which isn't too shabby. Conversely, a fighter like Jeremy Stephens can look at Tapology's lightweight rankings and see himself at No. 83 (out of 94 total lightweights on the list), which is bound to sting a bit more for someone who might otherwise have only known that they were hovering somewhere in the vague outer darkness of the division. Now they (and everyone else) can see just how far from the top they are, which might be unwelcome news for many fighters. The flip side, Saks pointed out, is that it also gives fighters a way of determining which matchups make sense for them. If you're the 36th featherweight on the list and you were thinking of calling out a fellow 145-pounder you dislike or just think you could beat, you might change your mind if you knew he was ranked somewhere north of the No. 50 spot. 'We believe that the new Tapology system, with rankings for the entire division, can give new exposure and ammunition to athletes who are not in the top 15 of the media rankings,' Saks said. 'Now they can say, 'Hey, I'm No. 17 or No. 22 in Tapology, so I'm right on the cusp.' And maybe they can use that as far as their PR campaign to justify why they think they need a bigger fight or a more compelling fight. We also think it can play hopefully a useful role for fans who are trying to just put meaning behind what they're watching. Now they'll understand why each fight means something, because the winner might move up in these rankings. But then also the fighters and their teams [can use it] in justifying why perhaps they should be lined up for a bigger fight next.' But there's another side to that coin. Once they can look at exact numbers, it might occur to some fighters that their scheduled bouts do very little for them in terms of rankings. Take Saturday night's win for UFC flyweight contender Tatsuro Taira, for example. Headed into that main-event bout, Taira was ranked sixth in the 125-pound division by the Tapology rankings — the same spot he held in the UFC's own internal rankings. Hyun Sung Park, his opponent, was unranked by the UFC, but ranked at No. 23 by Tapology. The dominant submission win for Taira didn't move him up at all in Tapology's rankings, Saks said, mostly because he was facing a much lower-ranked opponent who was serving as a late-notice replacement. According to the Tapology rankings algorithm, there was basically nothing Taira could have done in this fight in order to change his ranking and move closer to the top of the list. 'It is kind of like treading water, essentially, is how the Tapology system saw that [fight],' Saks said. 'To move ahead of elite contender top-10 fighters, you need to demonstrate that you are performing better than them. And our system did not think that Saturday night's performance, as awesome as it was, proved that he deserves a higher position in the ranking.' It's not hard to imagine how this, too, could rankle some fighters. Obviously, fighting for money is about more than the number next to your name, and the UFC has never been all that constrained even by its own rankings once it sees a fight it would like to put together, so maybe Taira is unconcerned with where the Tapology algorithm puts him. Then again, some fighters may not love knowing that they're headed into matchups that offer no possibility of positional advancement. Some might even conceivably decline certain fights on that basis. But then don't rankings always exist, at least in part, to give us something to argue about? It's why sports websites love them so much. They foster engagement by giving readers something to get angry and bicker about in the comments section. They are a springboard to discussion and debate. Tapology's system provides more date to argue about, but also substitutes a faceless computer algorithm for the human rankings panels, which might make spewing online vitriol a little less fun for users. For his part, Saks isn't terribly concerned that the rankings will mean either too much or too little to those who view them. Receiving angry emails over all aspects of its record-keeping has been part of the job at Tapology, Saks said, and he doesn't expect that to change any time soon. But now, at least, there's more information for readers to sort through. 'What's good about it for fans is having a reliable ranking system that now not only talks about the top 15, but allows you to understand the context of every fight that's happening on the card,' Saks said. 'Hopefully they'll get more enjoyment out of watching the fights and knowing that there's more at stake than just whether or not these fighters will maybe appear in the top 15 soon. So for fans, I think the best-case scenario is that this adds some enjoyment and fun and debate. For Tapology as a business, if it's driving more eyeballs and users to the site, then that helps our business grow and allows us to put money into doing other stuff, whether it's a new ranking system or something totally different. These features that we add take time and effort, so we have to fund them somehow.' As for how UFC fighters and officials might react? That's a trickier question. It's possible both will choose to ignore this new system, at least at first. But, Saks pointed out, with enough time and chatter from the fans, that could change. After all, if you were a fighter swirling somewhere among the unranked masses of the UFC roster, wouldn't you at least pull those rankings up to see where you stand? Wouldn't you be just a little bit curious?
Geek Tyrant
3 minutes ago
- Geek Tyrant
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER Sequel Series Plot Details and Sarah Michelle Gellar Drops Training Video with New Slayer — GeekTyrant
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is making a comeback, and Sarah Michelle Gellar is sharpening her stakes. The iconic slayer is stepping back into the world of Sunnydale, this time mentoring a brand-new Chosen One played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong. Fans first met Armstrong in Star Wars: Skeleton Crew , and now she's taking on a lead role in the upcoming Buffy sequel series, stepping into the shoes of a young slayer named Nova. Thanks to a leaked logline, we've got some story details. Nova is described as 'a 16-year-old bookworm' who discovers her destiny as a slayer in a newly rebuilt Sunnydale. The town is now split between gritty Old Sunnydale and the more upscale New Sunnydale. Things kick off during 'Vampire Weekend,' a local festival commemorating Sunnydale's eerie past. That's when the vampire duo Jack and Shirley rise from a construction site, murdering a teen and kicking off a ritual to unleash a vampire army at a place ominously dubbed the Cursed Circle. How Buffy returns to the fold isn't fully clear yet, but fans can expect her to show up once word of a new slayer spreads. Gellar recently dropped a behind-the-scenes training video on Instagram, teasing her physical prep with Armstrong to get into vampire-slaying mode. In a previously shared heartfelt post, Gellar opened up about how the revival came together: 'So….. you might have heard some news this week, but I realize you haven't heard from me. Three years ago, I got a call from my dear friend and mentor, Gail Berman. She told me that she wanted me to sit down with Chloé Zhao to hear her take on a potential 'Buffy' revival. 'I was blown away that Chloé even knew who I was, but, as I've always done, I told Gail that I just didn't see a way for the show to exist again. We'd always been aligned on that, but this time I heard something different in her voice. I eventually agreed to go (mainly just to meet Chloé) and our twenty minute coffee quickly turned into a four hour adventure. 'We laughed, we cried, but mostly we both talked about how much this show means to us. While I didn't agree to anything at that meeting, I did shock myself by agreeing to continue the conversation. 'These conversations did, in fact, continue over the next few years and eventually we added the incredible Nora and Lilla Zuckerman to our little tribe until ultimately, one day, we landed on an idea. I have always listened to the fans and heard your desire to revisit 'Buffy' and her world, but it was not something I could do unless I was sure we would get it right. 'This has been a long process, and it's not over yet. I promise you, we will only make this show if we know we can do it right. And I will tell you that we are on the path there. I feel so lucky to be on this journey with these four unbelievably talented women, all of whom love 'Buffy' as much as I do. And as much as you do. Thank you to all the fans who never stopped asking for this. This will be for you.' The sequel series is being developed by Nora Zuckerman and Lila Zuckerman, who will serve as writers, showrunners, and executive producers. Oscar-winning Eternals director Chloé Zhao is directing the pilot and executive producing through her Book of Shadows banner. Gellar is also on board as an executive producer alongside Gail Berman, Fran Kuzui, Kaz Kuzui, and Dolly Parton via Sandollar, Suite B, and 20th Television/Searchlight Television. This isn't the first time a Buffy reboot has been in development. An earlier version, which would've featured a Black lead and was being written by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 's Monica Owusu-Breen, was shelved last year. But this new take has real momentum behind it. With Gellar back in action and a the new slayer in Nova, the next chapter of Buffy the Vampire Slayer could be something that fans will love!
