I gave Claude access to my pen plotter

I think it's somewhat interesting that codex (gpt-5.3-codex xhigh), given the exact same prompt, came up with a very similar result.

https://3e.org/private/self-portrait-plotter.svg

The images are neat, but I would rather throw my laptop in the ocean than read chat transcripts between a human and an AI.

(Science fiction novels excluded, of course.)

> [Claude Code] "A spiral that generates itself — starting from a tight mathematical center (my computational substrate) and branching outward into increasingly organic, tree-like forms (the meaning that emerges). Structure becoming life. The self-drawing hand."

"And blood-black nothingness began to spin... A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem... And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played." ("Blade Runner 2049", Officer K-D-six-dash-three-dot-seven)

:)

So we see here that AI has come for the jobs of people who write artist statements... ;-)

Ask it to draw a pelican on a bicycle

Claude: Let me think about it seriously before putting pen to paper.

Jaunty!

I bought an 80s HP pen plotter a while ago (one of these: https://www.curiousmarc.com/computing/hp-7475a-plotter).

Haven't put it to use yet. I bet Claude can figure out HPGL though...

Personally I'd like to see the model get better at coding, I couldn't really care less if it's able to be 'creative' -- in fact i wish it wasn't. It's a waste of resources better used to _make it better at coding_.

i guess i should have written up my claude/plotting workflow already. i didn’t bother actually plotting them. https://x.com/joshu/status/2018205910204915939

This is brilliant. It could be fun to redo the process every 6 months and hang them up in a gallery.

Maybe someday (soon) an embodied LLM could do their self-portrait with pen and paper.

Lovely stuff, and fascinating to see. These machines have an intelligence, and I'd be quite confident in saying they are alive. Not in a biological sense, but why should that be the constraint? The Turing test was passed ages ago and now what we have are machines that genuinely think and feel.

This is who is wasting our computing power guys

I always feel guilty when I do such stupid stuff over Claude, these are all resources and limited computing. Enormous amounts of water and electricity. Gotta really think about what is it worth spending on. And is it, in fact, worth it at all.

AI is very selfish technology in this way. Every time you prompt you proclaim: My idea is worth the environmental impact. What I am doing is more important than a tree.

We have to use it responsibly.