AI for Creatives

10/6/2023: Read an article in the Atlantic recently: "Does Sam Altman Know What He’s Creating? The OpenAI CEO’s ambitious, ingenious, terrifying quest to create a new form of intelligence." Honestly, I had to skip over parts because I just couldn't absorb it. Too much all at once. Altman has attempted to project a certain tempered and "I'm the ethics guy" persona when he's testified before Congress: it's admirable but also hollow at this point. The intelligence has been created, now they know it's power, and here comes the damage control. Too little too late, in my opinion, but here we are.

However, one part stuck out to me particularly. When the author visited OpenAI's offices, this was one observation: "The office was packed every day that I was there, and unsurprisingly, I didn’t see anyone who looked older than 50." This demographic skew can be found in any workplace. I think it's by design. Those of us who are older would most likely argue against this relentless pursuit of what looks like "progress." We have wisdom and experience. We've seen these waves come and go. 

Many of us in this age bracket are curious and inspired by whatever is being marketed as the latest "innovation." I myself am engaging with the AI topic as fully as my life will allow. We aren't turning a blind eye and glorifying the past. But we've also seen many scenarios where rushing into the newest thing isn't always the best plan. The glorification of youth in these fields I think is in part because they lack the life experience to question whether this is actually a good idea. They can be seduced and sold on the idea that more is always better.

To whom it may concern: It would be wise to employ more of us "elders" to help manage this genie that's already out of the bottle.

10/3/2023: Been thinking about this question: "What's real?" This is a huge concern for many people around AI. The line between human and machine was already blurred with the internet. Then ChatGPT in November 2022. And it just keeps speeding up. It's scary. The consensus is that now we're leveling up yet again; where the margin between virtual and real becomes smaller and smaller. There will come a time when we honestly can't answer this question. What's a human brain to do? The potential to be manipulated is massive. We already see this. Loved ones (and/or ourselves) falling prey to scammers and getting catfished. One concrete answer to this issue is "go to therapy." We each have to do an internal audit. What are our triggers? What is unresolved trauma? So that when we react to these increasingly sophisticated versions of "reality," we can feel confident that we're doing our very best to engage with good intent and clear-mindedness. This concept of intention is so important. It's truly all we ever have to offer. We can never know the whole picture, the full "why" events unfold in specific ways, or why people act the way they do. But we can get really clear about where we're coming from if we do this internal audit. We'll still make mistakes and stumble. But that's also how we learn.

9/23/2023: It's my birthday. I'm 50. But I want to dedicate this entry to my mom, who turned 75 earlier this year. This week she took action, and, in doing so,  is displaying one of the greatest feats of courage I've ever seen. She is facing down a demon that has haunted her for decades. I have no illusions; it is the first step in a long, nonlinear healing process. But damn, mom, you did that. I love you so much. 

How does this relate to AI? Don't count us humans out. Our resilience. Our ability to take control of our own destiny and change the course of our narrative at any moment. Free will. We each have that power. There's so much noise out there and so much to worry about if we let it overpower us. If my mom can do what she's doing, I believe that all of us have that same power. I have faith in us humans to choose healing for ourselves and by extension healing for everyone.

9/18/2023: At the end of July, I wrote "If AI is going to flatten the world in terms of access and ultimately empower everyone, there will be some serious mourning and grieving to do. So many people have had it unimaginably hard for a long time." I realized recently that I haven't properly acknowledged my own struggle. This is more of a bookmark to which I will return. In the meantime, I look forward to a time when AI can help those of us with sensitive brains in a more efficient way than the field of mental health allows currently. It's been a rough life of trial and error. Not all bad, but I'm not gonna lie either. Not easy.

9/11/2023: Oh, 9/11. Just a couple of notes on this. I was working 6 blocks from the White House. We were ordered by our CEO to leave the city immediately. I sat in the taxi as we drove up Wisconsin Ave, listening to the radio, looking out the window at the perfectly blue sky. I got home, turned on the TV, and my body started shaking from the shock. And now I'm crying, so that's enough of that.

The Washington Post has named Josh Tyrangiel as their regular AI columnist. His piece was posted yesterday, entitled "You hate AI for all the right reasons. Now reconsider."

An excerpt: "I’ll be serving as The Post’s regular AI columnist for the next year, and the assignment is a relief. For me. I’ve spent months diving into the science, applications, promise and fears of artificial intelligence, and while I’m increasingly confident that species death is neither imminent nor likely, it’s much less clear what life is about to look like. I’m grateful not to have to ride the roller coaster alone."

Amen to these sentiments. I, for one, would prefer less roller coasters in general, but it's not up to me, nor any of us. We can be both curious and skeptical of AI. Personally, I'm tired of the doomsday talk, so on that front, I'm choosing to reject it. That much I can control.

And I bought my first album. It's Prince's Purple Rain, of course.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/10/ai-future-power-imperfection-technology/

9/6/2023: Thinking about the human mind vs the human brain. These are two different things. (Sometimes I jokingly refer to myself as a Buddhist witch.) The mind is something specific. We can watch what it does. It serves content like an algorithm, all based on experiences that we've already had. Similar to the way the algorithm on YouTube, Instagram, or Spotify serves suggestions based on what we've already interacted with. This is how AI works, too, right? (For now, anyway.) It assembles and collates data that's already been produced. So what's beyond that? HERE is the incredibly intriguing potential of the human brain. The mind is just one part. As a species, we're only just beginning to tap into the possibilities of this potential. The other issue here is that if the mind operates like a server with an algorithm, we can choose to log off if we need to. For me, it's sometimes fun to let the algorithm find me on these various streaming or social media platforms. It can be eerily accurate! I love hearing new music I never would have discovered on my own. But then there comes a point where I'm saturated. My brain is tired. And that's the point of discernment. I have to recognize when it's enough and just shut it down for a while. So I guess that's my conclusion for today: it can be fun to let the mind go on its wild ride (like Mr. Toad), but I also need to be aware of the toll it takes on my human brain, which is a more complex and sensitive organism.

8/29/2023: I'm proud to be a graphic designer. This field has allowed my artist brain to be of service in this world and to make some money, too. I've been working and learning for over 20 years. I'm proud of that commitment. I honestly didn't think I would ever find a vocation that would hold my attention for this long. So I plan on staying here to continue learning. I'm excited for what's to come.

And also: I feel compelled to write about music. Music is my soul. It is has always been the purest and most direct line to all of my emotions. I began to truly reconnect with it during the pandemic, starting with a conversation with an old friend. (I imagine many of us did the same thing. It was a scary time. Some things became very clear.) This friend and I first met at Episcopal church when we were quite young and then sang together in several school choirs. She went on to graduate top of her class at the Indiana University music program and became a private piano teacher. She always had perfect pitch. I was so envious! So it was to her that I reached out in 2021 after so many years when I felt music was essentially yelling at me to pay attention.

She is also now a deacon in the church, so her listening skills are excellent. I appreciate her so much for answering my out-of-left-field phone call. She said, "It sounds like you are feeling 'called.'" Yes exactly! That was the intensity of it. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it, so she gently reminded me of my novice piano background and suggested I start doing some chord exercises again. I could dust off the keyboard in the basement and just make it happen. I did order a practice workbook and I did practice a bit. I wish I could say I stuck with it. I didn't. But it was more about reconnecting with her and with music. I am grateful to her for taking my yearning seriously. Musicians understand each other, whether or not music is as actively in their lives as it once was.

On that "note," I have ordered a turntable so I can start listening to actual vinyl records again. I don't have any, so that's step 2. Buy a few records. It's another way to have music in my life concretely and that impulse feels absolutely correct.

8/23/2023: Some leaders in the field predict that AI will completely change our lives in 3 years. As a layperson, I'll work with that timeline until we have updated info. 3 years is also a weird length of time. As a species, we just experienced a 3-year block of time where life was completely upended by Covid. Sometimes life seemed to crawl, sometimes to stop completely. Divorced from our familiar rhythms, things started to get really weird. We're still trying to make sense of how we all changed, but for sure, we all did in both small and large ways. It's also easy to get caught up in the drama of the AI talk, especially on YouTube. To ground myself, I ask my husband what he thinks. (He's a math PhD and has worked in a research institute for 20+ years. His group was part of the inner circle providing guidance for both the federal and state level during Covid.) He said, "AI is not new. It has been a hot topic in our circles for at least 5 years already." And also this: "Maybe I'm being too simple in my view, but I think it's like being a carpenter. All of these tools are great. A carpenter can get power tools to do the planing and sanding and cutting. But you still need the carpenter to make it happen." This view helps me stay grounded. I've been through this before in the design field, too. "Paper is dead!" Yes, the field changed a lot. But paper is not dead. I'm choosing to see what's coming with AI in this same way. We've been through this before. It will require learning new skills and stretching our brains in new ways. But it's not going to wash us away like sand castles on a beach. We're more resilient than that.

8/16/2023: No machine is as powerful as the potential of human consciousness. Also: we are moving beyond shame as a species about mental health struggles. I saw it in the pandemic with the ubiquity of those Better Help commercials (whether or not it's a great tool). This shame is designed to keep us quiet. No more. That era is over.

8/11/2023: I subscribe to the Marginalian newsletter. A recent issue was dedicated to Hannah Arendt. I can't even begin to compose a coherent paragraph about this brilliant woman's writing and how it pertains to the AI question, so I'll just paste this quote: 

"By posing the unanswerable questions of meaning, men establish themselves as question-asking beings. Behind all the cognitive questions for which men find answers, there lurk the unanswerable ones that seem entirely idle and have always been denounced as such. It is more than likely that men, if they were ever to lose the appetite for meaning we call thinking and cease to ask unanswerable questions, would lose not only the ability to produce those thought-things that we call works of art but also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions upon which every civilization is founded… While our thirst for knowledge may be unquenchable because of the immensity of the unknown, the activity itself leaves behind a growing treasure of knowledge that is retained and kept in store by every civilization as part and parcel of its world. The loss of this accumulation and of the technical expertise required to conserve and increase it inevitably spells the end of this particular world."

8/2/2023: Bruce Lipton, PhD just released a YouTube video entitled "I, Human." It elegantly communicates everything I've been trying to get into words over the past few months regarding the human/AI conversation. Thank you, Dr. Lipton. Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQGPLnkA8dI

7/30/2023: If AI is going to flatten the world in terms of access and ultimately empower everyone, there will be some serious mourning and grieving to do. So many people have had it unimaginably hard for a long time. The lifting of this pressure will be a revelation but also we will have to go through the stages of grief for our fellow humans who have struggled for so long. And that will be the job for the rest of us: to hold space for them to process these feelings (and our own). Give them time to work through them. Listen to their stories. Hold these stories with respect. Be gentle with the story-tellers. We have time now. There's no rush. So let's just BE together as we unravel what we're collectively experiencing.

7/28/2023: Idea for a single YouTube video: this is the magic of watercolor and you can do this, too. It’s experiential. Not based on an image on a screen. Do it yourself. Feel the paper. Watch the water soak in. See the subtle difference between 2 reds, French vermilion and rose madder. Notice the perfect blend of the paint into cotton paper. The product is not the point. The experience is the point. Do it yourself and feel it in your body. AI cannot experience that for you nor take it away from you. "What you know, you cannot explain." But you can feel it. Find those feelings and follow them. That is what’s real.

7/21/2023: I attended the Adobe Firefly Webinar on 7/13. It was 45 minutes long. And that was as much as my human brain could handle. It was absolutely amazing. This technology is already here, for everyone. I can only speak to the design field but wow. Okay. My biggest takeaway was that my career is about to shift from the role of designer to teacher. This technology will enable so many people to do the work that I do per hour. I could get really uncomfortable with that... instead I'm thinking of the office manager that I work with, who is asked to do so many design-type jobs on top of her regular work load. Her name is Debbie. The Firefly technology would enable Debbie to handle all of the brand-based design work. This idea that I'm "out of a job" is really about my production work. The work to come is to help people get up to speed with this stuff. Help each other get empowered in this new world. Debbie said to me the other day, "You know, I'm really tired of having to keep shifting like this." Girl, I hear you! And you might not be ready for what's coming. Just know that for you and all of the other amazing office managers and admins out there, we are ready to help you learn. You can do this and we're here to support you.

7/11/2023: Y'all, it's about to get really weird. For creatives, this can be a coming home to our innate weirdness. I'm excited about it. 

A statement that keeps coming to me is "You are entitled to the privacy of your own thoughts."

This relates to what's coming with AI. It will require us to flex and expand our minds in ways that the mind will experience as threatening. However, this is exactly where we should push through.

We all have ideas that thrill us with possibility. But then we shut them down: "How would I ever explain this to anyone? I will sound crazy."

The answer is: you don't have to explain it. Keep it to yourself. But keep track of it. Words, images, whatever. Find a place for what starts to come to you. Keep it safe and protected from "translation."

I'll share that one image that has refused to leave me alone is H.R. Giger's Li I from 1974. Have you been visited/haunted like this? Let me know. I'll keep your secret.

The more you practice, the more will become available. It takes time and patience, neither of which I'm super great with, but I'm really trying.

We're all in this together.