The Awesome Power of Artificial Intelligence

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I’m not sure I welcome our robot overlords. For the last few months my feed has been FILLED with artwork generated by people guiding sophisticated computer software algorithms called “artificial intelligence” or “AI” for short. My goal for this article is not to get into the technical or even the ethical aspects of how these computer programs were built. I want to ask the question…

What are the consequences?

If you’re new to the idea, it works like this… You type a phrase into a field… “Oil painting of a bowl of fruit on a cliff overlooking a stormy sea in the style of Monet” and in a few seconds you’ll get back 4 variations of what the software thinks you would like to see. It doesn’t care why the bowl of fruit is overlooking the ocean, it just generates pixels using cues from the phrase you start with. You can refine the image with more phrases until you have something you’re happy with.

The quality of these images has grown at a staggering rate. From fuzzy, incoherent blobs to stunning fully realized images in just a few months. It’s amazing, astonishing, and scary. The software engineers working on these have created something unique in human history.?

But is that a good thing?

Humans have always been at the mercy of other clever humans trying to solve a perceived problem and unleashing their solution onto the world without regard for the consequences.?

• “If we cut down this forest, we can plant more crops.”
• “I’m going to melt down this bronze ore and cast it into a better sword.”
• “I can use this black rock that burns to heat water and then use the steam to turn a mill and grind wheat.”?
• “We need practically free labor to pick this cotton so we can get more profits.”

Each of these scenarios solved a very specific short term problem, but the downstream consequences of each plague the world to this day.?

Soooo You’re saying we shouldn’t solve problems?

Uhhhh no, Snarky Voice In My Head. Telling humans not to solve problems is like telling the sun not to shine. Besides… Hats are pretty sweet right? We’re never going to stop solving problems. But look back throughout history and ask this question…

How many of the problems humans have to solve are in response to the perceived solutions to other problems?

Our single greatest challenge… Climate change… Is the direct result of the cumulative effects of a whole range of “solutions”. We needed heat so burning things like coal and wood solves that problem right? We needed to travel long distances quickly so burning fossil fuels in cars solves that problem right? How could we have known what would happen?

In hindsight, the effects of this seem pretty obvious. But the first time a coal stack belched toxic smoke into the skies of England, it was probably pretty obvious. Poisoning the skies could only ever have deleterious (shitty) effects on the world. The short term effects were awful, but the long term effects are even worse.?

Dayuummm I hadn’t really thought about it like that.

Nope… Humans are really good at avoiding thinking about the consequences of their actions. We allllllllllll do it. I’m just as guilty of it as anyone. I know that donut is going to spike my blood sugar and migrate right into the cutaneous fat on my stomach. But it’s a fucking donut!! I rode my bike here so it’s OK right?

You mean that expensive bike made in a coal powered factory in Taiwan and shipped across the world on an oil burning ship?

SHUT UP!! You love that bike too Snarky, so don’t get all high and mighty on this!!

Whew… Let’s get back on track…?

Computer scientists all over the world are racing to solve a perceived problem. “We need computers that are smarter to help us solve a range of complicated problems like climate change!” (Insert ironic sigh here) Because humans are competitive, they are literally racing. Everyone wants to be the first to solve this problem so they can get their name “in the books” as the one who did it.?

They’re a long way off from the sentient computers we see in sci-fi movies, but they’re starting to get some amazing, and sometimes shocking results. The latest projects are image generators like Dalle-E and MidJourney, text generators like GPT-3, and music generators like Dance Diffusion.?

Each of the press releases for these new technologies inevitably talks about “giving artists more tools to create with” or “bringing artistic creation to the masses” and “this tool will create new unprecedented opportunities that we can’t anticipate”.

They’re all true on some level, but history tells us that nothing is without consequence. The industrial revolution did create more jobs than it eliminated, but the societal and environmental consequences might not have been worth it. Non industrial societies existed for thousands of years, but the industrial revolution has used up the planet in just a few hundred.?

And now computer scientists are creating and releasing “solutions” to complex computing problems so fast it’s hard to keep up. But again we need to ask…

What are the consequences?

I’m not social scientist enough to try and predict what this will do at a societal level, but I can talk about the effect they have on me. I know what happens when I eat that bowl of sugary cereal. I feel momentarily “good” and then I crash. I’ve tried each of these new tools and I can say that is exactly the effect that I experienced.?

But Captain Crunch tastes soooooooo good!!!

Does it really though? It’s been formulated by “food scientists” to deliver the largest amount of sugar in the smallest package that is legally allowable. I’m not really “tasting” it. The product is assaulting my taste buds and forcing its way into my bloodstream. That is kinda what is happening when I use an AI image generator.

When I type a prompt into an AI image generator, I get back an image. Not instantaneously, but much much faster than I could create. Just like sugar, I get a momentary buzz. “Wow look at that!” But there is no real satisfaction from the experience. No sense of accomplishment.?

That image is never ever exactly what I had in my head when I typed in the prompt. It’s what the computer software interprets as the correct result. The computer could never ever actually give me what I can see in my head. But now I have this new thing in front of me. I’ll try a few more prompt variations to get closer to the image I have in my head but eventually, I have to accept what the software has produced. No matter that it doesn’t match what I had envisioned.

To misquote the amazing Gloria Foster playing The Oracle from The Matrix…

“What’s really going to bake your noodle later on is… Which is right? What the computer spit out, or the image I had in my head?”?

But Roooooob that is part of the “normal” creative process… there’s always a difference between what you imagine and what you create!!

That’s true Snarky, but the difference is that it is MY imagination and MY artistic limitations in skill that create the compromise that is the finished result. By using an AI image generator, I’m giving up my artistic intent right from the start. The computer can’t actually see into my imagination so somewhere during the process the thing that it generates replaces the image I had in my head, and I become a “Director” and not a “Creator”.

A “Creator” brings new ideas into the world from their imagination that didn’t exist before. A “Director” very carefully explains what they’re looking for then asks someone else to make it and then makes a decision… “Do I like this or not?” It’s the difference between “Artist” and “Art Director”.?

But Roooooob what about filmmaking? Most complex forms of creation take collaboration! “Directors” have to collaborate to bring their ideas to life!

That’s very true, but I want to collaborate with PEOPLE. Human beings are amazing manifestations of the Universe and each of us is unique. Imagination is the gift that separates us from the other creatures of the Earth. The ideas I want to create should be a manifested expression of human energy. The technology I use should be a tool to bring that idea into the world. The idea, the imagination needs to be human. Guiding an artificial intelligence to generate an image is a mechanical impersonation of imagination.?

But Roooooob it takes creativity to generate the prompts used by the computer!

That is very true. There’s a bit of imagination in the idea behind the prompt, but a human doesn’t imagine the resulting image… The AI does. My friend Heather Crank is way way way better at prompting MidJourney than I am. She really has an incredible knack for it. A talented fine artist and motion designer, she has jumped into AI Art generation with both feet. The problem is that I haven’t seen her create anything herself in months. I want to see what SHE makes with HER own hands... I don’t care what she prompted a computer to make.

But Roooooob the process is so fast, just think of how many more ideas you could explore!

Uhhhh have you looked at the internet Snarky? 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute!! Even if most of it wasn’t amazing cat videos, there’s already more video and images than we could ever look at.?

We don’t need more images or video… we need images and video that mean more.

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Proof that my banner image was NOT made by an AI…

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