Vol.27 "Prompting Blues"

AI Summary of Article

This article "Vol.27 Prompting Blues" explores the dual meaning of "blue" as both a color and an emotion, and its connection to artificial intelligence (AI). The author shares a personal experience from an event called Art in the Woods, highlighting the creative spirit of local artists. The article emphasizes the importance of clear communication when interacting with AI, comparing it to giving instructions to a teenager. It discusses the paradox of the color blue and how AI learns and understands it. The narrative concludes with a call to embrace AI responsibly and ethically, encouraging readers to engage with AI tools like Microsoft Copilot to enhance their work and creativity.        

Prompting Blues

The chosen title of this volume was very intentional. Think about it: "Prompting Blues." What does that mean to you when you first read it? Do you think about blue, the color? Do you think about 'having the blues', like feeling sad and possibly depressed? What does prompting mean in that context? What's definition of blue, and how would one describe it? This volume actually explores both sides of the difference between the color and the emotion, and our responsibility to navigate both the artificial and human intelligence.

Art in the Woods

A few weekends ago, my wife and I traveled all around our little corner of the world for a pretty incredible activity. It's something called Art in the Woods. This is an annual event where local artists and creative types open up their galleries - actually, more like open up their homes to host a variety of artists, giving them a place to sell their creations. On this particular weekend, there were 17 separate locations with somewhere on the magnitude of 40 different artists, a true mixed media event: woodworking, metalworking, painting, sculpture, clay. and one thing in common: artistic spirit.

The Artistic and Executive Sides

Every human has both an artistic side and an executive functioning side, and quite often, one is usually dominant over the other. That said, humans are creative in one thing: expression through language (and emotion). Some are more proficient than others. How we express ourselves to each other is our common bond. The sharing of ideas, wants, and needs, being humans. Babies cry to communicate; cries turn into words, etc. Communication is truly an art, the creation and expression of a lifetime of experiences.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence

In case you haven't noticed, artificial intelligence is 'kind of a thing' now. It's here; it's not going away. I believe we all have a responsibility to usher it into this world safely, responsibly, and ethically. This newsletter is typically about Change Management, Microsoft Copilot, self-improvement, and coaching. This particular volume is squarely focused on our ability to communicate with people and technology.

The Buzzword of the 2020s: Prompting

The buzzword of the 2020s is now 'prompting'. In essence, it's just simply a way that we communicate with an artificial intelligence, such as using Microsoft Copilot. We have to ask it or tell it what to do. And there was the first problem: where to start? What does it mean to tell it what to do?

Prompting?is a noun that refers to the action of encouraging, persuading, or reminding someone to do or say something.?

Artificial intelligence is not a simple search engine. Oh, of course, it can give you some answers, and quite often not the right answers, but it's really a conversation partner, a verbal sparring partner, a true copilot to help things get done faster, better, smoother, etc.

The Teenager Analogy

For purposes of this story, think about Copilot as a teenager, a human teenager. If you ask them to take out the trash, they might do it, or they might not. Then you look outside and realize the trash truck has come and gone without picking up the trash. So then you say to the teenager, "Now it's important to take out the trash on Tuesday." And then Wednesday comes along, and you realize the trash is still there. Because in actuality, the trash was taken out; it was just the wrong day and time.

I know I'm being a bit disparaging to all teenagers out there, and I'm sure that some of them are very eager and compliant and completely engaged in taking out the trash, also being able to read their parents' minds about when the trash is supposed to be taken out.

For all of you out there doing that, good on you! For the rest of the world, trash day is kind of a struggle. Even just taking the trash out of the kitchen into the trash can is a struggle.

Now imagine you are interacting with an artificial intelligence. It will do exactly what you ask it to do, in its own interpretation, and left to its own devices, it may make stuff up as it goes along, i.e., hallucinations. Sounds a bit like a human teenager. But unlike a human teenager, if you give it explicit instructions and reason with it, and speak to it, prompt it, the results yielded can be incredible.

Left unchecked and used improperly, even the world's best artificial intelligence can be nothing more than that metaphorical garbage in, garbage out, in both senses of the word.

Art in the Woods: A Personal Experience

Art in the Woods lives up to its name; it really is art in the woods. Majestic conifers, some dirt roads, and this being the Pacific Northwest, cold, rainy, and muddy. And we love it!

We went down a fairly long dirt road and came upon an older home nestled on a small bluff overlooking Puget Sound. It was quiet, with the sound of the rain hitting some metal rooftops. The smell in the air was a mixture of pine and rain. The water was a stormy shade of gray, heavy cloud cover, and a kaleidoscope of fall colors in the leaves that were both still clinging to the trees and carpeting the ground.

We entered into this particular artist's studio, who left a big impression on me. Thus, this story.

This person I met (in my opinion) was a world-class artist. An older woman whose art studio was an old converted barn with windows facing the water. We went up the 4 wet and slanted steps, opened the harshly weathered door with a loud creaking sound announcing our arrival.

There was a rickety old chair, probably 80 years old or more, nestled near a desk and easel near a drafty window. There were various tools of the trade around, including paintbrushes, painting knives, canvas easels, and a smell of fresh paint in the air. Although drafty, there was warmth in that room. I don't know if it was the physical building or the metaphysical building, but there was a sense of calm and quiet and serenity and peacefulness and joy in there, it was palpable.

The paintings were of the natural world, mostly of what could be seen out those incredible windows: ships, blue herons, various sea birds, seals, otters, eagles, flowers, lots of them. Realistic paintings through the interpretation of the mind of this artist.

The Artist's Inspiration

I asked her about her inspiration, and she turned to the windows and said, "There it is." She gazed out the window, pointed and exhaled a bit while taking in the inspiration as she's probably looked at for decades, always seeing something new, always something to inspire her next work of art. I asked about her methodology and how she took what she saw and transferred that to the canvas.

The answer I got was a surprise and made me think of artificial intelligence.

She told me that she sees an image during the daylight hours and doesn't really think about it much, and then while she's sleeping, the image comes to life. As she stood in front of me telling me this story, she had her eyes closed, literally.

I could see her recalling the vivid imagery and the associated emotions. She was processing all of this to describe to me what that's like. She admitted that in her older years, it's becoming more difficult to recall what she saw in those vivid dreams, and she quickly wakes up and writes it down to remember it as her next creation.

The Color Blue

And then there it was, blue. We talked about the color blue. She said she struggles sometimes to match the color blue to her vision and which shade of blue, which hue of blue, which shadow of blue needs to go where on that blank canvas. Add a bit of yellow, add a bit of black, add a bit of green, all from that amazing palette of colors. She said one of her biggest challenges is interpreting that color blue to match what's in her vision. Wow.

Back to my question from earlier: what is blue? An artificial intelligence learns through what we tell it, and it has been taught what the color blue is. Machine learning over time gets better and better at interpreting the colors of blue, but does it really understand what blue is? The truth is, it does not.

The Blue Paradox

If I ask AI to show me something that's blue, which blue? This led me to consider blue as a paradox.

The first paradox is perception. Blue takes on different meanings and can be seen in different ways depending on its context. It could be seen as a warm color or a cool color. The duality creates a paradox in how we understand and describe the color. Ask 10 people to describe the color blue, and you might get 12 different reactions because some people change their minds.

The second paradox is about language. Feeling blue could mean feeling sad and depressed, but feeling blue could also mean calm, peacefulness, and serenity. This contradiction can be confusing when talking about emotions.

The third paradox is about culture. Different cultures interpret blue in different ways. In some, blue is trust and stability, but in others, it's a time of sadness, a time of mourning, and it touches on spirituality.

So is there really a universal understanding of blue?

The Art of Prompting

And that brings us to prompting. To interact with an artificial intelligence, such as Microsoft Copilot, requires us to ask it questions and interact with it. The art of conversation has been dying for many years. The art of logic and critical thinking has been dying for many years. I don't mean that as a political statement; I mean that as fact. Thirty to forty years ago, it was commonplace to take classes in logical and critical thinking, communication, and the arts.

And now enter artificial intelligence. Learning how to interact with AI is a skill, one that is highly dependent upon our ability to clearly express our wants, needs, and desires. According to the articles I read, people using artificial intelligence tools get excited for about the first two weeks, and then usage starts to drop off.

This is also a paradox because, by and large, people want access to these tools. The problem is, they don't know how to use them. I know I'm being very opinionated in that, but this is what I'm finding by speaking with companies all around the world. Excitement. Money spent. Usage falls off a cliff.

The answer is very simple: engagement. Encouragement. Influence. Modeling. Experience. OK, that would mean there were many 'answers' to address. But the point is, leaning in instead of leaning out, challenging oneself.

Blue AI Example

Try this yourself - Describe the color blue to somebody. It's not as easy as it might sound, is it?

OK, maybe that's not fair. Let's try this using AI to illustrate the point:

"Hey Copilot, please create a picture for me of the color blue."        

But what if, through the art of engagement and prompting, you are able to tell an artificial intelligence about that color blue?

"Hey Copilot, create a picture for me showing the color blue as if it were sunrise over a vast mountain range with different shades and hues, bringing in a new dawn."        

See the difference? This quick comparison is not designed to show you the somewhat magical ability for AI to create images; it's actually meant to show the difference in the paradox of blue. Artificial intelligence inspires me every day. It has quickly become one of my life's passions and is certainly influencing my life's work.

Top of Article Image

This is the prompt that I used to create the image at the top of this article. Notice the difference, notice the detail, notice the prompting.

"Hey Copilot, please create 3 images for me. here's the scene: very realistic, a woman standing next to a copilot droid, both in file, standing in front of a blank white canvass on an easel, both looking past the canvass looking out a window at a vast ocean which is a vast mosaic of the different hues and shades of blue from vibrant to dull"        

The Future of AI and Art

I do not wish to live on a planet where artificial intelligence will take the place of that amazing painter in her seaside studio. But it does give me hope that people have the ability to visualize and dream and then, through expressive art, create and wonders of the imagination into existence.

I've thought a lot about the color blue after meeting that artist. And I've also felt a bit blue considering that humans must be at the center of responsible artificial intelligence implementations. It brings me true happiness and joy meeting so many people that want to learn how to interact with this technology. And it is quite unfortunate that so many companies are fearful. This too is a paradox: action and inaction.

AI The Great Leveling Force

Artificial intelligence has become the great leveler in business. Smaller companies that were once unable to compete with larger organizations are now able to compete at scale due to artificial intelligence adoption. Large organizations that are slow to adapt are actually putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

The New Skill Set: Prompting

Prompting, the art of written communication and clearly describing a situation or thing, is truly the new skill set. It's not enough to ask an AI to do something; it's up to us as humans to adapt and adopt a new way of working. There is a gigantic shift happening with technology departments and technology itself. The adoption of artificial intelligence toolsets, through paying attention to the people, not the technology, is the answer.

Much like the artist that dreams of the color blue, we all need to be artists in our own way and by our own expression, interacting with artificial intelligence in a meaningful, responsible, and inspirational way. I've met so many people these past few weeks that give me hope for a very bright future.

Prompting Blues?is not a sad story. In fact, it fills me with great hope, as it reminds me that we all have the ability to visualize that blue and use it to paint the personal and professional canvases of our lives through the art and vision within us. The same is true for organizations.

Now, let's get painting with our imaginations (through creative prompting). Contact me today to learn all about Microsoft Copilot and GenAi.

~Kevin (aka "The Cloud Therapist")

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