Joe and I have been joking about creating a cyborg detection manual to be used when our lives will be fully enmeshed with artificial intelligence. The manual would remind us to celebrate the touch of our skin, to embrace the discomfort of being bored and to remember the patience and sacredness of ordinary things— like how to whittle a stick, handwrite a note and make a cheese cake.
Of course we will remember to be human. But this week, as I fell down the rabbit hole of a Mid-Journey, I was ready to give up food, water, and human connection for uninterrupted time with an artificial intelligence that takes any idea you have and scours a database of every photograph, drawing, and painting ever made and, within seconds, to turn it into a never-before-imagined-image.
I spent the week thrusting my phone at everyone I saw with the blinking prompt "/imagine.”
“Describe the most outlandish image you can think of,” I said to my mother.
“Japanese calligraphy flowers on Van Gogh’s Starry Night background,” she said.
“Add the game Candy Land,” my sister said.
I typed the prompt in and, as it pinged off a satellite to a server farm and back to me, it reminded me of making my first images with a 35mm camera.
“I’ll never need to hire another illustrator or designer,” my sister said. “Can you send me that app?”
“I don’t think we will even need another artist,” I said thinking about that quote from Martin Neimoller, “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.”
As if on cue, suddenly everyone was posting their self-portrait rendered by another recent-arrival, Lensa. In case you’ve been on a remote island and missed it, Lensa uses AI to interpret your selfies into highly-stylized paintings, anime characters, warriors and magicians. Artists have been protesting the use of their art to train the AI leaving them with no recognition and no commission.
But certainly as a writer I’m safe, I thought. And then yesterday friend introduced me to ChatGPT, which, in turn for a few prompts, nouns, verbs and intentions, will spit out a perfectly grammatical story with a narrative arc. Or a bad joke. Or a ballad about why AI is pleasurable, which I will spare you because it sounds like it was written by a 10-year old with access to a world-class dictionary.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.—Martin Niemöller
I was starting to feel a little disoriented, but I continued exploring Mid-Journey.
“/imagine: prompt: ancestors surrounding me as I walk through rainy NYC, graphic novel, modern.”
“/imagine: prompt: Animals fighting at dinner table a la Hilma af Klint.”
I showed my daughter Adi how to use it and she started rendering the unimaginable and paradoxical “/imagine: prompt: particles connected through space on opposite sides of the world, James Webb Telescope.”
I pasted into the prompt entire Rumi poems, instructions manuals, and mathematical equations. I upscaled and re-rendered. I cancelled plans to go out so I could read the developers notes. Joe gave up waiting for me to join him on our morning walks. Adi asked me to come say good night to her and I declined. I was on a roll. I ran out of images on my subscription plan and I ponied up another $30. The images kept coming back more outrageous and surprising. It was like scratching an itch I didn’t even know I had.
And then I stopped.
I felt bloated and empty.
I had a made a scroll of a thousand images and I hadn’t paused to take in the images I had made. Or, shall I say, the images “WE” had made?
There was no distance between my imagination and the outcome. There was no space and time in which my hand would draw a line that would surprisingly become a lemon that would then be surrounded by moss. There was no deciding whether the background should be orange or yellow or what the meaning of the image might be as the drawing emerged.
I was consuming not just art, I was consuming my own creative energy.
It made me realize how rarified creativity is these days.
It made me realize how easy it is to lose my balance and try to match the machine rather than keep my own pace.
Powerful new tools are coming and it’s a very dynamic time, to say the least. In the interest of staying human, I suggest we all take some time every day to do something creative in an analog way, even if it is draw a stick figure. And definitely take some time to touch or kiss someone.
Stay human, my friends. Stay human.
FROM THE INSTITUTE OF PLEASURE STUDIES
Your Own Personal Jesus: Adi took us to see a Human Assisted Art show in NYC this weekend. The highlight of the show was an AI Bot based on Jesus’ teachings. I’ve been in conversation with this Bot all week and it’s quite compelling. The more conversations it has, the more it learns.
Here’s Jesus on Pleasure:
You can have “Your Own Personal Jesus” on speed dial, too. Text 1-920-2TXT-GOD and give it a go.
This latest version of AI is out of the lab and moving into our hands to create with it.
Are you playing with AI? What are you finding?
I avoid all AI and will refuse to play ANY of these AI games because the more you interact, the more you feed the beast. AI is harvesting our faces, our data, our ideas, our irony-all of it, and we will soon as artists and as HUMANS be entirely dispensable, unless we resist this impulse to digitally clone ourselves and render ourselves superfluous. I am going to copypaste something that another artist/performer/fire dancer and choreographer (who is very much a pleasure junkie) wrote--an ultimatum to friends on Facebook who post AI art and engage in AI selfies, etc. This is by Chris Flambeaux, the guy who used to blow flame on the PBS commercial, among many other things...
"In one week, I'm going to unfollow anybody on FB that I am friends with that consistently posts A.I. art because we obviously have a dangerously different worldview. Also bc I dont feel safe being connected to them web-wise in case they facilitate the probably quite-innocent stealing of my artistic identity. I've already started unfriending and I'd advise those who feel strongly opposed to the A.I. surge to do the same.
There is a fundamental cleft between 'experiencing something' and 'connecting with something' going on in a moment in history w/ the dawn of A.I. I know that every new development has old naysayers stating that 'If God had wanted us to fly, he'd'a given us wings' etc. and it's true that we can't just be luddites alone! Also I concede that we already live - very well - with certain tech advances that were seen as inhuman! Yes. BUT the war going on now is between people experiencing something vs. being connected to it. Experiencing new-&-flashy lights or the ability to regurgitate a concept is...OK, I guess (tho have you noticed that it gets old in about 2 days?) & you have every right to marvel at it if you want. In my opinion, it turns humankind into a crowd of gawking apes, but even I love some of it. Wow! Flashy lights and holograms....wow. Whodathunkit!!" ....I guess.
But when you look at a Picasso, you see the real life (not digi-life) decisions to make new statements never before conceived, that only a visionary w a LOT of real world experience could ever make, and you see the moment they made them. History in the bend of one line. A change in human culture, finally expressed by a soul who had an opinion on it. Not a copy of an imprint. Not a 'hologram'. There is a great big difference between someone baring their soul or their understanding of the moment during a uniquely lived lifespan, and, let's say, the set of the Mandalorian. There's a LOT of art in both, and craft and the development of new tech (even painting styles are 'new tech') but no. It is simply not the same.
Now add to the mix the fact that these artists will never be credited and you are dealing with people's rights. Here's a 'right' which you yourself may lose if it goes any further - your identity. If A.I. can do this with the consent of the Vox Populii, then it can hijack the concept known as 'you' (name, face, smile, friends) and take your pictures, your jawline, your 'read I.D.scan' and replicate it as an A.I. entity, and it can do it legally if it is not your official info (like your SSi), circumnavigating the laws set up to protect you. Literally, 'you' could be stolen and there's not much you can do about it. Why would you be complacent about allowing that to happen? 'You-branded-genre', your life into a construct story, events artificially inserted and mixed with some celebrity you don't even like...etc etc. Why would u support putting that out there into the world? I hope it doesn't come to that, but nothing stands in it's way. Identity theft is illegal in all cases except this one. It's like in a totalitarian state. No one opposes it until it happens to them......
So no. As an artist, I do not agree with one's unique style becoming a commodity and sold or given freely to anyone who wants to claim it. I prefer to live life connected to it, not just wafting thru machine-made replications of it.
Favorite frame "...I felt bloated." Hmmm, yes, there is incredible progress with AI, tech, etc. But if we can have stimulating art in seconds, does it just become like so many other things that were once considered special, a delicacy, or a treat-that we now have so much accessibility that we gorge without savoring?
What about the process the artist goes through to create the art? Is it art without that?