FEBRUARY 2024 – AI, AI, AI has been all the buzz lately. And I think deservedly so, we are entering new territory and the realm of science-fiction is becoming more real by the nanosecond. I’m sure many of you have already tried using one of the LLMs (large language models) or some of the generative tools for creating graphics. It is quite remarkable what can be created from a simple prompt, such as ‘futuristic biophilic city’ or any number of design related topics. The models ability to create visuals that are grounded with an understanding of the laws of the universe is quite impressive. Where a car or dog will actually look like a car or a dog and not just some random collection of pixels that could be considered complete by definition only of its individual components.
Time will deliver more and more use cases for automating so much of what would have been out of the realm of possibility only a few short years ago as engineers, programmers, and designers adapt these new tools. From education to medicine to entertainment, everything is going to change with the advent of AI. For art, I wonder if it is going to be like the introduction of photography, where previously capturing someones portrait or a landscape was the exclusive domain of the painter and artist. Will this democratize creativity? Where you can create a beautiful image without even having to spend a second with a paint brush in your hand. Honestly, that is not where I thought AI was going to be first taking shape, I always thought it would start more in areas of basic logic, calculations, and simple repetitive functions. Where it could analyze data sets and be used with programming, but apparently the leap towards words and arts is more of a first order challenge for the current crop of generative AIs.
Prompt driven music, movies, and video games are already springing up. Given another year or two, it will be remarkable to see how quickly it adapts and grows in scope and capacity. I hope it allows more people to be creative and doesn’t steal opportunity from existing animators and creators. Maybe it will allow smaller teams to make larger more personal stories for less $$ and open up an era of unknown creativity.
Massive topic to discuss and I’ve enjoyed listening to podcasts and reading about the subject as I think even the most engaged programmer and futurist doesn’t know what will happen and that is a wild place to be in history. Hopefully it doesn’t go dystopian and steal the magic of imagination from people (or worse), but I guess we are getting closer to having a new virtual realm to explore. From robots in the grocery store or vacuuming your apartment to discussing homework problems with chatgpt or grok it is a new frontier.
In the midst of all of the AI excitement, I have continued to make time for my love of reading real, physical, print books. This month I picked up ‘Cat’s Cradle’ by Kurt Vonnegut, went into it with no insight as to the subject matter or plot and in true Vonnegut fashion things aren’t always what they might appear to be. He has such a unique voice as a writer, I’m wondering what he would make of the current LLMs and their ability to write, edit, and create poetry, etc. I’m sure it won’t be long until the first fully AI written novel is released. There already was a fully AI generated children’s picture book created and published on amazon, so I’m sure the former won’t be too far behind.
But yeah, as I said before, wild times. Don’t forget to escape the digital realm and touch grass as they say from time to time, haha. Take care all. Cheers!
~ CS
