HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE AI

There’s no escaping AI anymore. It’s here, and it's only going to get better, at an accelerating pace. It’s impressive, it’s incredible, it’s limitless. The ability to create anything is at everyone’s fingertips. But, does the world really realize what’s potentially at stake right now? In the pursuit of more, might we lose all?

Just teenagers with cars

I see the white Supra in the rearview mirror. It’s definitely him. I’m at the red light, and the lane next to me is empty. I can feel the throbbing of the 89’ Pontiac’s engine through the steering wheel, the top is down, and the warm desert air is brushing my face. There are two pretty girls, one of whom I think I love, sitting in the car with me. That’s it. We’re doing it. The Supra pulls up in the empty lane, I see Brett behind its wheel, and we nod. The light turns green, and we’re off. To hell with the daily commuters. We’re teenagers and we’ve got everything to prove: the white Toyota and cherry red Pontiac race along the wide-open four-lane suburban street towards downtown. My pulse races and I’m lost in the moment.

Okay, one name and car color have been changed to protect identities, but the rest of that is a true account of a typical evening when I was 16, in Tucson, Arizona. Even though I’m now 40 and live on a tiny Mediterranean island, I often have flashbacks to my teenage years in the states because, frankly, they were so exciting. Living out in the wide open desert, surrounded by opportunity and beautiful, shiny things and people. Life was fast, the world seemed to be at my feet, and I, like most teenagers (at least of my generation), had very little regard for consequences. It really was the best of times.

So, what has this got to do with AI? Well, over the last few months, I’ve been immersing myself in all kinds of AI content tools. Of course, I’ve been putting ChatGPT through its paces, but I’ve also been using mage.space (which uses various Stable Diffusion models, among others) to completely transform my entire photography and art portfolio - something that’s taken me decades to create. And, I can’t help but be struck by the same feeling I had when I was that indestructible teenager living in the southwestern desert. Again, it's the wonderment, excitement, limitless possibilities, and speed. As the homepage of mage.space says, ‘create anything.’

And, it’s not just me. Every day both the mainstream and alternative media seem to be dominated by the AI theme, while platforms like LinkedIn have become AI obsessed. My partner is a college lecturer, and she’s getting the same vibe at her work - the AI revolution is finally here. Indeed, with the tech superpowers like Google and Microsoft set to unleash perhaps even more dramatic innovations over the coming weeks, things could be about to accelerate further. The message is loud and clear; if you’re not on board with AI, then you’re going to be left in the dust - and much sooner than you think.

Back to the Tucson streets of the late 90s. Was I an idiot who’d taken leave of my senses? Did I engage in street races to endanger the lives of innocent bystanders and commuters? Nope, of course not. I did it because it was exciting and all my peers were doing it. See the similarities? Are we all now akin to teenagers with the keys to powerful cars, looking at the wide open roads of the desert, daydreaming about our seemingly limitless capabilities? I think we are. Humanity itself is now an inexperienced teenager that’s been handed the keys to a muscle car - and, this teenager is desperate to keep up with their peers and impress.

But, unlike in the teenager and cars analogy, where after a few years, the person has gained experience, but the cars and the roads have remained virtually the same, there will be no let up with AI. It will learn and evolve at a faster and faster rate. There will be no respite, no opportunity for the teenager to mature into a calmer, more sensible, and less street racing-prone adult. Whereas the teenage years constitute a short period where inexperienced humans are suddenly given access to vast new opportunities and technologies, the AI revolution will never provide the opportunity to truly slow down, comprehend, contemplate, and mature. Given what I’ve just said, you could be forgiven for presuming I’m anti-AI, and that I think it should be banned from educational institutions and workplaces. But, absolutely not. I’ve quickly learned to love AI.

How I learned to love AI

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve even embarked on a never-ending project using AI to turn my entire photographic and art portfolio into new creations (you can see some here) - all based on my original material, but all distinctly new in their own right. This is a mammoth project, covering around nine thousand original images, ranging from simple pen sketches, to acrylic paintings and photographs. And, several months in, I’m having a lot of fun. But, why? Why would I do this to original works that I’ve spent so long making? Let me explain.

Take, for example, my photography. I’ve always worked fully digital, with Canon and Nikon DSLRs and Photoshop, but filters never really floated my boat. I didn’t use them much, save to add some textures here and there. I was never against the idea of filters, but I just didn’t like how they were replicable. As in, if someone else put the same filter, or combination of filters, on the same photo, you’d get the same image. I guess I’m saying it was the principle of originality that was key to me. I normally photographed or drew female models or vehicles (shocker, I know), and I appreciated the processes that went into creating each image and making each one truly unique. This went way beyond the technical process of making the image itself. It involved finding the model, building a rapport, finding locations, getting the desired light, and on and on. It was a whole lot of work behind each final image. But, it ensured no two images would ever be the same.

AI tools, like mage.space, enable me to use those already original images as bases to create other entirely original images. Yes, I’m using AI, but it's a blend. All of the originals still had all that donkey work behind them, and then I guide the AI with prompts and, often, hundreds of individual iterative stages, to get a new original. Clearly, this opens vast new possibilities - I can take a photograph of a model wearing a swimsuit on a beach in Brighton, and transport her to the surface of a future Mars colony, with a change of outfit along the way. But, in my own mind, I still know it was a real person, who I met, interacted with, and knew. And, this subtle thing, that perhaps only I will ever know, is what enables me to reconcile AI and my mind. To this end, I’ve vowed to only ever create AI images based on original images I’ve created in traditional ways. This way, AI can be seen as a great catalyst for creativity, rather than a replacement or substitute.

I’m applying the same approach to my writing. I’m making a conscious effort to only use AI writing tools to augment my content, not kickstart it. You see, I strongly believe the most important moment in any creative process is the initial spark. Without that spark, there’s never going to be any fire. Whatever tools you then go on to use, that initial spark is critical. So, don’t outsource that spark to AI - whether we’re talking images or text.

Many people are approaching AI by taking an initial brief or need and immediately tasking AI. Yes, writing effective prompts in itself is a skill, but let’s not kid ourselves here - it is not like real writing. If we head down that road, we’ll lose so much. Indeed, it is this prospect that strikes fear into the hearts of many writers (and teachers). Going back to my photography, drawings, and paintings - yes, I could create new ones entirely using AI, from scratch using just text prompts. But, then that original spark - the spark created as ideas are sculpted into visible, tangible forms directly from the human mind - would be lost. And, I fear, once we lose that, we lose our humanity. We need to realize that creativity is one of the core driving forces behind civilization and that messing with it on such a fundamental level might have profound unintended consequences.

But, as you may have inferred from this post’s title, I suspect there’s also more than a hint of the nuclear age to this. Once nuclear weapons are widespread enough, it's only a matter of time before they cause a disaster. So, perhaps, at this moment in history, when we stand like adrenaline-drunk teenagers looking at our shiny new cars and the wide-open highway ahead, we need to ask ourselves what is really important. And, that, I would suggest, is to understand just how fundamentally destabilizing the ability to ‘create anything’ truly is.

And, as for my race against the Supra, I came inches from plowing straight into the back of a city bus and killing myself and those around me. I guess, what I'm saying is that AI is going to be dangerous, but we're along for the ride anyway, so may as well enjoy it!