I let ChatGPT run my day as a New Media Artist
Like many, I spend my downtime scrolling through the rabbit hole that is Instagram Reels (or TikTok if you don’t care about security, or YouTube Shorts if you’re a tech bro). I scroll endlessly, emotionlessly, through shorts from Young Sheldon, people at the Era’s tour, day in the life videos. Instagram reels are obsessed with productivity — showing the productive, put together lives of people with full-time jobs who get up at 6am to go to the gym and get a day’s work in all before their 9 to 5. As an artist, I’m also no stranger to the conversations being had on the effect of AI on artists — an AI can create anything from a few words. It got me thinking, if AI can do my job better than me, why don’t I make it my boss?
The following is a recount of my day where Chat GPT dictates my schedule of a day in the life of a new media artist.
I started my day to a 7 am alarm and rolled out of bed, still tired, but curious to what the day ahead, dictated by AI, had in store for me. I start by making a coffee (essential) and begin a guided meditation. I chose one focussed on productivity as it felt like it fit the theme for the day. I do a quick stretch and dress, then head out to grab a muesli and yoghurt on my way to the bus stop for my commute.
On the bus, I scroll Spike magazine then quickly stop because I get pretty bus sick. This is when I first feel anxiousness creep in as I feel I am not meeting the expectations of the plan laid out for me. I have a 45-minute commute ahead and I wonder how I can meet the plan.
I’m finally home by 10 to 9 and I immediately focus on setting up my space for the tasks ahead. I set up my laptop and sketch book with my mind map journal and make myself a Berrocca in a desperate attempt to wake up as I’ve run out of coffee (sad).
The first hour goes okay. I feel a lot of pressure by the task ‘create interactive art’. My process of creating usually involves lots of silly little experiments that don’t seem to be going anywhere until they are, so to be instructed to sit and make felt like my uni days, and I ended up being overwhelmed by the notion of the finished product. I did what I usually do when I feel overwhelmed, I took a nap. When I come back to, I decide to work on some of my little experiments. I draw a mind map, do a bit of programming for a collaborative website I’m working on, draw some squiggly lines.
At 12:30 I break for lunch, taking Chat GPTs advice and heading to a local café to enjoy a soy flat white and a toastie while I do a bit of research. This is probably the nicest part of the day. The printmaking studio I attend is closed on Mondays, so I head home to use the next slot of time allocated towards more tactile ways of making. This ends up taking the form of a few underwhelming drawings, still, when I get super overwhelmed by theory and research, I find this a good way to ground me. I then spend some time looking for artworks for inspiration for an upcoming work.
I had a moment of doom scrolling. I redownloaded TikTok after watching a video essay by Lily Alexandre Everything is Sludge and felt the need to feel utter disconnect as I watch a short of Young Sheldon while watching speed runs of Subway Surfers. I didn’t log in to an account, I didn’t want the algorithm to have any background information on me. I let myself scroll, and scroll, and had a micro-nap on the couch.
At 6pm I had a meeting on Discord. It’s with an artist collective I’m part of and we discuss our current ideas. The meeting lasts about an hour. Unfortunately, dinner wasn’t scheduled into my day, but I was starving and starting to tire so I made myself shin ramen and steamed gyoza. I use this as my leisure and inspiration time and guzzle the gyoza as I watch the latest episode of Four Corners on a Sydney man who fed ASIO intelligence to Russia for 30 or 40 years — I’m going to justify that it’s art-related because it was about surveillance and security.
I spent my reflection time starting to write this article. I felt a lot of discomfort today, having all autonomy over my day completely removed from me. I felt like a machine, supervised and pressure to always be productive and working. I started the day with a lot of energy but the constant supervision along with the inability to meet the expectations of the AI made me unmotivated and anxious. I’m not sure if I’d call today productive, or maybe it was. I did a lot of things but came out of it feeling I hadn’t achieved much.
I felt like leisure and inspiration time could be taken as endlessly scrolling through Instagram for hours. I did take this time however to find some different artists to follow, feeling like my feed needed a bit more variety. I find it hard to find artists I’m interested in to follow on Instagram, as when you have an ‘art’ account the algorithm plagues you with high-resolution coloured-pencil Ariana Grande portraits drawn by a 15-year-old self-taught artist in your explore page. This isn’t to say these aren’t impressive, only to reflect on how the algorithm tries to characterise a large, diverse group like artists and what this output looks like. Probably for another time, I digress.
I wind down by having a short read of Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford. I’m ready for this day to be over but I force myself into 10 minutes of reading, but I doubt I’ve taken anything in. Finished, or at least mentally finished (it’s 10:15). I’m not sure I feel fulfilled, but I am ready for bed.
I’d love to know if you’ve ever had AI design your day or part of your day to enhance productivity. Let me know in the comments!
