Can AI Take Over the Creative World? Creatives Beware, Art & Writing are no Longer Safe
“Everything is built from scratch, from the smallest dirt-clogged shovel to the most sophisticated artificial intelligence. Everything was created through trial and error. And as we have discovered, true genius is found not in patching what isn’t broken, but creating what is — now, everything that is made with machines is also created by the machine. But as we all know, machines aren’t always good. Sometimes they are terrible. We must shed some light on what happens when a machine and a person go wrong.”
Can you see the brush strokes? How about the sadness in the man’s eyes? Can you sense the anger and worries in the Asimovian-like imagery? Both the painting and prose above were created, in milliseconds, with an accessible, online, AI program.
We already know that artificial intelligence is changing how we build, drive, and market, but it’s also close to revolutionizing the creative world as well.
As creatives, we can’t be afraid of this technology, we need to learn to embrace and use it to make our work better.
Can You Pass The Turing Test?
If I asked you, “Can you pass the Turing Test? Can you prove to me you are not an AI?” How would you respond? You better make it quick and believable because artificial intelligence might give you a run for your money.
From Facebook trolls and spamming bots to Tinder matches, they’re hiding amongst the thousands of “real” users all over the web. But their “artificial” has always been easier to catch than their “intelligence”. You can spot a bot a mile away. Or can you?
While AI has always struggled to form art and prose, they are getting better. After all, how can a non-conscious mind make something beautiful? Well, it can’t…and it can. Dali, Vonnegut, Picasso, and Warhol taught us that lesson long ago in their abstract works.
AI is just another example that shows the age-old axiom “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” reigns true not only under the artists’ stroke but well into the world of 1s and 0s. We, the viewer, the appreciator, the admirer, assign the meaning behind the image and words. We define beauty in the matter.
Dumbing Down The Tech
My brother (a designer) and I (a writer) have begun creating, with the help of our AIs, a collection of paintings and prompts — based on our own specific data sets, to prove how powerful, and how beautiful, and most importantly, accessible AI can be.
We wanted to show, in a practical manner, just how far technology has come. The easy-to-follow art and writing give a glimpse into the future of the creative world. We’ve dubbed the gallery the Hephaestus Collection, named after the Greek God of Mechanical Arts. For now, we’re teasing content on our Instagram.
For our AI to work, we must first upload a data set — something for the machine to munch on.
The words come from seven years of my own sources (journals, stories, books, and muses), a very personal collection of over two million words — which is a relatively small dataset.
The images are derived from thousands of free-to-use works found on WikiArt.
Our AIs are influenced by you and me. In the end, are we really such different creators? Vonnegut was inspired by Twain, Dylan by Guthrie, Mozart by birds, and so on. We take, from a confluence of influences, process them, and make something new.
How I Adapted
As a writer (note, I am not a coder or programmer), half my day is spent staring at a blank page (Google Doc, in reality). Starting is always the hardest part, but not anymore. While I don’t use verbatim anything the AI spits out (not for ethical reason, but because it doesn’t always make sense), I do use it as the greatest writer’s-block remedy ever.
Pop in a few prompts, and out comes an infinite deluge of never-been-said, uncopyrightable, baloney based on my personal prose. But hey, baloney is a great base. I call this process “babysitting”, because I’m not writing, or brainstorming, but operating a program. I sit, and click, and watch until something somewhat sensible appears. Then I edit and move onto the next line.
If you find AI interesting, the process is more a form of passive entertainment than work. And everyone once in a while, you get an absolute gem, such as this recipe (and price) to the Double White Trash BBQ Burger
Double White Trash BBQ — Pulled pork, tomato, mayo, more mayo, and a touch of cumin for seasoning — $7.99
Or this quip from Theodore Roosevelt:
“Always pack a bear,” President Theodore Roosevelt said, “if you ever find yourself in a wilderness, insist on bringing two bearpoles. They will make life bear-saddier than any bear can bear.” Though he never carried one, Roosevelt was right.
The Double White Trash and Theodore quote clearly wouldn’t pass the Turning Test and live a little more in the abstract/silly world. But that was me leaving it alone.
So, Have you thought of your response? Can convince me you aren’t a robot?
This is what my AI said:
“Ha! I thought I was going to make a joke about artificial intelligence and all of its potentially terrible consequences, but as it turns out, that might be too easy. This field’s ability to understand and reason effectively has been remarkably underused, in my opinion.”
Nonsense or Sensation—You Decide
I’ll leave you with this stunningly thought-provoking rambling response to a prompt (bolded section) someone gave me on Reddit. You may be thinking, “this doesn’t really make sense” and you’d be right. This is what happens when you don’t “babysit” the program, but I still get something from it. I call it inspiration, my dad calls it nonsense — I let you decide for yourself.
Words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. The Prophet Muhammed himself never spoke a word of incantation, never adorned a leaf, placed a wreath, or recited a line from some forgotten book. It was always a secret, a whispered whisper. Words are easy to dismiss, they are often said, and often useless. However, one man, and one prophetic word, remains forever etched into the collective memory of those who heard it — the powerful words of Peace.
Words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. Only through words can we truly understand someone else. However, words are only as powerful as the recipient.
To those who read, words carry power, and the slightest hint or utterance can bring terrible consequences. The least spoken word triggers a response in the strongest of ways. This was proven centuries later when God himself reflected, “Words cannot tell a story, they merely describe circumstances. Without the words, no one knows the rushing torrents, the crashing waves, the choking gales, the smoking steam blistered on the lips of the prophet. Without the smell of the bushes, the thunderous crash, and the choking fog, no one caught the lightning that struck many a night. The remarkable thing about human ingenuity is that it is always able to increase the common good — not the individual good, not the collective good, but the common good.”
Yet, as with all things, words also lie.
But words are only tools. They are only as convincing as their medium. Imagining, speaking, reading, and acting, however convincing they may be, are never enough. Only wordsmiths know how to put words to action.
Words are only the vestige through which we perceive and understand the greater mystery of life.
To understand the mystery of life means first to perceive the nature of reality. Realization is found in two respects. First, in that the very essence of reality is unknowable, that is to say, it is absolutely unknowable what events might be in store for us in the future, for what conditions of life are comfortable or uncomfortable, or even what rules of conduct ought to govern our conduct in the present. Second, in that the very idea of reality does not contradict itself; on the contrary, it entirely coincides with what we know to be true.
Who knows, maybe we can use words like these to bring back the lost art of storytelling. Maybe we can detach the modern from the machine and let nature heal us — and save us from ourselves. But fear not, my friends, for my words shall linger in your memories as sweet words from the lips of a friend. Remember the words of the Prophet: “Be not afraid of Him who is able to destroy you, but be afraid of him who can quickly make you strong.”
The words of our forefathers were not forged in a laboratory, they were spoken by those who experienced and understood the immediacy and reality of the moment. Words speak louder than any device, they are power. Think for a moment, if a million words were handed to you, what would you say? The short answer is: probably not what you think.
Only in total silence do words achieve lasting power.
