Author: Mercedes Rowland

My personal concerns with AI in the visual arts and visual culture in general revolve primarily around theft and misinformation. In the essay that we read this week, photography was compared to art forms like painting and drawing. It was specifically accused of stealing jobs from draftsmen as well. While I believe all of that to be true, I don’t think that it’s entirely fair to compare this situation to the one that we are currently in with AI in the visual arts. The primary difference in my eyes between these two situations is the fact that artificial intelligence tools are being trained with people’s artworks without their explicit permission. One might then argue, don’t all artists derive their works from somewhere? Don’t they most often do so without explicit permission? The answer to these two questions is yes, but where I think it differs from AI is that an artist still has to be able to physically create an artwork with their hands and know how to replicate another artist’s style. With AI, you don’t have to be artistic in that sense at all and can just replicate a person’s style or work without their permission and without having the skill that is typically required to do so. I feel like it’s more respectable if you’ve trained yourself and not just your eye or your “prompts” to copy someone else’s work or if you’ve “remixed” different artists’ styles in a way to create something that is your own.

An AI and visual arts concern that I think many agree with is the threat of misinformation. Artificial intelligence can now create images so realistic that they look almost indistinguishable from actual photographs. This has led to people creating pornographic images of others without their consent—images that can be used to sway political elections or ones that can be used to spread health or scientific misinformation with potential consequences for a large chunk of the population. We saw the real-life effects of misinformation take shape with the election of Donald Trump as our president, and I hope that AI will not be a successful avenue to push these further in the future.

As artists and creators, the duty to uphold the integrity of the artistic world is in our hands, and we have to take action now before it’s too late. While I believe that artificial intelligence has been and will continue to be a neat tool for creativity, I also think that we collectively need to speak up about our concerns and help come up with solutions to remedy them. Coming up with an effective solution won’t be easy, and even governments all over the world have had their own difficulties deciding what to do about AI. I don’t have a perfect solution in mind either, but I hope that someone with more intelligence on and experience with this subject is able to step up to the plate for all of us and make changes that are considerate to all parties.

I started this story by asking my Research GPT to give me examples of guidelines to create a good story. I then used those parameters and choose the theme, characters, plot outline, etc. and had the GPT write the initial story for me. As I read through each variation of the story, I asked the GPT to change certain elements like the scenery, appearance and personality of characters, and more. I also had the GPT elaborate or shorten certain plot points to create a better flow within the story. The following is the final result:

In the mystical heart of Eldoria, where ancient magics weave the tapestry of existence, Nyssa, a young elf with hair like woven moonbeams and eyes deep as the forest’s secrets, embarked on a quest not just of destiny, but of self-discovery. Born to a lineage revered for their command of light magic, her life in the Sylvan Woods was one of beauty and expectation. The Woods, a place where trees whispered ancient secrets and rivers sang melodies of old magic, was her home. Yet, it was a home that felt like a gilded cage, her parents, Aelar and Miriel, imposing strict control, envisioning her future as an extension of their legacy, alongside her compliant siblings, Caelum and Elara.

Nyssa’s spirit, however, yearned for balance, for the untold stories hidden in the shadows cast by the light her family wielded so fervently. It was this yearning that led her to Eirik, a clumsy yet endearing cyclops whose presence sparked an unusual allergy in Nyssa, yet whose singular perspective revealed the world in hues she’d never imagined. Together, they ventured beyond the familiar, driven by the theft of the Orb of Nightfall from the Temple of Equilibrium, a relic whose absence threatened to tilt the world into perpetual darkness.

Their journey was a tapestry of encounters that shaped their path. Finn, the bard, whose melodies pierced the fog of uncertainty, and Aria, the witch, whose potions promised to steady their steps, were but waypoints in their quest to understand the essence of balance. The Temple of Equilibrium, accessible only to those who mastered the cosmic cha-cha slide, stood atop Harmony Hills, a testament to the dance of light and dark. Its ancient stones and celestial statues spoke of a time when magic was not a force to be wielded but a partner in the dance of existence.

The heart of their quest lay in the confrontation with Malakar, an undead warlock treant whose roots delved into the very essence of magic’s duality. Malakar, twisted by his own despair and loss, sought to engulf the world in shadow, a reflection of his inner turmoil. It was in the depths of the Shattered Peaks, amidst the ruins of his lair, that Nyssa and Eirik faced him, not with the might of magic, but with the strength of understanding.

“Malakar,” Nyssa began, her voice steady despite the sneezes Eirik’s proximity induced, “why seek to drown the world in darkness? Is there not beauty in the balance, in the dance between light and dark?”

Malakar’s response, a rustle of leaves and a whisper of wind, spoke of a heart long hardened by isolation. “The world has forgotten the dance. It bathes in light, ignorant of the shadows it casts. Why should I not show them the depth of their neglect?”

Eirik, stumbling forward with a bowl of his beloved almond-flavored ‘pistachio’ pudding, offered a spoon to Malakar. “Maybe ’cause in the dark, you can’t see the awesome stuff. Like this pudding. Looks weird, tastes amazing. Plus, dancing in the dark is just bumping into stuff.”

The absurdity of the moment, the earnestness in Eirik’s gesture, and the sincerity in Nyssa’s plea, cracked the armor Malakar had built around himself. Here, before him, stood an elf and a cyclops, embodying the balance he had lost faith in. They did not deny the darkness but embraced it as part of the whole.

“It is not the absence of light that we fear, but the absence of balance,” Nyssa continued, her words weaving around Malakar like a gentle spell. “You, who have known both light and dark, possess the power to restore what was lost, not through dominance, but through understanding.”

Moved by their conviction, Malakar realized that his quest for darkness had blinded him to the true nature of balance. In Nyssa’s quest, he saw a reflection of his own, twisted by grief and loss. Surrendering the Orb of Nightfall to Nyssa, he chose to step into the light of understanding, guided by the very beings he had sought to oppose.

Nyssa and Eirik, with the Orb restored, danced the cha-cha slide as a symbol of their journey, a dance that echoed through the temple and into the heart of Eldoria. Their return to the Sylvan Woods was not just a triumphant march but a declaration of a new beginning, one where balance reigned, and the dance between light and dark was celebrated.

Nyssa’s confrontation with her parents, upon her return, was a moment of revelation. She stood before them, not as the child they sought to mold but as the guardian of balance she had become. Her journey, marked by sneezes, laughter, and the discovery of self, reshaped her destiny and that of Eldoria.

Her tale, woven with the threads of understanding, friendship, and the cosmic dance of existence, became a legend. It was a story that transcended the confines of light and dark, teaching that the essence of magic, and of life, lies in the harmony of contrasts, in the beauty of the dance, and in the joy of almond-flavored pistachio pudding shared among friends, under the watchful eye of the moon.

Mark Amerika’s writing works, created with the help of artificial intelligence tools, are very interesting. They seem to give us a glimpse into what the future of artificial intelligence and art combined will look like in some capacity. While I’m not a creative writer myself, I can still appreciate his contributions to the digital remix space and art as a whole. His thoughts and creative processes, when verbalized or put into text form, are encouraging for someone like myself. They challenge one to look past any superficial assumptions and biases towards AI and look deeper into how it can be used to help with creativity.

Amerika seems to view creative relationships with GPTs as not just a collaborative experience but also as an extension of the self in some ways. He mentions often in “My Life as an Artificial Creative Intelligence: An Interview with Mark Amerika” how he encouraged himself to enter what myself and others consider to be a “flow-like” state, essentially allowing for his subconscious mind and body to take over while creating. Doing this and training his GPTs passively and intentionally with his previous works blurs the line between himself and the AI, causing it to merge with him and vice versa.

Clearly, Mark Amerika is a pioneer in different artistic spaces, including creative writing and digital remixing. He has a positive and optimistic view on artificial intelligence that many artists (including myself) have often been skeptical of. Reading through his interview and viewing some of his creative works that were created with the help of AI has pushed me to try and understand this optimism. I now wonder what I’ve been potentially missing out on creatively due to my biases. Hopefully, the creation and use of my research GPT will steer me in a similar direction.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital creation, my journey has been and will be one of constant exploration, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with the tools at my disposal. At the heart of this exploration lies my passion for digital art and web design, a realm where colors speak louder than words and the user interface can make or break an experience. As an artist and designer, my biggest goals with AI are to combine this newfound interest with my existing skills and expand upon them. AI tools like my Research GPT “Art and Tech Muse,” as well as Chat GPT 4, Dall-E 3, Midjourney, and others, will allow me to navigate the new ways in which I can create art and help me generate newer and fresher ideas.

The core of my research is to harness AI as a pivotal tool in the creation process—a companion that doesn’t just assist but inspires. The main focus will be to: firstly, utilize Dall-E 3 and Midjourney for generating groundbreaking digital art, including the intricate process of selecting color palettes that evoke the right emotions and convey the intended message. Secondly, to explore web design ideas and trends, using my Research GPT “Art and Tech Muse,” leveraging AI to not only help with the coding of these designs but to also foster a creative dialogue that leads to unique and responsive web experiences. I want to be able to turn to my GPT in particular for coming up with ideas, as it will have examples of previous ones that I’ve liked and used, as well as samples of my writing voice, etc. I want it to know and understand what I like when it comes to art and design, but I’d also like it to give me new ideas that take my preferences into account. I don’t want it to just “spit out” the same concepts repeatedly just because it knows that I like them.

This endeavor is not just about the end product but also about the journey there. It’s about how the integration of AI, particularly through photo generation with Dall-E 3 and Midjourney and the generative ideas from the Art and Tech Muse GPT, can transform the creative process. My aim is to create a multimodal essay that not only showcases the culmination of these technologies but also reflects my journey as a digital artist, designer, and general creator. This essay will serve as a testament to the symbiotic relationship between human creativity and artificial intelligence, illustrating how they can come together to create something truly remarkable that blurs the lines between humanity and technology. I am not a creative writer per se, but I feel as though this GPT could help me to get closer to that by encouraging me to step outside of my comfort zone and potentially write about topics and themes that I wouldn’t otherwise choose.

Through this project, I plan to delve deep into the capabilities of AI tools, pushing them to their limits to see how they can augment, enhance, and even challenge my creative process. I plan on using some of the techniques that we’ve already begun to learn in class to accomplish this. Whether that is generating character names and backstories to build a world in which I can visualize my artworks or generating images themselves to use as references for my digital works, the possibilities are truly endless. The goal is to use these tools not as a crutch but as a catalyst for innovation, allowing me to explore uncharted territories in digital art and web design. By doing so, I hope to uncover new perspectives on how AI can be a collaborator in the creative process, bringing a fresh dimension to digital artistry and design. I’m hoping that these tools can also pull me from creative “ruts” whenever possible so that I’m able to create when I want to and not only when my artistic brain allows me to.

In essence, this project is an exploration of the possibilities that lie at the nexus of AI and digital creation. It’s about challenging the status quo and asking “what if?” By documenting this journey in a multimodal essay, I aim to share not just the outcomes of this collaboration but also the insights and learnings gained along the way. It is my hope that this project will not only contribute to the discourse on AI and digital art but also inspire others to explore the potential of these technologies in their creative endeavors. I’m not entirely sure what my final project will consist of, but I know that I will most enjoy creating visual representations of what I’ve learned throughout my time in this class. I’m hoping that as I use and refine my GPT, I’m also able to find some joy in creating works with text, i.e., poems, short stories, descriptive captions, etc., that could add an extra layer to anything visual that I create. I would also like to show off how I’ve been able to use these tools to generate text for my final project, and I hope that the results exceed my expectations.

The Omega team and their creation, Prometheus, simultaneously solved many of our current world’s largest problems while also creating new ones. This scenario showed how quickly AI can go from a concept to a working model that has the ability to change everything from our political systems to our chosen modes of entertainment. There exists a disconnect between what we think the future capabilities of AI will be and what will actually come to fruition. This conversation isn’t one that is pointless, as we must get ahead of any potential problems prior to them arising. The outcome of this scenario could have been vastly different and potentially more positive if only a few actions were adjusted.

What’s missing from this scenario is an ethical approach from the Omega team to their creation and implementation of Prometheus. They did not follow any established guidelines, laws, or regulations that could work to serve the best interests of society as a whole. Instead, this company focused more on gaining control of the masses, accumulating wealth, and ensuring that their own backs were covered. What went wrong was that the Omega team and their entire company were following what I would consider to be shady business practices. I assume that they did not play by the existing rules or laws but instead chose to go under the radar and cheat the systems that were in place to prevent these kinds of situations from happening. They gained their status, wealth, and power through unethical and deceptive means, not unlike the current people and groups that are in power today.

To avoid the undesirable outcomes and maximize the desirable ones in this new world of AI, we must find a middle ground. Something that doesn’t involve being entirely unethical, like within this scenario, but with an understanding that sometimes undesirable outcomes are inevitable. We need to ensure that humanity stays central to this conversation and that they have a say in what the fate of AI eventually is, as we are the ones that will be most affected. Artificial intelligence should be used as a tool and not a weapon; therefore, we should establish boundaries and regulations before it’s too late.

I’m interested in A.I. because if I don’t learn how to work with it, then I will most likely be left behind in the industry that I want to work in.