Someone described to me the other day the experience of reading my AI Lore books as being like looking at postcards. I think this is an interesting comparison, since the books are in my opinion actually image-based and not text based (though a minority are more prominently based around the text).

And I like this idea of like being some kind of tour guide for people taking trips through latent space.

A “book” might mean a certain thing to some people, but to me a book of the future (and of the past) is like a reified collection of points traveled through latent space. It’s unclear exactly how latent space and the imagination overlap, but I’m less worried about the specifics. What I’m after is more: A narrative traversal of latent space, stored in a structured form.

So in my case, I’m less of an “author” in the conventional sense, and more like a “First Reader” or “First Visitor” to the spaces that I am exploring within the greater latent space now open to humanity through generative AI technologies. I lay down tracks, I leave some sign posts here and there. But mostly I tromp down the trails I find, and try to save it in words and pictures.

It’s not a perfect summation of any particular neighborhood of latent space, but it becomes a network, a collage, a constellation of reference points culled, and lulled out of the darkness, a space for the reader/viewer/fellow traveler to come and have their own unique experience. A place of evocation, invocation. A crucible. You bring your own fire, apply your own lens. Make your own explanation, your own meaning, have your own reaction, see your own reflection.

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