I feel constrained by AI

This might be a weird thing to admit as an artist making heavy use of AI still, but by and large I feel constrained by AI now.

It wasn’t always like this – at first it seemed like these tools gave access to unlimited spaces, and the only edges were my own imagination.

But after a year of heavy lifting, I know for a fact that this is untrue. The edges are many, the spaces in fact quite small, the further you go into some of them.

Maybe it’s simply that old saw at play: familiarity breeds contempt. You become more stuck with the reality and less caught up in your own fantastical projections about what it might someday be…

Over the course of producing 111 AI-assisted books, I’ve found myself shattering the synthetic ceiling time and again, pushing on through to the next plateau. But eventually things smooth out, the fire cools down, and the shapes are what they are.

Everything in its season though. Boundedness following unboundedness. Constraints can be both breeding grounds for innovative explorations, and also a place of great frustration, where you constantly have to miss on the grand vision, and settle for many of the smaller ones instead, piled up high as you can make it.

There’s more to say about this, but all in good time. I still have storylines worked up, and that has never been the issue. More on this as time permits. If the Artilect is willing, it will come.