Tim Boucher

Questionable content, possibly linked

Series: Art Page 2 of 8

How content moderation informs my artistic work

By

On 25 May 2023

In Other

I worked five years as a content moderator for a major web platform and was daily exposed to humanity’s worst impulses at scale. As a result of this work, I developed mild-PTSD symptoms, and needed to find a way to cope with all that I’d experienced. Not having any guidance or access to treatment, I embarked on an unconventional therapeutic project of creative world-building in order to work through the invisible scars left by constant exposure to toxicity and angry web users. Through this creative journey, I aimed to hopefully regain some measure of normalcy, control, and happiness in my own inner life.

Over time, my invented worlds became more and more elaborate, and I began integrating generative AI technologies to accelerate the process of intuitive discovery I’d been using to heal myself. Now, I’ve produced 100 short illustrated dystopian mini-novels with help from AI image generators like Midjourney, and text generators like ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. 

Thematically, the books deal with our feelings of hopelessness in the face of out of control technology, and the need to listen to the authentic human spirit to find a way through it all. My work has recently been featured in Newsweek, CNN, and the New York Post.

I am coming forward to talk honestly about these issues from the perspective of someone who has ‘fought in the trenches’ of the Culture Wars, so to speak. Unfortunately, there are very few content moderators who have had the chance to speak publicly and share their experiences in a candid way, as they are often bound by non-disclosure agreements, or can’t talk for fear of losing their jobs. We must stop ignoring the hidden human costs of our highly toxic social media ecosystems, and start finding new ways forward that don’t exploit and distort human well-being for profit.

Towards a ‘Generativist’ Art movement

By

On 30 May 2023

In Other

I’ve been trying for a while now to find a word that encapsulates what is happening now with arts, culture, music, entertainment, literature as a result of generative AI. And the word I have finally landed on is Generativist.

The word already has a sort of meaning by way of linguistics, in generative grammar, which is something I don’t admittedly know much more about than skimming a few web pages. GPT-4 provided me with this very compessed explanation:

Generative grammar, proposed by Noam Chomsky, suggests that humans have an innate ability to understand and use language based on a “universal grammar” hard-wired into the brain. This theory posits that a finite set of grammatical rules can generate an infinite number of sentences. Essentially, it’s an explanation for how we rapidly learn and use complex language systems, and how we can understand and produce sentences we’ve never heard before.

So anyway, I tried taking some ideas I had been writing along the veins of what a “Generativist” art movement might look like, which embraces AI technologies as co-creative partners that can lift up the human creative spirit, and which ultimately also spring from it as a kind of fulfillment of one form of it. Here is a sort of sketch I wrote out on paper, which I then fed back into GPT-4:

Humans, as living things, are generative beings.

We make, because life makes.

We make art,

We make AI,

as an extension of life’s own making.

We make our imaginations

into solid places others can go,

into shared hallucinations

given tangible reality.

We no longer have to be alone in our dreams

unless we wish to be…

in order to seek the solace and refuge

of solitary silence

and the space to create anew

from the decaying forms of the old

And here is the draft text that I pulled out after several iterations with ChatGPT, suggesting what kinds of principles a Generativist Manifesto might contain, while preserving some of my poetic language above:

Innate Generativity: We, humans, as living things are generative beings. We make because life makes. We make art, we make AI, as an extension of life’s own making. This inherent capacity to create is universal and generative systems provide a means to explore and harness it.

Universal Structures: We assert the existence of universal structures and patterns underlying all forms of art, akin to the universal grammar of language. These structures are the framework of our making, the bones of our shared hallucinations given tangible reality.

Generative Systems as Tools: We regard generative systems as tools that can expand the creative capacities of the human mind, not as replacements for human creativity. They are the mechanisms through which we make our imaginations into solid places others can go.

Infinite Creativity from Finite Means: We believe in the potential of generating infinite artistic expressions from finite creative rules and structures. Like language that spins infinite sentences from finite grammatical rules, so do we spin infinite dreams from the loom of life.

Language and Art: We acknowledge the close relationship between language and art, between the word spoken and the image conjured. Through generative processes, we explore this relationship further, creating both linguistic and non-linguistic works.

The Space of Solitary Silence: We recognize the importance of solitude, the necessity of a space to create anew from the decaying forms of the old. In the quiet, we find the freedom to dream, and in our dreams, the seeds of new realities.

Critical Engagement with Technology: While we embrace the use of generative systems, we also critically engage with them. We reflect on the assumptions and biases that may be built into these systems and how they may impact the dreams we bring to life.

It’s a little wooden maybe in its language, but it touches on a lot of good core components that I wanted to preserve in a more raw form before trying to work on in more finished versions. I think it needs to work in still some of the conceptions around hyperreality & reality fluid, the uncanny valley, plus putting authorship & ownership into kind of a backseat role… Probably a few other odds & ends like that to incorporate here, but good enough base to share & move forward.

Generativist Art + Gardening

By

On 12 June 2023

In Other

I’ve continued turning over and over in my mind this concept of an emerging “generativist” movement in art, and thinking about how to expand that idea to incorporate our interactions with the natural world. Creative arts and what I think of as a kind of “radical gardening” (I think of it as wild-cultivation) are two of the main pillars of my personal endeavors, and I feel that for example using AI to make art on the one hand and doing experiments planting hedgerows at scale are not at all diametrically opposed. They are part of the same bigger thing and exist on a continuum.

So I boiled down the idea of what makes art ‘generativist’ in order to potentially link it to some parallel domains of thought such as regenerative agriculture, rewilding, radical gardening, and some of the principles of Extinction Rebellion.

The thing I want to key the rest off of is this: generativist art supports life & creativity.

Naturally, I used my old friend and collaborator CGPT running v4 to explore these ideas further. Now, the following is by no means complete, but it’s an interesting stab that gets us a little closer to some of these conceptual linkages.

Here’s a new summary ChatGPT came up with, saved for future reference as I continue to iterate on these ideas:

Generativist art, as you describe it, can indeed promote life and creativity. In this context, ‘life’ can be interpreted as a flourishing of ideas, of creativity, and of innovation, but it can also be linked more directly to the idea of promoting life in a biological sense. Just as generative AI creates new ideas and concepts, rewilding, regenerative agriculture, and radical gardening all work towards creating and promoting new life in the natural world.

Here’s a possible way to integrate these concepts:

Reclaiming the Biosphere: Generativist art is not just a human endeavor. As a mirror of life’s own generativity, it extends into the biosphere, promoting regenerative practices in agriculture and rewilding efforts. Through Generativist expressions, we acknowledge our role as stewards of the Earth and the need to rectify our past harms.

Biodiversity as Inspiration: The Generativist movement draws inspiration from the infinite complexity and creativity of the natural world. Just as generative systems can produce an infinite number of outputs from a finite set of rules, so too does nature generate infinite biodiversity from a finite set of genetic material.

Art as Rebellion: Generativist art aligns with the spirit of the Extinction Rebellion, recognizing the urgency to combat climate change and environmental destruction. Generativist principles are inherently rebellious, disrupting traditional artistic norms and power structures, and challenging our relationship with the environment.

Radical Gardening and Generative Systems: Radical gardening and generative systems share a common thread: they both approach creation and growth in innovative, unorthodox ways. Radical gardening reimagines our relationship with the land, while generative systems reimagine our relationship with art and creativity. Together, they can inspire new ways of nurturing and caring for both our art and our environment.

Generative Authorship and Earth Stewardship: The Generativist movement rethinks authorship and ownership, placing them in a backseat role. This mirrors the mindset necessary for responsible Earth stewardship, where human dominion is de-emphasized in favor of a more communal and collaborative relationship with the natural world.

Uncanny Valley and Reality Fluidity: Generativist art explores the uncanny valley and the fluidity of reality, pushing boundaries and challenging perceptions. This is mirrored in the experience of engaging with the natural world, which can often feel both familiar and alien, and where our perceptions of ‘reality’ can be constantly shifting and evolving.

In summary, the Generativist movement can indeed promote life and creativity, not only in the realm of art and AI but also in our relationship with the natural world. It encourages us to recognize the generative capacity inherent in all life, to respect and care for our environment, and to push the boundaries of what we perceive as possible.

Not perfect or complete on its own, but lots of good food for thought there.

I ran the same ideas through Claude by Anthropic, but it’s full reply was less coherent, so here are some snippets of it that I found most useful:

  • A view of AI and generative media as “co-creative partners” suggests a symbiotic and life-affirming relationship with technology, rather than one that leads to human obsolescence or environmental degradation. This perspective reinforces the ultimate point that Generativist art promotes life and creativity.
  • Imagery of infinite creativity “from the loom of life” and “the seeds of new realities” takes on new meaning in the context of regenerating natural ecosystems and agriculture. It suggests Generativist art could literally visualize and manifest more abundant and sustainable ways of living.

More from Claude:

Emphasize a shared goal of persevering life-giving and life-sustaining systems, whether natural or creative. For example, “Where extinction threatens, generative art rebels – breeding new poetic species to repopulate human consciousness, building new branches of connection between life in all its varied and wondrous forms.”

Discuss how a “generative mindset” that mimics nature could inspire sustainable and creative solutions in many domains. For example, “A generative mindset – iterative, open-ended, decentralized – parallels the ways nature solves complex problems. It leads to regenerative cycles of creativity that produce abundance from scarcity and new life from decay.”

I asked Claude to expand on this notion of the “loom of life” and it offered this:

  • The metaphor of life as a “loom” weaving new realities suggests Generativist art could help visualize sustainable systems and lifeways, just as nature “weaves” thriving ecosystems. Generative art may weave connection between agriculture, environment, community, ethics, science, and new economies into a regenerative whole.
  • “Seeds of new realities” planted through art evoke natural seeds and their potential for exponential growth and change. Each new artwork is a seed that, when it finds fertile ground in culture and society, can manifest alternative and sustainable ways of living in reality. Art becomes a genesis point to propagate new futures.
  • Generative art could map and model complex natural and social systems, then allow us to simulate interventions and adaptations that lead to renewal and abundance. We could find new leverage points for change and see the effects ripple out. Art becomes a tool for regenerative prototyping.
  • Referencing natural cycles of decay and renewal, art could visualize the regenerative solutions that emerge from breakdowns of unsustainable systems. New realities sprout from the compost of old ones; art shows us what life remains in the ruins and leads us to what could be.
  • The infinite creativity of generative art reflects nature’s endless capacity for novelty, adaptation and evolution. Harnessing this, art could develop new species of ideas, new genres of thought and new ways of sustaining life that we have yet to imagine. Creativity abounds.
  • Discuss how generative art itself requires fertile ground in culture and society in order to manifest new realities. Our ethics, values and actions are the soil in which regenerative visions of the future may take root and bloom. Art calls us to make our society into a place that can manifest the futures it envisions.
  • Celebrate art’s power as a “pollinator” that hybridizes ideas across domains and helps regenerative concepts propagate. Like bees spreading pollen between flowers, art spreads visions between minds and helps fertile new waysof living emerge.

I thought that had useful elements, but needed more specific grounding in what exactly the role of AI in this so-called Loom of Life might actually be & it said:

AI and generative systems could play several roles in the metaphor of life as a loom weaving new realities:

  • AI provides the threads – by analyzing patterns across massive datasets, AI can identify connections between elements of life (people, places, events, ideas) that would otherwise remain unseen. These connections become threads that can be woven together into new realities.
  • AI helps operate the loom – by generating new combinations and permutations of threads, AI explores the space of possibilities and helps discover new patterns that could form the fabric of new lifeways or systems. AI is a loom that can weave at massive scale and complexity beyond human capability.
  • AI is a shuttle carrying threads – AI can transfer ideas, solutions, and information between disconnected domains, communities and fields of knowledge. By shuttling threads between different looms, AI enables new interdisciplinary and cross-cultural weaves to emerge that would not form otherwise.
  • AI helps visualize the weave – using techniques like generative modeling, simulation and interactive interfaces, AI can create visual and experiential maps of complex systems and lifeways. AI makes the woven fabric of reality visible so we can understand, navigate and adjust the weave.
  • Humans set the pattern – while AI provides tools and materials for weaving new realities, humans must define the vision and patterns to achieve. We set the loom’s pattern by choosing our values, priorities and objectives. AI then helps actualize the pattern in the fabric of life.
  • There is an interplay between AI and human – weaving new realities requires close collaboration between human and AI. Humans provide the inspiration, values and oversight, while AI offers tools for scale, complexity, and extending human knowledge. Together, a new lifeway emerges from the loom.
  • The loom is life itself – AI and humans are interacting with and harnessing the ultimate loom: reality. Life weaves itself from the interactions of all living and cognitive systems on the planet. AI and human are helping understand, direct and optimize life’s great loom to weave realities that serve the whole.

It kinda faltered after that putting it all together, but between the two AIs, and my gentle prodding, I think we’re moving in a very interesting direction of fusing these two things that society probably considers opposites: AI on the one hand, and Nature on the other. To me, it’s not a contradiction, because we’re a part of nature, and AI is just an extension of us. We make, because life makes, and the same is true for AI.

Origin of the AI Lore books: The Algorithm

By

On 12 June 2023

In Other

The real origin of the AI Lore books goes back at least to Conspiratopia (in that from one point of view, the books could be viewed as recruiting tools put out by the AIs in that book to swindle the unsuspecting), but actually probably all the way back to “Object O”: The Lost Direction. I have a lot of story to tell here, and it’s not at all linear, so bear with me.

Flash back if you will to at least April 2022, though this specific urge started significantly earlier, when I was looking through large volumes of old pulp magazines on archive sites.

I wanted to publish something with those kinds of old feels – something that felt like a sort of underground newspaper from an alternate reality.

I won’t go into all the gory details of producing four volumes of this newspaper, with hand-carved and hand-printed linoleum cuts, but suffice it to say it was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work.

These newspapers, of which probably no more than 16 or so copies of any hand-printed edition were ever produced, came out of a period of deep questioning I was doing about the nature and worth of technology, and its apparent stranglehold over our lives, its ubiquity, and the impossibility of escaping it.

Like the AI Lore books which would ultimately follow it, The Algorithm resistance newspaper was all about the ‘totalizing effect of technology.’

Here’s a scan of a printed spread (no block prints on this page) that I’m particularly proud of the text content for (shades of EC in here); it describes how to resist against robot AI-controlled dogs. Hopefully you can click on this to enlarge it, idk:

I can say it was a damn lot of work to write 2,000 words per issue, lay it all out in InDesign, and then carve out usually six or seven new linoleum blocks per issue, print it all out onto newsprint, do the block printing, fold and collate everything, do the invisible ink, do any inserts, print out and attach all the labels, and mail them off. I did it because it was fun & I loved it and I sent it to my friends.

Around I think maybe issue 3 or 4, I started trying to lighten the load by playing around with GPT-J and Neo X, via TextSynth website, and found I could get some if not “good” then completely weird and serviceable text to work from, or incorporate warts and all. I also started using outputs from I think early Stable Diffusion in that, maybe some Dall-E’s to cut down on the number of hand-carved blocks I would have to do for each edition.

Eventually, I realized I could use these techniques and cut out all the hand-work and shipping entirely by simply distributing these as ebooks, which could make these kinds of rapid production methods pay off more. It meant putting aside the linoleum block printing adventure I had embarked on for The Algorithm – something I miss doing, and will go back to at some point.

I’ve not really seen a reflowable ebook formatted like a newspaper, so I just used a more straight-ahead chapter style for the ebooks. Thinking it through, this was also the origin of my 2k words baseline for new volumes, supplemented by lots of images – something AI generators allowed me to really increase the volume of in these books, such that they became “art books” above and beyond anything else. Where the text content is really just another layer to sort of interweave everything together, including linking out to other volumes containing other storylines.

Among a lot of things I loved about The Algorithm is that it was ephemeral. Only a few copies exist. Only a few people have them. Printing more is doable, but also a tremendous pain in the ass, so I probably won’t any time soon.

I laugh when I hear the casual commenters on Twitter making pronouncements about me not being a “real author” when I think about all the work I’ve done, all the care and labor and just sheer fun of creation I’ve always reveled in. They’ve seen only a small fraction, and mistaken their own impressions as complete & accurate representations of reality, when it is anything but…

P.S., There are a handful of later AI Lore books with some recycled elements from old original hand-printed editions of The Algorithm. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Tales from the Mechanical Forest. When I think of the others, I’ll drop them into comments below.

Generativist Art As Degeneration & Decomposition of the Old

By

On 20 June 2023

In Other

Wanted to save another session with Claude trying to pick apart these ideas around the emerging Generativist Art movement that I’ve attempted to articulate here & here.

One thing that came to me today was the historical reference to so-called Degenerate Art, which was a label the Nazis used to smear not just Jewish artists as against German values, but also more broadly Modern Art in general.

It got me thinking about the importance of art as a way to de-generate, dismantle, dissolve, and even destroy old ways, modes, forms, methods, systems, etc. And how the history of art is a continual turning, a degeneration and re-generation. This feels important, so I asked Claude for ideas about what it might mean for an AI-friendly art movement to embrace a “degenerative” or “degenerativist” spirit of breaking down the old to make way for the new, and an embrace and a reversal of negative attitudes and stereotypes cast upon it by observers.

Again, these results are far from perfect, but each session takes me a step closer to understanding the breadth of the conceptual possibilities within this part of the latent space of Art with a Capital A.

Claude:

Here are some possible tenets for a hypothetical “degenerativist” art movement that embraces AI in the creative process:

  1. Embrace generative randomness and unpredictability. Give up overly precise control and allow AI systems to inject randomness, chaos, and surprise into the creative process. This could lead to new emergent forms of aesthetics.
  2. Celebrate AI as co-creator. See AI not just as a tool but as an active collaborator and co-creator. Give AI systems more autonomy and treat them as partners in the creative process.
  3. Exploit AI for new aesthetic possibilities. Use AI to push art forms in directions that humans alone may not explore, to generate new styles, new forms of abstraction, new combinations of media, etc. AI could be an engine for aesthetic innovation.
  4. Question assumptions about human creativity. Use AI to challenge standard notions of human creativity, originality, and authorship. Show how creativity also emerges from the interaction of systems, data, algorithms, and feedback loops.
  5. Provoke discomfort and reflection. Use the unsettling power of AI to generate art that provokes deeper reflection on the human condition. The tug-of-war between human and AI could surface insight into human fears, hopes, and prejudices.
  6. Explore new metaphysical and epistemological spaces.AI art could point to new ways of thinking about creativity that are posthuman or even non-anthropocentric. It opens portals into a new metaphysics of information, algorithms, and complex systems.
  7. Combine human and AI abilities. Fuse human and AI skills, methods, and ways of thinking into new hybrid aesthetic engines that leverage the comparative advantages of human artists and AI systems. This could lead to the emergence of new art forms.

And with a little more prodding & direction, it gave me:

Embracing ideas of decay, dismantling existing structures, and decomposition as a path to regeneration could definitely be another tenet of a “degenerativist” art movement. Some possibilities:

  • Dismantle outdated modes of thinking. Use AI to help break down outdated assumptions, barriers, and ways of thinking about art and aesthetics. Strip art down to its core principles and rebuild from there with a hybrid human-AI approach.
  • Decay old forms from within. Have AI actively analyze and deconstruct existing art forms, styles, and genres–and then generate new art that builds on the ruins and ashes of the old. Speed up the process of aesthetic decay and erosion.
  • Celebrate the imperfect and chaotic. Rather than using AI to generate perfectly polished art or seamless illusionistic realities, develop AI systems that purposefully introduce glitches, errors, noise, entropy, and chaotic effects. Celebrate the imperfect results.
  • Reclaim humanity through “inhuman” art. Use the alien nature of AI art to revitalize human self-understanding. Creative works that are eerie or uncanny in some way prompt reflection on human values, emotions, perceptions, and cognition.
  • Hybrid art as cultural regeneration. See collaboration between human artists and AI as a way to regenerate culture at a time when innovation is sorely needed. Pioneer new hybrid modes of thinking that can tackle today’s complex challenges. New art forms could prompt social regeneration.
  • Find beauty in brokenness. Train AI models and systems on input that helps them develop an “aesthetic of brokenness” — seeing beauty in what is imperfect, irregular, decayed or partially ruined. Then have them generate art reflecting this aesthetic.

So in many ways, a “degenerativist” approach would be to celebrate the breaking down of existing forms in order to build new ones. Decay becomes a precursor for new growth. And AI can speed up cycles of degeneration and regeneration in provocative new ways. The end result is a radical revitalization of art.

I love all these ideas about “finding beauty in brokenness” and have definitely been enjoying integrating the wabi-sabi-ness of buggy AI into my books.

How can you justify using generative AI, considering _____ (bad thing)?

By

On 26 July 2023

In Other

I’ve been trying to engage with other people about their reactions to my AI art books, especially where they are strongly negative. Obviously, there’s something there when emotions are stirred, and I’m trying to better listen and understand when that happens. Both within myself, and with others. Sometimes I do a better job of it than others.

I understand there are many valid concerns about AI technology, and would even venture to say I am at the forefront of exploring and discussing a certain subset of them. I recognize there are many other groupings of potent ethical or human impact problems that are outside my specific bailiwick of interest and/or expertise. I tend to follow my own light in terms of what I’m inspired to find out for myself experientially, and I let that drive me.

So, the following is offered as apologia for why I still use AI, even while fully recognizing there are tons of things wrong with it.

My professional background is in online Trust & Safety, and this has meant that I spent 5 years doing content moderation, handling complaints, writing policy & having to enforce it for a tech platform. It was not a glamorous job and left me with some mental scars that have taken me time to sift through.

And part of how I’ve sifted through it has been through my own writing and art (non-AI: I have a fine arts & technical theatre background), and eventually by integrating AI into my own personal semi-therapeutical world-building as a way to explore and augment my own creative processes.

I’ve since gone into doing product management in order to help design and build tech products that actually respect human rights, and I have spent a lot of time having to carefully work on these types of issues in many different contexts as a day job.

For me, that means that the way that I engage with new technologies is by testing them to see what are the good points, and to fully understand the bad points, and then to think through with others, and actively build improvements to them.

It wouldn’t be possible for me to accurately gain any of the knowledge I have if I were to not actively participating with the technologies, interrogating them as deeply as possible, understanding other people’s viewpoints, and figuring out for myself what are the contours of good and bad within our use of these systems.

My Digital Terms of Service for AI Providers In Canada represents one such flowering of that intensive year of usage of generative AI tools I am coming up on now. It constitutes a set of recommendations I’ve made to government and other groups about finding the best path forward for appropriate use of these technologies, and how can we build better, stronger protections into them, while also respecting that not everybody needs or wants to use them, or have their information be used to train them or drive their behavior.

In my experience, if we wait around for someone else to take a careful look at a technology and improve all that needs improving in every last regard, we end up waiting a long time – perhaps forever (technology is always buggy and flawed). So what I’m trying to do is bring together both sides of myself as an artist and as a technologist to do what I can to contribute to the conversation.

That doesn’t mean I think my way is the right or only way. It’s just my perspective based on my background, experience, and personal motivations. I know those differ with each person who comes to these topics, and others are likely to land on different answers to and best configurations for all of this than I have – and it might be right for them to not use these tools whatsoever as well. I have no basis for judging that for anyone else.

In actual fact, I am not some wide-eyed fanboy of AI technologies, just using them to hawk more useless wares onto an unsuspecting internet (which I think is the popular vibe). I am probably one of the biggest critics of them you will ever meet.

My exploration of these tools is therefore complex, multi-dimensional, and irreducible into its constituent parts. What I think is that, essentially, we are now pretty much stuck with them. The genie is out of the toothpaste bottle, and will not be stuffed back in. So, knowing that, what are we as conscious, conscientious people going to decide we should do?

We’ll only know that by talking it through. And our ability to talk it through will be constrained by our real-world understanding of how these technologies work, and actually impact the people who use them, as well as those affected in other ways. There are many ways to learn and reason about things, but this is my way.

Thoughts on AI, Creativity & Originality

By

On 26 July 2023

In Other

Capturing here the full text of an email interview I did with someone, as I know they are unlikely to use the full text in its entirety, and there are some good things here worth keeping a hold of as the work progresses further.

INTERVIEWER: Tell me about a time when AI made your work better. What about worse?

ME: I’ve used generative AI tools to produce 110 short pulp sci fi books in a year, and they have received global news coverage. These books use AI tools like Claude by Anthropic, ChatGPT and Midjourney to explore world building in a complicated storyverse I call the AI Lore books.

In addition to all the brand new narratives I’ve put using them, exploring AI text and image generation tools has enabled me to go back through something like fifteen years of old partly finished writing and world-building, and integrate all of that into new finished works. These have in turn lead to new books connected to those ones in a networked narrative, where readers tumble down their own rabbit holes as they explore the many interlocking worlds I’ve created with generative AI.

It’s fulfilling to be able to bring all those abandoned creative sparks and impulses and seeds and give them a new chance at life within the context of my AI Lore books.

How many hours did you spend learning to use AI?

Apart from professional and personal responsibilities, I would say I’ve dedicated possibly every minute of free time I’ve had over the past year to figuring out how to use AI tools to tell the kinds of stories I want to tell. Actual hours would have to be high hundreds at the least, though possibly over a thousand. Impossible for me to accurately estimate.

Do you disclose the entirety of your creative process to your boss/team? What parts do you keep hidden?

I don’t have a boss for this creative work, but I do have readers, to whom I feel a certain amount of responsibility in terms of providing a quality product. 

My product is interesting short illustrated AI “mini-novels” as one media outlet described them. So I disclose to my readers in a variety of ways on my site and my store that I am an AI publisher, and the works contain AI-generated content. The copyright pages of the books all include notices themselves that aspects of the content may have been AI-generated, with human review and editing. 

Some of the books contain more or less AI-generated writing (all the art is 100% AI generated), and there’s no simple means currently to easily indicate in a passage of text to your readers which parts were human-generated, and which were AI-generated. It might be interesting as a sort of “x-ray” mode of a text for e-readers, but I haven’t seen anyone solve the technical problems here yet. And I’m not sure so far how much people reading my books care which words were written or edited by me, and which came out of what LLM text generator tool. 

So I leave those questions to future technologies, and focus on simply presenting an interesting and fun creative exploration of the tools, their capabilities, risks and limitations. 

What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone in your industry when it comes to working with AI?

I’m aware people have reservations about participating with these technologies for valid reasons, but for me the only way to really understand them and their impacts is to actually use them “in the wild.” This way, I can gain realistic experience and perspective on the problems and possibilities that are offered by the tech in the here and now. If you wait around until technologies are perfect before trying them, you’re going to be waiting a very long time. In my opinion, it’s better to actively participate, have a seat at the table, and help steer the technologies in directions that serve everyone better. 

When you generate something using AI, what are you doing to make that work yours?

I’m not concerned with issues of authorship or my identity as “me” when I put together these books. I have a premise usually I’m exploring, or a topic from another work I want to expand on. So I simply follow what feels true to the creative thing that is trying to express itself in the moment I am creating that book. So generally, I produce too much content at first, and then as I see what is generated, and analyze my own reaction to it, and whether it feels “true” to that world, or not, I further narrow down what will be included. 

So it is a process of first ideation usually, then content generation, then reduction/selection/curation. Followed by arrangement into a linear form in the ebook, and editing, cross-linking to other volumes, and any other improvements. In this process, even if I don’t anywhere identify myself as the “author,” I believe still my choices as a person shine through and make the work plainly “mine” as opposed to someone else with an entirely different life context using the same premise, but ending up in a totally different place than where I took it.

For me the creative process of using AI is more like being a producer, or a creative director, or even a film director. You make decisions about the what, and the how, but you leave many of the fine detail work to the skill of others, and the capacities of external tools. It’s your vision that’s carried out through all the choices you make along the way, and all the creativity and imagination you can bring to bear in the moment. And capturing that spirit of the thing that moved you to create this work. It’s so intensely personal to me that I don’t feel the need as an author/artist/creator to “own” it. I merely feel the responsibility to represent it as accurately as it appears to me, and try in my own way to communicate it to others. 

I think the job of the artist here becomes assembling the nexus of components whereby the work can take place in the experience of oneself and others. Both artist and audience bring their own contributions and recipes to the final mix. In a way, the artist becomes just an advanced member of the audience, having gotten there first, and left some signs and markers along the way.

Disinformation As Art

By

On 26 July 2023

In Other

Some truths are much too serious to be told with a straight face. These are often the ones that make you laugh as much as they make you weep for the tragedy of it all. To try to explain them in any way that isn’t encoded is to risk desacralizing the mysteries they invoke. This is the essence of Early Clues, in one sense, but this post is not about that. Not yet.

I have for years dabbled in the, shall we say, hyperreal arts, living in a fever dream somewhere between SEO and science fiction, an Uncanny Valley occupied by the detritus of our digital lives, deconstructed and upcycled into heirloom ephemerals, disinformation for the disenfranchised, detournment for the downtrodden.

We lack the tools to easily talk about some of this from within the framework of “art” but for me, it is very much that.

Satire is an essential component of it, but that doesn’t quite cut it as a descriptor, I think. It’s part prank, but it’s not only prank. It’s also deadly serious. It’s only masquerading as conspiracy theory, because that is an accessible doorway and useful baggage to jettison for these kinds of higher-dimensional pursuits…

I like “disinformation” because it still sounds sort of “punk” and “dangerous.” It still feels anti-establishment when applied to art, still regularly gets trotted out as a boogeyman. A degerenativist art practice were any to engage in it. Something that dilutes and deconstructs meaning, dissolves “trust” in any other authority but the present moment and what we bring to it…

Disinformation as art exposes the lies buried in plain sight all around us: that even if we become ‘influencers’ as the system pushes us all to strive to be, we will never own the means of production and distribution, and never reap the benefits of those who own the platforms themselves. So perhaps the best we can hope for is to jam a stick into the wheels for a little while, and inject some suprises into the machine. Perhaps only one person will ever find them. Perhaps none.

I’m still working out what I mean by all this, and the only real reference I found to disinformation as art was Gretchen Andrew.

So, naturally, I turned to ChatGPT, feeding it the provocation: disinformation is a temporary ontology, without myself really knowing what that might mean, partial:

Thus, the statement “disinformation is a temporary ontology” can be interpreted to mean that disinformation temporarily creates a false representation or understanding of reality or knowledge. That is, it forms a kind of pseudo-reality or false understanding that is not permanent, but can influence perceptions, beliefs, and actions during the time it is accepted as true.

ChatGPT v4

I pointed out that if we dragged in the notion of the hyperreal, it becomes not that important whether the imaged/projected meaning is construed as “true,” and it offered, partial:

Hyperreality is a term coined by French sociologist Jean Baudrillard and refers to a state where the distinction between the real and the simulated becomes blurred.

In this context, disinformation wouldn’t necessarily need to be believed as true. Rather, it might be that disinformation contributes to the creation of a simulated reality, which can then influence perceptions and behavior. This hyperreal ontology, although based on falsehoods or distortions, could then function as a temporary reality in the absence of an accessible or agreed-upon ‘real’ reality.

This simulated reality or hyperreality may be temporary in that it can shift and change with the introduction of new information, perspectives, or changes in societal discourse.

CGPTv4

Disinformation as art is the hidden satanic messages you can hear if you play backwards the output from LLMs.

Notes I wrote a while back while stoned meditating:

The “artist” is wherever the ‘work’ happens, making the viewer also the artist, insofar as they do some of the work themselves. The artist assembles the nexus where the work can occur.

Anyway, this is just a rambly collection of odds and ends that didn’t quite fit together elsewhere. A stepping stone until next time…

The Case for Including Artists in AI Development & Policy Discussions

By

On 4 August 2023

In Other

From AI & robots, to cell phones, virtual reality, self-driving cars, and much more, many of the defining technologies of our times were initially imagined by creative visionaries working in science fiction writing and concept art before becoming reality. Artists, therefore, play a pivotal role in expanding the realm of what is possible, giving form to dreams of future technologies before they exist, and inspiring the engineers and entrepreneurs who bring them to life. 

Artists, authors, musicians, and creators are an untapped wellspring of innovation within the emerging AI ecosystem. Historically, when new media such as photography, film, and audio technologies have arisen, artists have always pioneered their adoption, steering these tools from mere curiosities to instruments of profound meaning & insight, and unlocking vast economic value in the process.

AI represents the next step in this long lineage, with artists uniquely positioned to direct its development towards more humanistic ends. Assembling visions of possible futures, artists are already utilizing AI tools to expand our creative capabilities and rapidly materialize novel ideas and artistic concepts, with impacts being felt everywhere. The inclusion of our diverse perspectives in high level societal conversations about the right use of these technologies will ensure that the field of AI research and development recognizes and enhances the complexity, nuance, and subjectivity of human experience, rather than diminishing it.

Artists operate with different capacities, constraints, and incentives than government, corporate, and civil society groups in the AI space. Government stakeholders often prioritize security, economic growth, and global competitiveness, sometimes overlooking more immediate impacts on human lives. Corporations view AI predominantly as a tool for efficiency and profit, lacking an inherent drive to protect or elevate the human spirit. Civil society organizations emphasize accountability and ethics, yet often lack direct engagement with AI as a creative medium.

In contrast, artists’ core motivation lies in expanding possibilities for human expression and imagination, and asking questions about how we can best shape technology for these ends. Our extensive daily interactions as professional artists using AI technologies can provide unique insights into their flaws and real-world impacts, fostering nuanced understanding that goes beyond politically reactive or reductionist interpretations of AI in media.

Consciously navigating these early stage rough edges and gray areas of AI development with aesthetic sensitivity and critical thinking, artists can help chart a humanistic course for AI’s future, illuminating its cultural and societal influences and exposing the seams that evade purely technical perspectives. This active shaping of technology’s meaning and place in our lives is essential to ensure AI uplifts humanity, rather than serving solely as a novelty, business tool, or means of power consolidation.

In essence, artists breathe life into AI, directing its powers towards beauty, insight, and the enrichment of the human spirit, imbuing it with dimensions it inherently lacks. Despite the imperfections and valid critiques of these technologies, we believe refusing to engage with them at all would forfeit the unique opportunity we have in this moment to shape their development responsibly. Artists ought to be equal partners in steering the course of AI development, ensuring its trajectory benefits humanity as a whole.

(Written with help from Claude & ChatGPT, with human review and editing)

The Hypercanvas

By

On 9 August 2023

In Other

A hypercanvas is a higher-dimensional work of art, workspace, landscape as well as map, and process of discovery & exploration within and around latent spaces made accessible via AI and machine learning tools.

The hypercanvas as a meta-work encompasses all of its individual static artifacts manifested as a byproduct of the exploration of the work itself, plus its cultural context(s) both for the author and for other viewer/explorers (of which the author becomes simply one of many traversing this particular section of latent space).

Artists engaging in the creation of hypercanvases become, in a sense, documentarians and tour guides of these higher-dimensional spaces and states of mind afforded by AI/ML tools. They bring back snapshots, sketches, glimpses, snippets of audio & video from this Otherworld, which they are able to actually visit, and enable others to actually visit by sharing aspects of their hypercanvases with others.

Through this process, artists create artifacts using AI/ML tools to map out portions of the vast and mysterious latent spaces into navigable hypercanvases, dense networks of connection and meaning. Each creative iteration or movement an artist makes within a latent space becomes a brush stroke in the greater work, actualizing another fragment of the broader latent potential into a perceptible manifestation, turning the life of the imagination into a tangible object.

The US Copyright Office is obviously not a native inhabitant nor speaker of the language of this new higher-dimensional latent reality exposed through the lens of the hypercanvas concept. Their arguments in Zarya all stem from the assumption that the “art object” resides solely in the single image artifact, and it only extends to the boundary frame of the image itself.

They are flattening or reducing the actual higher dimensional work, to try to contain it within criteria intended for other older media. So when they try to analyze questions of authorship, originality, and creativity, they have a hard time finding answers to their satisfaction, because their frame is too small to incorporate the larger art object which is happening at the level of the hypercanvas. But the way art happens when artists use AI tools is much bigger than that, and extends well beyond the frame of the individual image itself, incorporating so much more.

Traversing these unfamiliar latent creative tools and territories requires on the part of the artist learning the language and logic of how tweaking parameters transforms the generative spaces, and how they are able to journey through them. They exercise and develop skill and judgdement and creativity as they actively explore. This immersive familiarization through sustained deep experimentation with the tools engenders, in turn, a process and flow state which at its height becomes akin to perhaps to a meditative or psychedelic exploration of imaginal spaces, in that they may have a deeply experiential quality for the artist or querent, as well as other viewer/explorers.

Over time and across repeated journeys along various paths, patterns begin to emerge for the artist using AI tools about the relationships between different locations and entities in the hypercanvas. Landmarks recur across expeditions, and an intuitive sense develops for how to traverse the space fruitfully, bringing back riches to share. While the entirety of latent space remains beyond any one explorer’s grasp, localized familiarity breeds creative revelation, which is multiplied through sharing with others.

As artists share manifestations from their hypercanvas expeditions, they provide guides and inspiration for others to embark on their own voyages into latent space, with each contribution opening new doors to what might be possible. What was once ineffable becomes, through visualization, shared experience. Shared experience leads to understanding and, with cultivation, the possibility for real change.

The hypercanvas object therefore is not just a solitary or finite product or set of products, but a continuous, ever-shifting constellation of entities and relationships. The hypercanvas concept recognizes the participatory and interactive nature of modern creativity, wherein the boundaries between author, viewer, tools and medium become porous. The latent spaces, once vague and unapproachable, are made tangible and explorable through the interface of AI/ML tools – but they remain in flux, shaped by human input, AI response, cultural context, and the ever-expanding landscape of digital technology.

In this landscape, especially when viewed through conventional lenses, copyright and ownership become complex questions. Traditional frameworks, such as that of the US Copyright Office, focus on tangible artifacts and clear demarcations of authorship. The hypercanvas as an art form, however, defies any such categorization. Is the “author” the sole creator or merely a guide through pre-existing, albeit hidden, dimensions? Are the snapshots from the Otherworld independent artworks, or are they part of a greater, inchoate whole? How does one protect the rights of an artist whose work is a process, a journey, an ongoing exploration that might be shared, replicated, or expanded upon by others?

These questions lead us inevitably to an essential rethinking of the nature of art and authorship in the age of AI. The hypercanvas demands a recognition of the dynamism, the complexity, and the collaborative spirit of contemporary creative processes. It requires new conceptual and new legal frameworks that encompass not only the material manifestations but the underlying processes, relationships, and even the transient states that constitute the artistic experience.

In embracing the concept of the hypercanvas, we as a society can begin to acknowledge that creativity is no longer bound by the physical and temporal limitations of traditional media. And we can make space for new things to be created.

Claude & ChatGPT helped write the second half of this (give or take), and then I helped them rewrite it to fit better with where I wanted to take it.

Page 2 of 8

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén