The queries I’ve tasked various AI tools available to me over these last few years have mainly been so that I can have another “perspective” to consider when attempting academic/philosophical work as well as creative endeavors; both of which have yielded predictably mixed results, as you too have likely experienced if you’ve been curious to explore what we’ve created with yet another bit of science.
The image above is a good example of this as the request was for an image that encompassed “roller coaster merry go round meditation explosion” in Origami style.
A few more attempts, in Neonpunk, Lowpoly (whatever this is) and Isometric styles yielded similar results, though I can appreciate that incorporating meditation and explosion into amusement park rides being objectively challenging.
Though each time I requested a different style (I did this several times) and thought the same image would appear I was shown something new and often absurdly, predictably impossible. Am I having fun yet? Well…not really. Mostly I’m just finding myself being distracted with an additional layer of noise on top of all the other noises that surround me in the bubble that is my home where I’m writing this from (thanks autism!)
While the act of collaborating with AI has been, for the most part, more frustrating than anything else (which is why I tend not to utilize it for anything – especially for phone calls to companies whose AI bots I absolutely don’t want to interact with!), there are moments like this morning when I see that “oh now WordPress has an AI feature!” and think back to other times when I’ve used it to create images that have been…not what I would’ve created could I draw/use a design program etc.!
Which brings me back to fun and mostly the two contexts within which we have generally experienced it in throughout history – with ourselves or with others that we understand to be experiencing the same feeling. Doing anything with an AI tool can feel like having fun with it, a collaborative experience even, but whether you’re having (and literally paying to have) a romantic relationship with Chat GPT or giving the machine in front of you orders to perform (and paying for it in other ways) I’ll invite you to consider this:
Is having “fun” with AI worth the price we’re all paying for its existence?
*Some folks have their own take on this 😉
TimeSpaceOne 