2022: The year A.I. tools came to independent creators
I began 2022 with the intention to engage with the ecosystem of the creator economy, interact with others, and look beyond my own creative projects. It's a decision I'm pleased I made because in July, the artificial intelligence (A.I.) tools I had been waiting for suddenly became available.
As a novelist, I explored Sudowrite, an A.I. platform that uses GPT-3 (generative pre-trained language processing, version 3) to assist writers. If feeling 'blocked' a writer could open the tool and type in something like: "Her eyes glistened in the sunlight" and instantly receive a more poetic and descriptive paragraph to work with. Or they could enter a command like: "Write the opening scene to an Indiana Jones movie but with dinosaurs and big blue Avatar people" and the tool would produce something fascinating.
Several A.I. art-making tools also became available. Referred to as 'text-to-image' tools, these things will create an image based on the keywords the user enters. For example, I could enter: "black cat sitting on a chair" and the tool would produce something that represents those words. Additional keywords can be used to ensure the image is created in a specific style. I could enter: "black cat sitting on a chair, hyper detailed, cinematic lighting, in the style of Pablo Picasso, using a triadic colour scheme". The combinations are endless, which means the possibilities are endless. The most commonly used generative art tools have been Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and DALL.E 2 but there are many more of the market.
For musicians, there are also a range of A.I. tools that can be used to compose scores in any genre and with the sounds of any musical instrument. One of the most well-known tools is Magenta Studio by Google which offers the musician 5 different creative modes to choose from before diving into the creation process.
The great controversy is, of course, provoked by the fear that machines will replace humans and put us all out of work. Personally, I find that viewpoint disappointing because A.I. tools are just tools. Like a paintbrush, a keyboard, or a laptop, they simply give us more options during the creative process.
Smart independent creators seem to be embracing these tools and using the outputs as a starting point, not an endpoint. An artistic image created by an A.I. can be uploaded to the artist's Photoshop software, enabling them to embellish the image before releasing it for sale. In fact, the embellishment is the only way an artist can avoid the currently murky area of copyright infringement.
In his book: "The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future", author Kevin Kelly refers to A.I. tools with optimism and says: "This is not a race against the machines. If we race against them, we lose. This is a race with the machines. You'll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots. It is inevitable."
He is, of course, drawing upon the broader context for the adoption of A.I. tools, beyond the artistic examples I have outlined above. A.I. tools are currently being used to train people in high-risk professions such as aviation and surgery, and to multi-task in high-pressure environments like healthcare. A global shortage of qualified healthcare professionals is already being met with multi-tasking A.I. tools that can analyse a patient's X-rays while simultaneously reading their medical history. And so much more.
It's an exciting time to be alive, in my opinion.
As a novelist, I explored Sudowrite, an A.I. platform that uses GPT-3 (generative pre-trained language processing, version 3) to assist writers. If feeling 'blocked' a writer could open the tool and type in something like: "Her eyes glistened in the sunlight" and instantly receive a more poetic and descriptive paragraph to work with. Or they could enter a command like: "Write the opening scene to an Indiana Jones movie but with dinosaurs and big blue Avatar people" and the tool would produce something fascinating.
Several A.I. art-making tools also became available. Referred to as 'text-to-image' tools, these things will create an image based on the keywords the user enters. For example, I could enter: "black cat sitting on a chair" and the tool would produce something that represents those words. Additional keywords can be used to ensure the image is created in a specific style. I could enter: "black cat sitting on a chair, hyper detailed, cinematic lighting, in the style of Pablo Picasso, using a triadic colour scheme". The combinations are endless, which means the possibilities are endless. The most commonly used generative art tools have been Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and DALL.E 2 but there are many more of the market.
For musicians, there are also a range of A.I. tools that can be used to compose scores in any genre and with the sounds of any musical instrument. One of the most well-known tools is Magenta Studio by Google which offers the musician 5 different creative modes to choose from before diving into the creation process.
The great controversy is, of course, provoked by the fear that machines will replace humans and put us all out of work. Personally, I find that viewpoint disappointing because A.I. tools are just tools. Like a paintbrush, a keyboard, or a laptop, they simply give us more options during the creative process.
Smart independent creators seem to be embracing these tools and using the outputs as a starting point, not an endpoint. An artistic image created by an A.I. can be uploaded to the artist's Photoshop software, enabling them to embellish the image before releasing it for sale. In fact, the embellishment is the only way an artist can avoid the currently murky area of copyright infringement.
In his book: "The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future", author Kevin Kelly refers to A.I. tools with optimism and says: "This is not a race against the machines. If we race against them, we lose. This is a race with the machines. You'll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots. It is inevitable."
He is, of course, drawing upon the broader context for the adoption of A.I. tools, beyond the artistic examples I have outlined above. A.I. tools are currently being used to train people in high-risk professions such as aviation and surgery, and to multi-task in high-pressure environments like healthcare. A global shortage of qualified healthcare professionals is already being met with multi-tasking A.I. tools that can analyse a patient's X-rays while simultaneously reading their medical history. And so much more.
It's an exciting time to be alive, in my opinion.
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