If you didn’t read this week’s post “Is there Art in Artificial?” I will read it to you, dramatically and enthusiastically, below. 👇
It’s the full Field of Streams episode (which won’t be live on the pod for a few months), but I’m just telling you this means it includes an intro and outro and is a bit long because of it. Brace yourself. Reading commences as soon as you hit play. Enjoy!
Notes from the Captain
Crew. As you may have gathered by my relentless forays into potential rejection territories with my writings and video creation dabblings, I am not a fearful creature.
And yet, mention ChatGPT to me and I shiver all of my timbers.
In dissecting my feelings on the matter—both when writing last week’s post and making the Behind the Streams video above—I think I figured it out. It’s not that I’m afraid of generative AI being more creative than me or stealing the essence and life force of something I hold in high regard.
It’s worse that that.
I’m afraid that it makes us dumber. Less interested in creative things. Is that it? If you water everything down, the level of creativity drops and everything sounds the same and it is the people who become trained to accept it. Full circle—we trained it, it then trains us. Good or bad doesn’t matter. Done is the thing. Word salad. Pixel salad.
Just limp salad all around.
Over…reaction alert?
*sigh*
I don’t know.
It is a complex subject. And perhaps that’s what I am fearful of? That I just don’t understand it.
I chose to be a writer a long time ago because I thought, somewhat naively as it turns out, that people would always need writers and I love writing so that’s works out great. I can write up until the day I die as long as my brain—and to some degree, the rest of my body—allows it. And that won’t change. But will I be able to make a living from it? Will anyone care?
I thought it would be age that took me out of the workforce, not some snotty prompt.
Ah, here I am, talking myself into a hole again. Talking to myself, which is something I do a lot in the above video… (Subtle hint to watch.)
A lot of industries are in trouble because of AI. Film. Art. Books. Gaming. Actor's voices and bodies are being scanned, making the flesh of our existence the worst iteration of Method you’ve ever encountered. The trouble I speak of is the flood of the jobless. That’s one problem.
Second?
The flood of drek. Things look and feel passable to the shortcut takers, but where is the art? WHERE IS THE ART?!
Old lady shakes progressive glasses at cloud.
The art, my friends, remains in our hearts. Always. It’s up to us to keep expressing it. To figure out how to keep our torches lighting spirits and wafting them to higher planes.
I’m such a heart snob!
Yeah, but hearts. May they long keep beating with the pulse of our creativity, imaginations, and dreams.
Not a lot of supplemental material this week, (again) but have at it. The video is long, but I really was using it as a sort of pseudo self-therapy session, so if you want to see someone talk themselves into a frenzy of garment rending and hand wringing, it should be right up your alley. Go watch.
Love you. Love your work. Your actual, right from the deep, dark, and glorious recesses of your brain, creations.
See you on the horizon,
Your Captain, Janeen 🫡
Thangs from this episode…
👩✈️ Nick Cave on AI - specifically ChatGPT
I often bring up Nick Cave’s “The Red Hand Files” as a must-read newsletter subscription. It’s not that I think he is the wisest person on earth, but I love the thoughtfulness he puts in to the most mundane of questions and it elevates my soul to read it. Recommended.
That said, this question was not mundane:
Go read the full response—I refer to it several times in today’s video above—or watch Stephen Fry read it below. It’s a good-un!
👩✈️ A Note on the Wedding Poem
I write poetry quite often but it’s always just a lark. I never really work at them. Just fill notebooks and more on. It’s like working out.
Last week I finally knuckled down—I’d been procrastinating as is my way while thinking—and wrote a poem for my friends’ wedding. To be clear: they asked me to. I’m not foisting it upon them on their special day.
The act of writing this poem was stressful, but it was the right kind of stressful. These people mean a lot to me, and being asked and trusted with it was an honor. I would’ve been happy to read a poem from someone else, but to write one of my own? To make it public? Woof.
Challenge accepted.
Why bring it up if I’m not going to share it here?1 Because it gave me some comfort as it related to the subject of ChatGPT and if I should lose sleep over it. The final poem came as a gift from my heart, and it convinced me that I cannot, in fact, thought or deed, be replaced by ChatGPT.
My brain and heart is safe.
Win win!
👩✈️ ChatGPT - the saga continues
In the video (and podcast) I get ChapGPT to tell me why something I asked it to write (a poem about existential dread) was art. As a follow up on the subject of obsolescence, I got it to write two manifestos for writers—one about why we should BE NOT AFRAID of our generative AI overlords, and another about why it’s brown-trousers2 time for us word slingers.
It got a bit verbose with the first response—entirely my fault as I didn’t restrict the word count—but I re-worded the second prompt with more direct waffle on parameters, so it reigned itself in on that one. Through this experiment, I also learned it can’t get SIRI to read the result, demonstrating that I really don’t know how any of this works.
Anyway, here are your pep talks, writers. It seems our two choices are to embrace the future or embrace the fear. Hugs all ‘round! 🤔
Manifesto 1: “We’re SAFE!”
Manifesto 2: “We’re DOOMED!”
Fair and balanced, do you think? Word salads are tasty.
Thanks for listening/watching and sharing this week. If you want to chat about any of the concepts in this week’s post—or just in general—feel free to leave a comment for the Captain (it me.) I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you’re responding to AI and all these “tools” to aid your creativity.
Meantime: Do. Make. Be.
Ask for help if you need it.
I’ll see you out there.
🫡
Shameless Podcast Plug
Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈
Here’s Apple
I will share the poem at a later date with y’all. Maybe. Depends. You’ll be the first to know.
💩
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