AI - Love It Or Hate It

I know people who are fearful about AI, and understandably so, it seemingly came in like a big wave, I say seemingly because it wasn't unexpected if you were paying attention, it's been here for a while, but it's now part of nearly everything we see, especially online and on our computers, tablets and smart phones.

I made the decision that I can't stop AI by ignoring it, fearing it, or not using it. It is a tool, and like most tools, it's quite neutral, neither good or bad, it's all in the hands and minds that use it that it works for good or evil. For me, I'm going to use it, I'm using it to co-create, to write, to make graphics, to answer questions that I would have gone to Google to ask. I played around with a few different AI sites, right now my two favorites are 

https://playgroundai.com/

and

https://chatgpt.com/

The first one above I use for creating graphics and images, the link takes you to my profile where you can see the images I co-created.

The second link, is the infamous ChatGPT, I began playing around with that a few months ago, the free level is good for writing, I decided to try out their paid tier, that one does even better with writing and it also lets you work with graphics. Using Playground I got pretty good with prompts to make graphics, so I took what I knew and brought that to ChatGPT. Sometimes I come out with something I'm happy with, sometimes not so much. 

Typically I start out with a description of what I am looking for, I try to be as descriptive as possible, then from there you can tweak the prompts to get closer and closer to what you are looking for. 

Here is an example of something I played with earlier tonight, I slightly changed and added to each iteration:

Me: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain making eye contact with the viewer in a mid-shot view.

ChatGPT: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain, captured in a mid-shot view. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, creating a sense of connection. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the man. He wears a weathered hat and a long coat, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face. The expression on his face is thoughtful and slightly melancholic, and his eyes convey a sense of wisdom and experience. The muted colors and soft lighting add to the emotional depth of the scene.

For some reason it decided to rewrite my prompt instead of giving me a picture, so I copied that prompt and asked again.

Me: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain, captured in a mid-shot view. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, creating a sense of connection. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the man. He wears a weathered hat and a long coat, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face. The expression on his face is thoughtful and slightly melancholic, and his eyes convey a sense of wisdom and experience. The muted colors and soft lighting add to the emotional depth of the scene.

ChatGPT: Here is the photograph of the old man walking in the rain, making eye contact with the viewer. The scene captures the thoughtful and melancholic expression, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face, adding to the emotional depth.

---

Me: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain, captured in a mid-shot view. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, he has fierce piercing blue eyes, creating a sense of connection. He has the slightest upturn of a smile. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the man. He wears a weathered hat and a long coat, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face. The expression on his face is thoughtful and slightly melancholic, and his eyes convey a sense of wisdom and experience. The muted colors and soft lighting add to the emotional depth of the scene.

ChatGPT: Here is the photograph of the old man walking in the rain, making eye contact with the viewer. The scene captures the thoughtful and melancholic expression, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face, adding to the emotional depth.

---

Me: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain, captured in a mid-shot view. He is walking away and looking back over his shoulder at the camera, head slightly tilted down to allow the rain drops to fall from the front of the brim of his hat, one eyebrow is slightly raised. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, he has fierce piercing blue eyes, creating a sense of connection. He has the slightest upturn of a smile. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the man. He wears a weathered hat and a long coat, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face. The expression on his face is thoughtful and slightly melancholic, and his eyes convey a sense of wisdom and experience. The muted colors and soft lighting add to the emotional depth of the scene.

ChatGPT: Here is the photograph of the old man walking in the rain, looking back over his shoulder and making direct eye contact with the viewer. The scene captures his fierce piercing blue eyes and a slight upturn of a smile, with a thoughtful and slightly melancholic expression. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the emotional depth of the moment.

---

Me: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain, captured in a mid-shot view. He is walking away and looking back over his shoulder at the camera, head slightly tilted down to allow the rain drops to fall from the front of the brim of his hat, one eyebrow is slightly raised. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, he has fierce piercing blue eyes, creating a sense of connection. He has the slightest upturn of a smile. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the man. He wears a weathered hat and a long coat, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face. The expression on his face is thoughtful and slightly melancholic, and his eyes convey a sense of wisdom and experience. The muted colors and soft lighting add to the emotional depth of the scene.

ChatGPT: Here is the photograph of the old man walking in the rain, looking back over his shoulder with his head slightly tilted down, allowing raindrops to fall from the front of his hat's brim. One eyebrow is slightly raised, and he makes direct eye contact with fierce piercing blue eyes, creating a sense of connection. The slight upturn of his smile, thoughtful and slightly melancholic expression, and the rain-blurred background add to the emotional depth of the scene.

---

Which picture do you like best? I slightly changed or added to each iteration, the last one I left the prompt the same to see what it would do differently, sometimes if you don't like what it did, you can request a new picture using the same prompt.

I could have gone on but I was happy enough with the final image. Of course, so far I have never had any AI come up with exactly what I pictured in my head, and no matter how many times I tweak the descriptive words, it just can't read my mind or see what I see, I do like that it rewords what I wrote to clarify what it thinks I want, often adding in details I didn't. Sometimes that works out well, other times not so much. I have also discovered that often if you keep trying to tweak something like this, especially if you have it pretty close, it will reach a point where it seems to grow tired of the game and the images will become worse instead of better. Some of the time, the images are spot on, and other times I wonder if the AI is having a bad day LOL.

At any rate, I am having fun with this for now. I am not afraid of it removing the creativity of the human touch in writing or art, honestly for me it's pretty easy to spot the AI generated things, I've been using it long enough to become familiar with the look and feel of its output. 

There are always those who believe that technology is inherently evil, I'm just old enough to remember my grandparent's generation being told that washing machines and the such are the Devil's tools, or at the very least it would allow women to have more time on their hands therefore the phrase "Idleness is the Devil's workshop..." was born, it was thought that computers and the internet would usher in evil, and it's true, it certainly has, in the hands of those who wish to use it for evil. It was once thought that going faster than a horse could run could cause internal injuries, referring to the automobile, and it was said that man would never fly, well both of those things were not true. 

I look at some technology with a suspicious side-eye. Again, it's less about the actual tech and more about the hands that wield it, their intent, what they do with it, or in other cases where they bury the tech because it would dig into the profits of the tech that is in use now. 

Love it or hate it, fear it or embrace it, AI is here to stay, I am using this tool, for my enjoyment, my education, to help with work and other things. 

What say you?

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Wretha,

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