Generative AI pretty much exploded this week, not so much for visuals which are getting more sophisticated by the hour, but for words and questions.

It seems like every app that we all use has some version of ChatGPT-4. Microsoft built it into Bing. Google built into Workspace. Facebook is building their own version. The list goes on and on.

You can ask questions. You can ask it to predict outcomes. It can write papers. I can teach how to build things. This list is endless too.

Of course there are generative AL visual systems like the one I used to make this image called DALL-E.

The question really isn’t can the technology work? It already does. It isn’t perfect yet, but it will come close, probably very soon.

It can be used for good or bad. It can be used as a tool or it can be used destructively. So, the question is back to where it belongs.

Us.

Since it isn’t going away, we have to make decisions about how we use it. As a research tool it’s great. It can write papers, or screen plays.

Alan Alda asked it to write a new episode of M.A.S.H. It did. Hawkeye and BJ had a conversation. It was okay but stilted and it really didn’t lead to anything. It lacked humanity and warmth.

I’m mostly visual so I play with it to learn how it works. I make fantastic images. I’m not trying to make an image that looks like a real photograph. Many photographers are. That’s a problem or at least it is to me. At its best, it is a lie. At worst, money can be exchanged for something or someone that doesn’t exist.

Stock photographers thought, “Ah ha, no more model or property releases, no more models, locations or props.” Stock agencies rightly replied, “Oh no you don’t”

How we use this TOOL is up to us.

Think about it.

This image was created from words.

No base pictures were used.

I used words like fantasy, colorful, depth, ruin, broken, gothic, curves…

The original image was very dark. Buildings were burning. The ruins looked like, well, ruins. That’s not really what I wanted.

So, I used the create and modify buttons and kept going until I got to this image.

Finally.

I’m pretty sure that you don’t want to be in my dreams.

Lately, I’ve been having audio dreams.

The doorbell rang so I got up to answer it. Nobody else moved. Musical Miss didn’t wake up. The dogs didn’t move. Uh, What?

There was nobody at the door.