Statement on the Use of AI

Use of AI

The use of AI1For brevity, I’m using “AI” as a placeholder for several emerging technologies including generative creative tools, large language models (LLMs), chat bots, and deep search. to generate content is controversial. Whether it should be is something I’ll be exploring. I consider the most controversial aspect of generative content to be not providing attribution or, worse, presenting machine-generated content as a human creation. With that in mind, I want to be clear about how I use Artificial Intelligence (AI), Large Language Models (LLMs), machine learning, and other automation to produce, promote, and maintain this site, my online presence, social media content, and personal creative works.

Whether I use AI or not is entirely dependent on intent. If the intent is creation, I don’t use it as a replacement for imagination. If it’s to spark my own ideas, create assets for a project, or is used to promote those creations, then I might. I’m not embarrassed by using AI. Instead, like all the things we couldn’t imagine when computers first arrived, I think AI will open new, yet undreamed ways to create art and beauty.

Creative Works

Creating art is the whole point of me engaging in these shenanigans, and the idea will never be AI generated. If you read a post, I wrote it; If you listen to a track, I composed and recorded it. If you watch a video, I directed and edited it.

I might use AI to make elements of those things, but those elements will always be an expression of my vision, direction, and instruction. I’m sensitive to the way most generative AIs are trained (often wholesale theft of other people’s creative works), so my personal use of AI is almost entirely technical execution of an idea and not blindly letting the AI make creative choices.

That one super-cool fractal animation that’s pulsing with the music? That might be AI generated, or it might be something I did manually in software. There are a lot of creative tools that are smudging the lines.

I may use LLMs as tools to help me improve my own writing and experiment with discovering new ways to create. One of the pitfalls of being a solo shop is that the guy who’s editing is as biased and wordy as the author. It can be really helpful to get a second opinion and then decide whether to agree or not.

AI is always the tool, however, and never the hand wielding it or the mind behind it.

Support, Promotion, Advertising, and Social Media Presence

As was the case when I was head of a marketing department and had staff, the vision is mine, and I am the approver of its execution. AI is largely taking on the functions that my staff did: recommendations, scheduling, drafts, proofreading and editing, editorial calendar, and so on. All those functions are used to support my creative vision.

This AI-generated image shows a human brain. One hemisphere is organic, the other digital and glowing.
Grok’s first interpretation of “A glowing brain with organic and technological elements in a dark, futuristic setting.”

I like to write, so there’s not much point in me doing this if I’m just going to farm that out. I love composing music and exploring creative video production. This is my avenue for personal expression and I’m not letting anyone, human or machine, take that away from me.

On the other hand, I don’t like trying to keep up with the ever-shifting sands of social media or music promotion. I’d much rather focus on creating. I use AI to help me figure out how best to reach a larger audience. AI may even generate some of that content, especially when I’m doing A/B/C efficacy testing; I’m happy to farm out advertising and promotion to whomever can do it effectively and affordably, whether human or machine.

There are also a lot of time-consuming, low-ROI assets needed. Blog post featured images or social media teasers are a great example. Previously, I handled this by searching for public domain or appropriately licensed Creative Common stock art and photos.

I’m increasingly using AI to generate these assets and I typically won’t indicate if photos or graphics are AI generated, but I bet you’ll be able to tell. This actually feels more creative to me in some respects because instead of searching for something “close enough,” I now engage in a creative puzzle of trying to describe exactly what’s in my head and working out how to get the AI to understand what to do.

TL;DR

Creating is my passion. I’m never going to use an AI to replace my creativity and I’ll never present something an AI did as something I did.

Notes

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    For brevity, I’m using “AI” as a placeholder for several emerging technologies including generative creative tools, large language models (LLMs), chat bots, and deep search.