Nicheless & Loving It #95

July 2, 2024

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Greetings

Happy Canada to the Canadians and Happy Independence Day coming up on the 4th for the Americans. I spent a quiet Canada Day here yesterday doing a bit of work and then spending some time reading before joining an interesting social audio show in the evening.

July 1st is also a bit of a mid-new year. As the middle point of the calendar year, it’s good to take the opportunity to have a look at where I’m at in relation to where I expected to go this year.

I’m not a big planner when it comes to goals and objectives. I tend to be more big picture. I know I want to establish regular income from the skills I have developed over the years. I know I want as much of that income to develop as passive income and I have a pretty good idea how I want to use those skills.

I leave myself space to at least look at different ideas without getting caught up in the shiny object syndrome that can be a productivity killer. I’ll look at an idea and go through a mental checklist on how viable it would be for me to even explore the idea. Then I either explore or discard.

I’ve learned over the years to discard first, ask questions later. I’ve found if an idea I’ve briefly looked at and discarded keeps on surfacing, it’s time to look again. That’s allowing my intuition to nudge me.

So, where am I at this point in the year. I’m on track on some things and slightly off-track on other things. For example, I’ve not been as consistent with this newsletter as I want to be and my podcast would feel abandoned if it were human. Time to course correct on both items.

My websites are not where I want them. I want to publish more articles. That’s a time management problem that needs to be corrected.

On the what’s working side, the Daily Echoes have been going out without fail. My weekly audio show Pimp Your Post Thursday continues to run every week and the recap with the recording gets published every Monday.

That wasn’t too painful, some course corrections to come while staying the course on what’s working.

How’s your year going?

Hope you have a great week.

ShadowsPub

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Quote of the Week

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." - Alan Watts

Featured Content: Generative Art As A Genre?

I attend social audio shows during the week. For those not familiar with them, they are voice shows where a host will lead a discussion on a topic.

Several platforms have social audio available. The shows I attend are on Twitter (now X), LinkedIN, Clubhouse, Discord and GoBrunch. The discussions often make for a more interesting evening than watching TV.

Last night on LinkedIN, Keith Kellar. from Australia, hosted a discussion about building online communities. As often happens, the conversation veared off to other subjects.

In this case, it landed on discussing AI generated artwork.

I heard a common misconception about AI generated art, that the images contain bits and pieces of the images the AI was trained on. That’s not how they work.

Children learn how to identify their world by seeing objects around them and being told what they are. After seeing an object often enough they start to associate the word with the object.

As their skills develop the child will start to use the objects and concepts they learn to express themselves, like when a child puts crayon to paper to draw.

For AI to learn generative art it must first be exposed to a massive amount of reference images to learn the patterns to use to make objects.

Unlike the human mind looking at an object and learning what it is, AI is built on algorithms that must learn how to see and interpret data patterns. The training is kind of a dance between the algorithms being adjusted to allow the AI to learn and the AI learning how to recognize and interpret the data patterns.

This learning process is iterative and adaptive, much like a dance. The AI continually refines its understanding of the data based on its experiences and feedback from its training.

When I create a prompt for the AI, it uses the words I give it to recall the related patterns it has learned to create an image.

When a human artist puts pen to paper they draw on the reference images they have learned over the years to create their own interpretation. They might even have an actual reference image in hand to inspire their work.

The AI draws on the patterns it has learned through the algorithms to create the image it thinks the prompt is asking for.

A back and forth develops between me and the AI as I adjust the prompt to guide the AI toward the picture I’m trying to create. I’ve learned finding alignment between my language skills and the AI’s knowledge is crucial to getting the image I want.

I made the comment last night that I believe as the dust settles around generative AI that generative art will become a genre similar to how digital art has been accepted.

Another caller disagreed claiming that generative art lacks ‘embodiment’ and will never become a genre.

Some looking around this morning pointed to embodiment relating to robotics. In particular, the work being done on creating humanoid robots.

That made some sense but what has that got to do with creating generative art?

I turned to PI, one of the AI engines I brainstorm with and asked it how embodiment related to creating generative art. Here’s part of its response:

To me, the critic is forgetting that there is a human, with human experiences, creating the prompting for the AI to work from.

To claim the human experience isn’t part of the resulting image is like telling a writer their words lack embodiment.

We know writers are very capable of evoking the human experience through their words. A well written prompt will generate effective generated art.

Published:

​Recapping Pimp Your Post Thursday for June 27th​

Pimp Your Post Thursday (PYPT) is a live content curation show happening every Thursday at noon Eastern in the DreemPort Discord. Some great discussions take place during the shows. Anyone who creates content anywhere can share it on PYPT—community matters. PYPT is a community you’re welcome to drop into. READ MORE​

A Final Thought

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." - George Bernard Shaw

Take care and be safe, everyone.

ShadowsPub