I’ve been thinking a lot about artificial intelligence lately. I recently discovered it, and playing around with a few image ideas kind of got me hooked.

I started making pictures for a story I had written, and I was amazed to see my descriptions appear as pictures.

Let me back up. I love cars from the late 50’s and early to mid 60’s.

Images of fake cars started appearing in my social media feed, claiming to be real, or at least not admitting that they were AI.

Still, some of the images were cool looking. I thought someone with a big studio and tech skills was making them. Now I know that’s not the case. I made fake versions of cars I have owned, and then I understood.

What I describe when generating AI images, are fantasy. They are scenes from my sci fi book, and sometimes it is very difficult to make what I want understood. I’m generating images by inputting a few specific words. Most are failures, but then I start to learn what words or phrases can result in something satisfying.

What my computer does with the words is different than what I had in my head… different the way multiple people would describe the same movie, book or party.

So, like my little daily paintings, I look at them with surprise, and feel that they were made by someone else.

They’re like the holograms on Olo that don’t tell the same story the same way twice, because everyone has a different viewpoint or style.

I see AI as a tool to use in my art, like tracing paper or a projector.

I’m not embarrassed by this. In all my years of mentoring art students, I encouraged them to use whatever tools or methods they wanted or needed to in order to get the result they wanted.

I felt a little bad when a friend thought an AI image on my page was an original painting, and he wanted it.

The other day, I was with a friend who got an AI phone call. I don’t like that, but here we are.

Old people like me don’t always like embracing new technology. I happen to like this one, at least for now.

It’s shallow, but it allows me to present my words and ideas in a way that excites me and might even draw younger people into my work.

It took me many tries over a long time to get a couple of particular and very specific images. Sometimes I give up without a picture.

For example, it’s really hard to get an image of trees growing out of a bed. I mean OUT OF a bed. Right out of the blankets and pillows. And then of course I wanted stained glass windows and a black and white cat sleeping in the forest glade. And fish in the treetops.

If I keep trying with subtle changes in the words, it gets closer to my vision. And then I wonder, am I learning to use the prompts, or is AI also learning from me?

Once in a great while, someone sends me a photo of me from decades ago. An image I didn’t remember being taken. That’s how this feels.

Maybe Aino or Jewely are sending me pictures they took on the crimson plain, when I didn’t even see them in the crowd.