🦉 Creative AI Digest - Issue #14

This is your favorite weekly newsletter about the intersection of AI and creativity. Only Creative AI Digest brings you a humorous and wise perspective from an author who isn't suing OpenAI.

The new issue of “Space and Time” is out, and I’m a contributor! Check out my essay, “Concept Creator, Not Word Generator.” 👇

The Most Likely Outcomes of an AI Future with Emad Mostaque | EP #55

One of the most important discussions on AI I’ve heard yet. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in. It’s extremely important. Topics covered include:

• Impact on education, healthcare, and the entertainment industry

• New business models emerging

• What’s at risk if we don’t get it right

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✨ Personal Update

Last summer I took my youngest to see Nine Inch Nails and Ministry. This summer, it’s the Pantera tribute and Lamb of God. She’s the most open-minded, curious music lover I’ve ever met. It was a blast watching her get a taste of old school heavy metal culture.

📸 'No Clicks, All Pics': How AI is Shaking Up the Headshot Game

Summary

• You've probably seen an explosion of professional-looking headshots all over your feeds, all thanks to an AI photo app called Remini. Young people are transforming their selfies into professional headshots, making them wonder why they'd ever pay for a photographer.

• The question is, can AI really replace the artistry of a human photographer? That remains to be seen. For now, we're getting a glimpse of a future where AI plays a larger role in our creative endeavors. Yes, there are kinks to be ironed out and ethical considerations to be pondered, but the potential is undeniable.

My Take

Welcome to the era of AI-enhanced selfies. It's tempting to think this could spell the end for professional photographers, but let's not jump to conclusions. Remember when the iPhone put a camera in everyone's pocket, and we all thought it was game over for the pros? Turns out, it just raised the bar. Sure, some might not make the cut, but the best and most creative will find a way to leverage this new technology. AI on social media is the new gateway for Generation Z into the world of AI. And it's only just getting started.

💤 Tome for Storytelling: Gen Z Isn’t Sleeping on Social AI

Summary

• Tome, a storytelling and idea-sharing tool powered by artificial intelligence, has garnered over 10 million users in just ten months, particularly resonating with the Gen Z audience. The tool's success underscores the significant impact of AI advancements on traditional Silicon Valley norms.

• Young artists utilize Tome to generate innovative ideas by continuously pressing the "regenerate" button, prompting the AI to provide text and image suggestions.

My Take

Tome's success is an exciting development, illustrating the transformative potential of AI in various sectors, including creativity and storytelling. Its popularity with Gen Z demonstrates a growing acceptance and integration of AI tools in everyday life, opening the door to countless possibilities for innovation and growth.

🎯 Prompt of the Week

🌐 Surfing the AI Wave: When the Web Drowns in a Sea of AI Clones

Summary

• You and I are witnessing an existential crisis for the Internet, triggered by the rise of Generative AI systems. Wix.com, a website publishing company, is now enabling its customers to create websites using generative AI, leading the charge into a new era where creating clones of websites is disturbingly simple.

• The worry about the new age 'AI' tools are that they have no constraints. They can create websites and content instantly and inexpensively, becoming far more sophisticated in their information arbitrage.

• And it won’t stop at websites. Books, music, video, animation, images - you name it, AI can create it. We're swimming in a sea of misinformation, or worse, the cheap fake equivalent of information. The implications? We could be heading towards an attention apocalypse where there's just too much of everything and not enough attention for anything.

My Take

Yes, more AI-generated content will flood the internet, but future models won't need as much data. We're heading into an era of co-creation, where the content co-generated by AI and humans will increasingly improve. And here's the kicker - those who create art just for money might just quit, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

📚 OpenAI on Trial: Did They 'Read' or 'Steal' from the Book of Creativity?

Summary

• Some of our favorite authors and artists are rising up, demanding their due credit and compensation from AI giants like OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft. Why? They believe their copyrighted works have been used to train AI models. This isn't a small-scale rebellion; we're talking about over 9,000 writers including big names like George Saunders and Margaret Atwood.

• The AI companies are basically saying it's not copyright infringement, but fair use. It's got people scratching their heads, wondering if a machine reading is the same as a human reading. But, hang on, there's a twist. If these AI companies used pirated data sets, that's a whole different ball game. It's like using stolen textbooks to study.

• So, what's next? The outcome of these battles could set a precedent for how we view data used to train AI.

My Take

Judge William Orrick seems ready to toss most of this lawsuit out the window. Can we really call it copyright infringement when AI "reads" for the purpose of learning language? But, if OpenAI really did use pirated data sets, that's crossing the line. The million-dollar question is this, "If a musician were inspired to create music in a certain genre after hearing pirated songs in that genre, would that make the songs they created infringing?"

🎙️ Sing Like a Professional!

Roll up your sleeves and embrace the future with "Voice-Swap," a snazzy AI tool. This isn't just some techie's midnight fever dream, oh no. It's a ticket to adventure that lets artists license their vocal stylings to others while still tipping the hat to ethical standards.

From the website: “Voice-Swap was designed by DJ Fresh and Nico Pellerin to help producers, artists and writers who don't want to use their voice on songs use AI to transform their voice to sound like one of our featured artists. Our featured artists are partners who benefit from the use of their AI model.”

Check it out! 👇

🧠 Borrow Another Writer’s Brain!

LAIKA is a shiny new AI writing tool that's about as close as we can get to having an impromptu jam session with the literary greats. With just a smidgen of your prose - we're talking a paragraph or so - it learns your style. You can also swap riffs with the digitized brains of other writers, making this a groundbreaking journey of co-creation.

From the website: “LAIKA is a playground of language, a micro-lab for writing, a place where you interact with your own and other people's texts in entirely new ways. Instead of making yet another AI writing tool, we reinvent how to interact with text.”

Check it out! 👇

⭐ AI Superstar - Declan Dunn

Listen up, because you're about to meet a true trailblazer in the AI world. Ladies and gents, give a warm welcome to my new pal, Declan Dunn, the guy who's earned his stripes as the "AI Optimist." He's cooking up insights so fresh in his podcast and Substack newsletter that you'd swear they were straight outta the oven!

🌐 Rando Disco

Random images from the Midjourney Discord server, #newbies channel.

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DISCLAIMERS:

I use AI tools to create this newsletter, including but not limited to ChatGPT, Midjourney, and DALLE-2. My wife thinks my I is A, but that’s another story.

This issue contains affiliate links. If you click on one and buy something, I get a small % from the seller. There’s no cost to you, and often, using an affiliate link gets you a discount.

Nothing in this newsletter should be considered financial advice, medical advice, marital advice, or advice of any kind. But we can still be friends.