Snap, Chat, Bingo

It’s a whole new world out there with artificial intelligence. When I used ChatGPT to ask about AI’s effect on transforming key areas of society, the answer was expansive and profound. It mentioned areas such as Work and the Economy, Healthcare, Education, Transportation, Creativity and Media, Security and Surveillance, Environment and Sustainability, Ethics, Privacy, and Society. Not to mention Scientific Discovery and finally, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence.)

My particular area of interest is with creativity and the media. So, let’s put it into proper focus. No, I don’t think artificial intelligence is going to destroy the creative world as we know it. It certainly will change it in different ways; many of which we don’t see or understand at this point in the game. But the world isn’t going to end for us if we have driverless cars and software that thinks faster than we can process information. It’s simply another step in the evolution of mankind.

Actually, it’s a repeat of trends that happen down through the ages. Remember when television was going to destroy the movies? Beta was better than VHS. Video was going to eliminate the need to go to the movies or watch the ‘same old thing’ on television. The Kindle was going to destroy print. Libraries were a thing of the past. Gold and Silver were the answer to an unstable financial world. They aren’t making any more land. Everybody’s getting rich in real estate. An ARM is the way to go verses a conventional mortgage.

If you live long enough, you come to realize that what goes around comes around. If you don’t pay attention, it can also bite you on the ass the second time around and cause undue stress and alarm.

Music producer extraordinaire, Rick Rubin, probably said it best. He said there are really just about five AI companies worldwide that dominate the scene right now. And they get all their information from the same source (much as we do) and that is Google. So, the pot of information is the same; it just comes down to how each AI entity chooses to form, formulate, digest, and spit out their collective treasure trove of information.

The catch is that ‘point of view’ is the missing link here. Rubin’s example is a good one. If you give ten directors a movie script, each will come up with a different movie in their mind. It reinforces my argument that ultimately, in most cases there is one creator of a song, novel, play, movie. Certainly, collaboration is often a key here. But ultimately the core idea was (probably) the result of one person’s thought process, imagination, etc. AI can help or hinder here depending on how it is used or misused.

So, no, I don’t think artificial intelligence is going to destroy creativity. It will certainly change it ‘big time’ in ways we can’t even imagine right now. But like Kindle verses print and streaming killing cable, there will probably be a middle ground that most of us can carve out to co-exist with artificial intelligence.

AI gets personal when it helps or hinders me as a creative person to evolve with my art. Case in point; ‘Agnes.’ This was my story about a love affair between a younger man and middle-aged woman. It was part of an Amazon Vella experiment. The novella was uploaded to the Amazon Vella platform last year. Readers could read the first couple of chapters for free and then had to use tokens (from Amazon) to continue reading more chapters.

The book was doing well until Amazon decided to discontinue the program last Fall. The ‘Agnes’ galleys were returned to me and my editor transferred them to the Kindle format. Amazon insisted on also creating a print version. That is where, I believe, AI came into play. While I can’t prove it definitively, I do believe that Amazon used AI for format the book to print.

While there were no glaring errors on their part, I felt the heart of the story had been missed. The biggest distraction for the reader was the improper placement of spacing between segments in each chapter. This running of segments together caused confusion in following the timeline and sequence of events. It was a small thing but significant if you’re trying to tell a story and want it to flow smoothly.

‘Agnes’ was also a perfect example of a product that looked great on paper but then once created, revealed its shortcomings in many different ways. The illustration on the front cover no longer seemed relevant, the text wasn’t shadow blocked and thus was flat and not inspirational. The subtitle was wrong. The text on the back cover revealed little to nothing about the content of the book.

AI had produced the book but I thought it could also help me create a better version. Previously, I had asked ChatGPT for some ideas about a press release and book club discussion points. It came back with some great lines that I decided to use in promoting the book jacket itself. I think of it as a three-step process.

Chat is when you ask ChatGPT questions. I needed a good subtitle to explain in as few words as possible that this was a story of a younger man falling in love with a middle-aged woman.

Snap are the almost instantaneous answers you get. I do believe it was a combination of sub-titles from Chat GDP and my own imagination that finally helped me come up with several good sub-titles.

Bingo is for you to decide if that answer is right, close, spot on, or incorrect for your particular needs. AI is a digital tool and like most software, the more precise you are with your questions, the better (or more relevant) the answer given. What I had in ‘Memories of first Love’ didn’t capture the essence of the love affair. I had to come up with my own ideas here.

Some of the suggested sub-titles I came up with were:

She was too old for first love

Bittersweet First Love that is Ageless

First Love is ageless

Young love with an older woman

Middle age first love

Love most vulnerable at middle age

Forbidden first love for an older woman

The heart feels love that is ageless

Middle age first love most vulnerable

Sharon had suggested a better cover illustration in place of the wind chime. While the chime did play a connecting role in my storyline, it wasn’t relevant enough to be on the cover. I needed an illustration that showed a couple in love. Vida, my editor, pointed me toward a royalty-free web site with thousands of images to peruse.

As part of the revision of the jacket, I transferred the wind chime to the back cover along with new text material borrowed from AI. Those two paragraphs read:

‘Told with warmth and emotional depth, ‘Agnes’ captures the story of a young man looking back on the one woman who changed everything - a summer romance that shaped his life in unexpected ways. As he revisits those sun-soaked days of youth, readers are transported into a world of innocence, longing, and the universal ache of first love.’

‘Blending nostalgic storytelling with emotional honesty, ‘Agnes’ appeals to readers who have experienced the beauty - and the ache - of a love that never quite faded. Perfect for anyone who still remembers that first, unforgettable someone.’

AI had done a good job of capturing what I was trying to say in ‘Agnes’ and I wanted to use it. So, with the help of AI, Vida, and my own thought processes, I was able to recreate a better book jacket, text that flowed more evenly and a final product that better reflected the story I was trying to tell.

There are still a couple of wrinkles to be smoothed out before we produce this second version of ‘Agnes.’ AI helped and hindered the first attempt. Better use of it as a tool of suggestion made it very valuable the second time around. Lesson learned. More on ‘Agnes’ soon.