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.

Dying Rich

It strikes me as curious and absurd that two of the richest men in the world haven’t attached their names to any kind of charitable, philanthropic agency/foundation/effort. It would certainly seem their only agenda is to accumulate more wealth than anyone else on the planet. Way back when, wealth came in the form of railroads and oil. Today, it takes on a myriad of forms.

We’ve all read about these billionaire’s 500-million-dollar yachts, various homes around the globe, foolish expenditure of money for any number of frivolous toys. But helping other human beings doesn’t seem to be on any of their radar screens. We now celebrate billionaires instead of mere millionaires. What the hell is going on here?

Considering their collective wisdom to attain such a fortune, how did they all seem to miss the bigger picture? We remember John D. Rockefeller as being the richest man in America at the turn of the century because he owned all the oil wells in the country. But we celebrate Andrew Carnegie because he built several thousand libraries around the country with his money. Both made the history books, both were pillars in their own community but only one left an indelible mark on the American landscape.

Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple Computer, for whom I have a great deal of respect, didn’t seem to ‘get it’ until the end of his life. His comments made to the 2005 Stanford Commencement address seemed to sum it all up:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

Why is it that so many people admire the rich and famous but can’t see the emptiness of their lives and accomplishments? That’s certainly not always the case but, it seems, so often the good gets pushed aside for the glitz and glamor and gold. Worshipping at the altar of wealth seems so foolish.

While I believe in the American Dream, I fear there is something missing in that fable of happiness ever after if wealth accumulation is the only symbol of happiness. I’m not talking about mandatory tithing or annual charity drives or fund-raisers of every form and fashion. It’s the idea that sharing one’s good fortune doesn’t have to break your bank or throw you into poverty. It’s simply lending a helping hand where and when you can. It’s giving a little of what you have to someone or something else that doesn’t have as much.

In this country and around the world, one’s level of wealth is often the social, economic standard that most Americans use to categorize other folks. It’s often how we judge other people even though we lie and say we don’t.

In my other hometown, there have been a number of world-famous figures from the world of entertainment who have made their mark on this community. Many have stood out for their philanthropic endeavors, some more than others. One was incredibly generous with his time, talent and money. His reputation was a sterling example of what a ‘classy’ person should be like.

The other, just as wealthy, was known within his circle as the most money-grubbing cheap skate on the planet. It was so bad, he was a joke even to his ‘closest’ friends. Years later, the old timers still talk about the two of them. Two towering icons of entertainment. Both died very rich, one with a legacy of generosity; the other, a skinflint. Go figure?

As I’ve tried to postulate in past blogs, I’ve read enough obituaries to understand what most folks want to remember about someone else after they’ve passed. It’s seldom their fancy cars or house on a lake. More often than not, it’s family, friends, faith and the ‘little things’ most remembered by others.

The true legacy of a person’s time here on earth isn’t counted in dollars and cents and cybercurrency, it’s about how they spent their time and if they were a benefit to mankind. The pursuit of success doesn’t have to exclude others less fortunate. We can all be a benefit to and learn from other generations.

Just sayin.

Women and African Americans

I’ve always had this fascination with World War Two and the subsequent birth of the American Dream. After the war, there were powers-to-be among the military, political, industrial complex that wanted factory production work to continue. This focus on innovation, mass production and the growth of a consumer society all lent itself to exponential growth in the fifties and sixties. Good for some but as this book points out, it wasn’t fortuitous for women or minorities of any flavor.

The GI Bill and other government programs hyper-charged the growth of the middle class among millions of returning veterans.  It foresaw the advent of mass housing production and expansion out from the cities to the suburbs. Innovation in technology and communications soared. But for all the wonderful opportunities that were a part of this radical change in American society, two main groups of Americans were often left by the wayside; women and African Americans.

While I was aware of the role of women and minorities in the massive industrial growth during that period, I didn’t know about the hardships and prejudice both parties suffered during the war.

The book explains: ‘From the fall of France in the summer of 1940 to V-J Day in August of 1945, more than seventeen million Americans, or fourteen percent of the population, served in the armed forces of World War II. For millions more at home, a booming wartime economy produced a remarkable prosperity that ended the Great Depression, sparked a postwar economic miracle, and made the American Dream of suburban homes, shopping centers, and modern kitchens a reality.’

But during the war years, the challenges of housing, continuing segregation, universal child care and other domestic issues also dominated the American way of life. Reporters found that with more than twenty-five million men, women and children crowding into new centers of the war industry, the fabric of American life had unraveled.

The war emergency strained a tenuous racial balance to the point of violence. The social turmoil produced by the war also placed unprecedented pressures on family and home life. In the absence of social and governmental support, working mothers and their children bore a disproportionate burden. Not quite the picture painted by the newsreels seen at the movies or the image of John Wayne that I grew up with.

Advertisements in newspapers and magazines talked about life after the war assuming it would be for everyone. Yet after the war, African Americans found that those opportunities promised often disappeared and women in general were relegated back to the kitchen so men could get their old jobs back again. Masking much of that disparity for woman and African Americans was the economic growth brought on by pent-up demand over the years. I grew up during that economic growth and it seemed all wonderful to me, especially the vibes from out West.

Southern California seemed to be epicenter for the new America that came about after the war. Millions flocked to its golden beaches, lush mountains and deep valleys. Industrial and creative jobs attracted young families, each seeking their own version of the ‘American Dream.’ It was roughly twenty years of exponential growth benefiting many but also still excluding others.

The euphoria of ‘happily ever after’ lasted for, perhaps, twenty years before cracks began to appear in the American dream. Behind that façade of the iconic ‘golden state’ were the growing civil rights upheavals and women’s rights movements. The decade of the Sixties blew the lid off that happy smiling white couple and exposed the underbelly of inequality and injustice. Throughout the Sixties great strides were made to recognize the equality of women and African Americans and gays.

While the older generation of women and African Americans had to endure a return to inequality after the war, it was later generations that reaped the reward of their endurance, hard work, and persistence. It’s not perfect now nor will it ever be. But things have changed for the better for new generations of women and disadvantaged groups of people.

My two adult children work in areas of business where women compete equally with men for job opportunities. People of color have made tremendous strides in areas long denied them. While there is still a long way to go, it’s a far cry from the blatant segregation and inequality thrust upon their forefathers before and during World War Two.

While they’re still too young to fully appreciate the sacrifices made by past generations, I do believe my grandchildren will someday come to recognize what their grandparents and great grandparents did to make it a better world for them to live in. It’s a mindset I hope they will pay it forward for future generations.