This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:10] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I jump in my spark file.

[0:18] Susan Blackwell: Spark file to be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[0:23] Laura Camien: I pump it in my spark style.

[0:28] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my spark file.

[0:32] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark file.

[0:37] Susan Blackwell: Welcome to the Sparks File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:44] Laura Camien: I'm Laura Camien.

[0:45] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell, and we are creativity coaches who help people fear less, create more, and bring their creative visions to life.

[0:54] Laura Camien: If you are an OG member of the Sparks File community, welcome back, Sparkler.

[0:59] Susan Blackwell: Oh, listen to Laura Camien and squeaky little squeakers.

[1:02] Laura Camien: If you're joining us for the first time, welcome, new friend.

[1:05] Susan Blackwell: Know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

[1:12] Laura Camien: But you may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file?

[1:12] Susan Blackwell: A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:22] Laura Camien: If you're like us and you're making stuff all the time, or you want to be making stuff all the time, you know if you're not careful, your campfire of creativity can flicker out.

[1:32] Susan Blackwell: But don't despair. We're collecting kindling in the form of fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark creativity and pique curiosity to light a fire under our collective asses to make things like this podcast.

[1:48] Laura Camien: Or a glimpse into the future of creativity, which is spoiler alert, happening right now.

[1:55] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I'm intrigued.

[1:58] Laura Camien: Every episode, we're gonna reach into our spark files and exchange some sparks.

[2:03] Susan Blackwell: And from time to time we're gonna talk to some folks who spark us too.

[2:08] Laura Camien: That means we have more sparks than we can possibly use in this lifetime.

[2:12] Susan Blackwell: We sure do.

[2:12] Laura Camien: So if something lights you up, we encourage you to take that thing and make something out of it.

[2:18] Susan Blackwell: And without further ado, let's open up the spark file.

[2:24] Laura Camien: Hi Susan Blackwell, how you feeling over there?

[2:26] Susan Blackwell: Hi Laura Camien. I'm feeling just fine.

[2:28] Laura Camien: I'm just squeaking and you know what I need to do I feel like I want to apologize for that intro.

[2:35] Susan Blackwell: When I get excited the squeaks are worse.

[2:38] Laura Camien: But then when I if I just settle down I feel like I'm going really slow and taking too much time.

[2:47] Susan Blackwell: So that's that's the limbo that I'm living in right now.

[2:50] Laura Camien: Just like a limbo of self-consciousness.

[2:52] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh that doesn't sound like any fun you sound like an adorable sexy cartoon mouse.

[3:01] Laura Camien: Thank you, Suze. I tried my hand at voiceover as a younger person.

[3:06] Susan Blackwell: I was like oh man wouldn't that be great if I could just do voiceovers.

[3:10] Laura Camien: Yeah. Then I could, you know, just not have to do this office job, etc.

[3:15] Susan Blackwell: The one time I guess I did a few. I did a few.

[3:20] Laura Camien: But the one time that I really came like got a callback on like a big thing.

[3:27] Susan Blackwell: Yeah I had been sick. I sort of sounded like you sound now.

[3:31] Laura Camien: Oh, and it wasn't right for the part.

[3:34] Susan Blackwell: No, I the they loved the sound of the voice.

[3:37] Laura Camien: Like your voice right now, it's like husky, and there's something so delicious about that texture.

[3:43] Susan Blackwell: I don't relish the fact that illness gave you that husky texture.

[3:48] Laura Camien: But I think they loved that husky texture that I happen to have for one day.

[3:54] Susan Blackwell: But it was really apparent that I wasn't that great at voiceover.

[3:57] Laura Camien: So they were like, oh, you got that good sound, but uh but there's a craft.

[4:02] Susan Blackwell: There's like a real refinement of skill that takes the 10,000 hours.

[4:07] Laura Camien: That voiceover game is so I think some people are what I would consider, I'm using air quotes naturals, but there is so much craft that goes into it.

[4:19] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God. It's I really have a deep, deep abiding respect for people who do it well.

[4:25] Laura Camien: Same.

[4:26] Susan Blackwell: Me too.

[4:27] Laura Camien: Yeah. You really can't uh take for granted the skill of like not just even sounding right, pronunciation, diction, timing.

[4:36] Susan Blackwell: You were talking about that recently, right?

[4:38] Laura Camien: Someone who was like, I can take a point tenth of a second off.

[4:42] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, my friend Jason Dietz, who was very successful voiceover career.

[4:46] Laura Camien: And when I was going through my voiceover experience, I was like, can you like take a second off a piece of copy during a read?

[4:55] Susan Blackwell: And he's like, I can take a 40th of a second off a piece of copy.

[4:59] Laura Camien: And I was like, what? That's the skill.

[5:02] Susan Blackwell: What the fuck? That's the skill we're talking about.

[5:06] Laura Camien: Yeah, I'm I'm amazed and impressed.

[5:09] Susan Blackwell: Ultimate respect.

[5:10] Laura Camien: 10,000 hours, baby.

[5:11] Susan Blackwell: Probably best for me not to start my voiceover career this week.

[5:14] Laura Camien: I don't know. You may be wildly successful.

[5:18] Susan Blackwell: Camps, anything, any little sparklets before we jump into this mess?

[5:24] Laura Camien: You know, I was gonna say you mentioned some spark lights last time, and I or a couple weeks ago, and I was like, oh no, save it. I'll hit you with a baby sparklet.

[5:32] Susan Blackwell: Okay, give me one.

[5:33] Laura Camien: This is something that's been in my Sparks file for a minute now, and it just makes me laugh. And I just wanted to share it.

[5:40] Susan Blackwell: So this is something from electricliterature.com, and it is a rejection erasure poems by R.L. Mayzes.

[5:51] Laura Camien: And the title of it is Re Your Submission.

[5:56] Susan Blackwell: Spoiler alert, the news is bad. That's the title of the piece.

[6:01] Laura Camien: But it is screen grabs of rejection letters.

[6:05] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh.

[6:05] Laura Camien: And then it's erasure poetry, meaning they black out portions of the rejection letter to create a new sentiment.

[6:16] Susan Blackwell: So I want to read you one right now.

[6:18] Laura Camien: Amazing.

[6:19] Susan Blackwell: Here's an example.

[6:20] Laura Camien: Oh my god.

[6:21] Susan Blackwell: The full passage says, this isn't a rejection on your writing. The selection process is highly subjective, something of a mystery even to us.

[6:29] Laura Camien: There's no telling what we'll fall in love with, what we'll let get away.

[6:33] Susan Blackwell: But through erasure poetry, what remains is your writing is a mystery to us.

[6:41] Laura Camien: Get away.

[6:49] Susan Blackwell: Essay submitted to us carefully. And we delight in publishing both established and emerging writers.

[6:55] Laura Camien: Unfortunately, we are not able to accept your work for publication at this time.

[7:01] Susan Blackwell: And via the magic of R.L. Mayzes's erasure poetry, what remains is we delight in publishing.

[7:08] Laura Camien: Unfortunately, not your work.

[7:13] Susan Blackwell: Amazing.

[7:14] Laura Camien: Here's another one.

[7:16] Susan Blackwell: We're aware that writing is hard work and that often these letters do not reflect the time and care put into your dot dot.

[7:24] Laura Camien: And what remains is we're aware that writing is hard and do not care.

[7:32] Susan Blackwell: These are amazing.

[7:33] Laura Camien: Yeah. Oh, I love it.

[7:34] Susan Blackwell: Anyway, that's just a little sparklet I've had in my Sparks file for about two years.

[7:40] Laura Camien: Then little chiclet was worth the wait. Today I favored you with it.

[7:44] Susan Blackwell: And now may I favor you with a full-size entree spark?

[7:48] Laura Camien: I'll take it. I'm gonna sit back and get ready for this meal.

[7:50] Susan Blackwell: All right, Laura, this is another one of these sparks that is so vast.

[7:56] Laura Camien: The spark is so overwhelming to me.

[7:58] Susan Blackwell: There is so much that I left on the cutting room floor with this one.

[8:02] Laura Camien: Okay.

[8:02] Susan Blackwell: And maybe we'll scoop some of that up in our conversation, but I'm gonna give it my best shot.

[8:08] Laura Camien: And the other thing about this spark is that I'm giving you the spark in March of 2023.

[8:15] Susan Blackwell: By the time, I guarantee by the time this episode is edited and posted, it will be outdated.

[8:22] Laura Camien: That's the other fun thing about this spark.

[8:25] Susan Blackwell: So that's amazing.

[8:26] Laura Camien: Yep. That's how fast things are moving.

[8:28] Susan Blackwell: That's how fast things are moving.

[8:30] Laura Camien: So last episode, you might recall that I did a spark on aha moments, different artists who have experienced big aha's in their creativity and what's happening in the brain when that aha feeling occurs.

[8:44] Susan Blackwell: So, full disclosure, when we stopped recording, I told Cam something that I'm now going to share with all of you.

[8:51] Laura Camien: The research for that entire spark, almost, almost all the research almost, was developed in Chat GPT based on prompts that I fed ChatGPT.

[9:05] Susan Blackwell: So for those of you who haven't heard, Chat GPT is basically an AI language model that can process and generate human-like language.

[9:15] Laura Camien: It's a type of chat bot that you can interact with using natural, just sort of like language like you and I are using right now.

[9:23] Susan Blackwell: And it's like having a text conversation with a human.

[9:27] Laura Camien: Chat GPT has been trained on a massive amount of text data so it can understand and generate responses on a really wide variety of topics.

[9:37] Susan Blackwell: According to an article in a magazine that I get called The Week.

[9:41] Laura Camien: Do you know what The Week is? Have you ever read that at my house?

[9:43] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. I love The Week.

[9:44] Laura Camien: Oh, I've read it.

[9:45] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[9:46] Laura Camien: Outside of your house.

[9:48] Susan Blackwell: How dare you?

[9:49] Laura Camien: Um I love this magazine. My sister got me a subscription because it's sort of for a busy person on the go, it's sort of an aggregate of all these different newspapers and publications.

[10:02] Susan Blackwell: So you get points and counterpoints, and I just love this.

[10:07] Laura Camien: So according to The Week, Chat GPT can write software code, compose poetry and music, and translate 100 languages, just to name a few things that it can do.

[10:18] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God. Wait, say that again.

[10:20] Laura Camien: So it can translate languages. It can compose poetry and music. It can code software. Like it, and that's just a few things that it can do.

[10:28] Susan Blackwell: We're going to get into other things that it can do as well.

[10:30] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[10:31] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[10:31] Laura Camien: One chat bot passed a graduate level law and economics exam at George Mason University with neural networks that mimic the function of the brain generatively.

[10:44] Susan Blackwell: Generative AI can create original text, images, or other content of uh sometimes startling quality.

[10:53] Laura Camien: Okay, let me just ask you this.

[10:55] Susan Blackwell: It passed the law exam, but could it defend you in court, Susan?

[11:00] Laura Camien: No, but let me be clear, it did it like past the bar, it passed a graduate level law and economics exam.

[11:07] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[11:08] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[11:08] Susan Blackwell: And I think that's important.

[11:10] Laura Camien: And I'm gonna touch on that later.

[11:11] Susan Blackwell: Like as of this moment, and it's gonna evolve, the kind of the limitations of it.

[11:17] Laura Camien: Okay.

[11:18] Susan Blackwell: But essentially what these programs are doing is sifting through billions and billions of pieces of data, finding patterns and making probability-based decisions about those responses.

[11:30] Laura Camien: And as this technology advances, some tech experts believe that AI is going to transform society as dramatically as the smartphone or the internet.

[11:40] Susan Blackwell: And I have to say, I one million percent agree.

[11:43] Laura Camien: I feel like we are here for the advent of what it must have been like when television was invented.

[11:49] Susan Blackwell: Like this is huge.

[11:51] Laura Camien: It's huge.

[11:52] Susan Blackwell: This is huge.

[11:53] Laura Camien: And I know I felt like uh uh full disclosure, I felt sad when Susan told me that the other night.

[12:00] Susan Blackwell: And I was like, oh man.

[12:04] Laura Camien: But also, I think what I said next was, but we're not going back.

[12:04] Susan Blackwell: We're not going back.

[12:10] Laura Camien: So there's not going to be now a life without AI.

[12:14] Susan Blackwell: Well, that's a choice, too.

[12:17] Laura Camien: That is a choice.

[12:18] Susan Blackwell: Sure, but individual choices, but individual choices.

[12:21] Laura Camien: Societally and globally, I think that this technology, this genie is not going back in the bottle.

[12:28] Susan Blackwell: And I'll and we can talk a little bit later about so what do we make of that?

[12:33] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, and I have to say that I jumped in and learned a little bit about it after that. I mean, I had obviously been sort of playing around in conversations of people telling me about it and stuff, but I distinctly recall in this conversation, I was just thinking like when computers showed up, like home computers, Apple.

[12:52] Laura Camien: My roommate Tim, hi Tim.

[12:55] Susan Blackwell: Hi Tim.

[12:56] Laura Camien: Was like the first to get one of those original Apple computers.

[12:59] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I can picture it.

[13:00] Laura Camien: And I was like, oh, for God's sakes. Like, do we need this? We've got this typewriter right here.

[13:07] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh.

[13:07] Laura Camien: And so it took me years to kind of come to that. And then cell phones. I was very resistant. Like, I don't need to be reached everywhere that I am. And so I waited and waited. And then I didn't actually get one until work gave us all one.

[13:24] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh.

[13:25] Laura Camien: At Blue Man, we all got, oh, I think we all got all those like pagers that could text. And then we had those T Mobiles that were like revolutionary. And then we had the iPhones. I'm not really an early adapter to technology. But I'm I kind of always have that attitude of like, well, let's see if this sticks around. But now at this point, everything's going so fast. It's like if you don't jump on board and learn this, you won't learn the thing that comes after this.

[13:53] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I when I was preparing for this, I saw a thing specifically about lawyers, but I think that it was using it as an example for other professions as well. You're either going to be a lawyer who uses chat GPT and other AI, or you're not. And the inference was that you will be left behind.

[14:14] Laura Camien: You'll be left behind behind.

[14:16] Susan Blackwell: But to your earlier point, we're not to the place where, like, lawyer Max 2000 is going to be representing you in court.

[14:23] Laura Camien: Exactly.

[14:24] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[14:24] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[14:25] Susan Blackwell: But eventually.

[14:26] Laura Camien: But eventually.

[14:27] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. You combine Chat GPT with a robot that can speak. Anyway, Zeus, tell us more about it.

[14:35] Laura Camien: Your Honor, I object.

[14:37] Susan Blackwell: Okay. So I just no one remembers when robots sounded like that. Just by the way.

[14:42] Laura Camien: Peep pop.

[14:46] Susan Blackwell: Um so I asked Chat GPT for fun what some of the downsides of this might be globally, not just in regards to creativity, but according to Chat GPT, here's some of the downsides.

[15:02] Laura Camien: Job displacement. As machines become more advanced, they are likely to take over jobs that were previously performed by humans, leading to widespread job displacement.

[15:12] Susan Blackwell: Now I remember when I was a child, and there was great concert. My dad worked in a factory on the assembly line, and there was always this sort of cloud of potential doom that robots were going to take the job of blue-collar laborers.

[15:27] Laura Camien: And in some cases, they have.

[15:45] Susan Blackwell: That I'm like, these robots, we are safe.

[15:48] Laura Camien: We are safe. Do you remember that I did I did a spark on this book called it was about soul craft and this the woodworking.

[15:57] Susan Blackwell: Yes, yeah.

[15:57] Laura Camien: And do you remember I talked about that and how he predicted years ago, a decade ago, that even though we funnel our quote unquote smart kids into white collar jobs.

[16:09] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh.

[16:10] Laura Camien: It will be the blue-collar jobs, meaning the jobs where people use their hands, their minds, and their hands.

[16:18] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[16:19] Laura Camien: To do something.

[16:20] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[16:20] Laura Camien: They will be the jobs that are irreplaceable because you can't ask a chat GPT to show up and fix your plumbing.

[16:27] Susan Blackwell: Right.

[16:28] Laura Camien: When your house floods.

[16:29] Susan Blackwell: Right.

[16:29] Laura Camien: That's right. You need a human being who can figure this out and do the work.

[16:33] Susan Blackwell: That's right. You're absolutely right. Yes to that and job displacement. Uh, another potential downside, bias and discrimination. AI algorithms can be biased if they are trained on biased data leading to discrimination against certain groups of people.

[16:50] Laura Camien: Oh.

[16:51] Susan Blackwell: So this gets really, I'm gonna talk more about this in a second because, you know, basically it's scraping the internet for information. And you know how much fucking trash there is on the internet in all different forms. So this is an example of that. I just want to get the scary stuff out of the way.

[17:09] Laura Camien: Okay.

[17:10] Susan Blackwell: Loss of privacy. AI has the potential to collect and store vast amounts of personal data, which could be used for nefarious purposes.

[17:18] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[17:19] Susan Blackwell: Another potential downside, security risks. As AI becomes more prevalent in our daily lives, it also becomes a potential target for cyber attacks. And there are ethical concerns. As AI becomes more intelligent, there is the potential for it to make decisions that are not in line with human values and ethics. And I again I want to say and I want to add to this list something we've already mentioned, which is it is riddled with inaccuracies.

[17:48] Laura Camien: So for instance, I asked it to write a bio on me for me and nestled amongst the accurate information. It said that I was a graduate of the University of Evansville, which I am not, that I have an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, which I do not have.

[18:07] Susan Blackwell: Wow.

[18:08] Laura Camien: That in 2013, I received a special drama desk award for my artful devotion to the theater and its community. And apparently in 2017, I was named one of the 50 most influential women in entertainment by the Hollywood Reporter. Now, none of that stuff is true.

[18:24] Susan Blackwell: But listen to me, Laura Camien.

[18:26] Laura Camien: Wow.

[18:26] Susan Blackwell: Because I asked for it to cite its sources, Chat GPT even provided links. It provided links to those sources. And time and again, over and over again, those links looked completely legit, but they were broken 404 dead end links. And I even researched to try to figure out well, who was honored by the Drama Desk Awards for their artful devotion to the theater and its community? And I could find nothing. It was like it had just scraped the internet and been like, this looks good, and sort of like made this toss salad of a bio that was largely inaccurate. But I just want to caution folks that misinformation and disinformation are obviously readily present on chat GPT.

[19:17] Laura Camien: Now, this is pretty innocuous and easily vetted because I'm me, and I can be like, that's not my lived experience. Clearly, that's inaccurate. But I just think about all the stuff that isn't as easily vetted. And so I will sparingly use this because I'm not sure what is real.

[19:39] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[19:39] Laura Camien: And what is just sort of the derivation of some random scraping of the internet.

[19:45] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking of book reports and all the things that people are going to use this for.

[19:50] Laura Camien: Well, this is a great point. It can allow students to cheat on papers. And because chat GPT generated essays are original.

[19:59] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God.

[20:00] Laura Camien: It makes anti-plagiarism software virtually useless.

[20:05] Susan Blackwell: So you're saying if someone asked it to write an essay on, you know, the attributes of Susan Blackwell.

[20:13] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[20:13] Susan Blackwell: And it wrote it.

[20:14] Laura Camien: Yep.

[20:15] Susan Blackwell: And then let's say I asked it to do that. I could write that myself, but okay. I asked it to write it. I cut and paste this essay into a thing and I submit it as my own.

[20:25] Laura Camien: Yep.

[20:26] Susan Blackwell: A professor who's like, Laura, did you write this paper on the attributes of Susan Blackwell? They drop it in to see if it's been plagiarized. It will look original. It's generative. It's original. There is a program that I when I was doing research for this, there is a program that I found that you take an essay, you put it into this program. It can give you a likelihood percentage of whether it was generated by AI.

[20:54] Laura Camien: So it would you can put an essay, like paste an essay into it, and it can be like this is a 90% chance that this was generated by AI, but there's another program that you could take take an AI-generated essay, put it into that program, and it's almost like it launders it.

[21:13] Susan Blackwell: Oh my gosh.

[21:14] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just think about how savvy, how tech-savvy young people are, and I'm like, oh, I would not want to be a high school or college teacher right now.

[21:23] Susan Blackwell: They don't stand a chance.

[21:25] Laura Camien: Because couldn't I take that same essay, cut and paste it back into Chat GPT, and say, can you make this essay sound a little less like it was written by Chat GPT?

[21:38] Susan Blackwell: You can.

[21:39] Laura Camien: And and, or if you just keep putting the same prompt in over and over again, it will serve it up in a fresh way and serve it up in a fresh way and serve it up in a fresh way.

[21:48] Susan Blackwell: So you can mix and match. I was having a conversation with my sister today as I was writing this. She is an interesting person because she is a scientist by background, she was a chemistry teacher for years and years. She's also a creative writer, and she was saying chat GPT or AI can generate probably like a B grade high school chemistry lab report pretty well, but it can't, like the creative writing is not good.

[22:16] Susan Blackwell: And I was like, that's interesting.

[22:18] Laura Camien: It's a baby right now.

[22:20] Susan Blackwell: I feel like this AI is in its infancy.

[22:23] Laura Camien: I think that it also will get much more sophisticated.

[22:26] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, because it learns.

[22:28] Laura Camien: Because it learns.

[22:29] Susan Blackwell: It learns. Now that we've talked about global potential negative implications of AI, I want to talk to specifically the potential negative implications on creativity and creatives that I think we all need to be aware of.

[22:48] Laura Camien: Okay.

[22:49] Susan Blackwell: Firstly, one potential negative impact is the risk of homogenization. As AI algorithms become more prevalent in creative industries, there is a risk that they will begin to generate the same kinds of ideas and styles, leading to a homogenization of the creative output, which I really think could limit the diversity of creative expression.

[23:16] Laura Camien: It could stifle innovation.

[23:18] Susan Blackwell: As artists and designers are less likely to explore their own new and unconventional ideas.

[23:26] Laura Camien: Well, counterpoint or counter question.

[23:30] Susan Blackwell: Bring it.

[23:31] Laura Camien: I mean, A, that's only if artists all lean on Chat GPT or AI. It could mean that artists with original voices will be valued even more for the uniqueness of their ideas and their vision and their expression.

[23:50] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh.

[23:51] Laura Camien: You should be aware if you plan on leaning on it, what you're going to get is a homogenized kind of answer or structure or script if you're asking it to do script work. But if you don't lean on that, like you could actually fully develop your own voice.

[24:07] Susan Blackwell: Absolutely.

[24:08] Laura Camien: I couldn't agree more.

[24:10] Susan Blackwell: I couldn't agree more. Another potential negative impact is the risk of over reliance on these AI tools. As they become more sophisticated and more accessible, there's a risk that creatives will become overly reliant on them and rely on these algorithms to generate ideas or solve creative problems, which could, if people do that, if if if, this could lead to a reduction in individuals' creative autonomy, as well as a loss of the personal inspiration and individuality that makes creative work unique.

[24:48] Laura Camien: Where my mind goes with this is I fear and I think that people are going to lose touch with the ability to write, to form well-crafted sentences that are not only just foundationally grammatically accurate, but also that move and inspire people. Like if I went through high school, college, like if I went through all those critical development times and I was letting AI generate the raw material and then lightly editing it, I just think about how I write to learn to improve my speech, to order my thoughts and know my mind.

[25:37] Laura Camien: So if I didn't have to learn to write, and the robot just churns out my lit essay, it seems like it would impact all sorts of like cognitive and creative development. Do you know what I mean?

[25:50] Susan Blackwell: 100%.

[25:52] Laura Camien: 100%. And it can be the answer to ordering those thoughts for a paper that you need to turn in, but is it helping you learn to order your thoughts before you open your mouth to speak?

[26:04] Susan Blackwell: Right. So there could be a big discrepancy between here's this paper I turned in that implies I've given this a lot of thought and I understand how to order and organize these complex thoughts.

[26:18] Laura Camien: Yeah. But open my mouth, and you'll find quickly that that's not the case.

[26:24] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. That's tough. I just think how much my brain has developed and my sense of self and self-awareness has developed through my writing, through these hands and the brain and the heart sort of working in concert with each other.

[26:39] Laura Camien: Your self-expression.

[26:40] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Yes, Suze. I mean, I think that's really a bit, I think it's a huge risk. And I almost just want to be like, how can we use it for what it's good at and not this creative stuff?

[26:51] Laura Camien: Yeah. Listen to Laura Camien when she says this. How can we use this for what this stuff is good at and not accidentally trade our souls for it, not accidentally give up those parts of ourselves and our development that make us uniquely ourselves and develop our own, whether you're a painter or a writer or whatever you are, whatever form your creative self-expression takes that make you you.

[27:20] Susan Blackwell: Exactly. That can be like no one else, which makes it all the more exciting because it is so unique to you and not churned out by this thought.

[27:31] Laura Camien: Yeah. Another potential risk circles back to that bias piece.

[27:39] Susan Blackwell: Yes, that was scary.

[27:41] Laura Camien: Yeah. So AI algorithms, again, are only as unbiased as the data sets that they are trained on.

[27:47] Susan Blackwell: You say data, I say data. I'm not very sure how to pronounce that word. I'm gonna mix it up throughout this podcast.

[27:55] Laura Camien: If those data sets are biased or incomplete, the output generated by the AI will be biased as well, which could perpetuate existing inequalities and biases in art and society, leading to a further lack of diversity and representation in creative output.

[28:16] Susan Blackwell: Like I think about what's happening in Florida right now, and I think like, okay, so if anybody decides to give themselves influence on what the AI can even search from, meaning if we cancel all African studies as they're trying to do in Florida, then what kind of information does this turn out?

[28:40] Laura Camien: Completely untrue.

[28:42] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Uh there's something that was on the cutting room floor that I'll just go ahead and circle back and share with you.

[28:48] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[28:49] Susan Blackwell: Just in terms of things to keep an eye out for. So here's another little scary piece. This is again from the week. AI text generators can quickly create tens of thousands of simulated but hard to detect emails and letters from constituents to lawmakers, letters to editors, and article comments.

[29:10] Laura Camien: Shady actors can use AI to spread disinformation, mimicking the work that the Russian Internet Research Agency did during the 2016 elections, but at a much lower cost, higher volume, lower cost.

[29:23] Susan Blackwell: So I heard that and I was like, oh yeah, that's that is terrifying. That you could just clog your either a representative's email inbox, or you know, in favor of whatever shady bullshit you're trying to get passed through, or you could just completely fill social media with disinformation.

[29:45] Laura Camien: And, you know, that shit is the speed, the speed that it could do that with.

[29:50] Susan Blackwell: Oh the speed at which it generates information. It's crazy. I mean, I can't even talk as fast as it's scanning information and cranking it out in fully formed sentences, just like what?

[30:03] Laura Camien: It's amazing.

[30:04] Susan Blackwell: Here's another little scary for you. And then I swear we'll turn it around, but as much as we can, listen. Because the source of all this information is the internet. This AI scrapes the work of living artists and it incorporates it back into its output.

[30:21] Laura Camien: So imagine you're a living fine artist who has spent a lifetime developing your unique artistic style. And because you're a living artist, that work might be up on your website or featured on other sites. And then you discover AI-generated art, quote unquote, that still has your signature smeared into the AI-generated image.

[30:44] Susan Blackwell: This is happening to artists now. And it's just devastating.

[30:46] Laura Camien: No, it's not right.

[30:49] Susan Blackwell: But it is happening. So keep your eyes peeled.

[30:54] Laura Camien: Well, and I think about just going back to that conversation we had about what it thought it knew about you and how it created your bio. That's all well and good when you're a certain level of famous.

[31:05] Susan Blackwell: If and when you're like at a global level, if it starts to attribute something to you that is incorrect, but in a really bad way.

[31:15] Laura Camien: Do you know what I mean? Like a quote could go around thanks to Chat GPT that you did not say.

[31:21] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. And and we're living in a world where people can be canceled, entire careers can come crumbling down. And what power do you have if you can point back to that and say, I A, I didn't say this. It's now like circling the globe that I did.

[31:39] Laura Camien: I feel like powerless to do anything about it.

[31:42] Susan Blackwell: I actually thought about this when I was writing this because I had this idea for this sort of dystopic scene in, I don't know if it's like a TV show or a film.

[31:53] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[31:53] Susan Blackwell: Because I was thinking about the way that once the AI creates something based on the scrapings of the world wide web, it say it creates a quote. It's misinformation and it is cancelable, like it would devastate somebody's life. If that gets continually perpetuated online, where it's like then the AI scrapes it again and it keeps serving it up and serving it up and serving it up, and it sort of multiplies like uh like bunnies, and then that becomes the quote unquote truth.

[32:28] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[32:30] Susan Blackwell: Maybe it's an episode of Black Mirror.

[32:32] Laura Camien: Maybe it's already been written.

[32:33] Susan Blackwell: I think it is, Suze. I think you've got something there because it's the more it's repeated, and we and we all know that that's actually even been a technique. Keep repeating a lie until people just sort of cave and believe, like, well, I guess there's some truth to that because I've heard it multiple places.

[32:51] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah.

[32:52] Susan Blackwell: Just another scary is that this I think is going to again, we talked about the risk of job displacement, but let's talk specifically about the risk of job displacement in the creative industry.

[33:07] Laura Camien: As these AI powered tools become more prevalent, I do think that it's going to replace human creatives in some roles.

[33:16] Susan Blackwell: The DALI to AI, where you put in a text prompt and it generates a series of images, and then you can be like, okay, that's closer, so I'm going to go into that image and further refine and edit it.

[33:32] Laura Camien: I just sat here this afternoon. I'll get I'll share more about it in just a moment, but I was creating imagery that I was like, oh, if I could get a high-res version of this, like this is licensable. This is stunning.

[33:44] Susan Blackwell: Oh.

[33:47] Laura Camien: Yeah. But yet you being the person with integrity, you're like, but I didn't really create that.

[33:53] Susan Blackwell: I took that from someone else's work and made new work. It is some sort of a composition, but based on my prompts.

[34:02] Laura Camien: So I'm telling it what to do.

[34:05] Susan Blackwell: I thought you meant based on someone else's work. Like I thought you meant you took an image of someone's work and manipulated it.

[34:12] Laura Camien: Okay, I'm just going to do that. I entered text in.

[34:14] Susan Blackwell: But but even that, it's an amalgam of, I'm assuming, other photographs, artistic styles, artists' work. Like it is an amalgamation of that.

[34:24] Laura Camien: So this is the wild, wild west.

[34:29] Susan Blackwell: And Suze, yeah, who regulates it? Is there any regulation on it?

[34:33] Laura Camien: You know, I this is again, this is a feature of a sprawling spark. I don't know. I think this is might be another example of where technology has outpaced legislation.

[34:47] Susan Blackwell: And I think that that legislation is going to be galloping to catch up with this. So I don't know the answer to that, Laura, but this is moving so quickly. And I do think that there is some attention being paid to the ethics around this. Like I'll see ethics statements on various AI platforms, but this is pure speculation. That the team of engineers and the budget that is supporting the engineering of these AI platforms is far greater for those that development piece than it is around like ethics and you know, whatever little team is on working on that.

[35:32] Laura Camien: We have had the world wide web now, the internet since the 2000s.

[35:37] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. And we don't have ethics and regulation figured out for that.

[35:42] Laura Camien: So that's not a good sign.

[35:44] Susan Blackwell: No, no, no. Because this is gonna be this AI is an ass rocker. Like it is, it is so big.

[35:51] Laura Camien: It is big, but it's here to stay.

[35:54] Susan Blackwell: So it's up to us, each of us, I think, to decide how to engage with it. I've said this before, I'm sure I've said it on the podcast. I believe that technology is like any element, like fire, you can light and warm the house with it, or you can burn the house down. Like water, you can hydrate with it, you need it to live, or you can drown in it. It all depends on how it is used.

[36:20] Laura Camien: As you know, here at the Sparks File, we define creativity as applied imagination that fights for the powers of good.

[36:27] Susan Blackwell: So that is the intention that I'm holding in my heart. It for my part for my participation with this. So I just wanted to have said that.

[36:37] Laura Camien: Yes.

[36:37] Susan Blackwell: And I wanted to share a little bit of the learning that I discovered while sparking through all of this AI tech. As you may have picked up from the conversation we've been having, or maybe not. Let me just say it outright. It's all about the prompts.

[36:54] Laura Camien: Right now, with Chat GPT and with uh like DALI2, which is an image generator, with so many of these platforms where you input a prompt text prompt, it is all about the prompt.

[37:07] Susan Blackwell: So, for instance, with Chat GPT, you can improve the output of your prompts by starting with phrases like, pretend you're a blank expert. Like you could put in, pretend you're a social media expert. And then whatever problem you're trying to solve or whatever research you're trying to access, chat GPT will be more in depth if you ask it to pretend like it's an expert.

[37:33] Laura Camien: Another approach is to ask it to pretend that it's a consultant. That will give you a more in-depth answer.

[37:40] Susan Blackwell: Oh my gosh. And yet another idea is to tell Chat GPT to play devil's advocate.

[37:47] Laura Camien: Oh.

[37:48] Susan Blackwell: So for instance, this is a prompt that I recently plugged into Chat GPT. Pretend you're a consultant specializing in helping small businesses grow. Devise a plan for us to grow our podcast listenership to 10,000 downloads per month. Note that our podcast focuses on creativity and creatives.

[38:08] Susan Blackwell: Play devil's advocate in that business plan. Then it served me up five ideas and it played Devil's Advocate too. So it said, here's an idea, here's the downside of this idea. I thought it was interesting, but I will tell you, even when I tried to get it more in depth, there's limits. It's a little like my sister's assessment that it's like, well, this is like a B grade high school chem lab report. It was a little bit like that. And I'll show it to you, Laura, when we're off mic, and you'll be like, Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?

[38:41] Laura Camien: Yes, I do.

[38:42] Susan Blackwell: But still interesting. I'm so intrigued. I'm like, I need to know what it says. We'll download on it. Okay. Prompts also play a key role in a program like DALL·E 2, which is for those of you who are uninitiated. DALL·E 2 is an artificial intelligence program developed by OpenAI that generates images from text descriptions. And it uses a combination of natural language processing and generative modeling to create a unique and sometimes very realistic image based on user input via text. And this program was trained on a massive data set of images and text, and it is capable of generating a wide range of images, including animals and objects and landscapes and scenes. And Laura Camien, have you played at all with DALL·E 2?

[39:39] Laura Camien: No.

[39:39] Susan Blackwell: I'm just like, wait, there's more, they're multiplying. I played with it all afternoon. Friends, if you want to play with it, it's spelled D-A-L-L-E, and then the number two. And I'm mildly addicted to this. You know, Laura, I like to paint monsters into existing thrift store paintings.

[39:59] Laura Camien: Yes.

[40:00] Susan Blackwell: My put a monster in it series. And I was using DALL·E 2 to conceptualize all sorts of new monsters. I did a whole series of our Chihuahua POTUS that turned out great. And as I got better using the prompts, the output got better and better. And I think I'm going to use some of them as a basis for a gift from my husband who has a very deep bromance with our dog POTUS. So my God. It is super fun. But again, the key, maybe I'll share some of that artwork. It could be the key art for this episode of the podcast, maybe. I don't know.

[40:39] Laura Camien: That would be amazing.

[40:40] Susan Blackwell: It's pretty cute. Um, the key again with prompt-based AI is getting that prompt calibrated. And I wanted to share a great resource that I found online. It's a PDF called the DALL·E 2 prompt book. I'm sure people just call it DALL·E 2. It's about 82 pages, and it really helps you learn how to craft a really, really good prompt. So for instance, prompts that yielded great results for me included an ivory chihuahua with a white chest, pink nose, white marking on forehead, and a flower crown painted by Johannes Vermeer.

[41:24] Laura Camien: Oh wow.

[41:24] Laura Camien: Oh way.

[41:24] Susan Blackwell: And if you just adjust that to painted in the style of Cezanne, it yields a completely different, awesome piece of art.

[41:34] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Yeah. These prompts are so important that there are now actually marketplaces where people sell prompts.

[41:44] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[41:45] Susan Blackwell: So if you don't have time to learn to write or to learn to paint, and you don't even have time to learn how to craft a prompt to generate a piece of writing or an image of a painting, you can just throw some cash at it. All of this seems so depressing to me. Like I feel like those people that can't even take the time to learn how to write an AI prompt are gonna end up like on that vessel in WALL·E, those people that are just sloshing around.

[42:12] Laura Camien: Come on, people.

[42:14] Susan Blackwell: Come on. Suze, like it's like it's so it's funny and I want to cry.

[42:19] Laura Camien: I know.

[42:19] Susan Blackwell: I know. Because all the concerns that we expressed just a moment ago, despite all of them, if you put your mind to learning how to ask for a prompt or what prompt to use, you are still developing that muscle in your mind to be like discerning and specifying exactly what my vision is and what words can I use to result in my vision being accomplished?

[42:50] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[42:50] Susan Blackwell: So that is a skill. And now you're telling me there's some other site that's gonna do that for you. It's such fucking bullshit. You know that I actually this afternoon, just for funsies researching this, I asked ChatGPT to generate a prompt for me for DALL·E 2. So I was like, give me a prompt. Uh and I gave it a little bit of instruction, but not much, a little bit. And then I plugged it in to DALL·E 2 to generate an image, and it did not turn out well. Like the robots were not robot to robot, robot to robot on robot violence. It was it was it was not cute. It was not cute. Um I fed ChatGPT this prompt today. Pretend like you're an AI and creativity expert. Will programs like ChatGPT or DALL·E ever experience aha moments?

[43:45] Laura Camien: Oh.

[43:47] Susan Blackwell: And it responded. As an AI language model, I don't possess the ability to experience aha moments in the same way that humans do. However, AI programs like ChatGPT and DALL·E are constantly improving through machine learning algorithms that allow them to refine their processes and produce more advanced outputs. It's important to note that AI programs are still limited by their programming and data inputs and may not possess the same level of intuition, insight, and imagination that humans have. As AI technology continues to advance, it is possible that we may see more sophisticated and creative outputs, but it is unlikely that these programs will ever truly experience aha moments in the same way that humans do.

[44:31] Laura Camien: And I was like, that's right, little robot.

[44:34] Susan Blackwell: That's right. I will say, and I said this to you last week when I revealed that I had done some research on ChatGPT for my AHA Spark. In the creative context, I really view it more like clay on the wheel. It's like working with a very fast, often inaccurate, a little deeper than surface level biased researcher or Photoshopper. Do you know what I mean?

[45:01] Laura Camien: Like kind of.

[45:03] Susan Blackwell: Well, as you get into it more, I think you'll see that it's sort of like they'll get better. It's like having a re help help researching, basically. But you have to take all of it with a grain of salt because that research may be complete trash.

[45:17] Laura Camien: Like per my inaccurate bio.

[45:21] Susan Blackwell: I just think that these technologies are in their infancy and they will continue to become more and more sophisticated. But I've spent the last few weeks playing with AI and I haven't burned the house down yet, and the robots haven't come for me.

[45:34] Laura Camien: Well, that part is good, but you know what you just described was much more subtle and potentially damaging consequences, but they won't be visible like the house burning down. They will be in like, and and you know, a whole different spark is about the dumbing down of America, which people started to talk about 15, 20 years ago, and here we are. And where are we going with all of this?

[45:59] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, yeah. It raises so many issues, concerns, and possibilities. But again, I feel like it's elemental and it's largely dependent on how people engage with it. And I think more than ever, we have to take everything with a grain of salt. Believe nothing with your eyes between AI and deep fakes and you know, miss and disinformation. Like, I just think that really, really question your sources now more than ever.

[46:35] Laura Camien: I also think that there's some jobs that AI will never be able to replace. If you're a stand-up comic, I think your job is safe. And before we go, I just want to share this joke with you. This is the best joke. I've tried so many ways to get decent comic material out of ChatGPT because writing hard jokes is, you know, that's a whole thing. And this is the best joke in my assessment, it could come up with. Okay. Some of the jokes were so insane and Frankenstein together. I was like, what the fuck does this even mean? It was so bad.

[47:16] Susan Blackwell: It doesn't understand comedy.

[47:18] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[47:19] Susan Blackwell: The more nuance I tried to get out of it, the just more bizarre the Frankenstein became. So the joke is: what do you call a dog magician? A Labracadabrador.

[47:32] Laura Camien: It's a good joke.

[47:33] Susan Blackwell: It's a good joke, right? I had to do a lot of work to get to that joke.

[47:37] Laura Camien: Oh my god.

[47:38] Susan Blackwell: I want to close out the episode with the work of an artist named Holly Herndon. Holly is a musician and a composer who incorporates artificial intelligence and machine learning into her work. And she is also the founder of Holly Plus, which is an AI program that she developed in collaboration with a team of researchers and developers. The Holly Plus program is designed to allow performers and musicians to collaborate with AI in real time to generate new sounds and musical compositions. And it is said that Herndon's work with Holly Plus represents a cutting-edge exploration of the intersection between music, AI, and human creativity.

[48:21] Laura Camien: So essentially, you can put a piece of music into Holly Plus.

[48:26] Susan Blackwell: And if I understand the conceit correctly, her voice will then voice the music and create harmonies against the music.

[48:36] Laura Camien: Oh.

[48:37] Susan Blackwell: But I will tell you, due respect to this amazing work that Holly Herndon is doing. To me, it sounded pretty haunted and digitally distorted.

[48:47] Laura Camien: Okay.

[48:47] Susan Blackwell: So with that, are you gonna play some? We're gonna close out with the Sparks File theme song as processed through the AI of Holly Plus. So that's it. This episode of the Sparks File was made of the lands of the Lenape people, and as always, we hope it put another bunch of sparks in your file. If there's a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to bring your creative ideas to life, email us at thesparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com.

[49:23] Laura Camien: This is amazing.

[49:25] Susan Blackwell: We will even take your feedback, and happily so, but you know the price of admission. First, you gotta share a creative risk that you have taken recently. You can follow us on social at The Sparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate, and five star review this podcast. It really helps other listeners to find us. Also, if you like this podcast, we do hope that you'll share it with people that you love. And if you didn't like it, may the robots spirit you away in the night. If something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame. You know, you gotta take it and make it.

[50:06] Laura Camien: Bye.

[50:12] Susan Blackwell: Wow, Susan.

[50:14] Laura Camien: Haunted.

[50:15] Susan Blackwell: Amazing.

[50:16] Laura Camien: This is haunted music.