I’m actually a huge fan of Brett Victor and I felt like he’s kinda missing the dynamic, adaptable nature of AI that allows non-technical people like me to finally access the system layer of computation for our creative ends.
In other words, in many ways, AI (or rather llms) is the very thing that Brett Victor has spent his whole career imagining and creating - a computing interface that closes gap between human imagination and creation. But here, he’s focusing on the negatives while neglecting, IMHO, the vast potential of AI to allow people to connect, create, and express themselves. As in truly having a PERSONAL computer.
At Dynamicland, he was attempting to build a system that non-technical people like me can interface in a way that makes sense to us.
Taking your unnecessarily disparaging microwave analogy - Using CHATGPT, I can understand it, reprogram it, and do fun stuff, like I don’t know - set up a basketball hoop that sets the timer based on how many shots I make, despite having limited or no technical background. Like I can tell chatgpt my crazy vision, and it will give me step by step approach, with proper resources, and respond in a way that I can grok to build this thing.
THIS is why I'm awestruck.
My anecdote is just my personal reaction to the post. Besides, what’s wrong with people expressing themselves freely here?
We managed to survive the nuke and environmental lead (two examples of humanity veering into drastically wrong directions)
we are never ready for seismic changes. But we will have to adapt one way or another, might as well find a good use for it and develop awareness as a child would around handling knives.
Makes sense. I know what I built is nowhere near actual software development. Still I was able to quickly learn how things work through GPT.
Since I’ve literally been working on this project for two days, here’s a somewhat related answer to your question: I’ve been using chat gpt to build art for TCG. Initially I was resistant and upset at AI companies were hoovering up people’s work wholesale for training data (which is why I think now is an excellent time to have serious conversation about UBI, but I digress).
But I finally realized that I could develop my own distinctive 3D visual style by feeding GPT my drawings and having it iterate in interesting directions. It’s fun to refine the style, by having GPT simulate actual camera lens and lighting set up.
But yes I’ve used AI to make numerous stylistic tweaks to my site, including building out a tagging system that allows me to customize the look of individual pages when I write a post)
Hope I’ll be able to learn how to build an actual complex app one day, or games.
I feel like, AI makes learning way more accessible, at least it did for me, where it evoked a childlike sense of curiosity and joy for learning new things.
I’m also working on a Trading Card Game, where I feed it my drawings and it renders it into final polished form based on visual style that I spent some time building in chat GPT. It’s like an amplifier / accelerator.
I feel like, yes while it can augment us, at the end day it depends on our desire to grow and learn. Otherwise, you will end up with same result as everybody else.
Maybe CDN isn’t the right term after all, see I’m not a software engineer!
But, basically I wanted a way to have a custom repository of fonts a la Google Fonts (found their selection kinda boring) that I could pull from.
Ran fonts through transfonter to convert them to .woff2, set up a GitHub repository (which is not designed for people like me), and set up an instance on Netlify, then wrote custom CSS tags for my ghost.org site.
The thing that amazes me is that aside from my vague whiff of GitHub, I had absolutely no idea how to do this. Zilch. Nada. Chat GPT gave me a clear step by step plan, and exposed me to Netlify, how to write CSS injections, how ghost.org tagging works from styling side of things. And I’m able to have back and forth dialogue with it, not only to figure out how to do it, but understand how it works.
I’m an artist who’ve always struggled to learn how to code. I can pick up on computer science concepts, but when I try to sit down and write actual code my brain just pretends it doesn’t exist.
Over like 20 years, despite numerous attempts I could never get past few beginner exercises. I viscerally can’t stand the headspace that coding puts me in.
Last night I managed to build a custom CDN to deliver cool fonts to my site a la Google fonts, create a gorgeous site with custom code injected CSS and Java (while grokking most of it), and best part … it was FUN! I have never remotely done anything like that in my entire life, and with ChatGPT’s help I managed to it in like 3 hours. It’s bonkers.
AI is truly what you make of it, and I think it’s an incredible tool that allows you to learn things in a way that fits how your brain works.
I think schools should have curriculum that teaches people how to use AI effectively. It’s truly a force multiplier for creativity.
Nothing to be embarrassed about, different strokes for different folks.
However, Monty Python was far from lazy, they cleverly deconstructed a repressive British culture at the time, they mocked class and authority, uptight education institutions, pointless bureaucracies, religious hypocrisy, and violent glorification of British history.
Their humor can be pretty crass by today’s standards, but if you approach their work as an absurdist, subversive satire, they’re one of the best that have ever done it.
I’ve always found their underlying message to be “don’t take things too seriously and enjoy life.”
As for what’s funny, they’re just absurd. A flying bunny that rips knights head off, an accidental messiah who just points out basic common sense which is interpreted by the masses as direct edict from God, brilliant deconstruction of bullshit bureaucracy in form of ministry of silly walks. Things like that.
But if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, that’s okay too.
And a big part of the self-love journey was learning how to truly take care of myself. How to eat properly, how to rest, cutting out toxic people from my life, becoming clear with my boundaries, forgiving myself, accepting my pace of progress, and so on.
Once I recognized the pain in my heart, I just kept returning to it, and over time that guided me towards the truth.
It was a long winding journey. Generational trauma is definitely a real thing.
I tried a lot of things, from therapy to drugs to sex clubs, was grasping at straws, trying to understand what was happening.
It was a complicated and personal journey, but my biggest breakthrough occurred when I surrendered to the healing powers of my body and spirit.
I had to just stop and do nothing, and just allow all the hurt, shame, and fear come up to be processed. My ego fought like hell to keep them suppressed.
My mind was a storm of self-abuse, thoughtforms that told me that I was worthless and to be destroyed. I had to learn how to accept them and return to my heart (my emotional center) and just practice sitting with my feelings. Over time these thoughts dissipated, and I saw that they were driven by unrecognized emotional energy and signals from my body.
I was fortunate that I managed to create a situation that allowed me to lie fallow for a long time to heal.
There were many layers, but the crux of my issues was being severed from my authentic self. This happened because I grew up in a household with a lot of emotional abuse and coercive control, to the point where I suppressed myself and created a persona to survive.
If you read accounts of cult-abuse survivors, it’s like their real self is always trying to break through but they have been trained or mislead into ignoring themselves.
My experience was very similar.
I could write more about this, but pivotal points were recognizing that I had agency, learning how to trust my body and emotions over my ego, and understanding that at our core, we are love.
Had to learn how to love myself unconditionally basically; a constant practice.
As somebody who have been in and out mental hospitals, this is very familiar.
At one point in my early twenties, I was literally thinking about killing myself every single waking second.
Finally I decided to throw in the towel, and got around to planning my end.
Sat there, ran through various scenarios in my head. All the way up to putting the gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger.
My imagination always terminated in blackness. Nothingness.
Then I realized I didn’t want to die, but didn’t want to live this way. And promised myself that I would do everything in my power to heal.
It took me about 15 years to get where I am now. Stable and mostly at peace with myself, but it was an arduous and painful journey - with many terrifying moments where I couldn’t see a way out.
I’m incredibly grateful that I managed to figure it out and I wouldn’t wish that agony on anybody.
My main problem is that at this point, the value of entire collective creative output of humanity should go to the living not the select few.
IMHO AI companies should pay into some kind of UBI fund/ Sovergeign fund.
Time for capitalism to evolve, yo!