I tried AI and I Kinda Liked It

With all of the hoopla and also fear around artificial intelligence, I just had to give it a try.

If you are here reading this blog post, you have lived through the time in human history with the greatest rate of change. For thousands and thousands of years of human life on earth, things changed really, really slowly. Then came the industrial revolution and now the computing revolution, and things are changing so fast it is almost like our lives are unrecognizable from the life we led as children.

I often wonder whether the things that are changing are actually good for us, and I’m totally sure that I am not alone in being nostalgic for a simpler time.

Perhaps this is why being a maker is so important to humans. Sitting on the couch or at a desk and looking at a television, phone, tablet or computer screen for hours on end is just not something that ends in happiness.

Humans need time in nature, and we for sure need time creating stuff.

As much as I wished that my job entailed making art all day long, I’m here to present reality. 90% of what I do each day for work is everything other than playing with my art supplies.

I’m totally not complaining. I love the challenge of running this creative business, including doing all of the customer service myself. I like having a real personal connection with those that I am serving.

But if something came along that made my job a little easier, I sure would appreciate a few more minutes each day at my art table. So I’ve been following this AI news as closely as I can to see if there is something that might make my job easier.

I tried Chat GPT and wasn’t able to use it because their servers were swampted and I was told to come back later.

Then there were the AI platforms that wanted money to use them, which I’m totally not opposed to if I know that I want what they are selling, and I just didn’t know enough about what I was purchasing to actually pay money.

My next foray was using AI to create an outline for a new course that I had in mind on Watercolor Painting for Beginners. That test was a flop. The outline created just didn’t come close to anything that I would design myself.

Then I heard about Google’s AI called Bard, and I began using it when I needed to write a series of emails for new subscribers to my email newsletter. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to use the AI suggestion as a good starting point for what I really wanted to communicate to my subscribers and using the AI definitely did save me a lot of time.

For kicks and giggles, I next typed in the question “What is Willa Workshops” and this is what I got in response:

“Willa Workshops is an online learning platform for mixed media artists and book artists. It was founded by Wendy Solganik, a lifelong artist and crafter with a passion for paper arts, book making, and mixed media. Willa Workshops offers a variety of courses on mixed media art, book making, and other creative topics. The courses are taught by Wendy Solganik and other experienced artists. Willa Workshops is a great resource for anyone who wants to learn more about mixed media art, book making, or other creative topics.

Here are some of the courses offered by Willa Workshops:

• Fodder School: This course teaches you how to make your own collage fodder, which you can then use in your art journaling and mixed media projects.

• The Willa Journals Course: This course teaches you how to create your own handmade, colorful, and highly custom art journals.

• Watercolor Leaves & Florals: This course teaches you how to paint loose floral watercolors.

• Mixed Media Messy Papers: This course teaches you how to make your own mixed media papers to use in your art journal pages and collage.

• Confident Hand Lettering for Art Journalers and Mixed Media Artists: This course teaches you how to improve your hand lettering skills.

• Handmade and Fussy Cut Collage Fodder: This course teaches you how to make handmade and fussy cut collage fodder with high contrast for your art journaling and collage projects.

• Loose Floral Watercolor: Learn the basics of painting loose floral water color in this taster course.

• Acrylic Play: Have fun playing with color using acrylic paint and mixed media with a stress free, relaxed approach.

• Fabric and Paper Snippet Rolls: Create both fabric and paper snippet rolls to use in your mixed media art journaling and artisan book making.

Willa Workshops is a great resource for anyone who wants to learn more about mixed media art, book making, or other creative topics. The courses are taught by experienced artists and are available for immediate access. You can go at your own pace because you'll have lifetime access to any of the courses that you purchase.”

I’ve heard a lot of people talking about the errors in the AI’s answers to questions, but I was pleasantly surprised by the answer I got. I would say that it is about 95% accurate!

I’m not a very tech savvy person, so I appreciate how easy it is to use Bard. If having AI in our lives makes it so that we can have more time to do the things we love to do, I’m all in. I do really worry about all of the people who might be losing their jobs because of it, and also the risks involved in something so powerful.

I’m also pretty unhappy about AI generated art. I believe that it doesn’t serve humanity at all to have less paying jobs for artists. We don’t know where this whole AI thing is going quite yet, but it is very possible at the end of the day that I’m going to wish that this genie could be put back in its bottle.

If art teachers can replaced by AI Bots, we should all go on strike just like the Writer’s Guild did!

Have you tried AI yet? What did you do? Was it useful? What are your thoughts on it?