Month: April 2024

The thing that worries people the most about AI is the speed at which it can replicate work that took hours, months, and even years.

If I wanted to write a book, I could have it done in minutes. Doesn’t mean it’ll be a good book. Doesn’t mean it will be well researched but I will have a book.

To limit the amount of books made by AI Amazon decided to limit “authors” how many they could submit. The answer? Three per day.

So the problem is not the amount of content that is out there because most of it is junk. The problem is that we have so much junk to sorry through to get to the good stuff.

Art, I believe, is anything that we do where one human connects with another. That definition is about to be stretched. Because what is art in the age of artificial intelligence?

Is it art when somebody puts into the computer to make an AI painting? Is it art when we replicate the great works of the past only to tweak it just a little bit? Is it art as long as it transfers emotion? These are all difficult questions. But it isn’t the first time we have faced these difficult definitions. In fact, when Marcel Duchamp submitted R. Mutt (a toilet) in an art show people freaked out. And now we have AI on the scene, now what?

We get to decide what art is and what it is not. And we also get to decide what we value. If it’s made from a human or a machine, it matters. Because of the story we get to tell.

All things come to an end. When they do we can have a hard time letting go. The person who we say we used to be is done. For better or worse. And we take the lessons, the experiences with us to start the next journey.

The end of the road, is the beginning of a new. When one door closes now new doors are there to open and see what happens next.

Two hundred years ago, no one talked about a FICO Score. It wasn’t in the commentary. But we did talk about work, labor, relationships, our neighbors, drama, gossip, and so on.

So while much has changed, and will continue to do so, the human experience is still there under all of it. It just looks different.

Delivering on time, on budget, to spec, as promised.

There’s no drama in this.

But it’s what the professional does.

The creative act is an emotional process.

Because what we create says so much about us on this culture we have built.

Which makes it hard to put it on the line.

Because when we say, “Here, I made this…” and someone doesn’t like it, we think there is something wrong with us.

But that isn’t true. They didn’t like the thing you built and perhaps it isn’t for them. More importantly, they didn’t like the work, not the person.

It’s amazing to watch the social discourse change over the last three decades.

And it would be easy to criticize what was said back then.

It makes me wonder, what is being said now that we will look back on and think, “That’s bizarre. How could someone think/say/act that way?”

Are you in a dead end job thinking there is no other options?

Well, if you have access to the internet, transportation, food/water…you get the point.

Is the ceiling made of glass or made of iron?

Too often, we create the drama. And the drama is played out in our head, sending us in a spiral. But the drama is usually way worse than what actually happens.

I think about the trees we plant today that will grow to give shade for someone who isn’t even here yet.

To me, that as beautiful as it gets. When we are working to make things better, even if we don’t get to enjoy the fruits, we cannot help but feel significant.

Significance is power. Significance creates meaning. Significance reinforces grit and resiliency.

Because once we see the work we do matters and has impact, we get up to do it again.

Thank you for everyone who reads this. I hope it has mattered.

In a marathon, you must have small goals to achieve while maintaining an eye on the destination.

The games are invented.