Artificial Intelligence and Me

 I've recently started using ChatGPT.  It began because I'm teaching the senior art majors in the Mars Hill University Art Department and getting them ready for the big exhibition at the end of the semester (a requirement for their graduation) and to move on in the real world.  As I told them at the very beginning in late August, they're going to graduate into a terrible hiring environment.  They need all the tools at their disposal they can get.  So, in addition to their art projects, I've been working with them on CV's, resumes, bios, elevator pitches, job searches, and job interviews.  And AI.

The reason I'm pushing them to get more experience in AI is because it's everywhere in their anticipated lines of work, which are mostly graphic design.  They're going to need to learn how to use AI sooner or later, and it's better to gain experience now, at school, rather than have a potential employer see that they'll have to train them on company time.  My students have not been excited about it.  Most teachers in the school have been prohibiting or limiting the use of AI, so it's unusual for somebody like me to push it.  So they're reluctantly using it. 

But if I'm telling the students to use AI, I better know what I'm talking about.  So I started by asking ChatGPT some more innocuous questions and gradually got more complex.  (Note: "complex" by me is not at all "complex" by most others).  ChatGPT revised a couple of artist statements, for example.  This semester, I started teaching Painting 1, a course I'd never taught before, and struggled for two weeks to put together a lesson plan.  Then I got the bright idea to ask ChatGPT to do one for me.  I told it the general concept for a month's worth of classes and hit "enter".  In less than a second, it printed out a well-structured plan for each week.  Wow.  I've since used it for other tasks and it continues to impress me.

Not all is perfect.  There's an old acronym in the computer world: "GIGO", meaning "garbage in, garbage out".  AI will do what you ask, so you better be very clear about what you ask.  Had I just asked for a lesson plan for a beginning college painting class, there's no telling what might have come out.  The more thought put into the question, the better the answer.  Another issue is that I have never yet used the ChatGPT answer without editing.  The lesson plan, for example, was a good start, but it wouldn't have worked as written for my particular class.  Another item: AI tends to be very wordy if left to its own devices, so it helps to specify the length.  My students found that cover letters for resumes tended to be 1.5-2 pages long, when they should never be more than one page.  Sometimes, you have to go through multiple iterations of the question in order to fine-tune it into something that's really usable.  Fortunately, ChatGPT is fine with this, and even asks questions after its answers to help with the process.

AI has come a long way in just a few years, kinda like PCs did in the 90's, only faster.  I'm wary of AI's potential consequences, but am finding it useful at the same time.  If you haven't tried it yet, give it a shot.

Creative Destruction

 Yes, it's been too long since my last post.  As you're well aware, lots of things have been happening very fast in the big world since August.  My own little world has been very active as well.  There have been dozens of things I wanted to write about, but when I got the time to do it, they were already old news.  Today is a little different.  I've been doing a simple something in the studio that will be very productive going forward.  I've been destroying old paintings.

I know: Shock!  Horror!  Why would I destroy paintings that I spent loads of time and effort on?  Well, several reasons.  The primary one is that I'm getting up there in years and I keep seeing people younger than me suddenly kicking the bucket.  That's telling me that I need to at least plan for what will happen to my artworks, studio supplies, and equipment when I'm no longer around.  My wife certainly doesn't want to have to take care of it.  I've already started giving many of my better artworks away and (surprise) it can be really difficult to find someone or some organization to take them.  And (surprise again) a lot of the artworks on the rack aren't that good and nobody would/should want them.

The other primary reason for destroying old paintings: recycling.  Why go buy lots of new canvases when there are so many on the rack that will never be shown anywhere and will never find new homes?  While I'm still working at placing my better works, the answer to the not-so-good paintings is to destroy them.  For some paintings, that means stripping the old canvas off the stretcher bars and stapling a new one on.  For others, it means just slamming a coat of white paint over top of the old artwork.  And for a third group, it just means dumping it in the trash.  That gives me either new canvases or panels to play with, or a bit more space on the rack.  And nobody else has to worry about what to do with it if I'm gone.

Over the past two days, I've recovered five canvases and destroyed two.  Lest you think that destruction is the only thing I'm doing, there are about 15 artworks (paintings and charcoal/pastels) that are set aside for various people/organizations.

Win-win, all the way around.