Self-Expression by A(I)ny Means Necessary

I parked at the end of a dead end street and popped open the trunk of my car. My right hand looked visibly swollen, so I awkwardly heaved my suitcase out with my left hand. When I got inside, my mom said, “Uber doesn’t go from our house to the airport. Would you call a Lyft for us?”

I took stock of the spread of leftover food that needed to be eaten, and put together a tortilla with sautéed veggies and cheese on a paper towel. After clicking ‘Start’ on the microwave, I opened the Lyft app.

By the time we got settled at my grandma’s house in Arizona, I began feeling anxious about the pain in my hand. My mom hopped into the hot tub, but I couldn’t think about anything else. What if it’s broken, and I don’t go to the doctor, and it heals wrong, and I have pain for the rest of my life? What if I can’t work, or paint, or write, or play the violin, or do anything I love ever again?

Sunday, April 2nd

Today, I was lounging by my grandma’s new pool when my little brother asked my dad for a writing prompt to give ChatGPT. My dad gave him a prompt to write a gratitude letter in the style of Billy Graham. When my brother read it out loud, my Dad teared up with joy and laughter. We all enjoyed the letter that the AI had generated so much, that we wanted to give it to her as a gift.

So many of our tender human emotions go unsaid because they are simple, obvious, and repetitive, like pop music. When AI used my grandma’s swimming pool as a metaphor for her internal well of love and generosity for her family, we couldn’t help but think: Yes! That’s amazing. We never would have generated these words ourselves, not because they are so intelligent, but because they’re so mushy and cliche.

I suggested using AI to generate a painting of her pool so my brother prompted DALL-E with “San Tan Desert Pool” and voila. I pulled the text and image into Canva and started drafting a design that we could print onto a canvas as a gift.

Despite how much anxiety powerful AI like ChatGPT and DALL-E might give us, it was fun to use these tools for a random act of kindness. I wonder, how will people choose to use them in the future?

Monday, April 3rd

Today, I continued working on the design for my Grandma’s thank you gift. To keep things meta, I had originally mimicked DALL-E’s iterative approach by presenting four initial designs to consider. Unlike AI, however, I was able to synthesize feedback on all four concepts to design something that’s much better than any single one. Each first attempt had unique strengths and weaknesses, which I took into consideration as I developed the final draft.

Happy with this one, I went ahead and ordered a canvas print which will be delivered to my grandma’s house after we leave. Now the important question remains… How will we explain it to her?

Tuesday, April 4th

Today, I played a little alphabet game with myself. It’s inspired by two alphabet games I’ve been playing lately. In one game, you start with “A is for…” and the next person recites the growing list of items: “A is for… B is for…” and so on. In another game, you compete to find words on road signs beginning with each letter in the alphabet in order.

While playing these childish games with friends and family, I began thinking more deeply about the words that we were collecting. Did they mean anything? “Apocalypse, Beware, Cat, Dodge, Ear, Fromage, Gnat, Hope, Ink…” Did these random words reveal something about us, or about the world we live in?

I was having a perfect vacation-style evening. I did a charcoal face mask while listening to lo-fi beats and burning incense. In this zenned out state, I began flipping through a photo album I keep on my phone with one photo from each day of the year. One at a time, I came up with a word to describe each photo, working my way through the alphabet. When I ran out of letters, I kept scrolling through images, this time free associating between the words I’d already come up with.

When I finished, I admired my collection of words, wondering if they might have any meaning or significance or pattern. Each line seemed to evoke a vivid picture.

This creative exercise felt like a useful way to generate new, unexpected ideas. Could one or more of these ideas develop into a work of art? Should I play this game again with a new set of images?

Still thinking about AI art, I am reminded of a book I read in college called ‘Algorithms to Live By.’ The book changed my perspective on life, helping me understand algorithms as a very human concept, like following a recipe from a cook book. Part of my art making process ever since that has involved inventing algorithms.

Wednesday, April 5th

Today, I was feeling melancholy about my “inability to draw properly.” As if to prove that I have no potential as a fine artist, I sketched my foot. I’m actually happy with how it turned out, which means I can’t use my “inability to draw properly” as an excuse after all. Rats!

Thursday, April 6th

Today, I thought a lot about a concept that’s been bothering me since the new year. I want to write about the years I’ve spent living in Seattle, in long-form narrative format. I’m not sure what I want to say exactly, and I’m not sure whether it should be a memoire, or just fiction. With no clear answers, I’ve been working and reworking the form, like a piece of clay that never gets fired.

Despite my lack of direction or clarity, I wrote down some words. I was thinking about my obsession with personality and character, and why I’ve spent so much time learning about both the Enneagram and Positive Psychology. I am beginning to see them as two sides of the same coin, and I feel like these dual obsessions are the heart of my story. On the one hand, personality structure describes who we are when we are serving our ego, and on the other hand, character strengths describe our aspirational pro-social virtues.

Friday, April 7th

Today, I wrote some free verse poetry. The poem expresses my very human response to anxiety. Already, I wish I could hide behind AI instead of claiming full authorship of my own work. Who, me? I wrote that? Weird.

Can you imagine humans ghost writing for ChatGPT? Just think about it. Stranger things have happened.

Saturday, April 8th

Today, I returned back home to Seattle. I sat with my feelings for a few days before sharing my creative work. I again felt unsure about sharing this post at all. I was writing more poetry when a houseguest who had been staying at my place for a while gathered all of my housemates into the living room. He read aloud to us a lovely poem he had written as a gratitude letter before leaving.

His act of sharing creativity with us gave me the strength I needed to share this post.

It feels strange to see the highs and lows of my art over the past week in one place — the unedited, unfiltered, unprocessed bits and pieces. Despite some heavy things weighing on my heart, I feel lighter than usual. If anything, I feel striking clarity. I’m thankful for my creative outlets, because I’m better able to make sense of my experiences, and move forward in productive ways. Till next week, dear reader.