It stared at me, watched me. SAW me. I closed the browser window, tried to forget it. Impossible. Compelled, I returned. I boldly met its golden gaze, determined to resist its pull. But it had already imprinted itself on my haunted mind. I could see clearly where it would hang, casting its digital gaze over the room, finding me, always finding me I could not look away. I cannot look away.
"Concealed within his fortress, the lord of Mordor sees all. His gaze pierces cloud, shadow, earth and flesh. You know of what I speak, Gandalf. A great eye, lidless, wreathed in flame."
I had so much fun doing Sauron's eye I decided to do another eye.
The first thing to try for any tech glitch is to turn it off and on again, right? If only we could do the same to our brains! While my dream superpower is telepathic communication with animals, I'd also love to be a technomancer.
I've used back-translation with online translators to generate evocative titles ("Stolen to Time" is one of my favourites). And I've used Botnik to inspire unusual connections - the kind that only come from dream logic.
Here's Botnik writing a Thana Niveau story:
There's a haunting poetry in the reordering of words via predictive text. It's like reading stories I wrote while I was dreaming.
But while all of that is fun, and stimulates the creative area of my brain, none of it opens the gate that releases the actual STORIES.
ERROR_MUSE_NOT_FOUND
Reinstall Muse?
Yes, please!
This is the argument that frustrates me the most. It assumes that I'm actively looking for art, and that anything made by human hands will do, but I'll get distracted by the "nonsense" made by "the push of a button" instead of supporting a "real" artist. Well, I do in fact own human-made art, and I'd own more if I had the wall space. And the cash. A lot of human art is simply beyond my means. I wanted to buy a print of a photograph I fell in love with, but it was £2,000! Just for a PRINT! Yes, there is affordable human art, but if it doesn't speak to me, why would I buy it? Someday I hope to have an office with a photographic feature wall - some tranquil forest or ocean scene. Is that also an insult to human artists?
In fairness, I have seen one or two sensible comments about how it's possible to own art by more than one artist, or indeed by a human AND an AI, but they tend to get lost in the sea of pronouncements about what we "should" be buying "instead". I only hope these dismissive and judgmental people don't actually manage to shame others out of buying AI art. Humans can be just as soulless, cold and creepy as they think AI is.
