Tag Archives: creativity

Next level artificial intelligence

Most of the images I use to accompany my blog are created by artificial intelligence (AI). For yesterday’s post on Childhood memories I wrote about a memory of being frozen from the walk home from school on a cold day. I put the following into DALL•E, “A boy walking on a sidewalk in a snowstorm, in an abstract watercolour ” and chose one of the 4 images this AI created:

Impressive to think that this artwork was created by a computer.

Well now there is a new AI called Chat GPT.

Chat GPT is language based… and when I say language based I mean just about any language, including code. Apparently it can write the code to create an APP if you tell it what features you want the APP to have. You can share code in any computer language and ask this AI to find errors. Or you can input an error message you got in your code and it will find the problem.

That’s great for coding, but it’s also very articulate and creative in most languages. I was interested in what it could write and so my first attempt was to have it write a blog post for me. So, this is what I asked, “Read a few posts at https://daily-ink.davidtruss.com/ and write a post that the author would write”. It didn’t do exactly what I asked. Instead it created a promotional advertisement for my blog. Even though I didn’t get what I was asking for read this and see how well it is written:

As a writer, I am constantly on the lookout for inspiration and new ideas. One of my favorite sources of inspiration is reading the work of other writers. Recently, I came across the website https://daily-ink.davidtruss.com/, and I was blown away by the quality of the writing I found there.

The posts on this website cover a wide range of topics, from personal reflections on life and love to thought-provoking discussions of current events. Each post is beautifully written, with clear and concise language that is a joy to read.

One of the things that really stood out to me about this website is the author’s ability to convey complex ideas in a way that is accessible to a wide audience. Whether you are a seasoned writer or someone who is just starting out, you will find something to love on this website.

In addition to the high-quality writing, I also appreciated the website’s clean and simple design. The layout is easy to navigate, and the posts are organized in a way that makes it easy to find what you are looking for.

If you are looking for a new source of inspiration, I highly recommend checking out https://daily-ink.davidtruss.com/. I guarantee that you will not be disappointed.

Not a person, an artificial intelligence wrote that!

Here was my second attempt: “Write a short news story about the coming of age of artificial intelligence.”

And this is what Chat GPT came up with in just a few seconds after my query:

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the capabilities of artificial intelligence. This technology, which was once only found in science fiction novels, is now becoming a reality.

One of the key developments in the field of AI has been the advancement of machine learning algorithms. These algorithms allow computers to learn from data and improve their performance on a variety of tasks. This has led to the creation of intelligent systems that can perform a wide range of tasks, from recognizing images and speech, to playing games and even driving cars.

As AI technology continues to improve, it is being used in an increasingly wide range of applications. It is being used in healthcare to help diagnose diseases, in finance to make better investment decisions, and even in the criminal justice system to help predict the likelihood of recidivism.

Despite the many benefits of AI, there are also concerns about the potential negative impacts it could have. Some worry about the potential loss of jobs as more tasks are automated, and there are also concerns about the ethical implications of creating machines that can make decisions without human input.

Overall, the coming of age of AI is a significant development that has the potential to change our world in many ways. As the technology continues to evolve, it will be important to carefully consider the potential benefits and drawbacks of this powerful technology.

Impressive! You literally can not tell that a human didn’t write that article. Wow. AI is going to change the world as we know it… this is absolutely a new level of intelligence.

Repeat performance

I just spent 25 minutes writing a post that I titled ‘Student Ambassadors’, then realized it seemed familiar. I went to my blog and did a search for the term ‘ambassador’ and found ‘Student led tours‘ which I wrote about 5-6 weeks ago. The approach was different but the examples and key message was identical.

If I’d written it 2 years ago I probably would have re-shared the idea, but the last post was too soon and so now I write about the similarity of the posts rather than writing the post itself. I know I’ve also shared something similar to this before but sometimes writing daily is really hard. Coming up with novel ideas to write about is challenging. Not repeating some of those ideas is even more challenging.

Do you ever realize that you have specific ‘go to’ stories that you share? Certain memories that come up again and again, that you share with equal enthusiasm every time you share them? We have a model of who we are and we have stories that represent that model for us. We don’t try to be novel all the time, we are consistent, and we tell the same stories consistently.

So, I’ll repeat myself sometimes. Like today, if I recognize that I’m doing so, I will pivot and pick a new topic, or I’ll try to give a new idea on top of an old one… but sometimes I will not realize I’ve shared something before, and in those cases I apologize for the repeat performance.

Creativity with time constraints

I’ve learned over the years that whenever I try to do something creative it always takes much longer than I thought it would. The moment there is a design element to something I’m working on, I will spend too long tweaking it, and making it better. I actually need to give myself time constraints.

If I wrote in the evening with nothing on my agenda, I’d take over an hour to write this, but in the morning, I don’t want to miss my meditation or workout so I have to get writing. I have to write before I meditate, or I’ll spend my meditation time thinking about my writing.

When I edited my Halloween video I gave myself a 3 hour time limit and got it done in less than 2.5 hours. But when I watched it the next day, I thought of several clever edits I could have added. I had to convince myself that it was good enough or I would have spent well over another hour editing. It’s my nature to tinker, tweak, and just throw more time into something creative.

So for me, time constraints are a key strategy to get creative work done, because I could dive deep into something and time just flies by. I get lost in the flow of being creative, but my time isn’t well utilized. If you want me to really get my creative juices flowing then give me a realistic, but really tight timeline.

AI video

If you’ve seen my blog on social media or on my website (as opposed to in your mailbox), you’ve seen images I created in Dall•E 2. Like these, along with my requests that created them:

“A man walking in a forest path and hugging a tree in a pastel drawing”

“A Picasso drawing of a young man walking in a forest surrounded by clocks”

“A small man on a giant piece of paper trying to write with an oversized pen that is bigger than the person”

“A person standing at the intersection of a path that leads to a choice of a dark, loomy forest or a bright open field in a van Gogh style”

“A transparent head with a tree, an ocean wave, cogs, math symbols, a protractor, and science lab equipment inside the brain. ”

“A hand squeezing the film coming out of a reel of film with a movie projector in the background in a vector style”

“A vapourware drawing of a kid running with a kite in his hand. ”

“Headphones in the ear of a dark haired man, in a Kandinsky style ”

—-

I write a description and it gives me 4 options to choose from. I don’t always get exactly what I had in mind, but if it’s too far off from my expectation then I just refine my wording and try again.

Well now Meta AI has come up with Make-A-Video, which creates video clips from descriptions. The examples on the website download onto my phone as images rather than video clips, so you’ll need to visit there to see them.

This is exciting stuff in the field of video creation and soon it will also become so good that you won’t be able to distinguish it from a real video. The creativity that’s possible is exciting. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and soon we’ll see all kinds of fascinating uses for this tool.

Artificial Intelligence is just getting better and better and in the field of creative arts this is going to really change the landscape of what is possible.

(Also, I recognize that there are some scary deep fake implications, but for now I’m just excited to see what people do creatively with this tool.)

I want, I wish, I hope, I dream

Tonight is our first event of the year where we invite parents into the school. We are having a meet the teacher event followed by a PAC – Parent Advisory Council – meeting. In preparation I am putting up a wall of photos of our students and staff (the Inquiry Hub community is 100 staff & students). I did this 5 years ago, and 5 years before that, so all of our students from grade 9-12 have not done this with me before.

It’s a black & white portrait of each kid with a quote underneath it. The quotes all start with one of 4 prompts: I want…, I wish…, I hope…, or I dream…

Here is a video describing the project from 5 years ago (starting at the 4 minute mark).

This is the process for getting these photos:

1. Ask students (in a form) to share the response to four questions:

I want…

I wish…

I hope…

I dream…

I try not to give examples. (I learned a couple lessons here. The first lesson I learned the last time I did this is to ask a follow up question: “What’s your favourite answer”, to help guide my choice when I pick their response to go with the photo. The second, hard lesson I learned this time is not to also ask for a school goal in the same form… this resulted in a number of students focusing all of their answers on school goals.).

2. Take high quality headshot photos of students with a blank background. I used a green screen, but a blackboard or even a white wall works. The main secret is to not have kids too close to the background. Another trick is to tell them NOT to look at the camera. Even just a class of 30 faces staring at the camera would look like a mug shot wall, and so looking away from the camera gives a softer, easier to look at collage of faces. (Another hint, set the camera up to take a black & white photo and save yourself conversion time.)

3. I created a black frame on PowerPoint with 4 boxes, having a slightly larger one on the bottom for text (with size 20 font and a light grey text rather than full white). I also set the slide size to 8.5″ x 11″ (the same size as letter paper). Then I add the photo, right-click it and ‘move to back’ behind the frame, then size the photo inside the frame and adjust the placement. (Another tip, once you’ve got the frame with text box set up, and you’ve tried the first photo and text and are happy, duplicate this slide, delete the photo and text so you have an empty frame on the second slide. Now duplicate this slide as your master.)

4. Convert to PDF, then take a Zip drive to Staples or your business print shop of choice, and print on 80 stock photo paper. Doing the prints here will cost under $1 each instead of several dollars at a photo place and the quality will still be great as long as your photos are high resolution and focussed (use a tripod in step 2). This year I shared a link to a password protected file that I opened when I got to the store, rather than carrying a Zip drive, but it took over 5 minutes to download because the file was over half a gig in size!

5. Place the photos on your wall. I did 3 rows alternating 4 and 5 columns of photos on the panels in our hallway. I don’t think they need to be done so neatly, but with the writing on each image, I suggest space between the photos and not an overlapping collage.

Here is part of this year’s wall with student faces blurred with an app. The pictures are very sharp.

The overall effect is pretty powerful and the wall really makes a statement. I love that everyone’s voice in the community is shared.

I first did this with a Grade 9 class 22 years ago, and it’s still a favourite project that I enjoy doing. And with that, I’ll leave you with my photo. Out of respect for privacy, I won’t be sharing clear photos and readable quotes of students, you’ll have to visit the school to see it.

Not the right headspace

I’ve started three posts before settling on this topic. One has been tucked into my drafts, the other two I just deleted. The one in my drafts is related to an issue I’m dealing with and I realize it’s too sensitive to mention right now… I’m still sorting out a sensitive challenge and a public blog is not where I should be hashing our my thoughts on the topic. The other two ideas are both things I’ve addressed in the past, and I’m not sure I’d add any value bringing them up again.

It bugs me when the main creative thought going through my head is one that I don’t feel comfortable writing about. It’s hard to turn off those thoughts and come up with some other line of thinking to share. When my thoughts are so focused on the things I can’t write about, I get stuck. I’m writing this 49 minutes later than planned and I’m going to miss my morning workout.

This doesn’t happen often, and so when it does it bothers me. I think it’s part of getting back to work and having a more disciplined routine than I had to have in the summer. In the summer, if I was stuck, if I wasn’t in the right headspace, I’d delay my write. But now I’m back to a more focused time crunch, and being overly thoughtful about a topic I can’t write about is enough to put me in a rut.

It’s pretty darn hard to write something every single day. To hit that publish button on days when you don’t feel like it. To write something less thoughtful or expressive than hoped and still decide to share it. But that’s part of the art. Nobody writes their best every day. Nobody finds the right headspace day in and day out.

Sometimes the art of showing up is how you ensure you are practicing your art. Today I was in the wrong headspace, and yet here I am finishing my post. I believe tomorrow, and in the future, I will be a better writer because I chose to write anyway… To write despite my headspace, rather than skipping a day because the muse wasn’t there.

“Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.” – Madeleine L’Engle

Lack of integration not information

We have access to more information than we could ever use. The sum of knowledge available to us is far beyond anyone’s comprehension. Creativity and ingenuity do not come from more knowledge but rather two kinds of integration:

1. Integration of understanding.

There is a difference between understanding how an ocean wave works, and knowing when to catch a wave when surfing or body surfing. There is a difference between studying covalent bonds and understanding how two chemicals will interact.

2. Integration of fields of study.

A mathematician who sees poetry in a series or pattern of numbers. An engineer who sees an ant nest and wonders what they can learn about airflow in buildings.

In this day and age, lack of information is seldom the problem, but lack of integration is.

For schools, integration means getting out of subject silos, and thinking about cross-curricular projects. STEM and STEAM education, and trying to solve hard problems without a single correct answer. Integration of curriculum, inquiry learning, iterations, and learning through failure by hitting roadblocks that require out-of-the-box thinking and solutions.

Integration comes from challenging experiences that require base knowledge in more than one field. So, while knowledge and information are necessary, information is not sufficient without integration of ideas from other subjects and fields. The learning really begins where subjects and concepts intersect… and where learning across different fields is meaningfully integrated.

Recombination

“Deconstruction creates knowledge. Recombination creates value.” ~ James Clear

It’s really hard to come up with truly novel ideas. We remember the names of those that do, such as Newton, Marie Curie, and Einstein. But there are so many novel ideas and inventions that take old ideas and combine them to create new products and services that add value in our world.

I think too many people get stuck in a single field of knowledge and miss out on the opportunity to see how their fields can be expanded or used in other fields of study. Something as ubiquitous as the smart phone is a simple example. It combines a phone with access to the web, and a camera, and an interactive map, and a stereo, and even a calculator. I often joke that my iPhones does everything well except for making phone calls.

I remember a grade 8 project I gave students in science. Students where to add an adaptation to an animal to improve its ability to survive. One student came up with marsupial penguins that laid eggs directly into a pouch. This would be far more efficient compared to a penguin always needing to keep eggs on their feet and off of the ice. That’s recombination that adds value.

“Deconstruction creates knowledge. Recombination creates value.”

Recombination involves understanding component parts… you often need to be able to deconstruct things well, and truly understand them, before you recombine them. There needs to be a base knowledge that allows you to make connections that others might not make. You don’t have to come up with completely novel ideas, just old ideas repackaged in unique ways.

Sneaking it in

It’s 11pm and I just realized that I haven’t written my Daily Ink yet. I blame the holidays. I sat to write this and my wife asked if we could go for a walk. So I gladly went for a walk with her and then I forgot! I don’t think that I’ve missed a day since I started writing daily in July 2019, but maybe there was a day like this that I just don’t remember? I’ll probably never know because I’m not going to count, and I have (occasional) posts on here dating back to 2009, so total posts won’t help me, I’d have to count one-by-one or month-by-month.

But my point here is that I can’t let a day slip by when I am aware and still have time to write. I don’t have to write every day, I want to write every day! I want to make the commitment and I want to follow through. How upset will I be if I do miss a day? Not terribly… I’ll just write the next day and keep going. On the other hand, thinking ‘it’s too late’, when there is still time in the day is a cop-out.

All that said, some days are really tough. I sit with a blank page and nothing comes to mind. I start a post, then something sounds/seems familiar, so I do a search and see that I’ve already written something similar. Or I start something and just don’t like it. Days like these, I remind myself that it’s hard to be truly original. I remind myself that not everything I write will be good, much less great. But I will write, and I will publish, and I’ll do it daily. My blog description says it all:

Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.

AI generated art: DALL•E

I finally got my invite to use this amazing tool:

You’re invited to create with DALL·E

The wait is over, your invite has arrived! We can’t wait to see what you create.

My first request:

A water colour sunset on a beach with palm trees

This is what DALL•E came up with:

Next request:

A photo realistic image of a chimpanzee with the body of a turtle

Next try. This one wasn’t as accurate:

An oil painting of a man wearing a purple space suit in space with a space ship and a planet behind him

Asking it to paint a painting by a known artist:

A Dali styled painting of people at a party

Playing with a few more:

A pastel drawing of a dreamy world filled with Platonic solids

Pixel art of a surfer on a massive wave

An abstract painting of a watermelon planet

There were a few attempts that I didn’t share, just because they were not very interesting or missed the mark and I didn’t want to retry. Next I tried uploading a few photos, and these were generated:

The bottom left looks like a mix of me and Jerry Seinfeld. 🤣

The original of this next one has the sun as well, it’s just hidden by the ‘original’ banner:

Next I uploaded a doodle:

I think I’m going to enjoy using this tool. It’s hard to believe that each of these renderings are created by artificial intelligence, and that in a few seconds five or six different versions of your request are created. Here is one more that I really liked:

A 3D rendering of a man escaping from a colourful vortex

I think I’ll be using this tool to create some of the images I add to my blog from now on.