Tag Archives: prompt

AI image woes

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A few years ago I switched from looking for royalty free images to add to my Daily-Ink blog posts to using AI. The main reason for this is that I found myself spending almost as much time searching for images as I was spending writing my blog post. This was not efficient.

While I’ve had a few challenges along the way, for the most part, I got image creation consistently down around 3-5 minutes. This is great, and so much less stressful… except for when it isn’t. The past few days have been a struggle. I couldn’t get the AI to give me what I wanted. Even when I asked for clarification, and a description of my image was recited ack to me in incredible detail, the end product did not match what I hoped for.

Three of the last four days I was at the gym, walking on the treadmill and I was still trying to get my post published, delayed by failed attempts to get the image I hoped for. In all 3 cases I settled for something close. Actually 2 out of 3, for the other one I used a sample Wikipedia image the AI found for me. I can’t believe how hard it is to get AI to create the image of a clock showing the time 5 o’clock!?!

I was tempted to say that AI image creation is getting dummer, but I think what’s happening is that I’ve just started to expect a lot more. The clock is a bad example, but in many cases I’m expecting a level of sophistication I haven’t asked for previously. I want specific perspectives. I’m asking for complex scenarios, and I’m challenging the AI to create ‘unnatural’ situations, like a teacher in a circle of desks with the students all sitting looking out and away from the teacher.

That’s sounds like an easy request but in millions of reference images of teachers, the AI has been trained to have students face the teacher. So despite continued attempts, with the AI actually describing in detail what I’m asking for before giving it to me, I still got an image of the students facing inward, towards the teacher. Again, and again, and again.

So I’m going to dumb it down. I’m going to ask for less complex images. I’m going to settle for an image that might not be perfect, and most importantly I’m going to spend less time on images and more time writing.

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Post script: My one and only image request for this post – ‘Create a stylized, abstract watercolour image that looks like an AI image gone wrong, with an uncanny valley styled mishmash of items.’

Promptism – A flat earth metaphor

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I read an interesting article by Sune Selsbæk-Reitz, on a word he sort of invented for asking and believing what AI shares, Promptism. The article, The Earth Is Flat, defines this new word: “Promptism is the quiet belief that if I just ask my question clearly enough, I’ll get something true in return. Maybe even something wise.”

And the article describes how promptism is killing curiosity, and providing ‘truths’ that may not be truthful, and yet are being taken as so at face value without questioning.

From the article:

“The ritual is the same every time:

Ask the machine. Get the word.

Move on.

We don’t think of it as belief, because there’s no incense, no robes, no temple. But there’s authority. And there’s trust. And there’s something deeply seductive about being given something that feels final. Even when it isn’t. Even when the certainty is a performance.

Because the thing is: the more fluent the answer, the more invisible the framing becomes. And if we don’t pause to notice that… we’ll mistake fluency for truth, and coherence for proof.”

The article continues:

“But with ChatGPT or Gemini, the answer arrives fully dressed.

Paragraphs. Polished tone. No seams. No links. Just a voice that sounds sure of itself.

That’s not just convenience. It’s a design choice. And it’s flattening how we think. Because friction – the pause, the doubt, the need to look something up – isn’t a flaw in the process of knowing. It is the process. That little jolt of uncertainty that sends you looking deeper?

That’s what makes knowledge stick.

That’s how you learn.”

…“And the more we do this, the more we forget that knowledge was never meant to arrive fully formed.”

I’ve noticed how this has affected me. I don’t go two or three pages into Google anymore. I don’t find tangent, related, and interesting ideas and connections. I ask an LLM, I get an answer, or I refine my question and ask again. I seek an immediate answer, and I accept that answer.

No more new tabs, no clicking links, just a single conversation, and a sort of final answer. The internet is getting flatter. The depth of search shallower. Promptism is the new search… and I wonder what the consequences are, what the price is, in finding convenient ‘truths’ that we just accept, and don’t bother researching or questioning?

Exceptional Customer Service

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Dean Shareski asked this question on LinkedIn: “What’s your favourite story or experience with exceptional customer service?”

I shared:

Mine was in the Bahamas. I asked a waiter for pickled conch at dinner and he went into a bit of a dramatic show about how I didn’t know conch until I tasted it fresh. He asked me what I was doing the next morning and said to meet him in the lobby at 7am. So me and my sister’s boyfriend met him. He took us to a small convenience store and bought two Tupperware containers. Then we drove across the toll bridge and wound around under it to a kind of open sea market. He bought lemons and tomatoes from one vendor, peppers from another, and took them to a conch vendor who broke open conch shells in front of us and made conch salad for us, while telling stories about conch diving while high.
The waiter then took us back to the hotel, two full Tupperware containers of fresh conch salad in hand, and refused to take any money from us. “Absolutely not, you haven’t had conch until you’ve had it fresh, this was my pleasure!”
It was indeed delicious, but the experience was even better.

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I wish I remembered his name, it’s on the back of a photo I took with him on our last day, him holding the huge bottle of rum we bought him… But this was over 30 years ago, and the photo is buried in a box in my garage. All these years later, I still remember his kindness and hospitality. What a wonderful memory he created for us!