Why AI is Like The Flash from DC Comics
1The influx and output of generative AI, or GenAI, products had made clear what their (current) superpower is: speed and cost. GenAI has ingested billions of points of data, whether text, audio, video, images, or something else, and uses that to quickly create new content.
I think of GenAI like The Flash from DC Comics: ridiculously fast, but the ends (for the most part) are no different from what we can do. For example, if the Flash wants Naples-style pizza from Naples, he can get it in a second. For us, it would take longer and be more expensive, but the result would be the same.
With some caveats, it's the same with GenAI. I've used ChatGPT & Midjourney for hundreds of questions and images. So far, the *quality* of the result isn't dissimilar from what a person could come up with, depending on their familiarity with the topic. But the speed and cost of the response are unlike *anything* a person could come up with.
I started using Midjourney in September to generate images based on lyrics from songs that I would then stitch together to create a lyric music video. If I wanted to commission the art for these videos from individual artists – which could be little as one image for a single-lyric song or dozens for something like Black No. 1 by Type O Negative – it could cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. As important, it could take days, weeks, or months to have all the images ready.
That's not the case with Midjourney. For $30 a month, I could ask it to create an unlimited amount of images, in almost any conceivable style. It would take a few seconds to generate each picture and I would save a *lot* of time and money. It's cheaper and quicker than any artist, though the result isn't as good (though this is a matter of taste). Still, Midjourney is improving daily.
It could be useful for artists as well. They can feed their clients commissions into Midjourney and have it provide something they can work off of. They can come up with something quickly, then make further edits in Photoshop. Artists can now produce content even quicker, and no longer need to start with a blank canvas unless they want to. Turnaround times can improve, and they can take on more clients.
As much as I like most of what Midjourney outputted, I can't say I was completely happy with all the results They were all somewhere along the way to what I wanted, but they took enough detours that the result wasn't precisely what I desired. For the time & cost that went into the quality I got, I'm satisfied. But right now, it's a case of something is better than nothing. It's enough to pique my interest to continue using it. I think it's a great tool to use as a starting point. If you have an idea of what you want, you can use Midjourney to come up with a quick and cheap prototype. You can take the prototype to a designer or artist to get something pixel-perfect, or more in line with what you want.
I was listening to episode 504 of ATP a few months ago. One of the hosts, Marco Arment, was/is developing an app about the tide levels in his area. The app needs an icon. Marco used DALL-E, OpenAI's image generator, to come up with some ideas. [This is the bad one](http://drops.caseyliss.com/jtcOhM) and [this is the good one](http://drops.caseyliss.com/4VktPB). As he mentioned [in the episode](https://atp.fm/504) at around the 16:40 mark, it gave him a jumping-off point – something to take to a *professional* designer who could then create a better *final* product. But it helps clarify communication. He can say "I want something like this, but pixel perfect" or "Something like this, but better than this.". Then he can give *direct* feedback that the artist can incorporate – something Midjourney is incapable of. He can say "I like this and this, but I want that to connect to that over there."
When it comes to visual mediums, showing is better than telling but you still need to be able to explain what you want. Right now, you can do that with a human but not with a machine. The machines need to get better.
These products will continue to improve. But the genie is out of the bottle. Pandora's box has opened. What's done is done. There's no going back to how things were before. GenAI will be what we make of it. It's in our best interests to try and understand this new landscape and use it to our advantage instead of shying away from it.
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #TheFlash #Midjourney #Future