What’s your thoughts on Artificial Intelligence?

15 May 2023

As of May 2023, I have been selected to trail the beta version of Adobe Firefly, software which generates images using AI. It’s great to have been selected and upon initial inspection, it seems pretty powerful.

In 2021, just four months before the war broke out in Ukraine, I visited Chernobyl and created a short piece of film based on a discovery I made in a practice room with a piano in a derelict school in the exclusion zone. It was an overwhelming moment, and the image of the piano and the sheet music I discovered is now ingrained onto my memory forever.

So with access to this new powerful software, from the comfort of my work environment, I searched “chernobyl abandoned piano classroom with broken chair”.

Below are two images – the left is my picture and the one on the right is the result of Adobe’s algorithms. There are a few anomalies but its pretty close. Just look at the flaking paint on the walls – the colour of it even!

It is an amazing tool, but I am yet undecided about the power of AI. There are many warnings in the programme about how to display generated images. Clearly there is a worry about how society receives and interacts with such images.

Artificial intelligence is of course at work in so many of our software programmes right now. An editing job in Adobe Photoshop just a few years ago that might have taken 15 minutes is now achievable in just a few minutes. I am all in for tools which help to speed up a process but for me the artistic vision is and always should be from the artists. Right? Wrong? I’m genuinely interested to hear from people.

For me the discovery of standing in that classroom in Pripyat in October 2021 was awe inspiring, humbling and a once in a lifetime occurrence. The sound of Tchaikovsky’s October playing in my mind, it brought a new layer of realism for me to the horrendous incident which took place there nearly 40 years ago.

How can punching seven words into a search bar have the same sense of connection? Talk to any artistic creators and practitioners – the sense of pride in their work is palpable. We are on the cusp of something very exciting for sure and AI will become something powerful in the toolkit, but I wouldn’t want it to dictate, stifle or replace my own artistic journey. My sense of exploring new things will never end.

If you are interested in exploring Adobe Firefly with me, get in touch.