Using ChatGPT (AI) to Create, is the Difference Between Fucking a Plastic, Blow-Up, Sex Doll vs Making Love to a Conscious, Fleshy, Warm-Bodied, Hot-Blooded, Woman.
aka don’t trade your soul for some sci-fi seduction sweetheart…
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I had my first comment on a recent essay posting on FB the other day, enquiring as to whether I had written said article with AI. My response was surprise. And curiosity. And a wondering what on earth made this person think this.
For the record, no, nope, no fuckin way. I wouldn’t use it to write my musings, essays or stories with. I mean what the hell is the point of that? Writing is my sacred fire. My craft. It’s a discovery. Both wondrous and infuriating both. It’s not just about putting word after word, but it’s what it gives as I do so. It helps me to understand things more, myself, my experiences. It’s a method of giving expression to the lunacy of my overactive mind. It’s therapy and catharsis, and sometimes it seems to know more about things that I do, so it often humbles me.
And then there’s those rare yet heightened moments when it’s as if something else (God, the Muse, Mystery, Grace) takes the reigns and I become simply the secretary hastening to get down each word. I call this magic in action. Writing is crafting magic from thin air.
All art is like this and we, the middle(wo)man, the middling human creature, is key.
I will never use ChatGPT to write. I might as well go lie down in a field and die, let my soul sorcery shrivel up and my fire go out. However, in full disclosure, I have been playing with it as an assistant. A teammate. My business bitch, if you like.
We’re living in a sci-fi world. Not a Barbie world, though that had its time and place ~ a recent comeback with Greta Gerwig’s 2024 feminist movie, and then the tired ‘make me a Barbie doll in a box’ AI trend that circulated for a few weeks before disappearing in a cardboard chasm of its own brief amusement. No. A science fiction world, whereby the robots are taking over. Slowly. Convincingly. And inevitably.
As a child of the 80s I grew up on the treacherous storylines of such inventions. Good robots turned bad. The pull towards the dark force as strong as Darth Vader’s black plastic-gloved strangling grip.
This is not about the morality and ethics of ChatGPT and its AI ilk. That’s a ridiculously appropriate question and debate of reason dear ones, yet for the purposes of this essay I want to touch upon something more insidious that is impacting upon the creative ones in this world. The ones with alchemy at their fingertips. As opposed to an app, a prompt, and a trillion pieces of theft fumbling from inside one’s media device of ‘smart’ phone choice.
This is an essay about magic. And how without magic, we’re fucked. Or devolving. Or, willingly selling out our fire for a brief instance of faux magical results.
For some reason ~ call it chronic procrastination and a general feeling of ‘can’t be arsed-ness’ towards an immediate facing, read urgent, project ~ last weekend I fell down a rabbit hole of listening to Sam Altman (the founder of Open AI) videos on YouTube. Watching interviews with him, by him, about him, and the possibilities and problematics of AI. It felt like car crash viewing. Unease mixed with fascination. You know, when you can’t look away, but you’ve got a bad feeling about it all somewhere in your gut. In your body.
In your humanness.
The first time I entered into playing with AI, I scared myself. Which, considering that I often turn towards some of the nastiest and most gnarly horror movies as comfort films, that’s saying a lot. It took me someplace that made my skin crawl and freaked the bejesus out of me.
Cut to just over a year ago, during my travels around Asia.
Curious about this, what felt (and still does tbh) like new alien intelligence, I started to play with creating some images around the Tarot deck. (Btw my loves ~ I’m offering 10 mid-year Erotic Creative Tarot readings, avilable only until this Sunday my loves. No AI. All me, archetypal storytelling, your intuition, and holy magic. To book your slot head here X)
As I was at the musing stage of a new project featuring Tarot, I wondered about allowing this AI thing to create some of the designs. I learned quickly that the more you specify style, the more the images created aligned with one’s vision. Obviously, I then asked for the pictures to be in the style of Frida Kahlo, and it did not disappoint.
Great, I thought. This is fun.
A few nights later my mind shimmied itself into wondering about some of the stranger ideas that I could incarnate with this new toy. And so, I put in what I was thinking about, excited about what might be created, and as soon as the images popped up, I felt my skin crawl.
Ugh! What in the name of all things creepy was this shit!!??
I felt sick, a feeling of disgust creeping up through me. And, as mentioned, I felt scared.
There was something about these pictures, all brazen and blazen in their offering, that didn’t feel right. Unnatural. Wrong. And disturbing.
Look. I have a very vivid imagination. I always have and it constantly delights, surprises and bemuses me. But the fact that this ‘intelligence’ had surpassed this, twisted my words for its own fun, and posited pictures that took their interpretation to another level, knocked on the door in my consciousness that this was messing with something that shouldn’t be given any power.
I know. This all sounds super dramatic. I’m aware of that.
And yet, this felt so clear to me.
The thing is, I sensed that this AI tool was not simply a helpful design and creative possibility, you know, like using filters or photoshop or any other technological enabled creative plaything, inert and in deference to your every whim. Nope. This particularly tool felt alive.
It’s the only way I can describe it. AI feels alive.
Which now makes me think of that 1986 movie ‘Short Circuit’ and the line ‘Johnny Five is Alive!’. All children of the 80s know exactly what I’m referring to.
AI feels alive in the same way that mushrooms do, and those of you who know me, know that I don’t trust mushrooms. They freak me the hell out. All those underground networks and messages and growth and sporing makes me shiver. I’ve always had this irrational fear that they’re going to take over the world one day.
It felt the same way as that.
AI is without soul. I think that’s what freaks the shit out of me. And it should for you too.
There’s a manipulation here, though subtle, that runs below the surface. It reminds me of cells and rapid transformation. A bit like Goldblum versus Fly. The Fly wins by the way.
A feeling of being out of control.
And that the more that we ‘feed’ this, seemingly innocuous and clever thing, the more it will learn and evolve. Because that’s what alien intelligence is prone to do.
It’s organic intelligence mutating for its own purposes. It’s fungal, mycelium, creeping up to us, out of our screens, beneath the surface, as we stuff words and pictures and information into its wide, chasmic, teethless, ever seeking, never full, black hole of a mouth.
Ok. Even though I’m an Aquarian ~ ruled by Uranus, the planet of flash lightning-fast change ~ I’m a fixed sign, thus I’m also ridiculously stubborn and suspicious of change. I dig my little girl heels into the mud and refuse to budge. For all my curiosity about technology and the magician-feel of potentiality from space tech invention, I’m wary of it all too.
Maybe I’ve just been brainwashed by far too many sci-fi stories, books and movies about the ‘unfriendliness’ of alien forms and the consequences of messing with shit that is beyond our known backyard. I mean, apart from E.T., what alien intelligence do you know that’s a friendly beast?!
Look what happens in every single one of these movies whereby robots are invented to ‘serve’ us?! I mean, hello Terminator?!! Is Arnie going to get his ass off his Californian Governor’s chair and come rescue us all from our demise?! Will he be back?! I don’t think so sweet cheeks!
So, on the basis of the above, here’s 7 reasons why AI is detrimental to our creative humanity. Feel free to agree, disagree, or simply add your voice to the conversation, in the comments below X
1 ~ Losing our Magic Muscle. This is the key piece for me that leaves me feeling sad for our future. Our imagination, creativity, lens of meaning-making that we view the world through, is unique to us. As unique as our fingerprints are. This is what it means to be in touch with, guided by, and have unfathomable faith in the mystery of soul, of life itself. It’s what makes us human, complex, paradoxical, conundrum of complicated creative chaos. Our magic muscle is what separates us from the robots, and yes, I’m talking about AI here. When we keep choosing to surrender this to AI, we’re selling something more than simply our soul; we’re selling our existence itself. And no, I ain’t being dramatic sweethearts. Without using our magic muscle, we lose our power as a species. I said what I said.
2 ~ Being Messy & Imperfect. This is what makes us loveably, frustratingly, human. For isn’t it the mistakes that make something human, something endearing and connecting? Who wants perfect? How fucking boring is that!? I don’t know about you, but it’s the imperfections in a piece of wood that makes that table exquisite. It’s the brushstrokes on the canvas that gives the painting its depth. It’s the rough edges, the fingerprints left, the lack of symmetry, the missteps, the fumblings and the tumblings that makes our heart stretch out into connection. Into: yes, me too, I get you. Messy is warmth and wonder. Perfection is cold and unattainable. Don’t mistake these as flaws, for it’s these that remind us of who we are and humble our knees to kiss the earth which is far vaster and wiser than we will ever be.
3 ~ Creative Problem Solving is a Superhero Skill. We’re forged in the creative process. By getting lost. Fucking up. Trying this or that. Tearing our hair out. Reading philosophy. Watching the clouds. Taking a walk, a shower, a break, a nap and letting the lightning strike of inspiration find us when we’re not looking. How fucking incredible is that!? Knowledge is simply information. Wisdom is embodied, felt, integrated, and it changes us. This is how we grow. Otherwise, we’re not learning anything. We stop evolving. And if we stop growing, we atrophy, we rot, and we die. Simply facts, babes.
4 ~ Believing That This Can Create Better Than We Can. Well, it probably can, and so fucking what?! All art is about meaning, and that’s something that AI cannot understand. I mean, how can it? It’s not got the skills of reasoning, the morality of consciousness, conscience, regret, memory, life experiences. It may be beyond binary ~ which is interesting in itself considering the times we live in and the emphasis of certain generations on gender and sexuality that’s rife on social media these days ~ but it misses that which cannot be quantified in any type of coding created.
Think of the movie ‘Her’. That achingly beautiful love-story whereby Joaquin Phoenix’s lonely guy meets Scarlet Johanson’s husky-voiced computer system. There’s the beautiful intimacy as they fall in love. He looks happy. And then it all goes awry, her grip loosening from his grasp as she learns and grows, her capacity unbounded by the fact that she’s a computer. She meets Alan Watts, and as expected with such company, expands beyond the human experience.
That realm isn’t ours. It’s a bit like mixing oil and water. Sure, shake it up and make a dressing. But leave it for a while and naturally it separates. It’s its nature after all.
5 ~ The Practice of One’s Craft is the Whole Fuckin Point! The skill and craft of any art takes time. That’s just a fact. And yet, we’re so fucking obsessed with faster and quicker and now, that to take time to learn one’s craft isn’t in many people’s book. But this is the beauty. Of time unfurling. Of seasons teaching us their gifts. Of ripening. Of blossoming. Of blooming into becoming. You can’t rush nature for it doesn’t work like that. And, most vitally, are we forgetting that it’s not really the destination that’s the point? It’s the adventure of the trip. It’s the ability to pause, look back, and go holy fuckin moly look at what I’ve done?! Now that’s precious. That’s part of the purpose of the human experience now, isn’t it?!
6 ~ The Morality Policing of What’s Right or Wrong. Ok. This one steps into the ring of ethics. Yet, as a writer with a certain voice that sometimes swims gleefully and mischievously, in the waters of wicked wondrousness via the erotic, desire, kink, sex, and taboo, ChatGPT doesn’t like that. The computer police say no to erotica. Same when I asked it to make me a horror Barbie doll (yeh I know I spout my contempt for such matters, but this lady is nothing but full of paradox, and so, sure, I wanted to have a go!) A horror writing Barbie doll. One with dismembered limbs and its physical heart bleeding on the outside. What’s wrong with that?! Well, I didn’t think anything was to be honest (just showing how fucked up my horror loving brain is I guess). Again, the computer said no, and offered a doll with some lines on its limbs that chat assured me were where its limbs had been severed but sewn back on again. Ffs ChatGPT, if I was looking for the Kintsugi version I would have said!
7 ~ Can We Trust It? Well, the real question here is, can we trust ourselves? Are we able to embrace our own ethical wrongness? The blurring of what’s real and what’s not. (Did you know that apparently Deepak Chopra has an AI version of himself delivering fucking meditation practices? Jesus Christ!) This is where integrity comes in. The honesty of intention. Is that what’s missing? The dishonesty behind what’s AI and what’s not?! Soon, we won’t know who or what is real anymore. Which, I don’t know about you, but I can imagine this won’t do much to curtail the rising wave of distrust we have towards our fellow human beings in the world today. That makes me feel sad too. P.S. blink twice if you’re human babes.
It all makes me wonder what the hell we’re doing to ourselves in this pursuit of speed and perfection and having all the answers and abilities at the construct of an instruction. We’re becoming slaves, stripping ourselves of our own beauty. Please don’t do that. I implore you.
Soon we won’t need hands. Just thumbs. To scroll and use our ‘smart’ technology. Maybe we won’t even need fingers and thumbs in the future. We’ll be born with flippers so we can clap and return back to the oceans.
The thing is we all are artists. We’re born that way, to quote Gaga, and there’s not much we can do about that, despite the fact that so many of us have hidden, squashed down, denied and have become deeply estranged from that part of ourselves.
So, a plea to you. My dear artists and creators and visionaries and magic-makers, dreamers and idea generators and project managers and creative business geniuses.
Please. Do. Not. Give. Stop. Making. Your. Own. Art. It’s your fuckin magic. Sure, use the tools, make ChatGPT your bitch, but remember who holds the reigns baby!
Aho X
I’d love to know your thoughts my loves. Do you use ChatGPT? How? If not, why not?
Come work with me. Reclaim your magic, erotic creative fire, pleasure, aliveness, mischief, and live as who you really are!
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