7 Reasons I’m Bullish on Generative AI

For the better part of a decade, we’ve understood the potential of AI. We’ve heard the warning signs of white-collar and creative automation. And now we’re at the precipice of that moment.

Generative AI is getting too big to ignore. With so many builders adapting Generative AI models for nearly any skilled task you can imagine – whether that’s generating website copy, photorealistic profile pictures, impressive slide decks, objectively interesting art, and the list goes on – there’s something here for everyone.

We’re witnessing the creation of a new consumer relationship with technology, a relationship where white-collar and creative professionals can automate some of their tasks through Generative AI-assisted workflows.

Yes, there are a lot of unanswered questions:

• Can we consider AI-generated art real art?
• Are we phasing out a large chunk of the artistic professions?
• How do we plan to compensate those whose work is used as training data for AI models?
• Who owns the copyright of art, writing, and other works generated by AI?
• Are we okay with Generative AI blatantly stealing a creator’s style?
• What will the Internet’s content machine look like 5 years from now when AI dominates all creative work?

These are hard-hitting questions. For many people, it’s enough reason to ignore or write off this technology as bad for society as a whole.

But what’s incredible is that Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) – the models behind generative AI – are only eight years old. Furthermore, the consumer-ready platforms (Midjourney, Jasper, Synthesia, Copy.ai ) utilizing this tech are just a few years old at most. Many have been around for only months.

For a technology to have this much impact and public discourse about it this early into its existence means that it’s something worth paying attention to.

I’ve been watching all of the developments and collaborating with AI as much as possible to stay ahead of this revolutionary technology. You can access 15+ of my notes and experiences on Generative AI below:

If you need more convincing, these are the 7 reasons I’m so bullish on Generative AI.

AI For Everyone

Consumers haven’t had the opportunity to interact with AI in this way ever before. We’re generally on the receiving end of AI, whether that’s curated content feeds, image filters, or surge pricing on ridesharing apps. We’ve never had the chance to be on this side of the fence, the programming side of AI, and do so in such an easy manner.

Legitimately, if you can write a sentence, then you can now work with AI. Oftentimes, you don’t even need to write a whole sentence for DALL-E to make you some art or GPT-3 to write you some prose.

The interface for creating with AI is just a prompt. Simple written language. That’s all. Anyone can do it.

There’s A Generative AI for That

A core tenet of this industry is the open-source belief system which has allowed for the rapid expansion of tools/platforms utilizing Generative AI.

Broadly speaking, there are tools allowing you to generate Text-to-Image, Text-to-Video, Text-to-Audio, Text-to-Text, Text-to-Motion, Text-to-Code, Text-to-NFT, and Text-to-3D. The result is a variety of niché use cases:

• Tome for augmented slide deck creation
• Copy.ai for website and sales copy
• Otter.ai for transcribing video and audio
• Synthesia for generating talking-head videos
• Replit for generating and completing code
• Podcast.ai is generating podcasts through AI
• Interior AI for generating interior design mockups
• Photoroom for generating product photography
• LensAI for generating NFTs

And that’s not even the half of it. Futurepedia documents dozens of AI tools for generating any type of content you need.

There’s something here for everyone. No matter what role you have, there’s at least one task of your job you can learn to automate partially or fully based on what’s available today.

We’re Being Automated

Comments like this are all over social media. We’re witnessing the automation of skilled desk-based labor take place before our eyes. And I’d rather be in control of my own destiny rather than a helpless observer.

If this photographer can figure out how to use Generative AI to augment his work. Then I can find some part of my routine to automate.

It’s Modern Magic

I recently got beta access to a word processor called Lex, which incorporates Text-to-Text Generative AI. The first day I spent hours collaborating with the AI on the most random prompts – like describing the hidden plot of Training Day and writing horoscopes for dogs. It was inspiring, insanely fun, and time flew by. The same held true when I first started using Midjourney to generate art.

As a creator, using these tools feels like I’m wielding some sort of magical powers. It’s addicting.

The Future of Entertainment is Unfolding

This is the future of content creation. Disney deployed an AI that makes actors age or get younger, editing each frame in just 5 seconds. Although AI assists at the highest levels of creation, the widest impact will be on our timelines.

The Internet already contains more info than any human (or all combined, for that matter) could ever consume in a lifetime. Just on YouTube, users upload 30 years’ worth of videos every day.

It’s hard to argue we need more. Still, we have the incentive to create more data because the majority isn’t intended to convey or store ideas, thoughts, or feelings, but to attract attention (to achieve some further goal). – Alberto Romero

In less than five years, AI will create more than 2.7 Trillion images on the Internet (4x what is there today). Most of what we create and share online doesn’t need to last or even be that original. In fact, the algorithms prefer that we just recreate what’s trending.

There’s no reason we shouldn’t automate all of the ephemeral, one-time-use content that we Tweet, post, and share.

Extending Creative Work

For those creative professionals who learn to harness AI, their output will be untold. Not necessarily in the sense of outsourcing their drawing, editing, or writing entirely. But rather build a collaborative relationship with the AI to extend their abilities.

I think of the community of people creating AI-generated music videos, using lyrics as Generative AI prompts. Musicians no longer have to depend on expensive budgets for shooting music videos.

I think of the guy who used Midjourney to illustrate the graphic novel he wrote. For those who don’t have the access to artistic collaborators, this is what it looks like to get help from AI in a creative discipline you haven’t mastered.

And having used Text-to-Text AI plenty of times myself, I can tell you that it is an incredible tool for overcoming writer’s block. When I’m stuck, I ask it to generate what’s next in my sentence to get my wheels turning again.

FOMO

As a techie, it’s hard to sit idly on the sidelines with this AI revolution. Watching the AI-Generated art space explode over the last year and seeing the amazing things people are doing with these tools has only created a burning desire in me to participate.

Generative AI has wide-reaching implications to the future of everything. And that’s not just a lame blanket statement. Literally, Generative AI is entering all types of digital work. It’s a creative wave that I don’t want to miss out on. That’s why I’ve been creating so much content on the topic: