Creative Conversations
Creative Conversations is a podcast about contemporary art, science, and friendship. Designed for creative thinkers interested in how ideas become artworks. Each episode features conversations, studio reflections, behind-the-scenes insights into artistic research, and the creative processes that shape contemporary practice — with a few laughs along the way.
Creative Conversations
What makes us human?
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This episode is for you if you have ever wondered:
1. How can you use AI without letting it do your thinking for you?
2. Can AI really create something original?
3. What happens to creativity and our individual voice as AI becomes part of everyday life?
Creative Conversations is a podcast exploring contemporary art, science, and friendship.
Hosted by artist Rebecca Jones and science trained Sandro Micozzi, each episode brings together conversations about creativity, observation, and the different ways we understand the world.
Rebecca also shares her art practice at rebeccajones.com.au
If you enjoyed our podcast please forward to your friends or other interesting likeminded people.
Welcome to Creative Conversations, a podcast exploring contemporary art plants and future. This episode asks what makes us human. Join us as we put AI to the test and ask what happens to creativity, critical thinking, and our individual voice when machines can create too. Hello, Sandy.
SPEAKER_01Hey Jones, how are you going?
SPEAKER_03Welcome to my studio.
SPEAKER_01No worries, RK.
SPEAKER_03RKJ. I can't believe after 25, 66 years. You've known me and you've just found out my middle name.
SPEAKER_01Yep. K.
SPEAKER_03It's old-missioned. It doesn't get banded around a lot.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_03So now you're going to call me R K J. RK. Why? Does it sound like JFK?
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, or um, what's uh Robert Downey Jr. R D J. Kind of just rolls off the tongue.
SPEAKER_03It's gonna be a bit weird after 26 years. You've been calling me Jones for so long.
SPEAKER_02I know, I know.
SPEAKER_03What?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03What? Hey, enough of that banter. Hey, what's on your mind today, Sanji? Is there a oi? Seems very topical. Do you mean AI?
SPEAKER_01Well, since you put it that way, sure. You say it so eloquently.
SPEAKER_03Some South Australian. Very long bowed. AI.
SPEAKER_01AI. What do you do? Where is the world going? Where is the world going with this?
SPEAKER_03AI. Why has it piqued your interest recently?
SPEAKER_02Well, it seems to be in the news, ad nauseum. Like everyone's talking about it. Uh, whether it be you know what's gonna happen with jobs, what's happening in the art world, science, um uh uh science world. Um, there's lots of things going on.
SPEAKER_03Um I'm not so much about the art world, but I think generally how does it fit into society on the greater level? That's definitely up the conversation. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_02Um well, if you listen to news outlets, uh there's a lot of stuff being talking about like in terms of job losses and what that will mean for future generations and all that sort of stuff. And um, it's hard to know. I I I don't know. I I don't think anyone knows exactly how that's gonna change society, um, whether it's gonna be better or worse or or somewhere in the middle. I I've no idea, but it's certainly gonna change things. I think that's that's a fact. Um, things will change. Um, and I don't know, is it just up to us to maybe go with the flow and and see what we can do with it?
SPEAKER_03I don't think you want to go with the flow. I think to go blindly ahead and not be aware of what's going on. Yeah, yeah. That is insanity. I am an advocate of AI, I use it in my job as an artist. I do use it because I'm uh sole business or entrepreneur, so to speak. And so it's just me. And so I use it as a sounding board. I know I was an early adopter of AI. Yeah, okay. Um, but I don't use it in a way that writes for me, or I don't use it in the way that it creates artwork for me. I use it as a tool.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so you're driving it, you're um explain that. Like when you say you use it as a tool, like what exactly what does what does that entail for an artist?
SPEAKER_03Oh basic things. I get concerned about my grammar, so I will do a grammar check. If I'm writing something or an excel check, okay, I will I will check that. Like that's a basic level. I probably don't even need to use AI for that.
SPEAKER_02Does AI come back and say this is uh this is too simple for me? Yeah, ask me a more difficult question.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I've got more brain power than things. Well, I I think it's like I said, basic things, uh, grandma. Basic research, if I'm wondering about an idea, I I might use it to investigate. I might say, give me four references, and then I will check those references, and then I will utilize and grab the information I need from those references, but I won't get it to write for me. I think that's not helpful. I'm also concerned about how stodgy my brain might get if I relied on that. Like the cognitive unload, I think is too easy. Uh, can you just do that for me?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh it's it's it's a concern. I I'm concerned about that. I'm concerned about where humanity, humankind is actually going with this, like in terms of if we allow um AI or you know, tech or whatever you want to call it, uh quantum, quantum computing, to um take over the direction uh of where we go as a species. What does that mean for us? Like, will that change us irrevocably in terms of who we are? Will the drive to innovate with the drive to solve puzzles, will the drive to explore be taken away from us because we're just gonna allow something, something else, this little box in the corner, to um figure it out for us? That that's a concern to me. Uh, I think that's that's a bit weird. I hope we don't get there. I hope we always have it maybe bubbling away in the background, but we're always driving the ship, as it were. I think that's important.
SPEAKER_03I think you've got to ask it the right questions.
SPEAKER_02I I think there is a lot of like um are you planning on taking over the world?
SPEAKER_03Well, I don't think AI is. I think perhaps the people who own the platforms, the large language model platforms, might be looking at the uh dollar signs up for grabs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_03And perhaps that's got to be careful where when you put your money, so to speak. Or I think people are always still going to be relevant, right? Because the large language model, it's not a human, is getting all that information out there from humans and is a copy of, it's not doing it exactly as. For instance, we we actually wanted to see how far uh this, like we were using chat GPT, weren't we just before?
SPEAKER_02We were.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we we thought, well, let's put this to the test in regards to how original can it be? Because it's a it's a way of getting information and resources, but for generating new ideas, I'm not sure you can really rely on it for that. But we did put it to the test because I have used AI a lot in regards to Chat GPT. I have a subscription to ChatGPT and it's a sounding board, it's a research tool, but I don't use it to generate my writing or to generate my artwork because they're intrinsically me. And I don't think I don't want my voice to be lost or diluted, and I also want to be able to think critically on what I'm wanting to say or create. But we did use it just before, and we asked Chat GBT, we said, can you create an original artwork in the style of Rebecca Jones? And we chose my body of work, chosen words to create an artwork.
SPEAKER_02And it did, right? It did. In fairness, it did, it was able to generate a piece of art. Um but was it in your style? This perhaps requires some more exploration.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm not concerned about losing my job, put it that way.
SPEAKER_02All right, so um AI has not taken over the world just yet.
SPEAKER_03I'm not gonna outsource AI to make my artwork for me, put it that way. Well, not in that context of like we were asking AI um to do like I I like charcoal drawings. That's what I would say is one of my strong absolutely yeah, it's the it's the charcoal work. And so we asked AI to create an artwork. There's a body of work that I'm creating, and hopefully we'll have a show in January actually, but it's on communication and words, and so I do these charcoal drawings where I combine words and images together, and they have this nice synergy on the page, and there's a lot of depth you can get sucked into the work when you view one of my works, or perhaps you can describe one of mine because you've seen my I'm sure that we actually discussed one of these uh works in a previous episode.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I think I've already thought about it. I'm sure we did.
SPEAKER_03Um we did, didn't we? I looked at what you made me do. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that one, um, and so that way, I mean, I don't know for you, had when you see that work, how does it make you feel? Not that we have to discuss it, but I think for the sake of AI, setting up a precedent.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, we were actually chatting about it before, you know, your work seems to have like this amazing sort of depth. Um, and when when you do that type of uh charcoal drawing, it's almost like there's a little bit of a labyrinth or maze at play, and and it's fascinating to see that listening to you explain that and then starting to understand uh your art piece a little more, and then comparing that to what AI actually generated. There was none of that.
SPEAKER_03There was none of that. I just looked at it and I think it was just a very simple.
SPEAKER_00Sorry AI for listening. Don't take it out on us. Please let this video work.
SPEAKER_03And it was very glib. I don't know, it was like it was almost like a sign that you want to put up in your in your office or something that says like love, live life or something. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02It was a bit obvious, a bit, bit, bit bland.
SPEAKER_03It was a bit bland. It was a bit like it sort of almost what was that? Um, one of my favorite movies is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
SPEAKER_02I love that film.
SPEAKER_03And where Walter gets the portapus. But you know, like their head CEO is a bit of a doofus, you know, the guy that comes in to restructure. Yes. This is the Ben Stiller movie, just a reference.
SPEAKER_02I think there's two it actually is a remake. There was one, I think this is the 60s maybe.
SPEAKER_03I haven't actually seen that one. So it's the Ben Stiller. The Ben Stiller movie that I absolutely love. I think it's just a it's a gorgeous movie. It's an amazing film. And uh, but there's one part where there is the sea of downsizing the whole corporation and getting rid of all these people, and and Walter character asks him to what is the quote of the organization of this life magazine. Life magazine, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And he and he doesn't know it. He was like I think he quotes McDonald's to live life loving it or something.
SPEAKER_02Was it Maccas or Coke? I'm not sure. It was um live life or something.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Anyway, he missed the mark completely. And I feel ChatGVT just like we asked him to do one of my artworks, and it's like, you kind of know what I'm about, but you still miss the mark. So I'm not concerned. It's not gonna take away. I think with with AI, it's gonna streamline a lot of things, but you've got to be careful. Well, you've got to ask the question what is it streamlining and what is the value of it? And you can't just think, oh my goodness, it can do all these jobs really fast, and we can do it and make more profit. I think that's concerning.
SPEAKER_02I I think at this point, AI is, shall we say, offering the illusion that it is able to think. But is it sentient? I'm not sure that it's there yet. Is it you know it's able, it's got amazing processing power and comparative power, and it can generate things according to instructional um uh or instructions that you feed it, but is it alive? Uh, you know, is it a sentient being? I don't think so. But I don't know what the future holds. You know, like will it could it could it evolve into that? I've no idea. Maybe I've watched too many slides for the five years.
SPEAKER_03I don't I don't know. At the moment, I mean I'd say I'm just no, I don't know. I don't know. I don't think I'd want it to be.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's what the techies are talking about, you know. Um it be able to think for itself someday.
SPEAKER_03I mean, it's already got deep reasoning just based on the information that it can harvest.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um but I think you still have to take control of the information that you've got and you'd have to still fact check.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And also I don't think you want it to dilute your voice, or I don't think you want it to be I don't know, just be like snacking on junk food all the time. It's not it's gonna catch up with you. Like it seems fun at the time, but you're gonna feel ill after a while.
SPEAKER_02All right, so we're in no danger of T1000s uh terminators marching down the street just yet.
SPEAKER_03I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Great.
SPEAKER_03Well, I think it's human well for me. I feel that I'm well I don't know if I'm always optimistic, but I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful for the human species.
SPEAKER_02This is what I like about you, Jones. You're always you're always hopeful. Yeah, I do like that.
SPEAKER_03Even in the thick of hell. It's gotta get better soon.
unknownGood luck.
SPEAKER_03No, that's just menopause. Yeah, I think you've got to be hopeful, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03But I think you've got to go for you can't run away from it and you can't say, oh my goodness, that's all dim and gloom. This is awful.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yep.
SPEAKER_03I think it's on most things, right? You've got to step into it and see, well, this is on offer, this is happening, this is clearly happening. What skills do I need in order to navigate it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03You don't want to become complacent.
SPEAKER_02No, and and look, it does offer some amazing opportunities in terms, you know, we were talking about earlier, some of the um potential medical breakthroughs that are possible with this sort of stuff, and quantum computing that's supposedly around the corner, and data processing that once used to take weeks, months, whatever can be done in seconds or hours. The potential is there to change the world, to make it a better place. And it's up to us to make it a better place. Yeah, it's always up to us. The world is what we make of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So um I like to be hopeful.
SPEAKER_03I think that's hoping for the best.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I like I prefer to be hopeful. Um, because I think there's always um that opportunity exists for us to be better.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But um uh it's not to say that there aren't plenty of Gronks in the world. So but anyway, we're just gonna have to navigate that, aren't we?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think so. Have you used it before? AI?
SPEAKER_02Uh very sparingly, just you know, on searches and stuff. Um to find very, very limited. Um not really. And like, you know, if you if you search up stuff, you know, you get like an AI response. So it's built into Google now.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it is. Well, that's right, you can't avoid it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you can't avoid it. So inadvertently, I think we've all used it um without realizing. But I I'm I'm a bit like you. I you know, I I prefer to be uh master of my own destiny. And um I'm I'm a little bit tech averse being a gen Xer. Yes, yes, my uh my my family will testify to that. Yeah, uh bit tech averse. But um uh yeah, I I'm not I'm not drawn to sort of going down that road. Um, because I I'm I'm not terribly interested in tech um and what it offers, but I also understand by the same token, it's it's the future. It's best to understand it, it's best to uh, as you say, lean into it a little bit at some point.
SPEAKER_03I think to lean into it to understand, but not lean into it to get it to do all your work.
SPEAKER_02No, no.
SPEAKER_03I'll I think you've really got to ask relevant questions. And even at the minute, I um in the media at the moment is that the concept of jobs gonna replace by AI. But if you were to replace those humans with AI, you're not sure what you're signing up for because at the moment, a lot of these AI tools uh you get a subscription and it's a flat rate, but there is talk that that fee structure will change. And so then you're gonna be beholden to a few They're always gonna meter it, right?
SPEAKER_02They're not gonna give you this for nothing. Yeah, it's always gonna be met, it's gonna cost you. And so I I'm I'm curious because I thought the whole idea of streamlining everything and going down this road was to reduce the cost of all goods and services to make a utopia.
SPEAKER_03I mean you are the optimist.
SPEAKER_02But but I'm not sure that that that's that's gonna happen in the near future. I'm not I'm not sure, but anyway, uh we we live in hope. We live in hope, Sandy. Yeah, we live in hope. But okay, what about what about in the art world? I found fascinating when we fed those instructions, or you fed those instructions in and asked AI to generate that artwork that closely mimicked your work.
SPEAKER_03Well, I think that's the key there, because because it was my subscription and my account, yes, and it had information about me, and I was asking it to generate an artwork for me. This was interesting.
SPEAKER_02This is an interesting point. It was very interesting. Because I didn't think this was the case, right? Because uh it's been well documented in the media that AI has been fed a bunch of info um uh about humanity, everything has been fed into AI systems to teach it, to get AI to understand who and what we are. But when you and I were marking around with ChatGTP and um uh asked it to uh you know create a uh an artwork for another artist, it said, uh, can't really do that because um that's that's another artist. But for you, because you you were the um OG artist, um it actually would comply. So I found that interesting. That was that was that that was good. I actually uh was pleased to see that.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, I think we were saying it will be clear, but I think we sort of jumped the gun a bit there. So we asked Chat GPT to create an artwork based in the manner of Rebecca Jones and my chosen word series, and it complied. I took some images of the work and we uploaded it and it did it. But as a comparison, we said, okay, can you make us an artwork in the manner of Cecily Brown? And she's an English-American painter, one of my favorite painters. And that's where Chat TV said, No, we can't make it in the manner of Cecily Brown. Although they said, if you can make if you want an artwork that is expressionistic painterly, then we can do one, yeah, but not an exact copy or replica of Cecily Brown. So that's reassuring. That is reassuring. For the minute. There is conversations about wanting to get changed the copyright on that, but um in ChatGPT. But I haven't kept it, I haven't read anything recently but it's sitting. But you'd have to word it in a way to do generic as opposed to specific of an artist.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure you could feed in enough instructional questioning and um to get somewhere close. To get somewhere close.
SPEAKER_03But once again, it's just a copy, right?
SPEAKER_02It's just a copy. Well, from what from what we saw, uh copy is being um you know uh it's not good. Yeah, no, no. Well, I'm just saying it's it's it's barely barely a copy. Like, oh, I see what you mean when you're going.
SPEAKER_03It's not even like no, it was just it was it's not even in the same realm. No, I think I don't know. Did I just look like what?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she's all right.
SPEAKER_03I guess there's elements there, but no, yeah. It was too generic for me. It was like, okay, Rebecca Jones, you're broken down into words and into image. Yeah. And here you go. But there's more to my work than that.
SPEAKER_02And it was almost like it were well It was distilling it into separate elements. Yes, and but you know, we're always more than the sum of our parts, and all the little bits in between just weren't there. Everything that makes us human and interesting was absent from that piece of work.
SPEAKER_03I think that's the key, isn't it? Because why are you drawn to certain artworks? What is it that draws you to an artwork sense?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's an intangible, isn't it? What you like and what I like and what somebody else likes, often it's not the same.
SPEAKER_03But does it move us in a way that we can't articulate? Does it move our spirit in a way that it just stops us in it, stops us in our moment and we absolutely that that's exactly what it does.
SPEAKER_02There's an emotional response that you have.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Or that that's what happens to me. When I see something, uh, an art piece that interests me, I can't really explain why. But I know it's doing something. There's like a visceral reaction that I have.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and with the with the chat TPT or anything like that, it's not you don't get that breathtaking stop or of beauty or awe or intrigue. It's just like something's a bit off kilter. It's more that's weird, but it's not quite right. And so I think you've really got to have your wits about you when you're looking at a lot of information now because it might not be true.
SPEAKER_02Oh, video-wise? Yeah. Oh, goodness gracious. You can't trust anything now. It really is starting, it's becoming more difficult to pick what the AI-driven part of a video is. And uh people that are spending time putting these things together are becoming more skilled.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and so it's really difficult to ascertain what's true and what's not. Before it used to be fact. If there's a video or a photo of it, well, you just accepted it. But I think we're in we we're in an age now where you just can't do that anymore. You just have to delve deeper and just find out who's taken the video, for what purpose. Um, you just have to delve a little bit.
SPEAKER_03You have to dig deeper to find the resources, don't you? And to work out what is the source of that material and what is the relevance of it and what is the agenda behind it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And if in doubt, ask a young person, they'll tell you if it's ever driven or not. They'll they know, they just know instantly.
SPEAKER_03They do. They actually do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I said, no, that's rubbish.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03You know, you can tell.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you can tell. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, they can tell quicker than I do. Yeah, definitely. My daughter can tell definitely faster than me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Gen Z aren't good at explaining uh how, but they know.
SPEAKER_03Well, there you go. So maybe AI is not all dim and gloom.
SPEAKER_02No, no. Uh yeah, as you're saying, you know, the world's what we make of it. So um, I'm always hopeful for a bigger and better tomorrow.
SPEAKER_03Well, here's to tomorrow then, Sandy.
SPEAKER_01Here's to tomorrow, Jones.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think we're okay. I think we're good. Just key, I think the key is creativity is more important now than ever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And even if that means using AI to achieve said creativity, maybe it's not such a bad thing.
SPEAKER_03Once again, it's just a tool.
SPEAKER_02Just a tool.
SPEAKER_03It's just a tool. As long as it doesn't cover your voice, you're good to go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, harness it. Off you go.
SPEAKER_02All right, well, we can't even say let's go have lunch because we've already had lunch.
SPEAKER_03We've already had lunch, we've already eaten. Next time.
SPEAKER_02Till next time. Chao ciao.
SPEAKER_03Thanks for listening to Creative Conversations. Hey, I might be here to stay. The challenge is making sure Apple Voice doesn't get lost along the way. Join us next time as we continue exploring outside French.