about these pictures...

I believe AI Text to Image conjures a view of the world we experience only as very young children, before our default mode setting takes hold.  In his book “How to Change a Mind’, Michael Pollan explains this concept and interviews people that have accessed this ‘higher reality’ on psychedelics like LSD, or psilocybin. In both cases, it is our default mode setting that is lifted away, allowing us to experience these otherwise hidden levels of reality. 

In his book “The Alignment Problem, Brian Christian illustrates the existential problem with AI with what he views as its first iteration. In the story  “The Sorcerer’s Appretince” a   broom does what the apprentice commands it to do with a magic spell. But the broom never stops. It keeps dumping buckets of water on the floor until the room is filled with it. And the boy doesn’t know the spell needed to stop it. This is the “alignment problem”. AI will do exactly what you tell it to do and if you don’t consider every possible interpretation and/or consequence of that command, you might find yourself in way over your head.

In the meantime, my aim is for these images to evoke AI’s pristine view of reality, one that is no longer accessible to us in our default mode state.

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