Like many artists, I want to understand how I can use AI smartly and effectively without cheapening my work. I see it as a powerful tool to be harnessed rather than a bot that's going to take our jobs, but unlike most tools it doesn't come with an instruction book to tell you what buttons to push. It requires ingenuity, creativity, and the patience of a parent dealing with a toddler.

I can't say I don't have qualms about the rapid integration of AI into virtually everything. I imagine things will be chaotic for a while as we learn how to wrestle with it, but it's here and can't be ignored, so I decided to embrace it and learn how to work with it in order to understand its strengths and weaknesses and make it work for me. In the end, it's not about better or worse, but what gets the job done.

I think of myself as a 90% designer, which means the last 10% may be a little rough, a little fuzzy, or in this case, sloppy. I'm not producing fine art, I'm pushing ideas.

The Alphazett Project is huge and would require a good-sized team to bring it to life. In lieu of that, I'm hoping my digital assistants can help me turn it into reality. The works on this page are all experiments and investigations for various articles and stories in development over there.

All original art by Mike Barrette. All AI-generation prompted with art and text by Mike Barrette.