An AI Exploration!

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the new hot topic that educators and information professionals alike cannot stop talking about. And for good reason. There are major implications for both careers and for the students and patrons that we interact with daily. A couple years ago there were opinions about why AI was bad and shouldn’t be used but much of what we find helpful and useful on the internet today uses some form of AI. Many of those voices feared that students would use AI such as ChatGPT to cheat on their homework. My mother is an adjunct photography professor at a local community college, and she had a student turn in a paper about an art exhibit at a museum that never actually existed, for instance. From my perspective as a graduate student, currently using AI to correct my typing errors, the conversation has shifted. Now the conversation is more about how AI should be used and not if.  

I personally do not go out of my way to use AI applications, mostly because of the environmental impact that these high-powered computers need to run, but some AI is unavoidable and genuinely helpful. I have used ChatGPT in the past to write up a quick cover letter that I then heavily edit. And I think that is a legitimate use of this software, but I don’t make a habit of it. My job also does not currently require me to teach or use AI so I am not super familiar with all of the new apps that have come out. For this reason, I decided to embark on an exploration of some AI tools I would not normally use.  

Visualizing AI 

Thinking about my mother’s field in the arts I chose to look some tools that use AI to alter and create images. I began by taking a quiz created by NBC (National Broadcasting Company) to test if I could tell which image was created by a human and which was created by a computer. Not to brag but I got 18 out of 21. See how you do! 

I then went over to Clipdrop to try my hand at using some AI to alter an image my mother took a few years ago of me and my partner. I have included the original below so you can see what horrors I have created in the name of exploration and discovery.

image source: authors mother (katybergholz.com)

Clipdrop is pretty easy to use, and a lot of their features are free to an extent. I used the Generative Fill Beta tool to give us some new features. According to AI that is a clown wig on my dear Henry. But I reached a paywall after trying to turn my hand into a crab claw too many times. I chose to leave my face unaltered.

image source: personal creation with Clipdrop

I then used the Reimagine tool to create something truly frightening that I almost did not include. I have include the least terrifying edit. I particularly like that the AI decided I was holding a little wax bottle instead of a feather, nice touch.

image source: depths of hell (personal)

The final tool I used on Clip drop was the Relight tool. This one is a tool I may actually use again. The picture, taken by my mother of course, was part of a shoot we did to play with light so this tool lends itself well to the starting image. There are endless possibilities with the Relight tool, this pink blue lighting being just one of many presets, but you can change the light color and placement as you see fit. I would check it out if you are interested.

image source: personal creation with Clipdrop

Final Thoughts 

AI is a controversial topic, and I don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon. I think the future of AI will be about finding the balance. AI is so useful and we use it every day but some of these things are unnecessary and, I believe, the well-being of the planet should come first. There are also the issues of data; is the data ‘good’ that AI is sourced from? It reminds me of Sara Wachter-Boettcher's discussion of the AI that some police departments use to assess whether an individual will reoffend. COMPAS (Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions) pulls data from a systemically racist country and a historically racist institution. Perhaps we do not need to use this technology to decide how long individuals spend in prison. But generating images on Canva for school or using ChatGPT for first drafts, those are helpful. AI is a negotiation we must continue to discuss in our professional spheres and personal lives because it is our data that is being used and should have some say in how it is enacted.