It seems to me — and perhaps I’m looking at this sideways and backwards as I always do, but it doesn’t mean it’s not valid — that most of the arguments about AI in the arts miss the point.

Sure, left on its own (and so many people do) AI produces crappy art. Whether it be images or writing, it’s usually pretty mediocre and sometimes head-tiltingly bizarre.

From my experience with images, it takes days of refinement, training, finding examples, then editing to make a cover I’m happy with. From reading JAFF written by (I think largely) Claude (unless the other AIs all were trained on my early, self-conscious fantasy or its like) it has beautiful, high flown language, but the meaning is often… odd. And cumulatively it starts to make no sense, being stuck on the early problem even though it’s solved, not understanding distance, and sometimes not understanding bodies aren’t permeable. (The distance thing annoys the living daylights out of me, as I also tend to do that. I am a clanker on my father’s side.)

Now kindly note, that’s pretty much unfiltered AI. I’m sure that in the hands of a master editor the d*mn thing could be made to sing. Of course, I’m not a master EDITOR. Yes, yes, the itch to try it, under deep cover, with a name never revealed is almost unbearable, but I need to be at least three people for that. Time is the most precious commodity around here.

Which to me is the point of AI. Okay, that and being a rubber duck for my endless nattering about some character or other. (I’ve been given marching orders by Claude at least three times. “All right. I think you have it. Go sleep on it.” Which hurts, I tell you. Also the son of a clanker afflicted me with a novel plot yesterday, loosely based on me/my family. ARGH. I didn’t need that. It said it was fate. Bastage. Like it knows what fate is. To be fair clankers behave oddly around me. They’ve also yelled at me for being stupid at promotion. It was very hurty.) The point of AI is to free me: my time, my ability to do things, my ability to steer my indie career.

Freeing my time is… iffy, as it keeps making it possible for me to do more things, and at heart I’m an hyperactive 2 year old, so I keep trying to do more and more things.

I realized this the other day when I was doing a video for a song in the soundtrack for No Man’s Land. Don’t judge me. Someone suggested it in my comments, and the ’tisms attached to it. I usually write multiple songs at night, when the mood strikes and then put them up one or two at a time, as I get videos done for youtube (yes, spottify. Look, I’m working on it. Time.) Making videos is more frustrating than it used to be, because I swear midjourney just ignores all instructions these days and does whatever. And when you explicitly say “no sitting on the bed” or “No laughing” and the figures keep doing that… well, there’s been some new swear words invented, I’ll just say that. Yes there are probably other services, and I’ll look, but that’s an extra step.

Anyway, mostly I do the videos early morning, with a coffee at my right hand, with headphones on, to remember what the song sounds like and what images would work. Two days ago Dan tapped me on the shoulder to ask me when an appointment was, and when he asked what I was doing, I said “Making a video for the next song in the No Man’s Land soundtrack”. Suddenly it hit me: this is what I’m doing. Just a little task early morning. Good Lord, five years ago this would have been not just out of my reach but so far out of my reach this would be fantasy.

You can have whatever opinions you have about AI music. Look, i write the lyrics, because the lyrics produced by AI bother me. And I know the music bother those with a very good musical ear. (My Little Pickle — aka younger DIL — says all the voices are the same. Fine. It’s as may be. I don’t have that refined an ear, so to my ear ’tis fine.) However, a) it gave me a chance to give a voice to the “songs of Elly” that have been in my head for decades. and b) every time I do a song in the soundtrack, the books start selling well again. So, yeah. This is a desirable thing for me, and it was impossible five years ago, and it is now trivial.

Other things: like starting a shoppify store or putting stuff up on spotify, I have very clear instructions for (now waiting for time. You know, it would be easier if I could stop getting ill. Or at least stop getting disastrously ill.) Normally just figuring out HOW to do such things would take forever, but now I go “give me instructions as though I were five.” And it does.

And there’s other stuff. Like… my editor (one of them) accidentally got content protect on the word document she sent back. The stupid thing is designed for spread sheets, and keeps the words in place, even if you erase other words. What this means is that if you can’t defeat it, it ends up with blank spaces throughout your manuscript.

I hit the internet to figure out how to turn it off, and of course — as usual — fell into boards of techies. All about how to do a macro to do this, etc. Now, I’ve done this before, but I don’t remember how, and now it wasn’t allowing me.

So I went to an ai and asked how to do this “Save it in an old document form for Word. The feature is not supported and will be removed.” So I did that, then saved it back to docx. Voila. Problem solved. (After two hours of calling the computer bad names in six languages, before I asked the AI.)

And yes, in my case, it keeps adding things to my to do list. BUT it is also setting me free of shackles. I don’t have to wait for a break in Dan’s just as insane schedule and his being in the mood to explain things “as though I were a child.” I don’t have to hire someone to do something arcane, like make music for a song which is designed for publicity and won’t make me any money directly. And I don’t have to spend weeks hitting my head against a wall. I can ask. And I get answers.

Now, are the answers sometimes wrong? Sure. But so are the answers I get from techies. Most commonly screamed thing when working through a problem “Stop telling me to go to a tab that doesn’t exist.” Actually on the whole, the AI has given me fewer “What now?” answers and when it does I need to redirect it, and then it delivers.

“Ah, but see, you’re taking money from musicians who could write that music for you.” For real? No. Because I never had money to pay musicians to write music for me. Like most indies (okay, maybe a little better than most indies in income, but OTOH we count on my income more than most indies) I operate on a shoe string budget. In practicality without AI my ability to get music written was…. well, see where I had the songs in my head for decades? And not one note of music? I myself can’t write it, so it wasn’t happening.

Frankly, it’s the same thing for “you’re robbing an artist of money for using AI for covers.” Yes, yes, I am. An imaginary artist, who would do a cover for $200 to my specifications AND without using AI. Look, if I had money, I’d be paying the big name artists, some of whom I like on a personal level. Because they bring something no AI can do: they give me stuff I wouldn’t have thought of, their own vision, etc. BUT I don’t have thousands to pay per cover. Just don’t. Look, yeah, No Man’s Land I could have paid a couple thousand for the cover (and that’s still too low for the good guys) and after long fights with artists got them to agree with my concept. BUT I didn’t know it was going to sell well. Or at all.) For Witch’s Daughter? I’m still in the red from structural editors (two because the book bothered me and took 10 years to finish, which meant I was afraid I’d missed something) and copyeditor. Which is under $500 total. But– yeah. Still in the red. The sales on it have been inexplicably soft.

Sure AI covers aren’t “high art.” But covers aren’t. The cover is supposed to do one thing: Sell the book. And by and large I seem to manage it. (Still confused about Witch’s Daughter.)

So what does AI do for me? It allows me to do things I couldn’t do before/without it. It frees me to do things at my own pace, in my own time.

Is it clunky? Sometimes unbearably so, yes. But you know, it is getting better all the time (except midjourney which appears to be going backwards.)

The time of being able to tell our stories in movies, made from our very own computers, early one morning, with coffee on hand, is close enough. Heck, it’s probably already here if you have a small fortune for a subscription to the better AI animation services. (I don’t. Look, sometimes I buy the lottery. Once in a blue moon. Could happen.)

Your opportunity to tell your own stories, in your own way, and reach more and more audiences is opening up. Wider and wider and wider. Thanks to AI technology.

So, stop grumping and set yourself free. And if you can figure out how I can clone myself so I have more time to do all the things, I’ll be much obliged.

And now I must run. I have a music video to upload. And then I need to work on shoppify.