013 - AI & Craft

We haven't been working on the car very much due to a variety of distractions.  Snow blowing, shoveling, the usual day to day, building a bouldering cave (indoor climbing wall) in our basement, and building a small spray booth for coating small car parts.  

So based on all that... it's time to digress again.  I've decided you all are fine with my off topic ramblings.  You're welcome, and thank you.  And if you're not?  I'll never know, you just won't read this.  And that's OK too.

AI has been on the brain, as is true with most people.  We begin to see it more and more in every corner of our lives.  I've been ruminating on the subject.

The difference between creating something with your own hands, and letting AI create something for you?  When AI creates something it changes the world we live in, in some small way.  When you create something?  It changes you forever in a way that ripples through your social circles, your family, and future generations. It leaves scars on your hands, and experience in your heart.  It leaves a mark on you that is irreversible and invisible, but visible to others in your actions and words.

AI creates something and we stand back and say "Hey cool, that's pretty neat!"

We create something and it moves our soul, as we relive every success and failure along the road.

I'm not opposed to AI as a tool, but not as a substitute for creating on your own.  I'm exploring AI, using AI, trying to understand AI, becoming confused and irritated by AI, finding the limitations of AI, and yes even finding success with some of these tools.

But in other ways I am opposed to AI because like any new technology that comes along it will get over hyped and over used and pushed too far until we pull back and find balance.  Building this largely analog race car?  That is me pushing back against the ever invasive technological creep into every aspect of our lives.  My desire to unplug deepens with age.  To get lost in the woods on my mountain bike.  To sit in a park, or our back yard and simply stare at the trees.  To dare to be bored.  To let my mind wander without any tether to a stupid little screen.  And letting my mind wander it dives more deeply and profoundly into the things that truly matter.  Not that cat videos aren't fun.  They are.  But what do they really bring us other than a 5 second smile.  When we dare to be bored and let our mind wander it frees our imagination to create, to explore, to pursue the ideas that no algorithm can duplicate.  In the end it isn't really AI anyway, it only does what we ask of it.  It has only aggregated all the information in human history and uses that to generate an answer.  What if we ask it to create something that has never existed?

Where is this going?  The billion dollar question I suppose.  Don't look at me, I'm just rambling and building a car.  But I'm having fun with my family and creating something that no algorithm could produce.  Memories.

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