Artificial Intelligence

AI is in the news, practically on a daily basis and I wanted to address it with my site and with my writing, both real-world and in-world. First, my site.

I’ve touched on this a little on the pages with all the character images. Yes, I used AI-generated art for all of the current images presented on my site. They were (relatively) cheap (I still had to purchase time/subscriptions) and gave me close approximations to how I visualized my characters in my head. I would really love to have a real artist create digital art of my characters, but it will run a couple hundred dollars per character. I will get there…someday.

I’ve used Midjourney, Deviant Art’s Dream Up, ArtSpace.ai and Artistly. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. Amusingly, hands are a weakness for most of these AI Art generators. They have an awful time getting the appropriate number of fingers on their hands. Some results are downright hilarious.

For those of you with Pinterest accounts, I have been meandering out there for the past week or so. It’s so fascinating the amount of beautiful artwork out there. I already have well over 100 pins covering a host of concepts for both my book and future books. I know some of these “pins” are AI generated. The creator mentions it in their comments about the artwork. Because of some of the images on Pinterest, I decided to change the descriptions for one character and a piece of equipment. In time, I will link my account to the site so you can enjoy the “pins” I’ve saved and where my mind wanders.

For my real-world writing, I do not use AI to generate the story at all. It’s all coming out of my head. As I understand it, Microsoft Word uses AI for its grammar and spell checking, so I can’t say I’m AI-free in my writing. I also purchased a product called AutoCrit, which uses AI heavily in its word/phrase statistics and “critique” process. I haven’t used it much as yet. I have toyed with the software over the past year or so, but I haven’t fed my entire manuscript through it to see what it has to say. I have been relying on my critique partners with ACFW for more realistic feedback.

Within Eric’s world, yes, AI exists. In fact, I have an AI character TARIN (Taskable ARtificial INtelligence). If you search the web for the “levels of AI”, you’ll get a host of articles which promote 7, 8 or 10 levels of AI. I won’t try to explain the difference between them, but the general consensus is that if you have an AI which can solve problems like a human, you have AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). If that AI can take actions and/or come up with ideas better than humans, you have ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). (There may be more to it than these rather simplistic explanations, but I think I’d need to get a Ph.D. in AI to know for sure.)

TARIN is between AGI and ASI. She (because she chose a feminine voice) is very human-like in personality and she can perform some actions autonomously but requires permission from a human for others. The character will grow over time, picking up new characteristics and even abilities. Will she progress beyond ASI? I haven’t decided yet.

There are other forms of AI within Eric’s world, but they are roughly AGI level Ais. They have a voice and a rather bland personality.

I hope you enjoyed this article!

God bless everyone!

Website Update

Completed:

1.      Nada. Busy with other things.

Future pages:

1.      Eric’s world timeline

2.      Canthany system

3.      Psionics System

And many more.

The Paladin Awakens Progress Report

I am up to chapter 33 with the ACFW Scribes critique group. Yea! And, I’ve finished my draft of the book. Double yea! Of course, this is not the end. There are so many other things that I need to have in place before I try to search for an agent and/or publisher. I need to re-look over the prologue and first couple chapters to make sure they zing. After that, I will be working on a story within Eric’s world to use as a reader magnet.