My Journey (So Far) with A.I.

Well, here we are in the 21st Century friends! There are LOTS of cool techy things going on that I, as a content creator who is focused mostly on music, am using and having a BLAST doing so.  The Internet, my own social media platform (“JamTrek,” more on THAT later!)  electric vehicles, and many other hip things. Yes, I AM disappointed that we don’t have ray guns (at least to zap flies with) or flying cars, and when will we finally have full disclosure and meet up officially with extraterrestrials?

…but I  digress…

Suffice to say that I am currently in the midst of my own personal journey with the newest member of the exponentially advancing 21st Century: “Artificial Intelligence” or simply “AI” There have been ups and downs thus far in this trek, and some ominous signs for the future of the music biz, not to mention for humanity itself (insert low string-synth hybrid film score hum indicating a sense of dread here) But generally speaking, things are kinda cool. It’s as if I have discovered fire, am learning how to cook with it and how to heat my cave… but I have yet to learn that it can also be a weapon of war and destroy things in the wrong hands.

AKA: “So far, so good!”

The Frog in Boiling Water

I’ll bet you’ve heard this li’l ditty. It’s an apologue that gave rise to a common metaphor. It goes like this:

“If you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump right out. (And, I might add, it would no doubt regale you with a virtuoso flurry of amphibian curse words. Whoa! Amphibian Curse Words. GREAT band name! …but I digress.) However, if you place a frog in a pot of room temperature water and then gradually increase the heat over a long period of time said hapless chordate won’t notice as it boils to death.”

I’ve always thought this was a great analogy for anything that sneaks up on you. (Even though the buzzkill folks at Wiki bring up this tiresome reality check: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog )

But yeah, the whole “boiling frog thing” is a perfect description of what has happened so far in the music industry.

Is AI the water in a pot that is slowly sneaking up to the boiling point while we all happily swim about pursuing business as usual? I wonder.

Also, will our musician’s union lobby to put in safeguards like SAG-AFTRA did with the film industry to protect us lowly content creators? Sadly, I don’t have to wonder about THAT one. Consider the bang-up job AFM has done with streaming music and the fair monetization of recorded music. 

“Hey WAIDDAMINNIT! Ain’t music FREE?” said everyone everywhere.

(insert “sad trombone” cue here, or perhaps “The Price is Wrong” )

In the world of pop, country, and rock, one of my favorite provocateurs Rick Beato presents his view on what AI is up to and how hot the water actually is. Over at JamTrek, this video inspired a delicious discussion of AI that ultimately inspired the writing of this blog post. To see the video, head on over to the post itself at JamTrek by  using this link SEE RICK’S GREAT VIDEO AND THE JAMTREK DISCUSSION (you’ll also need to sign up, but it is FREE, there are zero algorithms, no commercials, and it’s FUN!)

Head over to JamTrek to see Rick’s great video and to check out our discussion that it inspired.

_______________

Dunno man. As far as formulaic country music goes, I think it may be time for my songwriting brothers and sisters to look into other ways of making a living.

Another way to look at it:

“Welcome to my world.” Said every jazz composer everywhere.

Time for a Chat

As mentioned earlier, in my social media platform for all creatives called “JamTrek” (drop on by and join the fun: jam-trek.com ) we had a great discussion recently about all of this. My friend and tech-biz guru Michael Lake came down on the side of “If you are doing something that AI can replace, find a new gig-passion-job.” Makes sense! (Says The International Brotherhood of Buggy Whip Manufactures Local 897) And I’m “kinda” on board with that (meaning my agreement is qualified and nuanced: thus this blog post) but let’s chat…

There is a “closed source” AI called “ChatGPT” that I have really been digging lately. For those wondering, “open source” means a freely accessible source code, which would hopefully foster a collaborative environment for developers to utilize, modify, and distribute AI technologies. The “closed source AI” means you have to pay for it to use it. And it is “read-only.” This is fine by me as I have no plans on writing code to incorporate it into my business directly. I just want to use it to speed up my productivity and learn stuff, as well as create images. 

Here are a few examples of how I’ve been  using AI:

  • The image at the top of this blog post was generated by AI. What-the-WHAT? Yep, even though I am a cartoonist and could have drawn and colorized that li’l AI fella by hand, I asked an app called “Meme Maker” to do it for me instead. BAM! four seconds later I had it. I’d rather take the time to create illustrations by hand old school when it comes to my cartoon strips or specific original illustrations. But in this case, I can use AI and move on. ChatGPT can do the same thing.
  • The word “JamTrek” was created by ChatGPT. I gave it a prompt that was something like “Give me fifty words that represent snappy fun names for a social media site that incorporate elements of music and sci-fi.” In a matter of three seconds, BAM! There was my list. I chose what I liked, tweaked it a bit and “JamTrek” was born. SUCH A DEAL!
  • I encountered a software issue and instead of dealing with the tiresome and insulting “customer service” aspect of the company, I asked my faithful ChatGPT pal and TA DA! (That one took six seconds…he had to think on it a bit)

What I do NOT use ChatGPT for is writing an article or blog whole cloth. And I do NOT trust it to be completely accurate. It is based, after all, on the old “garbage in-garbage out” adage in that all it knows is what is out there on the web already. But it IS a HELLOVA lot faster than I am in the whole Google game. And it is a pretty fair (and FAST) editor!

Also, in building my new one-stop-shopping WIESTWORLD website (steve-wiest.com ) I came upon another ChatGPT use. I needed a 100 word compelling description of each of my various products. With a very specific prompt, ChatGPT was able to spit something out that only needed a wee bit of tweaking from myself to make it sound like something I would say (you dig?) A WONDERFUL and efficient time saver!

Think it Through

So what do I mean by “think it through?” Put simply, I always ask myself “Is this something that will have better results by me taking care of it myself using my own creative gifts, or is this a menial task that would be better for AI to handle?

I believe that it is quite often better for end results and my own on-going development as a creative to dig deep and apply myself rather than relying on AI. Plus, the current state of AI is still far away from being as creative with surprises and imperfections as us lowly homo sapiens. THOSE elements are still the realm of human beings. How do I know this? Just ask AI to create an image of someone playing  a bass trombone.

“Hipster playing bass trombone by ChatGPT” Hmmm…fascinating design.

 

But even BETTER:

“Hipster playing bass trombone” by Meme Maker. Now THAT is what I’m talking ABOUT! This is what is known as an “AI hallucination” or what my pal Dodge Peden calls “a mistake!” Yep… its a trombone (kinda) and a bass… a “bass trombone.” Gottaluvit.

It seems that in the realm of trombone…there just aren’t enough solid examples out there for AI to learn how it works properly.

Sometimes…being obscure has benefits!

But even “hallucinations” can be used for good. Here is an example of a page on JamTrek that I call “A.I. Comedy” where I take dodgy AI interpretations and turn them into a one-panel comic strip:

 And that is (currently) my journey with Artificial Intelligence (contrary to what our Director of The Department of Education would have you believe, that’s what “AI” stands for…not steak sauce🤪

Other folks such as my pal Michael Lake are also using AI for education. Dig his new “Jazz Chat” feature on his Music Savvy site: https://musicsavvy.com/jazz-chat-2025  This thing is WONDERFUL! I HIGHLY recommend it for any and all students of jazz and jazz educators.

In Summation...

So, to sum things up, it seems that the current state of AI is like any other advancing piece of the whole progress journey. It is what we make of it.

Until that time when we face a James Cameron “Terminator” scenario with sentient AI gone bad… let’s continue to “think this thing through” use this power for GOOD, protect ourselves and–if need be–just turn it off and read a book!

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