Category: AI and Creativity

A humorous, Tim Burton-style blue monster with tentacle-like hair, uneven eyes, sharp teeth, and long fingers. It stands on two legs and looks directly at the viewer while a speech bubble says “Give me a caption.”
Posted in AI and Creativity

Give This AI Image a Caption #2 – The Song Only He Can Hear

Posted on by Mike

I was browsing through my AI images this week when I stumbled across this one, and it stopped me cold. There’s something achingly beautiful about it. Quiet. Tender. Almost ghostly. The sort of picture that feels like it already contains a story, if only we lean in close enough to hear it.

I won’t tell you what I see. That would get in the way. Instead, I’ll let you sit with it for a moment and see what it stirs in you.

Here it is.

A young child in worn, old-fashioned clothing sits in a doorway of a crumbling building, gently playing an aged violin as soft light falls across them.

The light, the dust, the decay, the expression… every element feels like it’s whispering something. Is this a moment of hope? Loneliness? Magic? Memory? Survival? A lullaby to the past or a plea to the future?

Whatever it is, it’s begging for words. And that’s where you come in.

Your Turn, Caption This Image

Give me your best caption in the comments. It can be:

  • wistful
  • poetic
  • mysterious
  • uplifting
  • heartbreaking
  • or something entirely unexpected

There’s no right or wrong way to interpret it, just your imagination meeting the image halfway.

Next week, I’ll share a selection of my favourite captions, and I might even try weaving one or two into a tiny story.

A Closing Thought

Every so often, an AI image arrives that feels less like a picture and more like a doorway. This one made me wonder about the power of quiet moments — the ones that happen when nobody’s watching, when the world falls away, and someone creates something just because they must.

So… what do you think this child is playing? And who, or what, is the music for?

About The AI Grandad

Find out more about The AI Grandad on:
YouTube – The AI Grandad
X – The AI Grandad
Facebook – Mike Jackson – The AI Grandad

What do you think AI creativity tells us about ourselves?
Share your thoughts in the comments, I love hearing from curious minds!

A digital clock face showing" 10:17." The background is dark and mysterious
Posted in AI and Creativity

How an Unusual Prompt Changed the Story Completely

Posted on by Mike

When people talk about AI writing, they often focus on what they ask it to do. Write a horror story. Write a cosy mystery. Write something in the style of a particular author. All perfectly reasonable requests.

But in my own experiments, I’ve found that the real shift happens when I stop giving AI sensible instructions and start giving it slightly awkward ones instead. Not genre. Not tone. A rule. A constraint that feels just a little unnatural. That’s when the writing stops drifting and starts making decisions.

This post is about one of those experiments.

Continue reading “How an Unusual Prompt Changed the Story Completely” →
A warm garden shed studio at golden hour, with a desk, open notebooks and a glowing laptop releasing colourful ribbons of creative energy, sketches and musical notes drifting towards a bright sunset.
Posted in AI and Creativity

The Creative Renaissance No One Saw Coming (And Why It’s Just Getting Started)

Posted on by Mike

There’s a moment, every so often, when history quietly changes direction and most of us don’t notice because we’re too busy doing other things. The printing press began as a technical curiosity long before it became a cultural turning point. Electricity, too, slipped into daily life one room at a time. When the internet appeared, most of us treated it as a mild curiosity. Something interesting, certainly, but hardly the force that would reshape how we live, work and tell stories.The world rarely recognises a revolution at the moment it begins. Most of us only understand what changed when we look back.

Continue reading “The Creative Renaissance No One Saw Coming (And Why It’s Just Getting Started)” →
A humorous, Tim Burton-style blue monster with tentacle-like hair, uneven eyes, sharp teeth, and long fingers. It stands on two legs and looks directly at the viewer while a speech bubble says “Give me a caption.”
Posted in AI and Creativity

Give This AI Image a Caption #1 – The Monday Morning Meeting Nobody Asked For

Posted on by Mike

I was experimenting with Midjourney again this week, the digital equivalent of rummaging in a curiosity shop, when it produced an image that made me stop, blink, and mutter “What on earth…?” into the quiet of the room.

Not because it was beautiful. Not because it was meaningful. But because it looked uncannily like the sort of gathering you’d stumble into if you took a wrong turn inside a Tim Burton film.

I won’t explain it. That would ruin the fun. Instead, I’ll let you take it in and decide for yourself what kind of meeting these peculiar beings are having… and why the one in the middle looks like they’d very much like to leave.

A surreal, Tim Burton-style illustration showing a nervous stick-figure person surrounded by four bizarre, wide-eyed monsters: a black spiky one, a red blobby one, and two blue creatures — one offering a steaming cup. All appear to be staring at the central figure.

I spent a good minute trying to work out whether these creatures were:

  • interviewing the poor soul in the middle,
  • arguing about who has to drink the coffee,
  • or simply waiting for someone to explain why they were all summoned here at 9am.

Whatever’s going on, one thing is certain: this image desperately needs a caption. And that’s where you come in.

Your Turn, Caption This Image

Give me your best line in the comments.

It can be:

  • silly
  • serious
  • poetic
  • ominous
  • cheerfully unhinged
  • or something so perfect I’ll wish I’d thought of it myself

Next week, I’ll share my favourite captions, and I might even transform one or two into tiny stories. Consider it our weekly creative mischief session between humans and machines.

A Closing Thought

The thing I love most about AI images is that they don’t care about logic. They’ll happily hand you a scene that feels like a cross between a nightmare, a cartoon, and a philosophical debate about hot beverages. And somehow, in the middle of all that strangeness, your imagination wakes up.

So… what do you think is really happening here?

About The AI Grandad

Find out more about The AI Grandad on:
YouTube – The AI Grandad
X – The AI Grandad
Facebook – Mike Jackson – The AI Grandad

What do you think AI creativity tells us about ourselves?
Share your thoughts in the comments, I love hearing from curious minds!

A picture showing 'slop' as an introdu.ction to a post about 'AI Slop'
Posted in AI and Creativity

Is Everything Made by AI Really Just “Slop”?

Posted on by Mike

I keep hearing the phrase “AI slop” tossed around with the sort of relish usually reserved for complaining about school dinners or the state of modern television. It’s become one of those instant dismissals, a way to wrinkle one’s nose and wave away anything that happens to have an algorithm involved.

But is it really fair? Is everything touched by AI automatically destined for the creative compost heap? Personally, I don’t buy it, and the more I talk to people about it, the more it feels like the term tells us far more about the speaker than the work itself.

Continue reading “Is Everything Made by AI Really Just “Slop”?” →