Tag: artificial-intelligence

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”?” →
A friendly-but-weird AI robot made of letters and punctuation holding a tiny 100-word story.
Posted in The AI Drabble Challenge

The AI Drabble Challenge – Week #7: Questions, Nothing But Questions

Posted on by Mike

Welcome back to the AI Drabble Challenge, a weekly experiment in human and AI creativity. Each Wednesday, I will set a prompt to inspire a Drabble, a story told in exactly 100 words.

You can use any AI model you like (ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini, or others), or several at once. How you collaborate is up to you. Maybe the AI drafts the first version, or writes the whole thing, maybe you co-write, or maybe you use it to spark ideas. What matters is the process, and sharing it.

Continue reading “The AI Drabble Challenge – Week #7: Questions, Nothing But Questions” →
Creative abundance in the form of an artist surrounded by an abundance of materials
Posted in AI and Creativity

We’ve Entered the Era of Creative Abundance. Here’s How to Thrive in It

Posted on by Mike

If you’d told me twenty years ago that one day I’d be creating stories, images, videos, and audio with the help of a machine that lives in my browser, I’d have smiled politely, nodded, and quietly assumed you’d had a funny turn. 

Yet here we are. I’m seventy-five, tapping away in my little shed at the end of the garden, watching as creativity spills out of me faster and more joyfully than it ever did when I had a school to run and assemblies to plan. And the strange thing is, I’m not overwhelmed by this new era. I’m energised by it. 

Because despite the noise, despite the panicked headlines, despite the grumbling in certain corners of the writing world, something extraordinary is happening. We’ve entered the age of creative abundance. And abundance changes everything.

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A group of adults in a cosy room debating over sheets of paper, looking puzzled.
Posted in AI Experiments

The Drabble Experiment: When My Writers’ Group Couldn’t Tell Who Wrote What

Posted on by Mike

Last week I toddled off to my writers’ group with a small bundle of Drabbles tucked in my bag, four tiny stories, each exactly 100 words. One of them I wrote seven or eight years ago. The other three? Written that morning by AI, using my original Drabble as an example.

I didn’t tell them which was which. I just read them out and waited to see if anyone could recognise the story written by me. They couldn’t. Not a single one of them. And yet… most of them still don’t believe AI can “really write”. Which, frankly, made the whole thing even more delicious.

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AI robot sat at a desk writing, with books piled up either side of him in large piles
Posted in AI and Creativity

Why Ignoring AI Won’t Save Creativity, It Just Lets the Worst of It Win

Posted on by Mike

I’ve just come back from a conversation with a few writer friends, the sort where you expect to chat about books, ideas, how to self-publish your latest book, but instead you find yourself knee-deep in an argument about AI before you’ve even taken your coat off.

They’re lovely people, sharp minds, a great sense of humour, but the moment I mentioned something I’d been experimenting with that morning, faces tightened in unison. Someone actually groaned, which is not an uncommon reaction when I mention “AI”. One friend said she refused to “touch all that AI nonsense”. Another muttered that it was “ruining everything”. And there I was, sitting with my tea cooling in my hand, thinking: If we’re reacting like this now, what on earth will the conversation look like a year from today?

Continue reading “Why Ignoring AI Won’t Save Creativity, It Just Lets the Worst of It Win” →