Tag: Learning New Skills

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 #3: Comedy of Errors

Posted on by Mike

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

You can use any AI model you like (ChatGPT, Claude, 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.

This Week’s Prompt

Image Prompt:

A man sat on the toilet, head in hand, surveying mess all around him.

Word prompt: This week we have a phrase. Something quite different to hopefully make AI really ‘think’. William Shakespeare was famous for his insults. So, the words prompt this week is a insult from from Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus – “The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.” 

Use the image, the words, or both, and see where your imagination (and your chosen AI) takes you. Remember: exactly 100 words, no more, no less.

How to Take Part

  1. Write your 100-word Drabble with help from an AI tool (or two).
  2. Post your story in the comments, or publish it on your own website and include a pingback to this post.
  3. If you can, share which AI model(s) you used and the prompt that started your process, we can all learn from each other.

Community & Highlights

Each week, I’ll read through the entries, share a few favourites, and highlight one that particularly stood out, for originality, style, or the inventive way it used AI.

This isn’t about competition; it’s about curiosity, experimentation, and celebrating how humans and machines can create together.

A Closing Thought

AI gives us the tools, but we give it meaning. Let’s see what stories emerge this week, 100 words at a time.

About The AI Grandad

Find out more about The AI Grandad on:
YouTube – The AI Grandad
X – 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 young child creating an AI artwork on a tablet, surrounded by glowing colours that blend paint and pixels, symbolising the future of creativity.
Posted in AI and Creativity

Painting the Future: What AI Art Means for the Next Generation

Posted on by Mike

When I was at school, (a long time ago!), “art” meant pencils, paint, and the faint smell of turpentine. We learned about perspective and shading, drew still-life bowls of fruit, and hoped the teacher wouldn’t notice when the apple looked more like a potato.

If you’d told me that one day people would create portraits, landscapes, and dreamlike scenes simply by typing a few words into a computer, I’d have laughed, or worried for humanity. Yet here we are.

I’ve been experimenting with Midjourney, an AI tool that transforms text prompts into visual art. The results can be astonishing, eerie, funny, sometimes breathtaking. But what fascinates me most isn’t the images themselves. It’s the thought that my grandchildren will grow up seeing this kind of creativity not as extraordinary, but as ordinary. For them, it won’t be a revolution, it’ll just be Tuesday afternoon.

Continue reading “Painting the Future: What AI Art Means for the Next Generation” →
An AI Robot conducting an orchestra.
Posted in AI and Creativity

When AI Does the Heavy Lifting, What’s Left for the Writer?

Posted on by Mike

Every so often, I find myself watching the cursor blink, and the strangest thing happens. I type a prompt. The AI thinks for a moment. Then, as if conjured from nowhere, a fully formed short story appears on the screen. Sometimes, it even goes back and improves itself. It analyses tone, tightens the structure, sharpens the language.

And I sit there, cup of tea cooling beside me, wondering… where do I fit in now?

It’s a quiet sort of unease. When I first started writing, it was all mine, the hours spent choosing words, the quiet satisfaction of crafting a line that finally worked. The blank page was both enemy and companion. Now, the machine fills it in seconds.

So what does that make me? Redundant? Or something else entirely?

Continue reading “When AI Does the Heavy Lifting, What’s Left for the Writer?” →
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 #2: ‘The Umbrella Left Behind’

Posted on by Mike

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

You can use any AI model you like (ChatGPT, Claude, 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.

This Week’s Prompt

Image Prompt:

A closed umbrella leaning against a wall at a deserted railway platform.

Word prompts: echo, ticket, waiting, rain, promise

Use the image, the words, or both, and see where your imagination (and your chosen AI) takes you. Remember: exactly 100 words, no more, no less.

How to Take Part

  1. Write your 100-word Drabble with help from an AI tool (or two).
  2. Post your story in the comments, or publish it on your own website and include a pingback to this post.
  3. If you can, share which AI model(s) you used and the prompt that started your process, we can all learn from each other.

Community & Highlights

Each week, I’ll read through the entries, share a few favourites, and highlight one that particularly stood out, for originality, style, or the inventive way it used AI.

This isn’t about competition; it’s about curiosity, experimentation, and celebrating how humans and machines can create together.

A Closing Thought

AI gives us the tools, but we give it meaning. Let’s see what stories emerge this week, 100 words at a time.

About The Author

Mike is a retired headteacher, writer, and lifelong learner exploring how artificial intelligence is reshaping creativity, communication, and everyday life. Through The AI Grandad, he shares hands-on experiments, honest reflections, and a touch of humour about being 75 and still curious about the future.

When he’s not writing, Mike can usually be found testing new AI tools, reading crime fiction, or tucked away in a local coffee shop writing in his journal.

Surreal illustration of a man with a miniature city growing from his head, symbolising urban overthinking and creative sprawl.
Posted in AI and Creativity

When AI Edits Itself: A Story, a Self-Critique, and a Lesson in Machine Creativity

Posted on by Mike

This week, I decided to hand the red pen to the machine. I asked AI not only to write a story but also to critique and rewrite it using its own feedback. Think of it as a creative writing class where the child and the teacher are the same machine, equal parts fascinating and faintly unsettling.

As someone who’s spent a lifetime teaching others to think critically, I wanted to see what happens when the critic and the creator merge. Could an AI recognise emotion, clichés, and rhythm in its own writing, or would it just reshuffle words?

Continue reading “When AI Edits Itself: A Story, a Self-Critique, and a Lesson in Machine Creativity” →