Tag: Technology

A blurred reflection of an older man’s silhouette in a studio window, with a microphone visible, suggesting voice recording and quiet unease.
Posted in AI and Creativity

Writing, Emotion Tags, and a Voice That Sounds Like Me

Posted on by Mike

This post is part of an ongoing habit of trying small, contained experiments rather than grand declarations about what AI can or cannot do. In this case, the experiment was simple: could a short piece of writing be performed by an AI voice in a way that felt deliberate rather than mechanical?

I prompted ChatGPT to write a brief dystopian monologue and asked it to include emotional cues directly in the script. I then copied and pasted the text into ElevenLabs and generated the audio using a cloned version of my own voice. No editing, no post-production, no technical tinkering. Just text, instructions, and a voice.

What interested me wasn’t realism or polish, but interpretation.

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Posted in AI and Creativity

The Latest AI Image Generator From ChatGPT

Posted on by Mike

I don’t know about you but whenever something new and exciting appears on the AI scene I simply have to play with it. Yet again I found myself disappearing down that rabbit hole I talked about in my ver first post on The AI Grandad.

This time it was all to do with AI generated images. Today, ChatGPT released its latest AI generator and it is truly amazing. So, I thought I would share some of my first, simple experiments with it.

The AI Grandad

Because I chat with ChatGPT all the time it knows a lot about The AI Grandad blog and me. So, my first experiment was to prompt – ‘Create a doodle of The AI Grandad‘

Then I simply asked ChatGPT to ‘Turn it into a photo.’

Then the prompt was, ‘Turn the background into the interior of my shed with bookcases and a desk with a computer, have grandad sat at the desk.’

Notice how ChatGPT has kept the original design of The AI Grandad the same throughout. Impressive.

Playing With Text

AI image generators have always had a problem with text, or at least with text that made sense. For my next experiment the prompt was, ‘Put this short story on a single page of an open book, “Poetry is now a medical condition. Those who arrange words strangely are treated gently, sedated softly, corrected thoroughly. I keep a poem hidden in my mouth, repeating it silently so it doesn’t forget me first.” Include an appropriate sketch’

The short story was one I had recently posted on X.

I thought the sketch was great and I had said no more than ‘include an appropriate sketch’. GPT determined what this should look like.

I was intrigued as to just how ChatGPT would interpret messages, stories etc. My next experiment was to ask, ‘Create an image to go with this quote “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Include the quote at the bottom of the page. Portrait aspect.’

With the next prompt I was asking ChatGPT to do some research and create an image. ‘Create an image based on the poem Jabberwocky. Include the first verse.’

You can’t always rely on AI to be accurate. I checked the first verse of Jabberwocky and ChatGPT got it spot on.

Editing Images

This new AI image generator also does a great job of editing images. Either ones you upload or ones you create. I created this family photo taken in Times Square, New York.

Then I got ChatGPT to change the clothes and background for a Winter holiday.

…and the for an exciting holiday on a distant planet!

A Call To Thought

I’m off down my rabbit hole for more playful, creative experimenting. Why don’t you join me.

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 notebook on a wooden desk with colourful creative energy swirling out of it in bright, abstract shapes.
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.

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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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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?

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