Cultivating Creativity

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We built a little demo of an LLM that tells you a choose-your-own-adventure story, alongside DALL-E generative art. The demo is really, really fun.

Feel free to go play with it now and talk with the LLM to generate a story!

"We are beginning to roll out new voice and image capabilities in ChatGPT. They offer a new, more intuitive type of interface by allowing you to have a voice conversation or show ChatGPT what you’re talking about.

"Voice and image give you more ways to use ChatGPT in your life. Snap a picture of a landmark while traveling and have a live conversation about what’s interesting about it. When you’re home, snap pictures of your fridge and pantry to figure out what’s for dinner (and ask follow up questions for a step by step recipe). After dinner, help your child with a math problem by taking a photo, circling the problem set, and having it share hints with both of you.

"We’re rolling out voice and images in ChatGPT to Plus and Enterprise users over the next two weeks. Voice is coming on iOS and Android (opt-in in your settings) and images will be available on all platforms."

A new report by Sapien Labs, published this week, used global data from 27,969 Generation Z young adults (ages 18-24) to focus on the possible relationship between childhood smartphone use and current mental health. After all, this is “the first generation who went through adolescence with this technology,” explains Tara Thiagarajan, PhD, founder and chief scientist at Sapien Labs. 

The report found that mental well-being “consistently improved with older age of first ownership of a smartphone or tablet, with a steeper change in females, compared to males.”

So, what does innovation and creativity really mean? And what is their impact in learning? Let’s start from their basic definitions –Innovation is to come up with new ideas that can be turned into something of value with the required skills. Besides, innovation is also looking at how to do things better or smarter.

And creativity is a function of curiosity and imagination. Greater the curiosity, more thoughts and thinking patterns emerge paving way for new ideas. To foster creativity and innovation in learning, it is necessary to shuffle and iterate the components of your knowledge base in new ways.

Increasingly powerful AI systems are being released at an increasingly rapid pace. This week saw the debut of Claude 2, likely the second most capable AI system available to the public. The week before, Open AI released Code Interpreter, the most sophisticated mode of AI yet available. The week before that, some AIs got the ability to see images.

And yet not a single AI lab seems to have provided any user documentation. Instead, the only user guides out there appear to be Twitter influencer threads. Documentation-by-rumor is a weird choice for organizations claiming to be concerned about proper use of their technologies, but here we are.

I can’t claim that this is going to be a complete user guide, but it will serve as a bit of orientation to the current state of AI. I have been putting together a Getting Started Guide to AI for my students (and interested readers) every few months, and each time, it requires major modifications. The last couple of months have been particularly insane.

This guide is opinionated, based on my experience, and focused on how to pick the right tool to do things. I have written separately about the kinds of tasks you may want AI to do, which might be useful to read first.

Image generators are trained on billions of images, which enable them to produce new creations that were once the sole dominion of painters and other artists. Sometimes experts can’t tell the difference between A.I.-created images and actual photographs (a circumstance that has fueled dangerous misinformation campaigns in addition to fun creations). And these tools are already changing the way that creative professionals do their jobs.

Compared to products like ChatGPT, image generating A.I. tools are not as well developed. They require jumping through a few more hoops, and may cost a bit of money. But if you’re interested in learning the ropes there’s no better time to start.

Most of us use ChatGPT wrong.

We don’t include examples in our prompts.
We ignore that we can control ChatGPT’s behavior with roles.
We let ChatGPT guess stuff instead of providing it with some information.

This happens because we mostly use standard prompts that might help us get the job done once, but not all the time.

We need to learn how to create high-quality prompts to get better results. We need to learn prompt engineering! And, in this guide, we’ll learn 4 techniques used in prompt engineering.

Introducing the first annual AI Film Festival - powered by Runway. A celebration of the art and artists making the impossible at the forefront of AI filmmaking.

Check out these 10 winners. Very impressive. These are really the bleeding edge right now (IMHO) - JL

This is just for fun, but maybe it will stimulate some ideas. -JL

"People don't often look back on the early 1900's for advice, but what if we could actually learn something from the Lost Generation? The New York Public Library has digitized 100 how to do it cards found in cigarette boxes over 100 years ago, and the tips they give are so practical that millennials reading this might want to take notes."

Artificial intelligence seems to be the latest buzzword, and ChatGPT has been in the news as increasing numbers of people are learning about the platform and exploring its benefits. If you struggle to put your thoughts together, the idea of having a platform to create a cohesive document sounds like a godsend.

If you’re a skeptic, you may wonder how well the platform works and if there are any drawbacks to using artificial intelligence to help you with your job search. The platform may save you time, but you may want to add your touch to any documents generated to stand out.

Feeling downcast and bored? There's a lot to do online! Check out these fun websites and cure your boredom now.

Jim Lerman's insight:

There are actually some very interesting sites here and some with real educational value too.

"Google's Arts & Culture app is a miniature mobile masterpiece, which anyone with even a passing interest in art will enjoy exploring. Launched in 2016, it was originally designed to complement the Google Arts & Culture website, which lets you virtually visit thousands of galleries and museums around the world.

"But the app, which you can download for free for  Android and iOS,, now goes far beyond that. It uses the latest technology to deliver an immersive, educational, and entertaining art experience. Let's take a look at the best things you can do in Google Arts & Culture."

"If you've ever taken a selfie and wondered how it would look if Leonardo da Vinci painted it, you’re in luck. With the power of AI, you can transform your memories into paintings that resemble the brush strokes of artistic masterminds.

While many platforms offer you this opportunity, not all do it for free. In this article, we look at some free online tools you can use to convert your images to paintings."

Edpuzzle helps educators use video to teach engaging lessons and interact with students using rich media.

3 Options for Sharing Your Presentation Slides

"Explore three options for sharing your presentations online: Microsoft PowerPoint Online, reliable but lacking engagement insights; SpeakerDeck, a nice-looking, minimalist and PDF-only option; and DeckLinks, a cutting-edge marvel with interactive features and detailed analytics. Choose your platform, and share your own slide deck gems if you've got 'em!"

Thanks to Mike-Taylor.org!

If you believe you have taken some photos people would be willing to pay for, you need to know the most profitable places to sell photos online. Thankfully, there are some reputable websites that can help you turn those photos into cash, and selling your photos online can help diversify your income.

I know, I know --this is not directly related to education. However, we educators often are on the lookout for ways to augment our income. I thought this might interest someone and I find MakeUseOf to be a pretty reliable source of information.

-Jim

These awesome apps can transform any ordinary photo into a work of art. Works on your selfies, too!

Visual frameworks are patterns to help you think creatively, reframe challenging situations, and imagine possible strategies and solutions. Think of a situation or challenge that’s on your mind right now, and click an image below.

With tools like DALL-E spitting out works of art in seconds, it's easy to feel like AI is a threat to creative professions rather than a helpful assistant.

However, with the right tools, artists and creators can benefit from AI-powered solutions to help them streamline their processes, save time, and work more efficiently—without compromising on ethics.

Here, we've compiled some of the best ethical AI tools for artists and creators.