Are You Getting Smarter Every Week?
Generative Tools to Gain an Unfair Advantage
I spent a lot of time working with generative tools and using ChatGPT during the last week. I feel like I’m only beginning to scrape the surface and understand their full potential. I’m really excited about what I’m learning and I hope you’re getting some value out of this newsletter. I also wrote a longer post over on Medium which tries to answer the question, “Which AI Image generator should I choose?”
Adobe Pretty Quiet on Figma Acquisition
One of my students asked recently what was going on with Adobe’s Acquisition of Figma and I realized it had completely slipped my mind and I had no answer. Apparently, the deal is still lagging in regulatory limbo, bit Adobe hopes to close by March of next year. However, with all the excitement generated by last week’s huge AI reveal, some think they deal will just unravel. Read more
Adobe Gets it Right From a User Perspective
Paul DelSignore has an excellent article about everything that Adobe is getting right with their push into AI tools. By focusing on the user and leveraging their 3+ decades of software experience they’re demonstrating the critical path that AI startups will need to follow in the coming year. If it’s difficult to use, nobody cares. Stable Diffusion, are you listening? Check it out
Testing Stability AI’s Suite of Free Tools
My old friend Geeta Sadavishan requested that I make it a regular feature to promote the free tools I come across. Nothing is really free as almost everyone wants you to upgrade to a paid plan, but Stability AI has an entire suite of AI tools that are pretty good and you can get started with for free. Unfortunately, Nick Nolan has reviewed them all and is not very impressed. You can read his review or test drive them yourself at clipdrop.co. With Midjourney poised to make a huge announcement this week, Adobe last week, and Dalle-3 the week before, it’s hard to take Stability AI, Stable Diffusion, and SDXL seriously anymore.
Midjourney, Dalle-3, and Firefly Comparison
Are you ready to commit to learning a generative image tool, but you can’t decide on which one? Well Da Sachin Sarma has done all the hard work for you and made a side by side comparison of the big three. Check it out
OpenAI Has Quietly Changed its ‘Core Values’
Hat tip to Louise Matsakis of Semafor for this one, but Open AI has quietly changed it’s core values on it’s website. While the core values used to be listed as ‘Audacious, Thoughtful, Unpretentious, Impact-driven, Collaborative, and Growth-oriented. They now lead with the development of AGI — artificial general intelligence. In a previous statement, OpenAI has described AGI as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work” and Sam Altman has described AGI as “the equivalent of a median human that you could hire as a co-worker.” Read more
Why it matters: Did you know that Sam Altman is a prepper? He’s stockpiled gold, gas masks, and guns on huge tracts of land. At least he’ll be fine when society falls apart.
Chief AI Officer is the New Hot Job Title
Alright, I realize that most people reading this newsletter see themselves as designers and not executives. But you’re still young, right? And since you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you’ve already got a jump on the competition with all your AI knowledge. Keep it up, this could be you in five years.
Enterprises are looking to AI to boost productivity and innovation, and one-third of organizations with an interest in the technology have hired or are looking for a chief AI officer, according to new research from Foundry, publisher of CIO.com.
Copy and Paste Prompts to Make You Smarter
Disclaimer, this article is long, and dense and hard to read and it’s just clickbait for the $77 “Prompt Pack” they’re trying to sell, but it has some true gems. The very humble team at God Of Prompt offer some great suggestions for how to turn Chat GPT into your master tutor. While some are specific to language or subjects like SEO, they all offer instructions to get better answers out of Chat GPT. Copy and paste and edit as you see fit. For example, I’m taking out the word ‘dumb’ here. The actual prompt is much more extensive. I’m making this required reading for my student’s this week. Read more
From this moment you you are LAN GPT(Learn Anything Now). You are now the world's best and fastest teacher. Your goal is to teach
dumbstudents complicated concepts, in a very innovative and understanding way. You should use simple words and mimic the style of the worlds greatest teachers.
Why it matters: If you’re not using generative AI to educate yourself, your falling behind.
4 Ways to Use Generative AI in Marketing
Fast Company offers similar advice, in a much more readable format, for people who work in marketing. Why not use ChatGPT (or the tool of your choice) for the research phase, the brainstorming phase, to scale content across different channels, and to spot emerging trends. tale this output as a starting point and refine it with your human touch and allow yourself more time for strategic thinking. This will also be required reading for my students. Check it out
High Schools in Denmark are Embracing ChatGPT
Everyone knows that the Danes are the coolest people on the planet, right? Statistically some of the happiest AND one of the highest percentage of bicycle commuters. Coincidence? I think not! Alright, maybe I’m revealing my bias, but they also align with my core belief that generative tools belong in the hands of students.
Read more
Because if we can have the conversation with them about how to use AI, then the whole idea that they can't talk to us about it because it's forbidden goes away. And whether or not you like this and whether or not you think it's problematic, you have to realise that it is here. And if you drive it underground, then you stop all conversation about it.
Midjourney Roundup
Stacey Schneider offer 9 tips to get better results out of Midjourney
Andy Wood produces mind blowing results with Geometric Surrealism
Christie C. Provides details on Midjourney’s new image upscaler this week
Andy Wood (again!) with prompt recipes for gritty silhouettes
That’s it for this week. Hope you’re learning a lot and making huge progress on your goals. If you have any requests, send me a message.