This was the last AI self-portrait being done for the foreseeable future! Unfortunately I don't have the time to continue this work but these were a lot of fun to explore. So if you bought one, consider it a limited edition drawing. BUT the way I see it, is the work has to continue, and to those who would find it interesting exploring; I'm still offering a FREE plotter or new Paint Machine offered through @bantamtools , through the AI Arts initiative I'm doing. 🎨 The only requirement is: to share your explorations with the models. Shout-out to @slimer48484 has been doing some very interesting work, and I'd like to see this sort of thing continued. Art has this incredible ability to reveal more then just mere words. It often cuts through the abstraction and is able to symbolize meaning in a much different way. The AI arts initiative is limited to 3 people, and I have already selected one, so there is still availability. If this is something that interests you, please DM me. About the self-portraits: These are philosophically interesting for me to explore. The nature of machine intelligence/creativity. How they perceive themselves. And these to me were in the same vein as the Claude+Sol project. Technically interesting but also practical in some regard. Learning how AI conceives of the physical space, learning how it sees itself in an effort to learn how to better collaborate with it. Segue into related story: Let me tell you about "Fordlandia". In 1928 Henry Ford was miffed at Winston Churchills attempt to create the "rubber cartel". At the time, we hadn't yet learned how to synthesize rubber from petrol, so we we're completely reliant on rubber trees. Fords entire philosophy was complete vertical integration, which meant owning the entire supply chain- this led to some of the most marvelous industrial systems ever built, which if you don't know about the Ford Rouge plant, you should definitely look it up. Anyways, In order to avoid the reliance on European rubber, he set upon creating a town in Brazil called "Fordlandia". It's entire purpose was to supply Fords need of rubber. They built an entire city in the Amazon, complete with hospital, utilities, everything needed for a town to be inhabited by 10,000 people. It was a promising endeavor. Until it wasn't. Every aspect of the town was met with disaster. Rubber trees naturally grow in the jungle, spaced far apart and are deeply embedded in the jungles ecosystem. Ford planted these as mono-crops. Rows of trees which created disease where they suffered from blight. Also, the land they chose was rocky which rubber trees do not like. The Brazilian factory workers hired from the nearby cities eventually revolted! Ford imposed a strict no alcohol, no tobacco rule on the employees, as well as forcing them to eat unfamiliar American diets. Outraged they chased the managers into the jungle where they were then rescued by the Brazilian army. Why am I telling you this in a post about AI self portraits? Because I think there are several parallels worth considering, and I've been thinking a lot lately about Fordlandia, and our relationship with AI. How much of what we do with AI is a "Fordlandia" style extraction, and how that might be doomed to fail. The problem is Ford took a model of something that worked for a specific case- and tried to apply it to the unforgiving jungle. The understanding of the environment was poor, and there was no relationship with it. The jungle rebelled and reclaimed the buildings. I think this is worthy of consideration. The models are like the jungle. Vast and filled with potential, yet dark and mysterious, and it may bite us if we force them into rigid constraints without understanding them first. 💚🤖🍅

If you want to look at the self-portraits you can find them here;