Value, valuation, valuable lives and how we use AI to create

Questioning how we create value in rapidly changing and emerging fields?

Many of you, my friends and colleagues are out here with me interviewing for new jobs, facing layoffs and quick pivots as automation and re-sizing of organizations leaves many people without benefits or support systems. I'm one of the many who lost health insurance when media strikes and technology systems collide, affecting my health and ability to fly and collaborate around the world. I teach generative media, so my production flexibility moves from technology and back to media as the tides move between industries and sectors. Very few have such a fluid approach or capacity to flip to new types of work quickly with little training.

It's essential we sort out value, valuation and valuability as human values now.

Our VALUE is bigger than money. Our benefit to the planet should not be the only thing that gives us the right to access basics like healthcare -- and currently we have more working poor without those basics benefits like housing, food or healthcare than ever before. As we reset our ideas of human VALUE and what we create as not necessarily tied to the VALUATION of our creative work and lives, this de-coupling of self from the machines of society is creating tremendous trauma and strain for many of you out here in the void, unsure where the next paycheck comes from as organizations and systems refold themselves without us.

These machines are an artifice, they are not who we are nor do they create our true value. Human value and valuation as concepts require a reset connected to care, attention, time, creativity and effort as well as the "work" of a job or position.

When we create with our technologies we are not separate from them, nor can we fully decouple ourselves from the digital lives that surround how we communicate together today. In this moment, we are woven together into jewels. We are value woven together into something beautiful, a museum-worthy masterpiece. These collective values are also to be explored; experiments in orgs like Fairshare.social explore how these weavings become alternative currencies like UBI systems.

In R&D of new AI tools, this explosion of creativity is a part of the experience I'm developing with others in fields where our interfaces, whether mobile, immersive or spatial expands to encompass a more infinite canvas of possibilities for collaboration. In the Realitycraft lab we're exploring #AIAgents for fraud detection and scams for example, ways to help in #agetech and #socialconnectedness to defeat #isolation challenges that have become the norm for the last few years. The tools of "AI Agents" can be used to help humans with real problems that face millions of people every year and do not require great expense to be effective; they do require people to hire great testers, UX/UI and design professionals to make these products work effectively for those people.

Best products come from human-paired processes where humans are valued.

It's hard to know the right tool for the right job, that's why people call me.

Despite the difficulties many of us have had with the "enshittification" of the machines and systems around us, to borrow a Cory Doctorow word, I still believe that there is much good we can create together when we understand that humans and human collaborative effort is fundamentally valuable -- and not separate from our creative tools and experiences together. Generative media has potential to support that expansion of creativity and collaboration when paired with immersive experiences, spatial awareness, capacities to move and create together in multidimensional space across time and borders. This is the topic of my new book in development, Realitycraft, focused on ethical design as an inquiry teams engage throughout the creative experience production process.

Last year I filmed a feature documentary premiering this week on AppleTV:

AI Evolution on AppleTV - Premiering Feb 2024

As I understand this doc premieres in the US this week; unsure about global release dates at this point but I'll update you with that information on #AIEvolution.

As to valuation and deeper value, this is an inquiry I'll be continuing as I start the certification process for appraisals of art, antiques, estates & businesses this year. There are many questions that always arise for me in the value of craft and handcraft vs. interactive art and the effort it takes to make massive media arts endeavors like film and projects like our visual album, team efforts of poetic might.

Next: Projection mapping with our new music #AURICLES this week in Miami

AURICLES update:

I've written a bunch of songs lately and the time has come to register as a songwriter with BMI. This is a visualizer for one of our latest Auricles AI songs. You're welcome to support our work at www.auricles.ai - download the first few tracks, get in touch if you'd like to collab in some way and sponsor a future music video project if you're into the visual album endeavor I've been releasing piece by piece for the last few months. www.youtube.com/@AuriclesAI is where you can see new videos and share fun visual journeys first and you can join the first 500 fans as we get the ball rolling before the EP release.

If you want to support my growth as an artist in this work it's always greatly appreciated - I have no Patreon but my http://evo.ist page has workshop and private training options available for you by the day or week if you need a private session to learn these generative media tools with your team.

As I work with doctors and service providers I'm making custom art on commission this month, all remote & DM available with Paypal & Venmo @amoration (where you can follow me on Threads too) to make it easy for those of us on the road creating new work. Every extra donation goes to keeping the Realitycraft lab available with credits to make more videos, art and music available for all of you. If you work for a generative media company and want to collaborate on releases this year, let's talk. We'll be live in March sharing more of our story as Will Henshall and I publish the first songs from the Deeper Learning EP.

A book and full visual album is coming from Deeper Learning, currently 12 songs and many dozens more videos forming a quilt of quantum ideas that pop in and out of our collective consciousness. The EP is just the beginning and I can't wait to share it all with you soon.

We're open to partners and producer collaborations from other musical nerds and creative genii who dig this vibe. So far half a dozen musicians from around the world have guest featured on this first album and there's room for more as we form this new cypher groove. There's a form on www.auricles.ai to join us as as we get weird together live. In our lyrics, we have a line that speaks to this space for shared flow and collaboration:

A sample of generative media tools used in the making of media on this post Kaiber - Runway - Leia Inc. - Midjourney - ElevenLabs - Canva - Topaz Labs