Art “On the Surface of the Sun”

DDG Interview with AI artist Peg Fulton

DDG: I am grateful that you have agreed to grant DDG an interview as one of our popular artists. This may ever have some historical significance since this is the first such interview we have ever done for our site. Could you please share a bit about your background and your life situation? And what led you to engage with AI-assisted art creation on platforms like DDG?

Peg Fulton: I am a female retired IT professional. I began in IT in 1980, so I have worked everything from card readers to refrigerator IBM and Unisys mainframes to intranets, peer to peer communications, PCs & much of what we see today. As a ‘new’ source of interest, I began reading up on AI a few years ago, and an article (back in 2017) led me to Deep Dream Generator (DDG). Upon using it, and seeing the results, I immediately signed up to donate to its development through Patreon.

I live in Arizona, USA – we affectionately call it “living on the face of the sun” – in an area with mountains, Joshua trees and other desert plants. I see ravens flying close to my house, have holes in my house exterior from woodpeckers, and see desert wildlife regularly. An artist’s delight. I have two healthy and happy adult children at opposite ends of the US, one of whom shares my love of art. He does freelance graphic work for Virtual Worlds, and other social communities. My husband is also in IT, but more in the data analysis field these days. We are an IT-involved family.

“Break Time”

DDG: Thank you. Let us start with a big heavy question. Is AI art true art?

Peg Fulton: I’ve always believed art is what someone who creates it says it is. Growing up in the NYC area allowed me access to some of the best museums in the world.  I also had the pleasure of being able to visit the Louvre, the Prado, and some smaller European museums. I have seen people marvel over a chair hanging from the ceiling due to its artistic excellence (???), so I believe AI is just as valid as a chair hanging from the ceiling. 

Art has always been a part of my life, and my mind creates art everywhere I go. I do not have a problem with AI Art, I see it as an extension of an artist’s mind’s vision.

DDG: So, as someone who creates AI art, do you consider yourself an artist?

I do consider myself an artist, albeita starving artist, because I love visual expressions of unusual ideas. Combining my work with AI has opened a whole new world; it is idea expression with an element of surprise. My style is nothing specific, although I have had a few people tell me I have captured a style of “the essence of a 12-year-old’s art.” I sincerely don’t care because I love my art.

I am an artist who draws, paints and sculpts hot glass, yet I’ve never had anyone say my non-AI work is good – they usually nod and say, “Oh.” I’ve always found it funny. So, I resolved to be an “okay” artist on my own – now I have DDG to help me along.

“Boots”

DDG: Could we dwell on the philosophical aspects some more? How do you perceive the authenticity of AI art?

The folks who believe AI does not produce real art usually have a vested interest in hand-made only. We all use tools in art, and AI is just another tool. My ‘authenticity’ test is whether the resulting DDG image accomplishes the goal of what I was trying to portray.

Moreover, I feel the future is wide-open for AI image generation and manipulation. We already see AI in advertisements, and that use will become wider. Providing illustrations for books, for science, for demonstration, for amusement knows no bounds.

The data from user inputs also has profound implications for psychology. Who requests naked images vs who requests floral images? Do women and men use different words/styles in the prompts? Are the prompts generated or hand-entered? How many prompts are original vs how many are reused from other’s prompts? These seemingly simple questions have many implications for our understanding both of the varieties of our own authenticity and of how people approach and experience art.

Obviously, the use of AI to create an image, then pass the image off as if it were an original by a known artist not only challenges art ethics but is also likely illegal. However, that essentially boils down to a technical issue of how to mark works as AI art (for example, this can be done with digital watermarks).

Moreover, use of AI in misinformation is concerning because it can be created quickly and can include subliminal messaging. But the main difference from normal misinformation is the speed with which it can be generated. Bad actors will use every tool to disseminate misinformation; if not AI, it will be something else. It may be helpful to ensure every AI image has an AI-generated watermark in it.

“Zoo Celebrity”

DDG: How does the creative process work for you with AI? What is artistic to you about this practice?

I often use my own hand-drawn, painted, sculpted and photographed work, including pictures of my glass art, to feed into DDG’s AI. I’m amused when folks who thought the original artwork was average say how incredibly good the AI version turned out to be. It is a nice ego boost.

But lately, I have been creating work just from prompts, and I am learning how to nudge the result to provide what I wanted. For instance, just using the words “shrink to fit” I have noticed images are more complete & don’t run off the edges. I have used other AI products, such as ChatGPT to generate prompts for DDG. There are many other apps to generate a prompt, but the most satisfying is to create your own or employ the use of DDG to generate random prompts. DDG also allows its members to ‘try’ another person’s prompt. A new and exciting feature in DDG is the ‘magic wand’ prompt enhancer. It can take a basic prompt and transform it into a new prompt which produces professional images.

You know, in the past, my son has always used image manipulation features embedded in various software and tried to convince me to use them. But there are so many nuances to creating images with multi-function, the options can become overwhelming. I am impressed DDG has wiped the extraneous worries from the process of image making. The more I read about the inner workings of AI the more I realize the sophistication of DDG as a standalone AI product which guides you, and makes AI image/video/animation easy and accessible to average person.

“When a Marble Maker Loses Hers”

DDG: What DDG capabilities have been especially useful to you?

One is the ability to see other artists’ prompts & borrow them, another is the use AI for prompt creation or enhancement, and one more is the ability to combine a prompt with a base image to create a new image.

For example, I made this image – “Enchanting Easter Egg Parade” – on DDG and with DDG’s help. I originally wrote a barebones prompt that said: “Create an image of eggs parachuting with children waiting to catch them, dressed in their Easter clothes.” DDG, using the “magic wand” prompt enhancer, changed the original prompt to the following:

“Enchanting Easter Egg Parade”

It is not hard to see how the visual details and effects mentioned in the ‘magic wand’ prompt enriched the outcome.

Here is another example of how much AI art can depend on a well-chosen prompt. I produced this new fish and flower AI image – humorously titled “HOA Police on the Move” – from a hand painting of some Japanese koi fish that I had originally done. I used the painting as the base image and combined it with this prompt:

“HOA Police on the Move”

And let me show you something else that is cool. Here is an example of artistic photo manipulation. I started from a photo of myself and I combined it with a “Try it” prompt from another user, which I then altered.

I was surprised by the result, which seamlessly blended my own face, retaining some likeness, with a scenic village landscape as specified by the prompt.

And since we are talking about techniques of image making, one such technique is using public domain images as seeds for AI image generation. This offers a rich, ethical avenue for creativity that respects copyright laws. These images, free of copyright restrictions, can provide a versatile foundation for artists and creators to explore new dimensions of visual expression.

By feeding these images into DDG, one can generate unique artworks that carry the essence of the original yet are transformed through the lens of artificial intelligence and of the artist’s taste. This process not only honors the past by bringing historical and cultural visuals into the present but also encourages innovation and experimentation within legal and ethical boundaries. It exemplifies how the integration of AI and art can create a symbiotic relationship between the new and the old, fostering a dynamic artistic landscape that pushes the boundaries of creativity.

In this spirit, I found a public domain image from the New York Public Library of Public Domain images, and I used a B&W photo of an African-American woman from that collection as the base image to create an AI artwork, with good portrait likeness. Hence the title “Welcome to Reality.”

“Welcome to Reality”

DDG: It is kind of you to share some of your techniques with our readers. It is gratifying to hear that DDG’s feature set works so well for you and has enabled you to produce so much inspired work. When did you start using DDG as your AI art platform and what do you think of the recent changes to our models and features?

Peg Fulton: I have seen a tremendous level of growth in DDG since I first began using the program in 2017. The current version is truly spectacular. The addition of the video generator is a game changer. It is a smooth transition for people who are used to basic video generation, but the results can be far better.

And I really appreciate the community within DDG. It is really fun to see the images and videos others create. More than once I have had jaw-drop moments while scrolling thru the images. The imaginations of the folks who engage with DDG are vast. Some are just trying to generate pretty pictures, some pictures have a definite message, and some images are just jaw-dropping.

My one general concern regarding AI images is that monetization of AI will restrict the general public’s access to some very useful products. DDG, which has both free and paid options, gives the best of both worlds, so an artist does not have to spend any money they don’t have until it becomes profitable to do so.

“Nope, Nope, Nope, Uh Unn, Nope

DDG: This has come out to be an inspiring and thought-provoking interview. Again, thank you! In conclusion, would you mind showing us another favorite image of yours?

Peg Fulton: Sure. I was fascinated by the philosophical paradox known as Schrödinger’s Cat, from quantum physics, highlights the strange and counterintuitive nature of the quantum universe. Imagine a cat placed in a sealed box with a mechanism that can randomly release a tranquilizer based on the decay of a radioactive atom—a process that is impossible to predict. If the tranquilizer is released, the cat will fall asleep.

Schrödinger was a famous quantum physicist. He posed the question: “Given this information, is the cat inside the box asleep or awake?” According to him, until the box is opened and observed, the cat is in a “quantum superposition,” simultaneously awake and asleep. At the quantum level, elementary particles can exist in multiple states at once, and only when measured or observed do they settle into a single state. Ditto Schrödinger’s Cat. This concept, while true according to physical theory, seems to shake the foundation of ordinary logic and reality.

So I made an AI artwork to illustrate this, and this became one of my favorite images. The prompt was extremely simple, and DDG did the rest, answering Schrödinger’s question.

Prompt: Schrödinger’s box is open.