When others say that AI is no longer popular, that it is just a patchwork of artists’ styles, or that it has no soul and no emotion, I always stand on the opposite side. I love AI. I fell in love with it from the first moment I saw it, became immersed in it, and have been creating with it ever since.
My involvement with AI didn’t start with this current wave. Long ago, when building the fan economy website Ratafire in the United States, I wanted to feed AI with data. After returning to China, I also developed two AI applications: one for AI social networking and one for AI chatbots.
These two applications were developed in the chaotic era before ChatGPT appeared. They couldn’t compare to today’s AI, and fortunately, they weren’t successful, or they would have been crushed by ChatGPT. Although I’m a parameter tuner who has only slightly trained a few models when facing AI, I’ve had some hands-on experience.
My first encounter with AI was when ChatGPT and Midjourney launched, especially Midjourney. The day before I entered Midjourney’s beta testing, I had commissioned a gruesome portrait of my World of Warcraft character. It was so bad that people mocked it when I posted it on social media.
So, in Midjourney, I spent several days creating World of Warcraft character portraits, drawing one for everyone in our guild. I felt unprecedented freedom because I’m not a concept artist. I studied drawing and color theory in middle school for exam preparation and have some artistic foundation, but I’m far from a professional artist.
I love AI because I suddenly gained superpowers – all creative barriers disappeared. That’s one reason. I’ve always loved superhero stories and write them, too. In my eight-part “The Computational Universe” series, I wrote about the love-hate relationship between artificial intelligence and humans.
Using AI to express an AI story and potentially create humanoid robots is perfect for nesting dolls, and I can’t refuse it. When I first encountered Stable Diffusion, I thought about starting an AI animation company. Still, a year later, the emergence of Kling brought new possibilities – we could directly make films, skipping the intermediate stage of comics.
The week I registered for Kling’s beta testing, I literally worked myself sick and was bedridden for several days. After recovering, I continued to be excited. The things I love have finally come together. AI represents the ultimate convergence of technology, art, and literature. Technologically, I was a developer programmer for ten years. Artistically, I frequently visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and was thoroughly influenced. Literarily, I’ve been writing novels for over a decade.
When technology, art, and literature converge, they create unique AI works. Although AI technology was far from mature at the time – and even today, there’s still enormous room for growth – I found my unique niche market. This expression method perfectly combines everything I love.
I disagree when many people say that technology isn’t essential in AI and that art and aesthetics are what matter. Technology is one of its three pillars. In fact, technology has always held a vital position in the film industry. It’s the foundation for realizing our dreams. Works like “Avatar” that pursue technological extremes and push technological boundaries are still great.
The importance of literature in AI is also self-evident. Nobody wants to make bad films, so good scripts must be polished. When making AI films, half the time is spent perfecting the script and generating images – these two are the most time-consuming tasks.
I’m going all-in on AI filmmaking to visualize my novels and let more people intuitively experience the vastness and grandeur of the computational universe. Reading is not a habit for most people anymore, but watching films has a lower barrier to entry and is very entertaining. I want more people to see the computational universe.
For me, AI is like finding true love. So, when creating, pursuing excellence is just a small matter – truthfully expressing myself and telling unique, personal stories is what honors my passion.
I’m working on 25 short stories from the Computational Universe and their visualizations. I’m halfway through writing the second novel in the series and continuing. Whether the long-form series gets made depends on whether I can find supporters. But I’m sure I’ll continue on the path of AI filmmaking. I have endless ideas and stories to tell.
Follow me and explore AI filmmaking together.
