AI Memories

Recreating a Fading Childhood with Generative AI.

Date

July 12, 2024

Rebuilding Memories with Generative AI

After years of working with generative AI tools, I have learned to see the similarities in how my thoughts, dreams, and memories also work. I tend to dream in a duotone spectrum, with detail that fades from the center and visualizations that are almost generated in real-time when I focus on any detail. This process is not dissimilar to how a diffusion model recreates images! Identical to AI, the image has not been stored in my mind, but the concept of it has. The memory is reconstructed not so much by a visual imprint but rather by a pattern formula of probabilities that approximates reality without truly being an identical depiction.

I believe Generative AI is opening many creative ways of approaching content, and one of my favorite expressions is attempting to “photograph” situations that do not exist anymore. AI allows me to describe the memory as I remember it and, with the subtle use of prompts and parameters, arrive at a very close approximation of how that memory looks to me… independent of how it was. If being realistic is all I wanted, I might peruse scans of old Ektachrome photos in our collective internet repository until finding the closest one, but that is not my intention… This growing collection will reflect a very personal (and hopefully at times entertaining) perspective on the memories of the culture I grew from.

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Sinthetic Reality COVER

Roma Goat

Trained goats perform in towns by nomadic Roma. Using an accordion and other instruments, the animal handler directs the goat to perform feats of equilibrium on chairs or similar contraptions. The noise attracts neighbors who would throw some coins in appreciation.

December 2022

These images were created on December 12th, 2022, using DALL-E 2 (Which was released to the public on April 6, 2022). As the first generative image engine by OpenAI (the creators of ChatGPT), DALL-E sparked excitement with its potential to turn any word into an image. Note the lack of realism in the details, with an composition resembling a collage. Nevertheless, I remember being quite excited on its "potential", and thrilled how my written thoughts could conjure an image.

El marrano de San Antón

Every town has a free pig that roams the streets (“El marrano de San Antón”) and is collectively fed by all its neighbors. At the end of the year, it will be sacrificed and enjoyed during the festivities.

July 2023

These images were created on July 18th, 2022, using Midjourney 5.2. The leap of progress just six months from previous version was astonishing. Images are now useful in professional work (Generative AI is no longer a toy)... although perhaps a bit too polished. The overall feeling was borderline Dysney, too perfect... People are almost like CGI dolls. but the amount of detail extrapolated from a simple paragraph indicated that synthetic reality was on its way.

Watermelon Truck

Traveling salespeople offer watermelon slices to kids in each small town: “For 25 pesetas, you can eat, drink, and wash your face.”

July 2024

These images were created on July 18th, 2022, using Midjourney 6. Notice how much more detailed is the hair, the clothing texture, the real skin, vehicle surfaces, complex lighting, and with obvious improvements in overall layout, lighting, and framing (quite the professional "journalistic" aesthetic).

Town Crier

The official town crier delivers weekly news from city hall with a megaphone on different spots in town, waking neighbors early in the morning.

Honorable Pickpocketing

Pickpocket thieves had the honor code of returning the wallet (minus the cash) to any public mailbox with all the identification documents still within. The national mail service had a service to make sure it arrived back to the wallet’s owner.

Flies' Reflection

A street in a small town in Spain features nylon-hanging plastic water bottles on each door to “scare off” flies when they see their own reflection.

Charred Potatoes

Every October, people in the town of Carcelén (Spain) make big bonfires, roast potatoes until charred, and rub them on each other’s faces as a harvest ritual of bonding and celebration known as “El Somarro.”

70's YOLO

Families in the 1970s crammed up to six kids or more into tiny European cars. There were no seatbelts, child car seats, or airbags.

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence is not only a tool for accelerating creative output but also a model for understanding ourselves better: From figuring out what being “intelligent” or “self-aware” means, to decoding how we humans store information and later reconstruct when remembering things. For me, it has opened a door for a process that I call “dreaming while awake”.