Key Takeaways
AI tools have broken down economic barriers to creative hobbies and reignited my creativity. Generative AI provides an affordable and easy-to-use creative outlet. AI complements traditional methods and aids in creative exploration.
Many people fear that AI will stifle human creativity. However, my personal experience with creative hobbies and AI tools tells a different story. I would like to share my story about using generative AI tools and how they helped me rediscover my creative side.
I’ve always considered myself a creative person.
Animated films were a huge part of my childhood – their stunning visuals, imaginative world-building, gripping drama and grandiose orchestral scores made the real world pale in comparison.
Dibakar Ghosh / How-To Geek | MidJourney
In fact, I was so fascinated and obsessed with these fantastical stories that slowly a creative desire started to arise within me. I wanted to bring the world inside my head out into the open, to tell people, “Hey, I made something. Come and see (or listen).”
I ended up finding my passion for storytelling: I began writing fan fiction about my favorite animated movies, building random worlds, and happily imagining ways to get back at the bullies at school.
If you do something long enough, you get good at it. By the time I was in high school, I was confident enough to share my work and people liked it. Eventually, I got my first paying writing job in college. Now, 10 years later, I make a living writing on the internet.
Dibakar Ghosh / How-To Geek | MidJourney
But here’s where something surprising happens: words were never my greatest passion. I’ve always felt a strong affinity for music and art. So why didn’t I prioritize those over writing? The answer is simple: I couldn’t!
Creative hobbies have barriers to entry
Dibakar Ghosh / How-To Geek | MidJourney
I didn’t have much money growing up, and creative pursuits felt like a luxury expense – I had the desire, but couldn’t afford the equipment and instruments I needed to start practicing and experimenting.
Take digital art for example: to get started you need a decent computer, professional software and a drawing tablet – a sizable investment before you even begin learning the craft.
Dibakar Ghosh / How-To Geek | MidJourney
Music production was even more expensive. You might want to start with one instrument, but remember as a kid I wanted to create epic symphonies with quartets sprinkled with piano jingles, solo guitar sections, jazz, and more.
Learning an instrument to achieve this didn’t seem practical, so I turned to Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), which were also very expensive and very complicated.
Dibakar Ghosh / How-To Geek | MidJourney
But guess what wasn’t expensive? Paper! So I bought lots of paper. Writing became my only outlet for creative expression.
Now, one could argue: “If you’re so passionate about art and music, can’t you just start studying it after you get a job?” Yes, of course! You can! But it became a question of time, or more precisely, a question of priorities.
In my heart, I never wanted to be a professional artist or musician. I wanted to do it as a hobby, at most to entertain friends and family at get-togethers. I didn’t want to be a big-time rock star who lived in a house on the hill and drove a 15 car.
So the thought of spending years to learn the ropes seemed too much. I told myself, maybe in another life I could do it, and gave up. That was until AI came along.
Dibakar Ghosh / How-To Geek | MidJourney
Generative AI has made a huge difference in my creative hobbies, rekindling lost passions and helping me explore new art forms and styles of music.
It all started with Midjourney. I started using the tool when version 5 was released in March 2023. The idea that I could just type in a few words and have a highly detailed image generated in a matter of seconds was insane.
I quickly went back through my old notebooks (yes, I had my previous ideas written down in notebooks because digitizing them was too much work) and started playing around with Midjourney.
About a year later, Suno v3 was released, followed by Udio. I’ve been using these AI text-to-song generators for 3-4 months now and have generated over 1,000 songs already. It’s super fun and addictive.
Currently, tools like Midjourney, Suno, and Udio are all available starting at $10 per month, making them extremely affordable. And each tool has an intuitive interface and great documentation, so you don’t have to invest hours of training or take complicated courses.
Finally, I could easily unleash my creative desires without disrupting my normal routine or requiring a large financial or time investment. Every day after work, I would sit down in front of these tools, work on my ideas, press generate, and share with my family and friends.
I want to learn now
On the surface, generative AI seems like you just come up with an idea and the AI creates it. This is true, but only if you want superficial results.
For example, say I want to create an image like this:
Space cat.
When you prompt this in Midjourney, it will look like this:
Dibakar Ghosh / How-To Geek | MidJourney
That’s cool, but it’s not what I had in mind. I had envisioned a cat in a space suit climbing up to me on the International Space Station, looking at me. So I need to be more specific with my prompt to get what I really want. Something like this:
An inquisitive cat clad in a shiny white spacesuit and helmet climbs the exterior of the International Space Station. The cat looks towards the viewer with wide, alert eyes. The cat’s front paws are outstretched as if climbing towards the camera. The vastness of space forms the backdrop, with twinkling stars and Earth in the distance. The metal structure of the ISS is visible around the cat, with solar panels and modules creating a complex environment for the cat to navigate.
The image now looks like this:
Dibakar Ghosh / How-To Geek | MidJourney
But again, Midjourney is trying to make this image look photorealistic in its own way. In my mind, this image looks a bit more cartoony and anime-like. So let’s change the prompt with these keywords. Here’s the result:
Dibakar Ghosh / How-To Geek | MidJourney
Unfortunately, that’s not something I have in mind yet, and this is the inherent problem with generative AI: AI can help you visualize ideas, but it can’t make the visualization concrete.
If you have an idea, AI can help you visualize it. However, if you have already visualized it, AI cannot realize it 100% accurately. In theory, with the right prompts, it can happen, but in reality, some ideas just can’t be expressed in words.
AI music generators have the same problem: if you ask them to write a song about a cat meowing in space, for example, they’ll generate a song like this:
While it’s in the right genre, it’s not quite the tune or melody I had in mind. I also wanted a section with an actual cat sound. Unfortunately, no matter how much I fiddle with the prompts, it still doesn’t sound like what I have in my head. Udio lets you upload an audio clip so I can use that as a reference to fix the melody, but that requires knowing how to play music, which I don’t know.
To accurately portray the song in your head, you need to know how to play an instrument, just as to accurately materialize a landscape in your head, you need to know how to paint it yourself.
Even if you use AI to finish it off, if you want to truly express your creativity, you need to know the fundamentals and techniques of music production and digital art, so you’re ready to buy your first instrument.
I’m thinking of buying a keyboard
After using generative AI tools for over a year, I’m a bit disillusioned. I don’t think they’re the powerhouse of creativity that some make them out to be. But at the same time, they’re not the enemy of creativity, nor are they useless gimmicks.
If my story is any example, the strength of AI lies in its affordability and intuitive control – you can tell it what you want using natural language – which gives you the potential to endlessly experiment with different art forms and ideas and discover something about yourself.
In my case, I really loved making music with inside jokes to make my friends and family laugh. I get a lot of satisfaction and happiness from this process. And it was this self-discovery that fueled my decision to buy a keyboard.
Also, I’m not a trained musician, so I know that using only the keyboard would not allow me to fully express myself. This is where the AI comes in: I can use the keyboard to play a specific melody or song that I want, and the AI will use these to generate a track that is close to what I have in mind.
At the end of the day, it’s all about creative expression. We all have creative ideas in our heads, and it’s all about expressing those ideas into the real world so other people can interact with them. Some ideas are musical, some are visual, and each requires its own way of expression.
Today, we have many tools and devices that help us express ourselves. AI is the latest addition to the list. Although it is not the most powerful or accurate, at least at the time of writing, it is still great for exploring different ideas and partially fleshing them out as prototypes.
Personally, I feel that AI will not replace traditional methods of creative expression, but the two can work hand in hand to help us explore the deeper parts of our creative selves, a process that can help us create something truly unique and personal.
