EP 112: AI Tools for Enhanced Creative Processes & Branding

[Music] Hi and welcome to the Mountain Collective Podcast. Hi I'm Yana. I'm doing a research master right now looking at how human behavior and communication changes with digital technology and also algorithms. And next so that I work in a personal branding agency and my personal interest around AI with like many creative aspects of it. Interesting. First of all, thanks for coming here. I really appreciate that we had a long conversation previously. Until the moment we were like, okay, more at Asdenka need to go. So I love your energy for sure. Like it's really definitely a science through the screen. I do have a lot of questions about your journey but also like your interest in AI for sure. Because it's really something that is happening a lot lately. Like a lot of people are you know, onboarding to AI. And it's taking like almost like the whole industry in a storm. So how come you chose the like from in the beginning of your journey. How come you chose like the digital you know, pathway. And so in my previous study I had a AI and creativity course. And that was just when like me journey came up, Chattachoo PT started like in 2022. And like this Chattachoo PT moment, how like people call it in the 2022 I think. And that was actually really cool because then we learned like we had a Korean teacher who was really into like tech and everything. And she had her own robot that she like brought to class. Like she was really into it. And then she sort of showed us different platforms and websites. Like how we can use AI now every day like but like especially connected to the creativity. And we had like witty themes like music, design, like art, whatever and like looked at how AI has an influence or may have an influence in the future in that. So I feel like I was like there like at the start, which was really interesting to see because like especially the image generation was like very very basic. Like if I compare it to what my journey is doing now, I was like a crazy crazy different. And yeah, I've just been interested in digital graphic design myself the whole time. And I just like playing around with it. It didn't really have much of a purpose more for like fun and experimenting. Interesting. Yeah, no, for sure. I think creativity and AI always like now go hand in hand as an assistant because what you say like it's only like a year ago where you know, me journey came out like and now we don't we you know we have more than me journey. We have also like LTX studio, which I got an access for just just last week from or maybe two weeks ago from AI film Fest here in Amsterdam at the I museum. And there is also like another software called Luma AI, which does incredible. I mean, I'm talking about the things that are out there at this moment. Of course, you know, so rough open AI is just incredibly important for to to to to to look at and really ask questions about it, especially when it comes down to creativity. What are the changes for you that that you saw in terms of you know creative output when you use these tools. So like for me, I think AI isn't really there to like replace our creativity like I think human creativity is still really important to have and we should really use the AI as tools. I mean, they're also called AI tools of course, but I feel like it shouldn't like replace our creativity as in that the AI can only remix things that are already existing. So I feel like for mood boards or brainstorming or like thinking outside the box, it's like it's really handy. But yeah, I don't know like about I don't really think it will like do the whole Q and replacement thing of creativity. But yeah, I don't know, I'm like here is like where it's still going to go, but I think it's more it's like you can if you have an idea on your mind, you can create it and generate it and see how it goes before you spend hours doing it in total shop or illustrator or any other platform. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what what I mean, I used to I'm a 3D artist by by foundation to say like I've done the man's had been an artist for 15 years now. And sometimes it comes up, but I think my biggest threshold was was to you know a channel channel my struggle to the painting or to whatever that is because that's what the artist does you know translating your struggle into the cure pain points to someone else to relate to. And when I was using it, let's say 3D software that was you know that was the challenge was like dude like I'm not so safe unlike this as in like the biggest challenge was the tool itself. You know, so now that the tools are becoming more easier to work with I'm thinking maybe should take like a crazy ice bath and that would be my my you know painful moment to release into like some kind of painting. Yeah, I think the like easier access and general accessibility is like good and bad because also like of course people who are like creatives already like you say like you want to translate something and then it might be like an easier way or like there's like also the video AI platforms that you just mentioned at the beginning like I do think they can take away also a lot of. Maybe like struggles that you have that you can spend more time on actually creating things and not so much time on like I don't know cutting this video or searching for this specific image or something like that and you can focus more on the actual like creative output but I also think that. Because there's more people who have access to these say eyes that there's just a lot of very generic things out there like especially also like text I think like in copywriting of course it can be replaced by like totality or whatever like language model but I also think that it shouldn't be like two generic like just if you put in anything doesn't mean that people are suddenly all everyone is an artist. Or everyone is a designer because you type in like one word and maturity and creative in the image and I also think working with like maturity now for like almost get out like two years. A lot of people came to me saying like oh but it's like so easy you know like everyone can do it and of course everyone could generate a picture but I think for really getting a specific style or a specific. Like yeah angle or something like you still need to spend time on it like prompting and you need to know also about design styles, illustrating styles maybe photography styles angles like you still need to know all this to really create like good images I think. Yeah now for sure I think there was one thing that I heard from a speaker was that he's trying to to create something with AI that is so hard that it's far for anyone else to catch up on I think I think that's a good idea like that even though it's it's so easy to make you know things but at the same time you can also take it to different levels where you can add you know like a lot of angles to it I think. One way of doing that left one of my use cases which I also use on my pot from my podcast reals is to combine you know three to four AI tools altogether just for one two three seconds and you know when you start to do that when you start to combine all of these things together but obviously what you say. Excuse me but I'll see what you say with you know your previous knowledge is like the combination becomes not so generic I think you're completed right when it comes down to let's say also like from the other side which is copyrighting if you just copy based something from chat you like you me everyone knows and we all know. Yeah so I think from the copyright I think if you put like at the end like let's say you have a structure and then you change the words in a way that it's you know still you have the hand human you know that's to it I think that makes a lot of sense to spend what time on it what are so that's my use case at least for the podcast so far I think there could be like more use cases in the future where I can you know talk about that more what are the use cases that you saw from your point of view. So I think like what you said about like the copy rising so like in my job working for like this press and branding agency like we mainly focus on LinkedIn and writing for like sea levels or founders and of course we're we can't just let Chit chat to be T right it, but I feel like there's a lot of people also on LinkedIn that say, "Why would we need someone?" I can just ask Chit to be T to write this post, but I think especially if it's about personal branding or also if you are a company of brand and you also have a brand personality, even if it's not a person. It's like whatever Chit chat to be T AI text you have is just lacking the, yeah, how you say, like the human touch because of course Chit chat to be T doesn't know about your personal experiences or, yeah, what like the brand is maybe standing for something and yeah, so I think it's like good for inspiration, like again, like anything inspiration and brainstorming like for me the biggest use cases in terms of that that you could ask for something to write about or like there's this risen model, I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It has, yeah, it's like you can look it up. It has like RISCN has like different, so it stands for different things, for example R is like the role and then I like the instructions, so that's like the ideal prompt especially specifically for like T to be T to put it in and I like to work with it if I want something like for like copywriting like to get like out of it and so you would put like the role, I don't know like X as if you are a journalist or something and then the second one is the instruction, so like write a blog post or something and then you have the assets like the steps, so like the parts of an article for example or you would put out like what do you want like an introduction, do you want a headline, do you want, yeah, like something and then you have the end goal and also narrowing so you can say like oh only these specific words are like don't do this, don't do that and I think that's like quite helpful for like copywriting to use that that you don't just put in a right of log article about yoga and then just putting the most generic stuff out there but the generic down I think that's very helpful in that for copywriting use case. Yeah, for sure, I mean that's from the copy or from the imagery like the visual sense it's exactly the same, runway for instance, I don't know if you're familiar or runway, yeah, yeah, it's exactly the same, so in terms of like the R, you have like selections that you can select like the image and you can delete a few things or you can add other things and you can move the image in a certain way I think that's what I mean by that's what we basically both mean by using AI to follow our instructions because I think if we like sometimes I load in my podcast because that's what I do most of the time I load the whole podcast that transcripting to chagypt and you know ask for like okay so what's the what can I what can I benefit from this while like what are the best things from this podcast and sometimes it gives me like such a great answer sometimes I'm like what is this like sometimes it's very it's very interesting because I think that's where it can be very dangerous it's when when it just you know blur like it just you know like chagypt just gives you something because of giving something I think if open AI if you listen like please take that take that thing off because I think it is really important to instead of like giving in like a after prompt and giving an answer maybe saying like a maybe you should specify the question even better instead of giving like a weird answer you know like it's I think I've because I've had it a few times and I had to read them like this is not what I meant but at the same time it's better for for open AI to actually ask more questions to us as well so we can enhance our prompting because I think prompt engineering is a real thing at this point yeah yeah I think so too also like people put too much trust in chat if you say that also I think people who are like not really in the AI bubble or like don't really know how it's being trained don't know about the biases like all these like things that they would just use it like Google and believe whatever it says and I think especially like the sources on chativity it's like it's really bad like even if it says like oh I got this from the source and then I would click on the link and it doesn't contain any of the information and I'll be like hey I clicked on the link but it doesn't really give me the information you put out of it and then it's just like oh yeah that was not in the text joking okay yeah so I think for like um specific sources or statistics or like the truth is like not in chat if you see like there's always like a double check needed and I hope that a lot of people will understand that over time that we shouldn't trust like this too much also with images getting more realistic or like deepfakes or something like we need to be educated on like what is real and what's not I love that this is really like I think this is a very essential point to maybe even you know repeat throughout the podcast because it's really important to not put all the trust in one so it's almost like you know having a small lazy eye you know like it's like I'm just gonna copy paste you know I think it's really important to not do that and to really like dive it because I feel like I mean I think that it's really powerful like chativity when it comes like when it comes down to loading your own inputs to have your own outputs so for instance you know uploading text or uploading I tried to upload audio which would have made like my life much easier can you imagine like just uploading like the audio from the podcast and like say like okay so who who who who at who has the most beautiful voice in between both sides yeah like these kind of I think I think that would be like a lot of fun to to to play with but but when I did that it didn't really you know give me any answer it was struggling with some you know technical things so but I what I do is I upload the text the transcript from the which I also use an AI for I just upload the transcript and I ask questions about the podcast it's such a powerful thing when you have your own when you start to build your own database yeah and it's almost like an archive because start to because start to look into your own thing and you know what she said and you know what you've done and you know all of that and it becomes like like a play for you know interaction I think when you ask it for what you said like when you ask it for things that not in your hands I think becomes a bit more challenge you know think yeah yeah how do you feel about copyright like if you upload things into chat with you like I do you ever scared to to that I that I gave my information yes well I mean I we do that anyways no I know yeah I was like wondering how should I I am I really so so I'm very open and vulnerable online I think if I have my guards up online I think people wouldn't resonate with the podcast either so I do that anyways so also like on LinkedIn a very you know I just upload anything that I think this digital persona to be as transparent as possible with me so for instance like my reflection on the internet should be as transparent as possible with that you know fundamental my success I've thought about that a lot which is that I really thought about it but I came to the conclusion that if I'm gonna be online you know let's say 24/7 especially building trust with companies building trust with other people having you know your personal branding if I'm gonna step into that game you know private becomes social as social becomes private so I'm pretty open to that I made that decision I think when I when I started the podcast so uploading those things you know like I'm like my private life isn't that excited anyways so yeah I mean if people can obviously listen to the podcast anyways in the end so we out there for sure but yeah I like that I think it's like an interesting idea about like digital personas versus real life personas like that's also like a big research focus actually in my like masters and also thinking about the filter bubbles and like algorithms so like are we like pretty like ourselves like are we ever the authentic or like I mean obviously like if you share a lot and like a lot of thoughts more like unfiltered it's still I don't think a lot of people do that and also like I write like frequent like LinkedIn posts but of course I also still think about what am I gonna put out there like what pictures that you're on but I like that in our first conversation you were like oh you seem like on your LinkedIn profiles so like that's that's really nice um And yeah, but I think it's like interesting to think about like we are online and also I think with our feed yeah on Instagram or whatever social media platform that is like really tailored to what we want to see Also what you said with Chattimiti it's giving out things we want to hear And I think if you like go down there like I wonder how it's gonna be in the future if everyone of us will live in their own little algorithmic worlds and bubble or if we'll ever really share like a Like common, I don't know column ground. This was a question during I'm gonna say it again It's because it was such a great event My friend I said did not the founder of co founder of AI Phil Fest Namstrand there was a panel where they had exactly that conversation where on one hand The question rise up. So are we gonna have personal films? Customized personal films so so the it's let's say it's called the eyes and you see The film different than how I see the film because of the you know our Interaction with the internet and the you know algorithm and the data So we see two the same name of the film which is guys and then you know two different movies So that was one thing Like almost like a personalized Netflix. That was one idea that came up um And then another another Another speaker was like wait wait a second. He asked the audience he said Would you like to have that or would you like to watch the same movie at the day after you would talk about it as in like Hey, did you see what I saw? Did you see this to what about this character? I think that nostalgic thing that we all can connect to all together like a you know, in a sort of like collective way It's very powerful, but at the same time I know by experience and by you know like a long time being behind the technology that it really disrupts a lot of ideas and it disrupts a lot of thinking so I'm sitting in between I say I'm actually quite curious to know your thoughts about that too Hmm Yeah, I was like when you talked about then it's the same title but you see something else I was immediately thinking of like the Netflix algorithm how if we would be Searching for the same movie we would see a different thumbnail and like different like clips from it um and that it's like so tailored to like if I would um Like based on my like watchness or like my watch history that I would prefer to see more friendship scenes or something and you would Prefer something else. I would see something else on the like thumbnail Then you would see and I think like that's also like so interesting how it can be like personalized with um like also algorithmic tools Obviously that's also then again asking that okay how much data should things like say from you setra but um I think it's just like interesting how it's like coming into use then eventually um But yeah, with the movies I don't know. I feel like I don't go to the cinema at launch but I do enjoy it I do enjoy watching something together or like if I Watched out the third season of Bridgerton and then my friends watched it as well and I'm like oh like What did you think about this episode or something and I do think it's like fun to like talk about it and have The conversation about seeing like the same like things but still everyone has different thoughts on it and Also especially with this series like the PR campaign and everything on take-top where you went out there So I also saw a lot of different take-talks about the background of it than my friend did Because we're in different take-talk algorithms So we still had different Information about it and saw different things online Um, even though we watched the same series But yeah, so I don't know Interesting Super interesting. I think definitely your idea. This is the first time that I hear a lot of podcasts Congratulations. No, but I like that Like because I I've talked into a lot of people like the audience have got tired of me talking about AI But I think it's really necessary, but your idea this is like the first time that I hear Like to have like two different thumbnails like completely a gen-eyed by your data, but it leads you to the same film Very interesting. Yeah, you've eaten up how they do it. Oh, so it's like actually out there Yeah, yeah, they're doing it They are oh, yeah, yeah, god damn Mm-hmm No, I had like in one of my algorithm courses that's where I learned about them We had like in like different sessions about different platforms So one about like the tiktok algorithm one about the Netflix algorithm So I've learned like specifically about these platforms and then I don't know It's a bit also like scary in a way that it's like for example We also learned on that things um that if there's a product placement for example There's someone's using a MacBook somewhere. They would like look at the like if you're watching on your laptop They would like look in the webcam If you're looking at the MacBook and to see if the product placements are successful Because if you would look if more people would look at the MacBook that's being shown in the series Then they assume the product placement was more successful It's like I don't know from the camera goes on I don't know they they I don't know if they are still doing it But they did for sure at like some point um and then I was like um might watch that thing a lot of TV Like yes, and I'm like I Mean of course data is like very powerful and a very Hmm interesting like Discussion But I do live big to see how it's like being like what is it being used for if it's good or bad, you know We can like fight about that, but uh, I do think it's it's interesting like data Disrelations and stuff. Yeah, I mean if you if you switch to the business side of things. Let's say Let's take Instagram as an example. It's a business at the end of the day So when you sign up for it. It's it's you sign up for business and You sign up. Let's say you know, you have a product right and you sign up for Instagram and you go like oh everything is gonna be free And I'm gonna use this for free, you know, like I think they have they have spent a lot of money Like maybe probably like billions to create what they created over there to give it to you for free So they do expect something back and I think yeah Like to just look at it from you know the rational business point of view and I think it makes complete sense that There is some privacy Exchange that exchange uh for them But on the flip side is that authentic. Yeah, that's a different complete different you know like they should talk about it like emotionally Like from the authenticity and then I like I'm I'm uh, I'm definitely I think it has like a lot of Changes of point of view is depending on who the person is but for me like which coming back to your question I signed up for you know sharing my personal journey. That's online so So I think if the only thing is that I don't like is my camera like I'm not so sure if I wanna you know like have it on like all the time bro Like okay, I Yeah, I do think oh yeah, sorry. Yeah, so yes go ahead. I'm listening No, I was just thinking with the camera. I do think Apple has a lot of security things That they are like oh no camera is not allowed here or like asking like Double checking with you. So we'd be yeah, okay. How cool cool. Well Apple That I think care so um another thing that I that I When you were talking that I came up with was the um the game in aspect of things. I think gamification has already Have already Adventure it in those spaces as in like have like you know walking your own movie and and watching your own experience and creating your own experience Do you have any any thoughts on on that you know on that landscape? um, I'm not a gamer myself. So please don't ask me any questions back but I'm curious to know like what what your thoughts are about roblox for instance or you know these kind of spaces Yeah, I'm also not a gamer the only game I've ever played with since um, but yeah, I've been on like roblox and spatial to like see like there is like this really big Crocs and hookah boss world in roblox, but like I don't know like I've tried it out like walked around and everything and I'm not really sure how I feel about it Like it's at least on roblox, but maybe it's just like It's bothering me aesthetically like the like the box thing that reminds me of like when my brother needs to play Minecraft or something I don't know. I think it's just like this visual aesthetic is just bothering me and I also think it's like very cool that brands are becoming more playful And I do think the web 3 in whatever way um, it's offering them a lot of ways to do so to like become more playful in their Advertising or experience and I don't know if you ever heard of the concept story living Yeah, it's like story-livening basically means like this that like brands offer you're an experience You're like living or experience something like with the brands or the product um, and and it could be like installations or like crazy pop-up stores or yeah, something in Web 3 that they are like designing there. And when I did like part of my study in Korea and I think in Seoul, there was like so many things of this already like three, four years ago. And I think like also I see a lot of things about like like pop-up stores in Asia, like all in the malls. They're like going for it and like design or like also like gamification aspects that you can like do little quizzes there or like something, yeah, was like characters or something. And I think that's really interesting. And I hope to see it like maybe a bit more here. Like I feel like there's potential in the Lego stores. I feel like they could like with the flowers and all the stuff that it had such a hype. I've seen that last week in Taipei, they had opened like a shop with only the flowers and sort of like a flower shop cafe thing, but then it's like Lego flowers. And you could like put together different like flowers with like different of these Lego stones and then you could like play around with it. And I think these are like this is like some stuff like for the future that you could also use mid-journey or something to brainstorm like different concepts. Yeah, yeah, interesting. Yeah, I heard that China is, I heard that also again on the festival, I fresh out of the festival. Sorry guys, you know, spamming the episode. But it was really incredible. And I heard that again, they're like that China is few steps ahead in terms of technology. When we were still you know, stumbling across Facebook, they were already addicted to iPhone, I'm not iPhone as silly, but like social media. And now it's happening to us in Europe at least. So I think they are maybe like five years ahead, which is interesting to know. But now from you, I hear that career is also there. So have you been to China? No, I haven't. Like I was, I would have been interested in like traveling around more, but then with COVID, we already had to do like quarantine to get into Korea. And it was just all, yeah, obviously very strict around these countries so that didn't really work out. So, but yeah, so it's been like the time in Korea. And yeah, the technology, it's like the acceptance, it's just also way bigger. And I think that will come eventually here as well. When it's like more, when we're more surrounded by it. But like in like some restaurants or stores, there would be like robots bringing you things. Or like at the airport and soul, like the robot would like take your luggage to the gate or something. And like that was like so like normal. And also like there's like a project, like maybe if you're interested in it, you can like look it up that soul as the city wants to like be in the metaverse by 2026. And there's already some like starting points of that but that you could go, for example, if you have to go to the municipality or something, you would go as your avatar and like walk there in the city. Like the city itself already exists. And the metaverse and then the idea is that bureaucratic things could be like done, you know, in the metaverse and that you could also go, you could also go into like stores and have like a sort of online shopping experience with yeah within the web three space. - Yeah, yeah, that makes it strange that it makes sense to me. - Yeah. Yeah. Now but I'm like, I'm really excited about the AI AR VR, whatever like web three technologies that brands will incorporate here. - Last but not least, last question. Last word. Would you would you take neural link? - Like the implant? What is it doing exactly? - It's basically you've found like implemented in the brains directly. - I don't know. I feel like that's scaring me. But also I think what I would do as of now like have like the meta ray band glasses or something like that, you know, I'm wearing dust anyways. And then it could like show me things in the screen but implanting something I don't know. But I feel like it could be the future but also then I think about this Topian movie movies like The Circle and then it's quite scary. (laughs) - Yeah, Black Mirror, I didn't watch. I watched like maybe. - We had certain episodes in my course, in the AI course I had. So we would talk about different technologies and we would then watch certain episodes at uni and analyze them and the impact. - Black Mirror. - Yeah. - Yeah, that was the scare. Like I watched maybe like one or two and I was like, bro, I get it. 'Cause I have an addictive personality and I'm very influenced by things quickly and easily because I'm also sensitive on one side and on the other hand, I'm also very rational but when it comes down to visual, that's why I'm into the Swedish stuff. I'm very visually oriented. So if I see something, I just like complete the inverse myself in it until that's when I decided. 'Cause I'm, like for everyone who's listening, just to take away consumption doesn't mean food. It also means visuals. So environments put yourself at least once a day in nature. It just gets yourself some nature greens and some sun in the morning. And but yeah, I really, really appreciate, Jana, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. And yeah, for everyone who's listening, check out her LinkedIn. I'll put it in the description and yeah. Yeah, thanks so much for having me at a great time.