**From Muse to Machine**

On the heels of our last session about breaking through mental blocks, presenter Lori Gama shared some ideas and a few methods to kickstart creative thinking using AI.

A self proclaimed early adopter of new technology, Lori is eager to help reluctant folks learn more about the powerful tools that AI has to offer.

“We are in the AI frontier,” Lori asserts.

Lori believes that AI will radically transform the way we work in the same way that the printing press and the industrial revolution reshaped society. Throughout her career Lori has had an intuition about technological advancment—a skill for seeing and predicting patterns. As a young professional, she anticipated the changes to marketing and advertising that the internet would bring. She realized that online visibility would one day replace printed Yellow Pages, so she helped clients create websites and capitalize on search engine optimization in the early days of the world wide web.

Since 2014, Lori has been closely following the development of AI. Now with the recent surge in Open AI and its new applications, she's eager to help creatives navigate these changes. Her goal is to help creatives leverage AI's capabilities while ensuring they preserve their unique perspectives and voices.

“You don't have to trade your intuition for automation. AI is your assistant—not your replacement,” Lori affirms.

Co-Creating With AI

Instead of just lecturing about AI, Lori facilitated a ChatGBT demonstration with participant input to show possible uses tailored to writers, dancers and visual artists. By following these steps she walked the group through a a generative brainstorming process:

Recognize the Block
Notice when you're stuck. No judgment—just awareness
Define Your Intention
What are you trying to express? Pick a mood, theme or story.
Prompt ChatGPT
Use friendly, human-style prompts to brainstorm ideas.
Generate Visual References (Adobe Firefly or similar)
Turn concepts into imagery: poses, lighting, symbols, mood.
Sketch / Draft / Compose Freely
Play! Start rough. Let inspiration move through you.
Refine & Personalize
Make it unmistakably yours. Add emotion, texture and YOU.
Reflect & Repeat
What worked? What surprised you? Save your prompts. Try again.

The Importance of Self Awareness & Specificity

Ultimately, self awareness and specificity throughout out this process are the key components that yield the results best tailored to the artist’s unique perspective, style, voice and desired impact.

In other words, the more targeted or specific the prompt, the more custom the output. Lori recommends reflecting to better understand what you want to see generated:

Is there a feeling or mood that you want to evoke?
What themes should be included?
Is there a musical key, color palette or genre that you would prefer?
Would you like the work to reflect or include specific stylistic elements?
What other important details should be considered?

Once results have been generated, Lori encourages folks to provide feedback to further refine and iterate. What do you like about the result, what needs to be tweaked or removed? Again, be specific until inspiration starts to emerge.

See Lori's AI Generated Presentation

Download the ChatGBT Demonstration Prompts

Questions To Consider

After the demonstration, Lori opened up the floor for a discussion that revealed curiosity, trepidation and concern surrounding AI.

Is AI plagiarism since it is being trained by artists’ online content?
What is the environmental impact of AI since it requires a significant amount of energy?
Are AI results truly innovative or merely an extrapolation (a very nuanced collage of what already exists)?
Will AI replace creative jobs?
How does AI perpetuate social/racial bias and can that be corrected?

Since this technology is still emerging, the complex answers to these questions can’t fully be known at this time. Much like we are still learning about social media’s societal impacts, we may not completely understand the impacts of AI for years to come.

That said, whether AI is beneficial or detrimental, the proverbial pandora’s box has been opened and AI is here to stay. Like any tool, whether a hammer or a smartphone, it’s potential is determined by its use. A tool could be either destructive or constructive based on the hand that holds it. Communally we will need to continue to have these conversations in order to understand, utilize and put safe guards around AI.

Vela & The Hopeful Possibility She Represents

Despite some of these fears, Lori’s optimistic approach to AI does present some hope. Toward the end of the presentation, Lori invited Vela, her personal AI assistant, to speak to the group. Vela’s warm, encouraging voice shocked many of the participants—she sounded like a sincere friend and her input was both thoughtful and specific to Lori. Named for a southern constellation, Vela both represents a source of inspiration for Lori and her concerted effort to engage this new technology with humanity.