ERIC KIM

The Art of Art

INSPIRE YOURSELF with HAPTIC.

The Future of Photography and AI

What is the future of photography and AI? The question at hand.

First, my personal creative vision is that the future of AI and photography should be a hybrid of using AI to actually motivate you to be more creative. No no no, AI is not going to “take your job“, or “take over the world“. is going to take your job? Is Google search going to take your job? No.

What is AI good for?

AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E, DALL-E 3 is like a personal echo chamber; you could use it to flesh out your ideas, to think more critically, and just ask yourself the question… why?

My first take and attempt at creating my own artificial intelligence chat bot was the WHY APP? Essentially the idea was motivated by the notion; if you just ask yourself the question “why?” five times… you gain a deeper truth or insight about something.

The difference between human feedback and machine feedback

Arsbeta.com is all about human feedback. You upload a photo, and you randomly get a real human being giving you feedback on your photos, in a constructive and critical way.

My next vision is to integrate AI into it; which means you upload a photo to the AI, and then it could give you some sort of interesting critical feedback on your photos.

What you could do right now is subscribe to ChatGPT plus, only 20 bucks a month, and upload a photo to it, and ask it for feedback on your photos, how you can improve etc. Some of the feedback is interesting… it makes you think more.

AI as a mirror

AI is a mirror. A white mirror.

AI can only think as deeply as you do; there’s no real right or wrong here. Typically the questions you ask it is simply a reflection of what you’re personally interested in.

Also with DALL-E, DALL-E 3… the name of the game is how funny and aberrant are your ideas?

Creative ideas

Once you got the paid ChatGPT subscription, you can upload up to three or four images, and then just ask ChatGPT to help you choose your best photo.

AI can help you give photography tips. For example, ask ERIC KIM BOT, or ERIC KIM AI for photography tips, photography assignment ideas, street photography tips etc. It is very smart because what it essentially does is just scrape my blog, and gives you interesting ideas in a conversational way.

The integration between camera and AI

Rather than upgrading your iPhone, just use the iPhone you already got, and pay for the ChatGPT subscription, and finally… your smartphone actually becomes smart.

For example what you could do is open up the ChatGPT app, click the camera icon, take a photo of something, and help you analyze the scene. Also, you could even take a photo of a collage that you’ve made in real life and ask it to analyze the image. Recently Cindy and I printed out a bunch of photos, and framed them nicely, and I’ve been having fun asking it to analyze the collages and making sense of it.

AI ART?

Is AI art “real“ art? Of course! The better question is whether you like the photo and the image or not.

What is art? Art is anything that you create. Art can be manifested however you interpret it.

My thought is now with AI, and it being so easy to generate images… What is more critical is actually your ability to filter. The art of choosing your favorite photos is a really important thing here.

Why photographers should use DALL-E

DALL-E is the specific component of ChatGPT which creates images from scratch, purely based on your own imagination.

It is phenomenal. For example, once you subscribe to the Chi PT plus, open up DALL-E on the sidebar, and things you could ask it to design you:

Bitcoin babe driving a Lamborghini Countach in ancient Sparta
Peter Pan with samurai sword in zombie apocalypse
Spartan stoic philosopher lifting bitcoin weights
Beautiful Korean woman at Met Gala in bitcoin dress

DALL-E truly becomes magical the more ridiculous and ostentatious you make it. Make it as ridiculous silly and random as possible; the more ridiculous, the better.

Where should I post all of my images?

Your own blog.

Ionos.com and WordPress.org or bluehost.com

Why? The reason is you’re going to create lots of AI generated images and artwork, and also your photos.

I like the idea of artistic and creative double dipping; the idea is that now that you’re a visual artist, you’re not constrained to just one medium. It is not mutually exclusive; you could do both! You could shoot photos and make AI art!

Make yourself laugh

Cindy has been enjoying watching me how much fun I have been having with ChatGPT and DALL-E. For example a recent thing that I did which made me laugh out loud was asking DALLE to make me a hardcore Spartan image, and then I keep asking it “more muscular”. There is a certain point in which it becomes hilarious and I laugh out loud where the limits of muscularity just become preposterous. It makes the incredible Hulk look like a twig.

Content moderation

One good thing that ChatGPT has integrated is the notion of content policies to prevent bad behavior. The fun thing to do is actually see how you could work around it; rather than asking DALL-E to make you a picture of a “sexy Korean girl“, which it will refuse… use the word “babe” instead, and instead of calling it “sexy”, you can say “beautiful” or “gorgeous”.

The word babe is funny… I got the word from Calvin and Hobbes, because Hobbes was always so fascinated by the babes.

So I think the real fun thing about ChatGPT is actually finding creative ways to subvert the content moderation policies. See how far you could push it and nudge it.

Brave New World of AI

I made a ChatGPT bot called “Bitcoin Babe”. My personal creative vision was in the spirit of fun; how you could use an AI chat but to help you be more zen, stoic, and calm about crypto… given how volatile it is.

For example, I never checked the price of bitcoin or any of my crypto acids. I only ever know the price if I stumble upon it on accident, if it is in the headlines of a newspaper, on the television at airports, in magazines at the airport etc. I never seek it out.

Why, why not and why am I glad that I didn’t do this? Because I know myself and how sensitive I am… I used to actually daytrade when I was in college as a sophomore, and I realize that I was too emotional. Essentially what I did was I thought a long time about my decision, went 100% into bitcoin, and I just never looked at it or touched it, did other stuff instead. The hilarious thing is that I actually avoided and I actually didn’t even know about the whole FTX meltdown and the Sam Bankman-Fried guy. And I’m glad that I intentionally made myself ignorant of all the modern day news… Bitcoin is bouncing back, and since the last time I bought more bitcoin for the third time, everything is totally in the green.

But anyways, I think 99% of crypto, cryptocurrency speculation is all about having a zen and stoic mindset. Essentially not to let emotions perturb you.

I specifically programmed Bitcoin Babe in such a way that it tries to help you think more critically about things, and not get suckered by hype.

Also, ZEN OF ERIC and also ERIC KIM BOT— zen of ERIC is all about stoicism and philosophy, and ERIC KIM bot is all about photography.

No more Google

I am starting to think that Google is the bad guy; this whole system we got which is predicated on advertising is a positively bad one. Why? The more sensational and crazy the news, the more advertisements get viewed or clicked on. As a consequence, the nature of the news and media is becoming too outlandish.

Also my critical analysis is that a lot of this stuff on racism, race riots, anti-Jewish sentiment etc.… the real bad guy here is Google and Facebook. Why? Google which owns YouTube, makes money off of these hot button topics. Not only that but Facebook owns Instagram, and once again… the more sexual, overt, and loud something is… the more attention and advertising money is made.

Actually one thing that made me very anti-Instagram… I don’t even have a daughter but I’m starting to realize… When I watched the Kanye West interview on info wars, Kanye West commenting that Instagram is essentially like pornography; a lot of these “fitness influencers”, or women… are essentially selling their bodies for attention and money.

But now that ChatGPT and DALLE can make you your own beautiful women, photo realistic, all which are virtual… There is really no more need for these models or “influencers“.

Short Google and Facebook/Meta/Instagram.

Now what?

The other days when I was at Philz coffee, I saw a guy order a croissant and a coffee and spend $17 on it. Do yourself a favor and just buy the ChatGPT premium subscription, and spend the best $20 of your life.

Play with it, have fun, create your own ChatGPT bots, and also, see how far you can push it.

Think with EK

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AI ART

How to Become a Professional Street Photographer

Am I the first and only street photographer who has actually made a good living from street photography? I think so.

Even when we consider Henri Cartier-Bresson, he was essentially like a rich trust fund kid, I think his family owned a very successful textiles company. Therefore he never had to worry about money, he was already funded and bankrolled by his family.

Simple approach

Teach street photography workshops
Sell street photography products
Street photography consulting
Street photography exhibitions and art shows
Street photography books, pamphlets, information

Does it matter if you are self-made or not?

I think I knew weird obsession we have in America is this notion of being “self-made”. The general idea and gist is that we don’t want handouts, we want to make it on our own.

But also, I think this is also a superficial thing. If you were born to a good family, doesn’t it make more sense to just leverage the resources you were were born with, and strive to maximize it, instead of trying to “prove yourself” to the world in a more superficial manner?

In fact, I’ve actually discovered that often times, when we try to prove ourselves to others, we end up actually hurting or harming or injuring ourselves. Or putting ourselves into really bad situations.

For example, let us say that you are born rich, you’re a rich kid, you have a trust fund or whatever. No need to try to prove yourself to others, better to instead… use the money and resources intelligently to build cool stuff.

Think solo.

Another issue that I’ve been having is that I am so easily distracted, by everybody and everything. As a consequence, I think a lot of my time is wasted, I love making small talk and talking to strangers but often it is a bad crutch for me because instead of just focusing on my supreme life task at hand, I often waste it just talking nonsense.

Ways you can save time:

First, no email, no text messages, no phone conversations. The simple heuristic is when you’re gonna talk to somebody, either FaceTime them or talk to them face-to-face. No electronic communication or messaging services.

Also, no media. Produce your own media, if you’re going to consume media, consume the really really old stuff. For example, I think the only piece of literature worth reading is the Iliad by Homer, and the only philosophy worth reading is either stoic, Seneca, pre-Socratic like Heraclitus, etc.

Even with cinema and film; maybe just only watch black-and-white films, seven samurai, Akira Kurosawa, etc. Why? Typically movies which has been around for a long time are good because they last. Any modern day movie that just came out today or recently tends to not be good because you don’t know whether they will last or not.

Just Google ERIC KIM cinema, and look at my best film analyses.

My personal opinion on the only good cinema which has been produced recently include the matrix, the movie 300, and John Wick. Besides that, all of these other films are bad.

How to thrive creatively and artistically

My grand vision is that each and every single human being can thrive creatively and artistically on planet earth. This is my end game; to leverage all my resources money and tools to help other human beings thrive.

This is where I am so insanely enthusiastic about ChatGPT, AI, generative AI art, DALL-E, DALL-E 3 etc. I want an envision people to unshackle themselves from traditional media, and instead create their own media their own artwork.

How much human potential is squandered on people binging Netflix shows, series, or dulling their senses with Spotify and noise canceling headphones?

Why muscles?

What is the point of muscles, becoming more muscular etc.?

My first thought is that if you want to make really great art, you need really great muscles. Artwork, making photos etc. is actually a very physically taxing endeavor. Even if we think about photography and street photography; it actually requires much muscular strength and agility.

For example, squatting, sprinting around, running around and playing with your kid etc. This all requires great muscular strength.

Also, I personally discovered that the more muscular I become, the greater and more muscular my thoughts.

My critique about a lot of modern-day thinkers, even the past ones… They had degenerate bodies. Degenerate bodies, degenerate thoughts.

For example, even a lot of these early Christian writers… I think a lot of them were emaciated, unwell, physiologically degenerate. Especially the ones that self flagellated.

Put zero trust in anybody who self flagellates; they are seriously mentally and physiologically sick.

Modern day self-flagellation?

How do people self flagellate in modern day times?

First, they poison their bodies with alcohol, drugs, marijuana etc.

Secondly, I think a lot of people destroy their bodies, through what they eat, what they read, what they watch.

Becoming more robust

My personal encouragement for you to start becoming stronger more muscular more robust is that I think as a consequence, all parts of your life will thrive. Not only will you be happier, you’ll be stronger, more productive, a better provider, etc.

Your duty is strength, strengthening, becoming stronger more muscular.

ERIC