Transcript: ‘The Internet Creator’s Guide to the Future’

The transcript of AI & I with Steph Smith is below for paying subscribers.

Timestamps

1. Introduction: 00:00:46
2. How Steph uses Midjourney to find her aesthetic: 00:09:08
3. Steph predicts how creating on the internet will evolve with AI: 00:20:45
4. Rapid-fire rundown of Steph’s favorite niche creators: 00:32:51
5. How Steph trains her brain on better data: 00:42:58
6. The AI research tool Steph uses for health information: 00:48:19
7. The future of AI tools—and one of Steph’s top picks: 00:56:25  
8. Dan and Steph use AI to create a simulation of the internet: 01:01:20
9. How LLM hallucinations can be useful: 01:05:09
10. Dan and Steph make a song about what they learned on the show: 01:12:06

Transcript

Dan Shipper (00:00:47)

Steph, welcome to the show.

Steph Smith (00:00:48)

Thanks for having me again.

Dan Shipper (00:00:49)

Yeah. You are the first repeat guest to AI & I, so it is wonderful to have you. Our last episode was so much fun. 

Steph Smith (00:00:58)

Thank you.

Dan Shipper (00:00:59)

It is one of our most popular episodes ever. So, by popular demand, you are back in the studio with me.

Steph Smith (00:01:05)

You might actually have to change the name to AI & I & Steph.

Dan Shipper (00:01:09)

And Steph, yeah. “AI & Us.”

Steph Smith (00:01:10)

“& She.”

Dan Shipper (00:01:11)

So, last time, we spent a lot of time talking about using AI and other software tools to find different businesses. In the intervening period since our last recording, one of the things you’ve been using AI most for recently is Midjourney to do design. And there's a little bit of ChatGPT in there too. So I want to start there. Tell us how you're using Midjourney. How are you making images with AI?

Steph Smith (00:01:37)

Yeah. So Midjourney has been awesome. I think many people are familiar with it, but I've actually found one of the key complaints around AI has been around imagery, at least that I can't really find a style, or if If I do something, it's not going to be repetitive enough that I would actually integrate it into my brand, or things like that. But I have actually found that it's been amazing. So, basically, I should say at the outset, all of the Internet Pipes imagery, I think, has been done through Midjourney—and a little ChatGPT.

Dan Shipper (00:02:07)

And for people who don't remember, remind us what Internet Pipes is.

Steph Smith (00:02:09)

Yeah. It's just this project of mine where basically, it exists to help people make sense of data on the internet. But there are all these stations, so there's generation station and there's evaluation station, and I wanted to be able to represent those stations visually. And, I mean, I could have hired an illustrator, but since I left the shipping of that project to the last minute, I was like, I need to create imagery and I need it to look good and I need it to basically represent these ideas that are a little amorphous, right?

And so that's what I did. And so I can show you— Actually, if I just pull up the Internet Pipes slides. This was from our cohort. So you can get a sense up here. 

Dan Shipper (00:02:50)

So it's a course too. 

Steph Smith (00:02:51)

Yeah, but let me give you a sense of what this kind of looks like. So, for example, this was generation station, and you can see that was a piece of the overall course, you could say.

But all of these were created through Midjourney. And you can see up here at the top, these ones at the top were created through Midjourney and the ones at the bottom was an analogy that I was trying to communicate of baking a potato, which was related to baking ideas. So the one at the bottom was actually done through ChatGPT, so maybe we can actually start there and then migrate our way back to Midjourney. You know how people have shown the “make it more” trend?

Dan Shipper (00:03:31)

Yeah, that's the new meme where people are like, make a programmer who's late for their deadline. And it's like, make them even later, make them even later, or whatever.

Steph Smith (00:03:42)

I've seen such funny ones. There was one with Kelly Slater where it's like, make Kelly Slater the best surfer in the world. And then it shows him riding a really good wave. And then someone's like, no, no, no, make him better. And it's just by the end, basically it's like the gates of hell with water. And there's sharks diving all around him and he's just a badass. And so I decided to do that with ChatGPT, and so if I go to— Let's see if ChatGPT is still down. There we go. So, let’s see. Where is it? Do you see potato here? Oh, yes. “Visualize potato.” Yes, is what ChatGPT called it.

Dan Shipper (00:04:23)

A very important chat.

Steph Smith (00:04:28)

Yeah, so I just said, “Can you visualize a potato?”

Dan Shipper (00:04:31)

I just have to pause us here. When science fiction writers in the 60s were really starting to think about what humans would use AI for, I don't think that they thought the first chat would be, “Can you visualize a potato?”

Steph Smith (00:04:44)

They did not. And humans constantly surprise each other. So, yes, I said, “Can you visualize a potato?” And then they said, yes.

Dan Shipper (00:04:52)

That potato is suspiciously— I probably wouldn't have picked that potato at the market. It's a little pockmarked, but yeah. Just saying.

Steph Smith (00:05:03)

You know, human feedback—it'll learn. Then I said, “Now bake the potato.” That looks like a pretty good baked potato. “Now bake it more.” Now it's kind of turned circular, but it's still definitely baking more. I kept asking it to bake it. And this is the funny part. I just kept going, obviously. right? And then it keeps baking. And now, this is what I would expect, right? Eventually the potato turns to ash.

Dan Shipper (00:05:28)

A cremated potato.

Steph Smith (00:05:29)

Now can you guess what the next one is?

Dan Shipper (00:05:32)

The thing that immediately comes to mind is it turns into a volcano and there's lava coming out but that's just because it looks like a volcano. I have absolutely no idea what it's gonna be.

Steph Smith (00:05:44)

This was my favorite part of the exercise. It turns into a new potato. It is potato reincarnated. Baby potato coming from the ash.

Dan Shipper (00:05:55)

Rising from the ashes like a phoenix. I love it. That's so good.

Steph Smith (00:05:59)

So yeah, this was, I guess, one area where AI was helpful in basically creating imagery where I honestly couldn't have even imagined this myself, but also showing the evolution of something. So I know this is very silly, but I actually use this imagery within Internet Pipes. And then coming back to Midjourney—

Dan Shipper (00:06:17)

Wait. Before we get to Midjourney, what were you trying to show with this particular baked potato metaphor analogy thing?

Steph Smith (00:06:24)

Yeah. So it doesn't make much sense without the voiceover, but bringing this slide back up, the whole idea of Internet Pipes is not just to give people a bunch of interesting ideas and just call it a day. It's to help them ideate and then help them bake the potato, bake the idea to be like, okay now that you have an idea, who else is participating in this space, is their search volume some of the stuff we talked about last time. Yeah, and then if you were to participate, here's how you can differentiate, and so there's an evolution of—just like a potato, I think, baked—you're baking an idea to something that's actually substantial, edible, to use a potato analogy once more. Again, I felt like I needed something to be able to articulate that you're taking something that you would never eat—an actual raw potato—to something that's usable.

Dan Shipper (00:07:12)

Yeah. That's really interesting. I feel like the make it more meme is like one of the first true AI content meme formats. And I just saw that everywhere for a while. I haven't seen it as much recently. Are you still seeing it around?

Steph Smith (00:07:27)

Not so much, but I think it'll come back because, to your point, I said the same thing about that and then, I don't know if you saw some of the other specific art, there were people who were creating visual art that had imagery embedded in it. Do you remember this? It was like a picture of ancient Rome, but within ancient Rome, there was a spiral or something like that. No, you didn't see that? But that was another example of art that could not have been created without AI. And I'm very excited about whatever us humans figure out there, because that's obviously not the end of it either. But yes, I agree. This was a trend where this actually could not have been done without this tech.

Dan Shipper (00:08:06)

Yeah, totally. And so, bringing it back to Midjourney, tell us what you're using it for in the slide.

Steph Smith (00:08:13)

Yeah. So, again, these were these different stations, which, if you're not immersed in Internet Pipes won't make as much sense, but each station had an image associated with it. And the goal was really to, after idea generation, you want it to be filtered down and validate what actually matters. So the next image I chose was a funnel. And then after that it was talking about the ecosystem of what exists in that world. And so, these are all images that, again, without that context don't make sense, but there is a visual language applied to these and basically everything else within Internet Pipes. I'm trying to see if I have some other good examples down below.

Dan Shipper (00:08:56)

You're trying to get a particular visual style and aesthetic and Midjourney is helping you do that?

Steph Smith (00:09:02)

Correct. Correct. And so Midjourney also makes it really easy to do that.

Dan Shipper (00:09:08)

How do you characterize this aesthetic? Go to Internet Pipes, go to that first slide. That's actually very cool. When you're putting that aesthetic together, what goes into it?

Steph Smith (00:09:21)

So this aesthetic— I don't know if there's a term for it other than the way I describe it. It's just early internet. So it's kind of not super refined, definitely colorful, maybe kind of pixelated but maybe not as early internet in the sense that early internet, it felt like there were maybe six colors that actually showed up on a web page. And so it's like an evolution of that per se, but certainly nodding back to it.

And I actually wanted whatever Internet Pipes imagery I was going to use to kind of expand upon this imagery that you're seeing right now, and so what I did—and I don't think people do this enough—is just went to the Midjourney homepage and just scrolled because I'm not an artist or designer. So I just scrolled until I found—

Dan Shipper (00:10:08)

Wait, can I see that? 've never even seen that.

Steph Smith (00:10:12)

You’ve never been to the Midjourney homepage. The discovery page?

Dan Shipper (00:10:13)

No I didn't even— I'm still using it in Discord. 

Steph Smith (00:10:20)

I do use it in Discord too, but this is where I start for inspiration. And then there's Lexica and other tools as well. But I find, on the Midjourney homepage, they do a very good job of curation. And so you can see here where there's a bunch of different art styles here. And for each one of them, if you were to click into it, I wonder how this person communicated this bag.

So for this one, I'm seeing “minimalism and flat illustration”—Will Barnet. So that's clearly an artist. Interesting. “Ballpoint drawing art style, porcelain pattern with gradient translucent glass melt.” And so, for each of these, you can search them, right? Do any of these stand out to you as interesting?

Dan Shipper (00:11:13)

Let’s see. I think— Well, let me just see what I like about the image first, and then I'll figure out what I like. So there's this sort of minimalism. I like the color palette, the sort of faded greens and yellows. I like that it's natural and organic. It looks like flowers that got pushed onto a piece of paper. I don't know what kind of art style that is, but I want more of that.

Steph Smith (00:11:39)

Yeah. So what's interesting is often, as I'm sure you know when you search something or you discover something like this on the Midjourney homepage, there's gonna be a mix of different things. And so what I find when I find something like this is I do what you did, which is great. You’re even taking a second to analyze what is interesting. And then, for the few that I think lend to that, I'll just search them. I don't know what “gilded ginkgo” is, do you?

Dan Shipper (00:12:02)

Yeah, that sounds like a good thing to check.

Steph Smith (00:12:04)

So, you can search for that, and— Oops, did I?

Dan Shipper (00:12:10)

I think that's gonna generate, right? 

Steph Smith (00:12:13)

Oh, you're right. Yeah, I don't know why the search wasn't working. Let's try that again. There we go! 

Dan Shipper (00:12:16)

Interesting. So I guess the ginkgo part of it is the kind of leaves that we're looking at—the ginkgo leaves.

Steph Smith (00:12:23)

Exactly. So, we've got that. Now let's go back. Let's try a different one.

Dan Shipper (00:12:26)

I like the Chinese Xuan paper texture. I wonder if that's like— Let's try the print thing. It seems like you may have to x— Yeah, there we go. Okay, so that's just the paper, but it's not the—

Steph Smith (00:12:44)

Exactly. Yeah, so you can keep doing this and we can try one more if you'd like. But I basically do this: I go to the homepage, find an image that I really like and that I can't explain, and then I'm basically giving myself—I mean, I'm sure all artists won't agree with me on this, but I'm giving myself some sort of art education around what yields the kind of imagery I like and so that's what I did with the Internet Pipes imagery, where you can see a bunch of— Cal and I share an account, but here we go— I'm doing these rare fruit tastings coming up and I wanted to continue the Internet Pipes imagery and so the continuity that comes from that original exercise I did comes from this, it comes from blind box design, popular market style, and a bunch of other things like solid background, but those are the two—specifically blind box design, and— Do you know what blind box design looks like? I didn't either. Okay. So, I'll show you. And I would never have come up with this on my own. But this is blind box design. It's some sort of Asian inspired— You've probably seen figurines kind of like this. That is blind box design.

Dan Shipper (00:13:49)

I want to look this up. What does it mean, blind box design? “Blind box economics refers to a system where a product is enclosed within a packaging that remains sealed, so concealing its contents from the consumer,” which is really interesting. So maybe it's like there's a certain segment of toys that are made in blind boxes that have that particular kind of aesthetic.

Steph Smith (00:14:17)

Yeah, I mean, I guess so and it certainly aligns with this, but it's funny. I didn't even stop to look up what it meant. But isn't that so interesting actually that type of toy and its packaging can yield a specific kind of design that you can then apply it to some 2-D internet image.

Dan Shipper (00:14:38)

That's really interesting. What was the other prompt again?

Steph Smith (00:14:40)

The other prompt was popular market style. So I guess that's a kind of— Let's see. So I stole this obviously from an image that I had seen and I can't even remember what the original image was that I found on the discover page. Okay, so see this is not what I would have expected but I guess it's taking it literally.

Dan Shipper (00:15:03)

Yeah, that's really blind box design.

Steph Smith (00:15:06)

Then you get this. 

Dan Shipper (00:15:08)

Wow. Okay, and so to you, this is sort of in the early internet aesthetic or it's at least compatible with it? What do you like about this?

Steph Smith (00:15:21)

I like that it feels kind of energetic and when you add color to it, to me, it feels like this interesting merging of— If you think about early internet it's colorful and all these things but it's also so old right? And so there’s this quirkiness to it. There's this intrigue and curiosity when you see an image like that and I think this design paired with some new age colors is what I was going for. And to be honest all of this is me speaking right now. Yeah, and I don't know if there was as much intentionality other than, when I scrolled Midjourney I saw a kind of image that I liked, that I felt aligned with the kind of product that I was trying to create. And then now I just have a prompt I adjust for anything whether it's a rare fruit tasting or a next chapter or whatever it might be.

Dan Shipper (00:16:12)

Totally. I mean, I think the broader pattern here that I see as well is that AI is quite good at helping you articulate your taste. So, you see an image ,you like it. You're like, what do I like about it? And you just look at the prompt you're like, oh, it's blind box design or whatever. Yeah, and I have the same thing with writing. I've done so much of putting a bunch of my writing I like into ChatGPT or Claude and being like hey what's the common thread between these writers and it like will give me language for the kinds of things I like and that's like very powerful as someone who makes things because I can then articulate this is the kind of thing I'm trying to make and that's helpful for myself.

It's also really helpful for my team. We just rebranded this podcast and to do the podcast, I just sent you this vibes document I made. And I had to articulate here's what we're going for. And I have a bunch of references and a bunch of things that I found in AI. ChatGPT was quite helpful for helping me to articulate what I like about this and where it is going, you know?

And I think that's super important for getting a cohesive brand. One of the things that I identified is I want to have this curiosity and wonder and authenticity, but there's also this technological exploration type thing. And that the seventies feels like the era where that was most true for me. It was sort of, we're going to the moon. But, it's also still pretty close to the sixties where it's like hippies and stuff, you know? So this is awesome.

Steph Smith (00:17:53)

Have you shared this externally?

Dan Shipper (00:17:56)

I have. I tweeted it a couple of days ago.

Steph Smith (00:17:59)

Well, this is awesome because I think, as you're saying, you not only incorporated who inspires you, but precisely when they existed in that iteration of themselves. Because, let's use Steve Jobs as an example, there were so many phases. And so ,if you were to just say, I'm inspired by this person, that doesn't really get to what you probably are inspired by. And sometimes, as you're saying, using AI can get to the very pinpoint, even if it's just because they give you the wrong example, and you're like, no, not that. But I also just, while you were talking, pulled up— This is when I was doing the exercise of using that blind box design ultimately to come up with the Internet Pipes imagery. And I did this, January 24th, 12:46 a.m. I was like, this was so enjoyable, my tweet says “Damn, Midjourney is so enjoyable to brainstorm like a brain massage” because it really was like, I had this image, kind of, and then I went on to the homepage. And the combination of that inspiration mixed with the very, very muddy thought I had turned into this and I was like, yes!

Dan Shipper (00:19:09)

That's great. I mean, I actually, I think brain massage is the exact right way to describe this image for me. And it's not just Midjourney. You had to pick that aesthetic. If I use Midjourney, I don't know if it would look like a brain massage.

Steph Smith (00:19:26)

Well the brain massage was the exercise when you find your particular aesthetic, and then I don't know if you see this on the right-hand side, but you said you also prompted Discord because that's where Midjourney exists, and it's also just really fun to see what else exists there, even if it's as silly as this, which is Tucker Carlson wearing a baseball cap made of pancakes, which is actually takes us right back to your warm hat. A pancake would be a warm hat. 

Dan Shipper (00:19:54)

Honestly, yeah. I mean I don't think I had considered that design but I do think pancakes do have the layering necessary for a warm hat. Might fall apart a little bit. We'll get there, we'll figure that part out. Wow, that's really interesting. I definitely also scroll through the sort of Midjourney design Discord stuff while I'm waiting for my stuff to render. And I don't think I've seen anything quite as entertaining essentially.

Steph Smith (00:20:26)

They rewarded me for my brain massage with something like that.

Dan Shipper (00:20:30)

Yeah, so, I think, sort of coming out of this Midjourney art creation. One of the things that I think you've been thinking about a lot is given these new tools, what does that mean for the evolution of creators? Both creators who are using AI tools, but also just people on the internet who are just like making stuff. Tell us what you've been exploring.

Steph Smith (00:20:58)

Yeah. So I think there's two directions I'm very excited about, and then there's going to be a very messy middle. And the first direction is actually what we just discussed not so long ago, which is what can newly be created with AI that doesn't exist today. That's very exciting. We've seen little inklings like the make it more but I don't see enough creators asking themselves that question of not just what could I have done before that I can now do more quickly, but what kind of art can I now create with AI? But then the complete other end of the spectrum is what can AI not do? And a lot of people talk about that in the job sense, but in the artistic sense, there are several facets of that. It's not just online versus offline, right? Because people think, oh I can cook offline. So, yeah, that's different. It's also—

Dan Shipper (00:21:50)

Do you see the robot that makes coffee now? So, I don’t know if that’s safe!

Steph Smith (00:21:56)

So, that actually brings me to the second point, which is what do people care about humans doing or maybe modified in a way what benefits from a human doing it in terms of the reception from another human. And so I've been following a bunch of different creators, and I'll just show you a few of them, and this is one India Rose Crawford, who— I'm just going to share the Instagram accounts. I'm sure they exist on other platforms—2.6 million followers. This person has only posted 134 times and look at what they do. They create these tiny sewn frogs that live their lives on Instagram. And it's not just stills, like you can see here. If we go to the Reels, they're honestly just so excellent. Here's one with 20.6 million views.

Dan Shipper (00:22:56)

Oh my God, I love humans.

Steph Smith (00:23:09)

Alright, so, I mean, for the listeners, you're basically just seeing a tiny frog that someone has created, living in a tiny home that the same person has created, living its life. And that's the whole video, by the way, it doesn't get any more or less exciting than what you just saw.

Dan Shipper (00:23:27)

What's really funny about this is it's sort of the cottagecore aesthetic or the trad wife-trad husband lifestyle on Instagram, but it's a knit frog—personified in frog. I think that's what makes it work. And I love this. I love that you just know accounts like this. I think your point is, it's a really good one. What will humans value from other humans? I think that that sort of gets lost a little bit. Maybe AI will be able to make a video like this at some point, but we will still value that it came from another person in the same way, like cars are faster than humans, we still watch people race each other. I think there's a lot of room for that. And it will probably increase the value of handmade writing or art or whatever.

Steph Smith (00:24:24)

Here's another example that you could call art in a way. A lot of people cite the chess example where Deep Blue beat Kasparov a long time ago—decades ago. We still watch other humans play chess, but on top of that, even though we know AIs can beat us, the chess players that are standing out today, you could say, are acting more like artists. So Magnus Carlsen recently played a game where he basically immediately sacrificed his rook for a bishop, which if you play chess, for the listeners out there, it's just a terrible thing to do. You're down basically two points immediately. And a lot of people look to Magnus, not just because he's the best in the world, but because he already knows that the calculus of chess is over. That's not what's interesting. It's the personality. He also does this thing in games where he knows basically any excellent chess player has memorized a bunch of openings and knows precisely what to do. So the first piece of the game can be really boring and I feel like he says that he doesn't want to play that game. He wants to basically see who's the best thinker, right? And that's still up for grabs. And so that there's almost the question of what is still up for grabs? And he intentionally gets people off standard openings, even if it's technically bad in order to pursue that game.

Dan Shipper (00:25:45)

That is really interesting. And I've actually heard him talk about doing that for when he plays younger players who are really used to just playing the computer. I think it's called Razorfish—

Steph Smith (00:26:01)

Stockfish. I like Rrazorfish though! Next version.

Dan Shipper (00:26:02)

We should start Razorfish. Yeah, they're so used to playing Stockfish that they don't like when he plays a weird set of openings, they don't know the branches of that tree. And so they just get lost. But he’s, I guess, played the played those enough to like be able to—

Steph Smith (00:26:24)

Well, he studied the mechanics more of how to play chess.

Dan Shipper (00:26:30)

Yeah, I do like the sort of like if you can't beat them, change the rules of the game and make it art.

Steph Smith (00:26:38)

Honestly, that's an interesting question where maybe people be like, you're getting too meta and weird, but art is a very kind of amorphic term, right? You could look at someone standing on the street and say that's art, and then you could look at 10,000 other people and say that's definitely not art. And so what makes it art? It's kind of expression, but there's an interesting question to just ask. Even creators, I would actually say not all creators are artists, but a select few are. And so how do you take what you're doing today and manipulate it in a way where you would actually feel comfortable calling it art? I think It's actually a harder question than most people would think at face value.

Dan Shipper (00:26:30)

Yeah, I think that calling what you do art is a very loaded term and it feels, I mean, to me it's like I would feel self-conscious because it feels self-aggrandizing or something like I'm taking myself too seriously. I write little newsletters about AI on the internet. It's not that big of a deal. But, I do also really care about sort of the genuine self-expression portion of what I do and I do think like all internet creators, you're sort of forced to— There's this ratio of like how much business-, like how good is it for business and how much do you actually care about it and whatever and everyone has their own ratio of yeah of the mix you know and like I guess true artists are like all the way over here and just copywriters are all the way over here, you know. Yeah, that's definitely been a thing for me to grapple with.

Steph Smith (00:28:19)

Where did you land? What's your razorfish ratio?

Dan Shipper (00:26:30)

My razorfish ratio is, let's see. I really try to only write things that I'm genuinely excited about. And I also really try to be honest about how I'm feeling in whatever moment it is I'm writing. I think I've been lucky enough that there's this weird thing like if I was into flute playing or something like that it would have been much harder for me to monetize that without being really commercial but I write about and I'm just like super curious about programming and AI and productivity and psychology and all this stuff that all kind of is in this thing where it's it is actually kind of easy to sell that. But I mean, there are always things where I'm just doing this for me.

I wrote this piece a couple months ago about the future of science and AI and specifically how AI might change areas of science. And it's been historically difficult to make progress, like psychology, for example. And I just got really nerdy about philosophy of science and predictive AI models or whatever. And, I just knew that no one would really care, but I was just like, this is for me—gotta do this. So, what I've learned to do is if you pick a specific lane, for me, I'm doing it: intersection of AI and productivity, psychology, creative tools, that, that kind of thing. You get to go out of the lane sometimes if you want to, and so you reap the benefits of having picked one, but then you can, you can give yourself the flexibility day to day to just write about what you're interested in.

Steph Smith (00:30:20)

Yeah, I think that makes sense. And almost just like having enough of a baseline where you don't have to think about optimizing fully, therefore you can go on these adventures. By the way, I listened to your episode with Reid Hoffman, and I didn't know you knew so much about philosophy. I was so lost, candidly, but it was great as a mind bender to be like, I have a lot more to learn.

Dan Shipper (00:30:39)

I gotta tell you, I was sweating so much in that interview. And honestly, the only reason I got through it is because, I mean, I studied philosophy in college and I really liked that stuff. 

Steph Smith (00:30:45)

I could tell.