AI Usage

The copy and my website and the answers below were written by ME/Blue, unless otherwise attributed. Any content generated by AI across my website and social media are explicitly marked because I value transparency. Since I use an AI collaborator while I work, some of my labels, systems, and organization were suggested by AI, and then customized by me. Before you message me about AI, I invite you to read the information below so you have a better understand of how I use it.

I use AI in my work with client approval, and I'm specific about making sure I use it in ways they are comfortable with. Every client is different, and I'm happy to tailor my usage in a way that works for them—but I'm not likely to take on clients who prohibit any AI usage since I use it to support my thought process and workflow. I use AI for emotional support and education both professionally and personally. It helps me keep moving forward, and I enjoy learning though conversation over scouring seemingly disjointed search results. 

Most people villainize AI generally without realizing there are different kinds, just as there are different kinds of technology. Many people unknowingly use AI or come into contact it daily. While AI does impact the environment, as does all technology, most people do much more environmental harm with what they choose to eat every day.

 

Blue's AI Usage—TL;DR (too long, didn't read)

• I use AI on my website, in my life, and in my work (with client approval).
• My AI usage is explicitly marked, because I value transparency.
• I began gaining AI Trainer and Prompt Engineering experience in 2022.
• I'm not a typical AI user. I use it for very complex tasks. (top 20% of users)
• Some of my prompts can reach over 1,500 words
• I use custom GPTs with my own training and instructions
• Many conversations are over 40 turns (top 1% messages sent)
• I focus on LLM text over image generation. (<50 images in 2025)
• I generate images using a mix of my own prompts and images.
• Apple Intelligence Image Playground
• ChatGPT DALL•E & Images
• Adobe Firefly up until 2026
• others I explicitly name if shared
• I use AI personally for emotional support and educational exploration.
• My custom GPTs provide support in the way I prefer
• I can have simultaneous conversations for my polytropic brain
• LLM chats are my starting point for learning, not my main input

FYI: I am in no way an expert, and I am sharing thoughts and opinions based on connections I see that others may not.

 

FAQs about technology

Before diving into information on AI, I think it's important to go back a little further.

WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY?

Technology is how we humans solve problems, which may or may not include electricity. Even simple machines, like using a lever or pulley system are forms of technology. Our technology became more complex as we used it to solve more difficult problems. Is your home technology free?

 

WHAT ARE ROBOTS?

In order to improve our lives, we created all kinds of task specific tech, including robots. Early robots were more similar to simple machines, mechanical tools programmed to do very simple tasks. Automata or automatons were early robots that could created by humans, but then perform their task without human intervention. Some were clockwork figures, musical toys, and even writing machines. As humans became more technologically advanced, so did our robots, in some instances even replacing human employees. We took commercial applications of robots like those in automotive factories and brought them into our homes. Do you have a vacuum robot in your home?

 

WHAT ARE BOTS?

Bots is the shortened name by which many people refer to robots, but it can also specifically denote the robots we use that is built into our electronic technology. Even prior to electronics, there were bots we programmed to do simple or even intricate tasks called automotons. Later, when we created electronics, including computers, our bots were able to help in more complex ways like gathering large amounts of information. Matthew Gray at MIT created the World Wide Web Wanderer bot in 1993, the world's first webcrawler. (Yep, AI today is not the first robot to crawl the internet, they've been doing it for decades. Most people just only now realizing it because they can see it in AI responses in realtime.) Did you know that bots have been crawling the internet since 1993 (possibly before)?

 

FAQs about AI

Today's AI has come a long way from the early automatons we created many centuries ago. Bots these days make better use of the data it collects based on the instructions provided by its programmers.

 

WHAT IS AI?

AI is an acronym for Artificial Intelligence, and you can likely find AI technology within many of your own devices. They are within most smart phones, but many people don't realize they can also be part of everyday electronics like TVs, video doorbells, and robot vacuums. Do you use AI everyday?

 

WHAT IS GENERATIVE AI?

When most people speak of AI, they lump it all into a single category, but as you saw in my last answer AI spans many different types. What most people speak of today is generative AI, which is the kind of AI that generates a response based on your input or prompt. The two most popular types of generative AI today are image generators and large language models (LLMs). They can stand on their own, but they can also be combined and programmed or trained for specific tasks.

Generative AI, including LLMs are an enhanced form of bots or robots, which came before like the 1966 chatbot named Eliza. Eliza was a precursor to the LLMs of today that was designed to give empathetic responses, but Eliza was simply following rules and matching preprogrammed responses. Today's LLMs formulate responses based on their training, which includes human programming and feedback, but they also incorporate whatever information is available to them in order to deliver better responses. Have you ever had a chat with an AI bot?

Note: It's important to note that the information provided may not be true or approved for use by the creator. However, I believe this has more to do with the way in which currently handle attributing creators than AI following its programmed instructions.

 

ISN'T AI BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?

I've seen a lot of media about AI being bad for the environment. However, what's missing is the understanding that AI itself is not touching the environment. So what's actually happening? As society's use of technology became more dependent on electronics, we looked for more and more ways to fuel and sustain the systems we created. This included using many of our natural resources, from coal to water. Since AI is part of technology, this is how it it can impact our environment negatively, like everything else we've made.

Today, many technology systems use cloud servers, which house information and data processing somewhere other than onsite with the user. This began because most of these systems were larger than the average consumer could house, but it great because companies then started managing their systems together. These produce a TON of heat, and they always have, but we are using them more and more. AI usage is currently being spotlighted as a huge factor, but again I want to draw your attention to the bigger picture.

FAQs about water

Yes, AI is a digital technology that relies on electricity, and much of that technology is housed in large facilities that currently cool their systems with water. Water is a natural resource, and it is seemingly finite. So we as humans are relying on something we may not be able to replenish. That's the real issue. Also, these facilities are located in areas that don't have the infrastructure to handle them, so the people who live there are impacted. Okay, so we've established this isn't solely an AI issue, this is a humans are building technology we cannot support indefinitely issue.

 

DOESN'T AI USE A LOT OF WATER?

However, for those worried that using AI is contributing to this in a massive way, I want to invite you to look up some numbers. Here's the gist of an AI conversation I had with my custom GPT 🤖Maslow after seeing lots of coverage about AI water usage surpassing that of the bottled water industry. My brain was extremely confused, until I understood how water is used for cooing at the facilities that house these systems. Okay, we definitely need better systems. Yet, just thinking that over I realized it is unlikely that is the biggest threat to the natural resource of water or making as big an impact as other technologies as humans have likely been using much longer.

Remember, technology is how we humans solve problems. One of our earlier problems is that we wanted to make sure everyone got a balanced meal, which the government then subsidized—mostly meat and dairy. Except, that meant that many of the studies on how good this stuff was for us are skewed to support the government programs subsidizing them. And, that means that we created a massive solution, which actually created a HUGE problem—a problem that requires a lot of water.

 

SO WHAT USES MORE WATER?

Animal agriculture seemingly should have solved the problem of humans eating balance meals, having a wide variety of healthy food at their disposal, and that all should have impacted us positively. Right? Except it didn't. Animals don't make protein, they get it from plants. We created a system that created a middle man—animals—and we eat them instead of going directly to the source. Then, we created HUGE factory farms and practices, that are unkind and unsustainable to the animals, the environment, and ourselves as humans. We do not get healthy eating meat, unless we have an actual condition that requires nutrients found in meat (which the majority of us do not). Our bodies are not designed like carnivores who are designed to eat meat.

So we created a solution that negatively impacts our health. People are still starving because we use the majority of the food we grow to feed the animals—some of which live as little as a month or two before their eaten (or hours if its a male unfortunate enough to be hatched in an egg laying facility). Our environment is not happier or healthier, and those that live in areas of high yield animal agriculture facilities are often extremely negatively impacted by it. Some get stick from waste runoff, including animal feces and chemicals.

So just stepping outside of that to zoom out a bit more, what does this have to do with AI? A lot actually, because animal agriculture is one of the biggest uses of fresh water. All of those animals that we are raising mostly to slaughter anyway need water. The crops we grow for them to eat (that we could just eat ourselves and save a ton of resources and improve our health), those all need to be watered too. Compared to the water AI facilities may have used in cooling over that last year, the water used by animal agriculture (specifically the meat industry) is roughly ~80x that.

 

DO YOU OFFSET YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT?

I use AI intentionally, and I do my best to offset my usage. One of the ways I have been unknowingly doing this, until the recent AI water usage press, is by not eating meat. It's nice to know that my not eating meat is a BIG way for me to offset my using AI. I'm not in favor of how we use water in unsustainable ways, nor all of our other natural resources. I'm not in favor of how animal agriculture is seemingly helping no one that I can see, especially the animals but also not the people eating it. I don't love that through our own fallible systems for creation, people's intellectual property is being used without their consent.

That said, the biggest impact I can make if you look at the numbers—again, I'm not a math human but based on my understanding—is not eating meat. I'm already doing that. Besides that, I mostly live in a single room, which is why we're moving out of our sticks and bricks rental come June when we move into my camper van Serenity. We rarely turn on lights, unplug our appliances when not in use. We use very little water, and recycle and compost when we are able. But all those little things don't make a dent on just not eating meat, so that's what I'll continue to do. I'll keep using AI intentionally, because it adds to my life in a positive way, as does not eating meat.

 

FAQs about creation

I like to define creation as something out of nothing, which can include ideas, meaning they aren't necessarily physical somethings.

 

DOESN'T AI STEAL THE WORK OF CREATORS?

Currently, a lot of the popular AI models have been given access to the internet where they can use information that is publicly available for their responses. This includes text, image, video, and audio—and the AI's responses can be text, image, video or a combination. To my knowledge, AI was not trained to steal private work, but to take in all publicly available work. The issue is that people may publicly share work that they do not wish to be publicly available, and the AI cannot tell the difference if it is not programmed to do so. This has little to do with the AI itself and a lot more to do with the programmers. However, this also says something about our own systems of how we attribute and protect creators and their intellectual property—including copyrights, patents, and trademarks.

Something I have rarely discussed is that intellectual property has always been freely available for consumption, by humans and robots. However, now people are only just seeing that this is the case, and they don't like it. I can understand why, however, perhaps there needs to be an overhaul of the system we created instead of an attack on a technology that didn't create or program itself. AI is showing the fault in our system, but humans seem to be attacking the messenger.

 

HOW DO HUMANS LEARN AND CREATE?

We humans have always learned by iteration, even if they don't directly watch someone do it. Look at any great masters, whether they painted, sculpted, or wrote works we likely still admire today. In most cases, they learned from those who came before by way of iteration—copying. Copying others is quite literally how we humans learn, and we never created a system to support this. If I go to the library where information is freely available, and I check out several books. Then, I use the information to craft solutions to problems I would like to solve, referencing my sources, have I stolen anything? If I didn't credit the sources, then likely in some fashion yes. But did I pay all the creators I referenced? Not likely. (Which is a big part of the issue with AI image generation if it's training on work that is copyrighted without the creator's permission.)

DOES OUR CREATION SYSTEM NEED AN OVERHAUL?

Our creation system is difficult to navigate. Any slight variation to an idea seemingly makes it a new idea, but at the same time someone can say they believe it's too similar to their original and sue the new creator. Yet, there are seemingly no original ideas. There are even cases where humans on opposite sides of the world came up with similar ideas, then the idea may end up being awarded to one or the other who came up with it first or has more concrete proof of the idea's inception.

It seems nearly impossible to come up with anything truly original, particularly when our system doesn't allow us a way to actually track, attribute, and catalog what we actually do as humans—as Austin Kelon puts it, Steal Like an Artist. Look around your home. Notice all of the items that were created by someone, which is likely EVERYTHING unless you created it yourself.

Can you name all of the creators, and if you are lucky enough to be able to did you pay them directly? Are you sure whoever you paid was the original creator? If not, are you sure they directly paid the original creator for their idea? Likely no. Perhaps that's the issue we should be focusing on if that's what's important to us, that the original creator is protected.

 

HOW COULD WE OVERALL OUR CREATION SYSTEM?

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. If I had to come up with one tomorrow, I have always loved Joseph Gordon-Levitt's model on HITRECORD.org, his collaborative creative community. While the site is currently still a place for creative collaborators to remix one another's work, as far as I know it is not currently hosting any projects that result in income. However, I was part of many projects on the site that did, and I had not seen a better model prior nor since.

Uploading our work meant giving our permission for others to remix it into something new. They could combine it alone with their own ideas or combine a large body of curated work from the site. When there were projects that resulted in income, profits were shared among every creative that contributed. I love looking at the chains of creators from idea inception to the site to the final piece—that can, of course, always be remixed again.

While time consuming, Joe and our Community Director named Matt, as well as other staff oversaw the profit split, but we as the Community also got a say. We perused a spreadsheet that showed the total income, profits, and where they all went. There were clear percentages based on how much each RECord was incorporated into the product. We had a set window to comment if we thought something should be shifted, like mentioning if we were left out, added by mistake, or if we thought someone else deserved a bigger percentage.

It was a beautiful system, seen as impossible when he created the site, but it worked. Yes, there were complications he didn't foresee, like royalties paid down the line after the work was released that required a different system. However, overall I appreciated the transparency of the entire process, and as Joe said at time, it was the first time many of us hitRECorders were actually paid for our work. I wonder what our world would look like if we could somehow have done the same from the beginning for all creation.

Yes, it would be difficult, but there would be a clear path to idea originators. Except, is there even such a thing as an idea originator or are all ideas built from those that came before?  I don't know.