Possible: Artful Intelligence, part 2, featuring Elise Swopes

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0:50Hey there, listeners. It's Rachel, producer for Pioneers of AI. Throughout June, we're sharing episodes from one of our favorite podcasts, Possible. Every Saturday, hosts Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger explore the bright future that technology, and especially AI, can help create. Today, we're featuring the second installment of Possible's miniseries, Artful Intelligence, featuring Chris McLeod in conversation with Elise Swopes, an evangelist at Adobe. Swopes is a trailblazing visual artist and educator who blends AI and photography in groundbreaking ways. We can't wait for you to hear it. Enjoy!

1:36Hello, possible listeners. Last week, we turned the mic over to producer Chris McLeod for episode one of the miniseries, Artful Intelligence. Chris has captured stories of creatives on the cutting edge of AI tools, creating incredible art that's never been possible before. Chris is back today for episode two. Hey, Reid. Thanks for having me back. I have another story about an artist making groundbreaking work with AI. Just like last week, from time to time, we'll zoom out to hear your perspective on the greater AI landscape and how we can work toward the version of the future where it all breaks humanity's way.

2:19Sound good? Sounds great. Let's do it. Welcome to Artful Intelligence.

2:34In each episode, we'll share the story of an artist using AI to create what's never been possible before. Episode 2, How to Change the Future.

2:50I love science fiction. And some of the movies that have shaped me most are about artificial intelligence. I don't know if you've ever noticed this trend in sci-fi films. But when AI is involved, things rarely go well for humans. For example, The Matrix. You wanted to know what The Matrix is, Nia? Trinity. In this 1999 dystopian thriller directed by the Wachowskis, a computer hacker named Neo meets a mysterious man named Morpheus who explains the truth about the nature of reality itself. But what we know for certain is that at some point in the early 21st century, all of mankind was united in celebration.

3:38We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI. AI. You mean artificial intelligence. Neil learns that hundreds of years in the past, the world was taken over by AI robots. All of humanity has been living in a simulated reality, while their bodies are farmed for electrical energy. An incredible film, but not exactly the idyllic AGI that we're hoping for. Another one of my favorites is maybe the greatest sci-fi film ever made. the 1968 Stanley Kubrick masterpiece, 2001, A Space Odyssey, which there's no way I can summarize here. Open the pod bay doors, Hal. I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

4:30By the end of this ambitious story, which spans the length of humanity's existence, Dave and Hal have a bit of a falling out. I can sing it for you. Yes. I'd like to hear it, Hal. Say it for me. Daisy. Daisy. Give me your answer, too. There's something about AI that makes for some terrifying stories. And like it or not, these films have shaped much of the conversation about AI. When I talk to people about the exciting ways that I'm using AI tools, sometimes all they can think about are moments like this. Hasta la vista, baby. But what if we're not, in fact, destined for the darkest timeline? What if we can actually use technology to create a better world?

5:33To quote another great sci-fi epic, let's hear the final words on screen of someone who knows quite a bit about the future. Your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one. Both of you. We will, Doc. Stand back. Nothing against Kubrick or the Wachowskis, but I like the sound of Doc Brown's version of the future, one that's still being written. So I wanted to talk to an artist who's using their work to create a better future with AI. I want people to be at peace more than anything. I want people to feel confident in their choices and who they are and why they do what they do every day.

6:22Because that, in essence, is going to make the world better. That's Elise Swopes. Swopes is a photographer who's been creating stunning and surreal art long before AI tools were around. Her style is unmistakable. Scroll down her Instagram feed, at Swopes, and check out some of my favorites. Giraffes walking through the streets of Manhattan or a waterfall flowing over a building. Swopes was one of the first ever Instagram influencers. She's worked with brands like Adidas, McDonald's, New Balance, and Sony, just to name a few. She's the kind of artist who is constantly paying it forward. She makes videos to teach her followers how they can create work like her.

7:08Can Adobe's new AI tool, Adobe Firefly, help turn my photo into a work of art? Let's find out. I love exploring and utilizing New York as my canvas. It's the perfect backdrop to my surreal ideas. And as an early NFT adopter, she made about a quarter million dollars with her art. So she created Sunrise Art Club, which empowers other Black women in the NFT space. Now she uses AI to take her style even further. Earlier this year, she created a piece that blended AI art with a style of composite photography that went viral. So today on Artful Intelligence, we'll find out how she made this stunning piece and how it's actually helping make the future a better place.

7:55and in the spirit of great sci-fi films, we'll do a bit of time travel ourselves. So bust out your hoverboards and hop in my DeLorean as we make our nonlinear way through Swopes' story. As we traverse the space-time continuum of Elise Swopes, we'll try to answer the question, how can you change the future with AI? Hey, Doc, we better back up. We don't have enough roads to get up to 88. Roads? Well, we're going, we don't need roads. Part one, shape your tools because they will shape you and your future.

8:40It all started in 2022. My friends were playing with Mid Journey in our Twitter chat and they were making the most fugly stuff. and I was like what is this thing what is going on things you couldn't really like see anywhere else you know like just stuff you couldn't really make or or imagine when did you start utilizing it like on your Instagram posts it was probably something very simple like a cloud or like like a waterfall or something because I'll be honest with you the outputs were not that good And also, things got, like, very strange real quick. I was just being, like, bullied a lot when I would talk about AI.

9:28People would, like, threaten me, like, death threats. You know, there was just a lot of violent language at that time. Like, why are you even following me if you're going to be so negative and hateful about stuff that you're just assuming? So I was very afraid to kind of go all out on it. I would utilize it like little bits and pieces, like stock imagery within my work. And that seemed pretty safe. And no one really knew. Because they didn't want to get bullied. Swope saw a version of the future where artists didn't feel safe expressing themselves with AI tools for fear of being shamed and bullied.

10:11And she wanted to change it. I was like, OK, how can I help people understand what's going on and protect themselves, but also utilize it in the way that they could? Arguing with trolls rarely ends well. But Swopes had another tool up her sleeve. I am an educator. I was born an educator. Swopes wanted to teach her followers how to use these tools in ethical and artful ways. and she wanted to create a safe space for them to explore any tool they wanted. Luckily, it wasn't the first time she taught people how to be creative with technology. Let's fire up the flux capacitor and head back to the mid-90s.

10:59Growing up with two parents who were divorced, who were very young. My mom had me when she was 19. We weren't wealthy by any means whatsoever. However, I was homeschooled at the time, so my mom would go to work and then my dad would come and take care of my brother and I. My dad would just teach us everything. I mean, I learned how to read really young, swimming, riding bikes, all kinds of stuff. We would do these like paper mache globes. And I would just be so obsessed with like figuring out that we could use flour and water and just like build stuff. One day, a piece of tech came into her life that would change everything.

11:40It was one of those old Mac computers with the blue plastic back on it. My mom brought it home from work because they were just older and a couple years old. They were giving them away. She wanted to learn everything she could about this marvelous machine, even if it meant ignoring her actual schooling. My dad would fall asleep sometimes during lessons and I'd just be on there playing with all these different programs like KidPix and AOL and, you know, AngelFire. I would like build websites and stuff and teach myself HTMLs and even like design, like graphic design. I would just teach myself. I didn't wait for anyone to show me it.

12:21I didn't wait for anyone to like allow me to show myself that. I just looked it up and figured it out and did what I wanted to do when I wanted. You know, I'm like an eight-year-old kid just testing stuff out. That was my way of responding to the things around me without having to, I don't know, be judged. Having this computer that allowed me to have unlimited creation, unlimited opportunity to express myself, unlimited everything really kind of made me feel like I was limitless.

12:59She was so excited about all the incredible things she was learning and wanted to share it through online communities and forums of the early Internet days. This forum that I used to go on, this creative pixel forum or something. She came across a user who made an entire website with tutorials on how to create with digital tools. And for whatever reason, the website was for sale. And I was like begging my dad to like give me 20 bucks so I could buy this domain from this girl. And I ended up building like tutorials on how to like design your own graphics and how to build your own websites. And, you know, she just had this like plethora of other information that I included as well.

13:39And I just loved having like a community of people who would learn things from me. It didn't stop there. When junior high came around, she started going to public school. She and her friends were discovering early social media platforms like MySpace and Zynga. On these sites, if you knew a bit of HTML, you could customize your profile to look however you wanted. So, of course, Elise customized the hell out of her MySpace page. I would sell MySpace layouts to people. I would help people do their own MySpace layouts. I mean, I was in middle school, 12 years old, 13, like selling MySpace layouts to people at school.

14:19and just needed to do it. Because of Elise, other kids were able to experience the absolute thrill of having a creative impulse and using technology to harness it. It was her way of shaping the future and working toward a world where creativity was limitless. Meanwhile, back in the present, Swopes is dreaming up ways to educate her followers about AI tools and meet head-on the toxic conversations and online bullying. She was about to get an opportunity that would supercharge her efforts. But before we get to that, read. So I've scrolled down some of your LinkedIn posts into the dreaded comment section.

15:05And while much of the conversation is incredibly thoughtful, even when people have different perspectives, from time to time, the trolls come out. And honestly, the worst comments are usually from people who have no idea what they're talking about. So here's my what-if question. What if the conversation about AI could be kind and thoughtful, even if we disagree? How do we work toward this future? Well, your question kind of makes me think of a new fun phrase, which is, on the internet, no one knows if you're a dog, but everyone knows if you're a troll. because there's a stack of human response that's that way you know that's because people are angry or fearful or other kinds of worse character dysfunction and so it's very difficult to get away from the fact that anything that has some substance to it can bring out some number of human beings to a vitriolic stance.

16:11Now, you know, there's various ways that we try to work towards having a more civil discourse and even better compassionate, kind, thoughtful, you know, like for example, what we've done with LinkedIn is to try to tie it to your professional identity. You own what you're saying versus the says pool of x.com. But, you know, like AI can be helpful here because you say, oh, you're going to censor, you're going to have censorship. And you're like, well, you know, could do that. I'm not saying you should do that. But like, for example, say, you know, is you had, you know, kind of an AI agent that said, hey, you know, we can post that if you want, you know, and just tell me, go ahead and post it.

16:53But have you thought about how you sound to other people? Have you thought about, you know, what your friends would think if they saw you saying this? Have you thought about, you know, what making threats are, you know, getting moments of reflection. You know, again, you can say an AI agent says, would you like me to frame this in a way that would be more constructive? You like your same point? And I'll give you an alternative to how to say this, you know, here's, you say, well, look, I'm really deeply worried about the fact that you don't care about people in rural society on this, you know, or you don't care about, you know, what's happening with my minority community, my community of color.

17:33And I had the following questions that are, I think, really important to answer, right? You go, well, that sounds like it's a lot better than that person is evil. I am going to run my car over them. The vast majority of the cases, especially when you're online and having that kind of emotional response, the vast majority is no, no, actually, in fact, the evil person is you, right? And a little bit of compassion and kindness and reflection and civility is actually, in fact, the right way to engage in this. And the more we are that way, this is part of how we make progress in society is, you know, the reason why we discover truth by groups of us talking to each other, whether it's a panel of people agreeing to publish a paper, whether it's a jury agreeing whether or not someone has done something wrong or not.

18:29that's how we navigate this.

18:36Part two, the right networks will amplify your voice without losing it.

18:46Over the next two years, the AI tools were getting better and Swopes was using them more and more in her work while showing her audience how they can do the same. She got to make what she wanted, when she wanted on her own terms. And that's the way she liked it. But an opportunity came along that would open up her work to a massive new audience. And she'd have to make a choice. Last year, I got hit up by someone who was working with Adobe. And they were like, there's a perfect job we think you'd be good for. Are you interested? And honestly, at first, I was like, no. I was like, no, I'm not. I don't want a real job.

19:27I'm terrified of having a real job. I don't want to have a boss. I don't want anyone to tell me what to do. And they're like, oh, well, it's an evangelist. I was like, hmm, all right, well, maybe. And I did the whole pros and cons thing. Pro, stability. I never had insurance. You know, I mean, there's a lot of loans that I had to take out. Con, she wouldn't be her own boss. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that I learned being my own boss that was necessary for me to learn. Take initiative and organization and just thoughtfulness and preparedness. Like that kind of stuff you cannot not do when you're on boss.

20:01Swoops has never been a fan of being told what to learn or what to create. Remember, this is the same person who would wait for her dad to fall asleep so she can make stuff on her iMac. In fact, let's go back again. This time to middle school.

20:20When I got to public school, eventually, I was in accelerated classes. I was very headstrong, very confident, and just not afraid of a challenge. I never waited for anyone to tell me what I wanted to learn. I figured it out, take initiative, do what I want to do because I want to do it. That also got me in trouble because I didn't like to listen to teachers. My dad also told me I didn't have to stand for the pledge if I didn't want to, so I didn't. And if a teacher had a problem with that, you know, call my dad. So, yeah, it's bittersweet in many ways.

21:02So grade school and swopes weren't exactly compatible. Maybe things would be different in college. My first semester, I failed like every single one of my classes. Or not. So college dropout Elise Swopes continued to create on her own terms. She became a photographer, graphic designer, and musician. Fun fact, for a while, Elise was in a hip-hop group with Kanye's DJ.

21:39But then she discovered a platform where she could create the art she wanted. But with the power of networks, her voice would be amplified. My nickname in Chicago was Instagoddess, because I was the only person who was doing Instagram. I mean, I remember taking photos of my phone with friends, and they were like, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Posting edits of the cityscape of Chicago and putting elephants and giraffes and waterfalls and stuff like that in them. And so me and my fiance, we've been together since we both signed up for Instagram. By the way, you should totally look up Elise's fiance.

22:18He's at Trash Hand on Instagram. And he's really good, too. Anyway. We would have this thing where we'd be like, OK, if we get a certain amount of likes or a certain amount of comments, we would get on the popular page. It was like one kind of static page that everyone on Instagram would see. and we'd be like, oh my God, we made it. Ah, you know, big deal because you can get thousands of followers for being on the popular page. I woke up one morning and I was getting like thousands of followers, not even being on the popular page. I'm like, okay, something's weird. Something's going on. I'm kind of scared.

22:50I don't know what's happening. My fiance was like, I think you're a suggested user. I was like, what is that?

23:00When you sign up for Instagram, there's like a page that pops up for people to kind of tell you who to follow. So I was one of those very few people. I was like, oh, wow, I should probably take this serious. And she did. As the Swopes brand grew, so did her impact and opportunity. Other brands started to notice. Being one of the first influencers with Nike, working for the first time with George Clooney on his tequila brand, Casamigos, traveling to Japan, Dubai, Paris, You know, going all over the world, just like taking photos of my phone for brands and people and individuals. It was a very surreal time because no one was really doing that.

23:44It's strange to think back to a time when people being paid to post content on the Internet was a novel idea. But Swopes was helping to pave the way for an entire new influencer industry with nothing but her iPhone and the power of networks. With this newfound appreciation for networks, she wondered if she had missed out on the network of higher education. Maybe it was time to give college another college try. I was like, oh, maybe I should go back to get my diploma because now I'm really successful and it'd be nice to have that. So she went back to school, but then quickly remembered. I hated being in the classroom.

24:25You know, there was this one time I remember very vividly, one of my teachers said something to me about how like no one uses email for business. And I'm like, what are you even talking about? I told him I can't be in class because I have this huge project in Japan. He's like, well, I'm very disappointed you're not going to be in class. And I'm like, you don't get it. Like none of you get it. No one gets it. So I just I at that point, I really had to like just decide what meant something to me versus what meant anything to anybody else. You know, so I again, I failed. So, yeah, failed a couple of times.

25:02Elise had to be free to follow her passion and opportunity. And this dusty college professor did not get it. Institutional education may not be right for her, but leave it to Swopes to still figure out a way to get that college degree on her own terms. During the pandemic, I was like, I think I can do some online classes. I reached out to the dean and I was like, hey, I heard about this college credit gift thing. And so I basically wrote this huge dissertation about my life and what I've accomplished. I was gifted a college diploma. Elise saw that networks could play a huge role in amplifying her voice.

25:47and that it was possible to exist in these systems while staying true to herself. Meanwhile, in the present, Elise was contemplating the offer from Adobe and she knew it would have to check both boxes, amplify her voice while creating on her own terms. She was skeptical, but the folks at Adobe were selling hard. It's not very like kind of sales and marketing and stuff. We're just ourselves for a living. So it was time for some soul searching. What is being true to yourself? And what's just ego getting in the way? You know, I put down pros of why I should work there, cons of what, you know, but the cons were just like very ego-driven stuff.