Lydia Cole

We don't have to use AI just because it's there.

As a creative person working with others on a project, I'm not using AI to do anything that another human could do. I work with incredible people who have spent decades developing their skills and artistic intuition. They enjoy the process of creating, just like I do, and we all work hard to earn a living from it. If I replaced my collaborators with AI, I would lose so much: the philosophical chats, the laughs, the mutual trust, shared stories and wisdom, considering a different perspective, the frustration, the challenge, the breakthroughs. The humanity. The meaning.

📸

It doesn't work for my brain to share this part of the process in any detail BUT we had a very good day recently ✨

Thanks to NZ On Air Music

It's now been five long years since I played and sang in front of people. This thing I started doing aged fifteen and then did as much as possible ever since, I had to stop when I eventually burned out at 32. This thing that took this introvert around the world and had me talking to strangers. This thing that got me out of bed and out of myself.

It was an obvious thing to do and I enjoyed it. But from this distance I don't honestly know how I ever did it, it just seems so bold to me now. And I don't know if my symptoms will allow me to ever do it again, this thing that is now one of the only ways an artist can make any kind of living.

I don't know much. But today I'm just paying my respect to this dormant part of me that somehow existed.

Photo by Naomi Haussmann 2019