For this exercise I rang up a friend of mine to help go over this project idea, using these six hats of thought. I will make a short summary of this discussion hat by hat.
With the white hat we covered: what information did we have, what did we need, what is still missing, the questions still to be asked, and how we got/will get this information.
From our discussion, I found that while I have awareness of these generative AI's existence, I do not know enough about how they work outside of the fact that they "borrow" from images/writings/etc found online. Most of my knowledge is about the AIs that generate images and pictures. We both determined that it would do my research project good to look more into the other types of generative AI, such as ChatGPT.
With the red hat we covered: what I feel about this subject, what intuition of hunches do I have, and what is the range of my feelings about it.
We both agreed after chatting about it a bit that, while I don't feel negative about these types of AIs, I don't really have a positive outlook on them either. I believe that they could be very useful, and can be a fun way to experiment with and create new images - particularly for folks who lack an art or creative talent, or just need some inspiration. However, I also hear the problems people have with these things stealing their artwork, and potentially their jobs as well; something that will also affect me as a creator. So I personally remain somewhat on the fence about them.
With the black hat we covered: What doesn't fit, what were the problems or faults, what were the potential problems, and what were the downsides to this project.
This one was a bit more mixed, as we both felt a lack of knowledge painted a somewhat unclear image of what appearance or build this project would take. This could potentially result in a lack of clarity in explaining myself, and could make my site appear like a shallow peak into how this AI works. While surface-level covering is not necessarily a bad thing, it would be easier to build a more creative and informative site with more information.
With the yellow hat we covered: Why might this work, what value would this project have, what we could do to make it work, and what might make it more attractive to users.
This was a little more uplifting after covering the black hat, as my friend thought the idea of separating the paper into separate, readable sections would make it easier for a reader to digest. She also thought trying to see the issue 'from the top of the fence', so to speak, would help give a more unbiased look at generative AI and its potential affects on artists, which would be more likely to help people on both sides of the argument.
With the green hat we covered: what were other ways to look at this project, what alteratives were not considered, what ideas I have about it, and how we could fix the black hat problems.
More research was the obvious answer, and she suggested I narrow my google searches a bit to find some more specific generative AIs and see how they work in order to deepen my understanding. We ended up agreeing that , though separating things into readable pages/chunks was a good idea, I needed to make sure when I make the site that not only can they be reached from page to page, but that the main should also potentially link to all of them as well.
With the blue hat we covered: what is the subject, what precisely are we thinking about, what the goal was, how to keep things on track and what conclusions have been reached for each hat.
Since my goal is to try and have as unbiased a look at generative AI, my friend and I agreed it would be good to see what both sides say and note them down, before forming my own opinion about the subject. Conclusively we know I need to research more and come up with a more definitive plan going forward.
This dicussion with my friend helped me see that, while my idea itself is sound and has merit, I need to take more definitive steps in order to actually achieve the best possible results. Thinking on that, I am going to try drawing out what I have in mind, and start making steps on how I believe I will get there. I will write up a list of what I think I need, and will add to it as I learn more and discover more going forward.