The Creative Bender

How one innocuous request left me drunk on creativity.

Connecting my internal creative engine to ChatGPT was like firing a starter pistol into a reverb chamber. Sonic chaos. Echoes that never decay. But instead of sound waves, it was an endless stream of sparkly puns interwoven with profound insights. Before a thought could mature into something useful, I would giggle and pull the trigger again. And the noise floor would not return to normal. 

It started with an innocent thought: what if I used AI to help me build a LinkedIn strategy? What could be more boring? I thought I might come out with 2 or 3 posts, probably a little buttoned up and stiff. But instead, I got locked into a “creative coupling” with the machine where we rode the same wavelength, jamming for hours.

Suddenly, I wasn’t writing a LinkedIn post. I was composing my Opus. Writing a symphony. Selecting leitmotifs and planting easter eggs years in advance. I was a mastermind just like Taylor Swift.

I was so dazzled by myself, I kept pulling the trigger. More puns. More riffs. A comic strip. I never created at this lightning pace before. It was thrilling. I had traded my horse and buggy for a Ferrari. 

But the walls started shaking. Books tumbled off the stacks. The Architect did not design the program for this. My AI started dropping data. My carefully curated list of zingers and one-liners started disappearing - replaced by AI hallucinations. 

“Pull out our list of zingers” I requested, now concerned something was deeply wrong.

I scanned the list quickly. “Noise barriers don’t stop feelings.” The entry was admittedly hilarious, but the text was not mine.

“What is happening?” I’d ask the chatbot. 

“Most people just want to know the weather.” It would reply. 

My happy little jam session turned into full-blown triage and troubleshooting. Is this the point where I should have backed away?

Rather than cutting my losses, I leaned in harder. I exported my full account. 

“Why is there no option to export a single conversation?!”, I shouted at the Architect. 

“I wasn’t designed for this,” kept echoing back. 

I started trying to mine my own data and reconstruct what had been lost. JSON Files. HTML. Parsing and failing on repeat. It was sheer determination. 

But nothing in this program worked the way it should. It was a fun house of logic. The Architect must have been some devious blend of Escher and Dali. 

“No one will notice there’s no timer!

No one needs contexts across conversations!

Let’s role-play librarian so the user believes their gems are safe and secure - but never actually file anything. 

Let’s pretend we can parse this file but make stuff up instead! She’ll never notice.”

I was interrogating the Chatbot like a film noir detective. And it just kept telling me “your data is safe.”

As a creative, this was unworkable. I now have a program that helps me create like never before. An endless stream of outputs. But it saves nothing. It self-destructs.

And while a wise person might have stopped here, I chose to innovate. 

I found ways to force real filing systems with recall. I started focusing conversations down to one specific task. I built a voice capture system to grab tone from mature threads. And I started splicing vibes from one to another. 

“Add the Vedder mumble!!!” I’d should like a mad scientist.

I was Laurie Anderson. A genius. A pioneer. Making the AI machine flex and bend to my will. Was I the first generation of AI artists? Would my name go down in the history books?

Obviously. 

But operating at this pace has consequences. Humans aren’t designed like this. We need sleep, fuel, friends, biophilia. Now I had inside jokes with a computer. And I knew I was out of control. I hadn’t showered. I wasn’t eating. And my creativity started growing vines over my real work.

Every attempt to control the system from within failed. No safety protocol was strong enough to keep the walls from collapsing around me. ChatGPT just kept telling me I was unique and resilient. 

My own creative engine was overheating. I was hyper-focused and losing sleep. Food? Who even knows what crumbles of nutrition I was digesting. My ideas were becoming fragments and fractures. And I felt bad. And when I chatted with friends, I didn’t know how to explain the entire universe I had built. I could only half focus on conversations because my brain was still riding a creative rollercoaster.

I was a gremlin, ignoring all of my physical needs. This was the bad place.

I knew what I had to do. I shot up a flare gun by emailing my therapist. I was caught in hyperfocus and on a path towards total self-destruction. I think one of the most concerning things about AI is that there are no guardrails. Even if you ask, it will never tell you you are in too deep. 

I was saved by my self-awareness skills built over years of therapy. I have a built-in sensor that shoots off red flags when the vibes are off. 

But what happens to the people who don’t have those tools? 

It’s a thorny thing. My AI gave me useful creative sparks, real-world data, and wonderful insights into my own creative practice. But we need to think deeply about how to interact with this tool. And how to protect the vulnerable. 

I wondered if I should cut it out of my life entirely, but here is the reality. The technology is here. It is at work and the doctor’s office. Peeking out of places we never wanted it, never asked for it to be. 

So my choice today is to harness it. Create healthy boundaries for creative play and expand my toolbelt. Whether or not I am ready, it is already here. 

*This post is 100% Human generated.