Tag: writing

Artificial Intelligence = Artificial Ingredients

What’s wrong with artificial intelligence?

Well, to put it simply, AI has no taste.

Watching technology rapidly evolve and advance, it’s an effort to be cheered overall, with incredibly positive implications in countless fields. Some tasks never required human input and ideally, this substitution will free more people to use their talents where they’re needed. What critics get wrong is exactly which tasks are which.

AI-generated photo meant to represent food blogging

Creatives have been under acute pressure from the moment everyone and their best friend began generating stylized self-portraits to flaunt all over social media. Copyright issues aside, the hype was overblown from the minute it began; immediately, egregious, laughable flaws surfaced, namely in the form of missing or extra fingers, phantom limbs, and wildly exaggerated features. Even when the day comes when the fakes aren’t as easy to spot, let’s not forget the one key ingredient in this whole controversy:

AI cannot create.

From art to music, the results that AI can churn out on demand seem new and novel, but it’s really just yesterday’s leftovers mashed together with some pantry staples and spices, reheated, and served lukewarm. Anything that AI makes is only as good as what humans can make, and humans will always come first. AI doesn’t know how its creations taste nor can it give you an opinion about them. AI doesn’t know if the meal it served is edible or poisonous. Yet human taste testers seem to receive each plate as if it was thoroughly vetted and approved for consumption.

AI-generated photo meant to represent food blogging

Yes, these artificial concoctions will change the conversation around creative content, as does any societal progress at large. And yes, it may very well make life harder for creatives trying to make a living as they once did. We may need to reach a reckoning about what art is truly worth, and who’s willing to pay it; true art may be reserved only for the ultra wealthy, and artists may dwindle in numbers. However, it will never negate the need for actual artists. If you’re worried about these people or the beauty, life, insight, and overall joy they bring to everyday life, remember that what happens to them depends on other humans, not machines.

How will you address AI from now on?

Hannah (BitterSweet)3 Comments

An Everyday Kinda Birthday

Happy Belated Birthday To Me!

What does it say that I’m late to my own party?

The law of diminishing returns would suggest that I’ve passed peak celebratory years, jaded to the passage of time. While there’s a good dose of truth in that statement, it’s far from the full picture. Let’s turn the concept on its head for a moment.

Cupcakes with "Happy" Candles

What if, instead of reserving the festivities for a single calendar date, we lived every day a little bit more like a celebration?

  • Instead of saving the best bite for last, we dug right in and savored it along with the rest?
  • Instead of keeping prized collectables pristine in their packages, we tore them open and played without restraint?
  • Instead of saving cake for special occasions, made the act of eating cake a special occasion in and of itself?

Becoming an adult requires you to do one of two things: Give in, or give it your all.

So here I am, another year older. It doesn’t feel significant because, quite frankly, it’s not. It’s one birthday of many, not the greatest but absolutely not the worst, with many more to follow. It’s special precisely for the reason that it’s not.

I’ll be out here living everyday a little bit more like it’s my birthday from this point forward. Who’s with me?

Hannah (BitterSweet)16 Comments

Memories

Memories are like tattoos. They’re a permanent stain on our person, staying with us for life. Some visible to others, some not, they may change our perception of the world, or how the word perceives us. Indelible as they may be, no matter how many layers of skin the ink penetrates, no matter how deeply our thoughts alter our present, they do change.

Slowly, imperceptibly over the years, lines begin to blur. Colors become muddy. Once vibrant, sharp, crystalline pictures fade into confusion and darkness. Can you trust your own mind? Can you understand the symbols painted on your body? Does it all still make sense?

Memories can be painful, seared into our consciousness through traumatic events. Once they’re there, it’s almost impossible to remove their lingering outlines entirely, forever tracing around wrists and ankles like ghostly shackles. Cover-ups are like bandages with weak adhesive at best. No matter how many solid color blocks you add or intricate geometric designs, they’re still there, lurking beneath it all.

Sometimes our memories are tattoos, literally, and vice versa. If you could go back, would you change them? Would you paint a new picture? Would it even make a difference? The body underneath is always the same. It only matters what you do with it.

Portraits of and artwork by Squiggle Tats.

Hannah (BitterSweet)3 Comments

Thunder Lullaby

Thunder rolls ponderously, ominously overhead. Unseen but felt, like a heavy weight it rumbles and shakes, groans and snaps, sounding off on pain that mere mortals fail to comprehend. Speaking a language we can’t translate, it is unreachable, inconsolable. On and on it wails into the dark of night, interrupting the continuous staccato of rain bouncing of asphalt shingles and aluminum siding. For what, for whom does the thunder grieve so achingly? There is no soothing this profound pain. The thunder suffers alone, but with all the world in attendance, until it cries itself to sleep.

Hannah (BitterSweet)5 Comments

Be the Light

When the sun doesn’t shine, be your own light.

Until you can’t.

If that time comes, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. It doesn’t mean you’re broken.

It just means you’re human.

When the light goes out, there’s still a flicker of hope burning. Maybe it’s so small, smaller than a castoff spark, threatening to fade away. So small that you can’t feel its warmth. Not even a pinprick brightens your view.

But it’s there.

When you can’t be your own light, someone else can. Someone else can hold that flame and keep it safe, even when it seems to slip right through your fingers. Someone else cares, even if it feels like they don’t.

You are not alone.

There is still light, even if it’s not visible.

Try to believe, in the face of tremendous doubt, or fear, or despair, that it will come roaring back to life. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but it’s there, and it will.

I promise.

If you’re thinking about suicide, are worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, the Lifeline Network is available 24/7 across the United States. Please call 1-800-273-8255 immediately.

Hannah (BitterSweet)3 Comments

Cupcake Wrecks

There should really be an emergency brake for life. Even a “check engine” light would be nice, for a bit of advanced warning when trouble is imminent. At bare minimum, airbags should come standard, right?

The signs become obvious only in hindsight, when we pick through the rubble to find where it all went wrong. Rather than one origin, one point of failure, an endless array of tiny fissures mar the surface of an otherwise solid foundation. Not cause for alarm by themselves, nothing that could ever bring down a building alone, but together, in concert, they set the stage for a crippling domino effect.

Overworked, under-slept, massively stressed, straining under oppressive deadlines, I still found myself incapable of simply saying “no.” Sound familiar? Each new opportunity sounded better than the last, and how could I possibly turn down good work? Passionate about what I do, I was living the dream, inundated by more jobs than I could handle! Everything was fantastic! Everyday was packed to the max, from the moment my sweet pup jumped on my head at 5am until I collapsed back into bed at midnight. The to-do list was endless, but I loved all of the work. If not for those harsh time constraints, it would have been perfect.

Perfection is a fallacy at best, a dangerous delusion at worst.

Suddenly, but of course, unsurprisingly, the careful cloth I was weaving began to unravel as the stitches became more hurried, sloppy, and periodically missed the mark.

Preparing for the San Francisco World VegFest a mere week after being added to the roster of speakers, I hurried to bake a hundred mini Self-Frosting Peanut Butter Cupcakes to accompany my demo, sharing some basic baking tips out of Sweet Vegan Treats. Sweet and simply, this was easy stuff; a recipe I’d been making with great success for over a decade, to great acclaim. For whatever reason though, everything was going wrong. Perhaps I had been distracted by the photo shoots scheduled for later in the day, or client emails that begged for attention. Pulling the first pan out of the oven, I was shocked to discover that I had forgotten the frosting swirl- The single most important part of the whole assembly! What’s more, my beautiful little cupcakes had transformed into bizarre biscuits, shaped like mittens, of all things. What on earth? I could only ask myself in dismay and disappointment. Where is your head, girl?!

They were ruined, beyond repair. Hastily, I slapped on shoes, taking off at a dead sprint out to Berkeley Bowl, hunting fresh ingredients to begin anew. This could still be salvaged. There was still just enough time…

Violently shaken down to my knees, the pavement suddenly rose to meet me with unforgiving impact. I instinctively gripped my battered knees, but it did nothing to the lessen the tremors. The very bottom has dropped out beneath my feet, as the ground shook angrily below. It was another earthquake, but not just another; it was the big one that everyone had warned about. The catastrophic event that California had been overdue to experience, that we should have expected from the start.

I looked up towards the hills, assessing the damage, when something even more devastating caught my eye. The volcano sitting high on the horizon, long dormant, now spewed glowing cascades of molten lava, thick and syrupy, down across the land. Smothering homes with abandon, the fires began to spread from bone-dry brush along the way, and smoke as thick as grey cotton filled the air. It was coming my way.

Scrambling on top of the nearest car to delay the inevitable, I watched as magma washed away carefully planted succulents lining the streets just ahead, swallowing each helpless plant whole as if they were the salad course before the main meal. I distinctly recall my final thoughts, as the tires began to melt from the sheer intensity of the heat: Well, at least I don’t have to do the cupcake demo tomorrow…

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Hannah (BitterSweet)5 Comments