Putting the AI in AIr-dry Clay

0: Backstory

Since my prolonged gap year, I've been scouring Jakarta for many cheap or free workshops, activities, and community events. Let me tell you firsthand how commodified community spaces are in Jakarta, moreso if you're not part of a pre-existing community, office, or university.

This is where atamerica enters the narrative. I've been aware of its existence since 2014, but only in light of my unemployment have I made the most out of the US-funded program. Because it is backed by a government to spread propaganda and "soft power" within Indonesia, all of their programs are free; you just have to get the tickets early enough before they sell out.

Outside brands and communities often host events or workshops in collaboration with atamerica. They are, to my knowledge, contractually obligated to sneak in some aspect of Americana into the end product. I've made a tufted coaster of lady liberty, decorated Thanksgiving-themed cupcakes, and have sampled Californian-made cheese.

1: Bartega

Founded by three friends who all went to USC, Bartega (a portmanteau of Bar + Bottega) started off as a wine-and-paint workshop vendor, focusing on the art experience and leaning heavily on "mindfulness" and "connection" with other people. Their early marketing publications emphasized how their workshops ought to feel more "like a party."

They are also the collaborators for this air dry clay workshop I'm attending. The "American" part? Well, we ought to make a mini figure from an American movie, or at least something that represents it. However, that's not what this essay is about.

2: Benson

As one of the co-founders of Bartega, Benson gets on stage to deliver the standard fluff that collaborators do at atamerica. Usually it goes like this: they give a mission statement, tack on a noble cause, cue the inspirational bootstrapping, and give a brief overview on the activity we're about to do today.

Here's how it actually went.

Benson starts off his presentation asking the audience to raise their hand if they use "AI tools" every day. He looks at the 30-something people in the crowd. "A lot." He remarks, "90 percent of people at least." He guesstimates. I did not raise my hand.

He goes on to boast how he uses AI tools daily both in his personal and professional life; his circle of friends would often bring up AI in gatherings to talk about all the "productivity" they've been doing with the help of the machine. One friend, he says, felt left out; this friend did not see the benefit of using AI tools.

Before he continues this anecdote, he interrupts with the next slide quoting McKinsey and Company touting a 30% increase in efficiency "in research and data synthesis." He calls McKinsey "one of the best consulting companies in the world." Benson could not fathom "the gap" between "extreme people not feeling the benefit" and "big companies investing millions of dollars in AI, into something that has been proven to be efficient."

Back to the anectode—he explains that his friend is a coffee shop owner and tried to generate a poster for his business. The screen shows a blank square next to an image prompt. Benson asks; "what is wrong with this prompt?" After a bit of audience participation he happily reinforces what ought to be wrong with it. "Not detailed enough. Lacks context."

Revealing the generic coffee shop poster, he points out flaws and assumptions that the image generator has made. The barista is white (instead of Indonesian), the coffee is in an unbranded mug (instead of a plastic cup), the interior is unlike the real coffee shop, etc. Using this example, he argues that "it is not the AI's fault, but rather (his friend's) communication skill."

If that wasn't enough, Benson continues, citing linkedin learning and the world economic forum as supporting arguments that communication is "one of the most demanded skills in the AI era and the modern era."

Communication becomes the hot buzzword for the next 90 minutes. He briefly touches on constructivism (a pedagogical theory) as a concept and markets air dry clay as a vehicle for learning how to slow down, how to think, and how to problem-solve. He emphasizes how this workshop is less about the fundamentals of air dry clay and more about how to become a better communicator and storyteller, "not only to machines, but towards our friends as well."

3: Bullshit

I have tried my best to deliver Benson's section free of snark and outright contempt. The whole livestream is accessible publicly on atamerica's youtube channel, double-check if you want. This next section is me cooking up some bullshit (i.e. this is all opinion).

Since Benson is engaging in what we call rhetoric, I will engage with him through the lens of discourse analysis, dissecting the ideology, assumptions, and logic behind Benson's speech. For those unfamiliar with the genre of discourse analysis, this is less of a scathing takedown and more of an exercise in identifying sentences that are "telling." In other words, saying the quiet part out loud.

AI

When faced with an outlier in his friend group that does not see AI's benefits, he uses 3 supporting arguments against this friend.

  1. McKinsey says AI increases productivity, therefore it must be true
  2. Big companies invest millions of dollars into a product, therefore it must be good, and
  3. His friend's prompt was not descriptive enough, therefore (all) shortcomings are human-made.

When laid bare the arguments he has against AI adopters, it is clear many fallacies go over his head.

  1. Benson touts McKinsey as a the arbiter of truth. Numerous controversies and scandals aside, he takes it as a given that because McKinsey is "the best consulting company in the world," they are correct; inversely, they are "the best consulting company in the world," because they keep being correct. This fallacy is subtle, but once you see it in speeches from people like Benson, you start to notice other leaps of logic that they make.
  2. Some of you in the audience may have heard that Mark Zuckerberg's $80 billion dollar metaverse shut down this year. Facebook poured so much money into "the metaverse" only for it to fizzle into obscurity. This is a longer way of saying that you should not trust tech conglomerates and venture capital money to dictate what does and does not work. Benson is using investment as a shorthand for legitimacy. In lieu of showing the audience the wonders of AI tools, we are told to trust the judgement of investment firms. This is not only poor writing (telling instead of showing), it reveals the brittle foundation on top of which benson lays his arguments; he believes the audience will have enough faith in financial institutions to make the right judgement calls.
  3. This line is what led me to nickname this workshop "a thinly veiled AI prompting workshop." It is clear his mind is made up; the technology is good, the numbers don't lie, the majority of adopters must be correct, therefore it is the human who lacks the skills necessary to optimize and take advantage of the tech. An AI skeptic, centrist, or even a better mediator would have framed it as "the AI cannot read minds, therefore humans must compensate by being extra verbose and detailed." However, Benson explicitly says "the AI is not at fault;" by saying this he absolves the shortcomings and limitations of the machine by throwing his friend under the bus.

Communication

One of the reasons why I've been joining events and workshops lately is to meet new people, discover new perspectives, experience the breadth of human connection through gestures big and small. I work towards better socializing skills because I want to connect with the people I cherish, to form meaningful bonds and make memories together.

The approach that Benson takes, however, is a complete departure from any appeal to humanity.

AI becomes the thematic throughline of his brief presentation. The hook for his argument rests on his friend that needs to git gud at prompting. In his story, he does not try to empathize further with his friend or their struggles, he rests their case on user error. It is not about retaining his friendship with someone who feels left out or mediating their struggles with the rest of the friend group, but rather it's blaming them in front of a crowd and peer pressuring them into adopting a tool that doesn't work for them.

He champions communication, not as something human or primal, but as a metric that employers look for. It is something that is "needed in the AI and modern era," to push AI to its limits, not something you do because you are human and need human connection.

When he wraps up, he says the workshop is aimed to make us better storytellers "not only to machines, but towards our friends as well."

Usually, it goes without saying, that because of the linear nature of human speech, we must prioritize certain nouns over others. We do this, sometimes subtly and other times more overtly, by placing it in front or mentioning it first. Benson puts humans connection and friendship second to none other than AI prompting.

The messaging becomes clear; communication is good when you boss the clanker around. Communication is good because it is a marketable skill. Communication is good because linkedin and the world economic forum says so. Communication becomes a means to an end; what end, you ask? Well, capital.

4: Business

"... Creativity will always exist in some sort of tension with commerce... because we need to eat." - Dan Olson

As I spend upwards of a thousand words dissecting a man's 10-minute opening presentation at a free workshop, I can't help but think of the target audience for this kind of talk. For the third section I tried my best to constrain myself to only analyzing the text (and speech), but the paratext and epitext, I think, ties together this whole essay.

Bartega was founded by three business majors who saw a market in Jakarta. Their vision was to have people come to workshops to paint, drink wine, and socialize. Lately, they've diversified into offering technique classes and making tea-drinking workshops instead of wine. Their prices are indicative of their target market. Workshops for one could cost upwards of 350k IDR (the tea-drinking sessions cost upwards of 500k). Their clientele are big prestigious brands that they proudly list on their website.

Looking at the big picture, Bartega does not sell art; rather, it sells the concept of creating art.They sell paint-by-the-number kits for you to make art, but their in-house artists are teachers and instructors. This is why Benson does not scrutinize AI. Bartega does not sell artwork. They don't sell The Starry Night, the painting; they sell Painting The Starry Night as a wellness activity that supports your career.

As seasoned business people, Benson and co. would know how to sell this idea to the art-skeptic (or perhaps, someone who refuses to hire a graphic designer to make a promotional poster for their coffee shop). The type of upper middle class white collar worker who needs to be persuaded to care about empathy, communication, and critical thinking. A person who puts their faith in systems, in big names and established corporations; a person who does not question the majority, who enjoys the status quo, even.

You tell them that soft skills are good for their career, quote Forbes, sprinkle a little bit of inspirational bootstrapping. Wrap the pill of the arts in a slice of cheese-flavored hopes of upwards social mobility.

It is a cynical, yet depressingly realistic, way of marketing art.

References and Further Reading

theJakartaPost's 2018 Coverage of Bartega

PrestigeOnline's 2019 Coverage of Bartega

Livestream of the Workshop

Bartega's Wikipedia Page

Dan Olson's Video Essay on Decentraland

NYT's Coverage of Metaverse Shutting Down

I could not find the exact study that Benson quotes from McKinsey besides this survey about AI use and adoption. There is also an article that mentions "data synthesis" here but there is no mention of 30% of anything! How would McKinsey even measure "30% efficiency in data synthesis?" Only one of those articles has a methodology! Benson! Give me your sources! Cite them properly next time! Benson PLEASE WHO MADE THE POWERPOINT WAS IS THE OTHER TWO PEOPLE?

Unrelated but the Dan Olson quote came from his mr. beast video

Epilogue: But Wait!

Oh, you're asking how the clay sculpting went? It went fine! Due to time constraints and participant size I was mostly left to my own devices making a little Rocky from Project Hail Mary. Since it was less focused on technique and more on "storytelling" I just did whatever I wanted with the clay. I don't really consider myself as someone who struggles with crafting narratives or telling stories—that's literally my wheelhouse—so I got the equivalent of what I put into the workshop.

Throughout the crafting session we were given prompts that were indicative of the creative process. They were rudimentary; the final step was "paint your figure using colors that communicate the emotion or feeling you want others to experience when they look at it." It's not a bad step for absolute beginners, but as someone seasoned in color theory and crafting I'd say I don't need to be told to do this at the 50-minute mark; I thought about it in the first 10 minutes.

I wouldn't have walked out, nor would I call this workshop a failure. Rather, I learned that there is something of a techbro-painter, not exactly a capital A Artist...? See, I have a mental division between "artist with a day job" and "worker who paints." Bartega seems to be for the latter; people unaligned with Art as an ideology or political force, engaging with the Activity as nothing more than rote mechanics of putting a brush to a canvas.

That is not to say Bartega is wrong—people have to start somewhere—but it is at odds with how I do Art. This whole experience is yet another case of me not meshing well with the preexisting culture of a given community or group of people (re: the improv class). And hey, I didn't cry this time around. I was just baffled for the entirety of the workshop.

Would I pay for any future services Bartega offers? No. Would I go back to their free workshops? Sure. Do I see a future where I find like-minded people at one of their workshops? I doubt it.