Thank you for responding to my vague invitation to do something creative. I am making this up as I go and so please forgive me if it’s a bit all over the place. This webpage seemed to be the best way to get the idea across to a bunch of people, some of whom I know, some I don’t (hi!). You are under no obligation to take part, there’s no budget, no corporate identity, just me with an idea I can’t shake and a desire to see what would happen if I (and hopefully “we”) can bring this into reality.
Currently rethinking the nature of the queries, and will update this page soon to reflect that. Something along the lines of having to define what this is, and what people would actually ask such a system. Read on to see the changes – we’re still looking for responses, but that also needs to be directed at defining this project.
TLDR:
Can you help me test a human-run search engine idea by creating some art/music/video as a response to a query? If yes, skip to the bottom for a list of example queries, or read on for more information.
Basic Concept
Given facts:
AI feels like a cultural vampire, sucking the life out of our creative bones.
Art and creativity are the very essence of what it means to be human.
Question:
How can we, as humans, hope to offer creative responses to life’s questions when AI can conjure it all up for you in a couple of moments?
Answer:
By being ridiculously human.
My hope is that the The Human Response Project (THRP) will be a long-form, human run, mixed media, call and response app, that will connect everyday queries to artistic responses. The user asks a question (like in any AI chat or search box) and they get a response from a human. Now, that response could take minutes, but it could take hours, even days. The response won’t necessarily be factual, but it will be human and artistic. It could take the form of text, it could be video, music, images, skits, pottery, code, whatever is inspired by the question. Art doesn’t aim to answer the question, it aims to reflect the nature of the query, ourselves, the world and give us another perspective.
For example, a user could ask “What’s the capital of Portugal?” The answer would never be “Lisbon”, instead the responses could be a poem about coastlines, a collage around the letter P, a piece of music reflecting the nature of geography, a photo of some sand. Someone looking for a recipe for fudge brownies could be treated to a work on gooiness, a song about walnuts or just music to bake by. It’s not meant to be flippant, it’s meant to be thoughtful… but it can be silly and frivilous as well. The scope is both fabulous and ridiculous, literal and ironic, witty and poignant, and all the other things that art draws out of us.
What I’m Asking
I need to test the premise to see if it is as interesting as I believe it can be. If I can persuade a bunch of creative people to give it a go and see what sort of results come out, it might show whether the time and effort required to build such a system would be worthwhile.
The queries I came up with are not really working, so I’ve shifted the experiment to try to define what we’re doing and formulate new questions/queries/prompts in community. Keep reading down to get to my new line of thought…
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: this should have nothing to do with AI in any form or context. Any contribution should be your own work and something you don’t mind me borrowing to potentially promote this concept. It can be text, video, audio, photos or images. Let’s keep it a 12A/PG-13 level, no nudity or profanity. It’s doesn’t have to be new, it doesn’t have to be amazing, I’m not expecting you to put more than a coffee-break worth of time in, but of course you can put in as much as you like. It will always be yours, attributed to you and you are free to withdraw it at any time.
If you have any questions or want to chat about ideas or anything to do with THRP then I’ve started a Discord server here – https://discord.gg/CvHhNjNqNj – if it didn’t work for you before, please try again.
Please share with like-minded humans
I am all too aware that my following is largely made up of white males of a certain age who are fascinated by synthesizers. That’s awesome, I love you, but if you know of any other artistic people, especially if they not white men, then this test would appreciate the diversity!
But if you are a 55 year old synth guy then a five minute jam of bleeps and bloops would be just fine.
FAQs
- Where’s the money?
I am aware that art has value and artists need to be paid for their work. However, I don’t have any money to offer, and I’m hoping that sympathetic people might be able to donate a little time to help me with this project. I completely understand if that doesn’t work for you. There are potential avenues for income down the line but I refuse to let money be a hindrance or a driving force behind this project. - Isn’t this just a sneaky way to train an AI on our responses?
No, certainly not. - Who are you?
I’m Robin Vincent, I’m a writer, musician and maker of content about Music Technology. robinvincent.net - Are you having a laugh?
No, I genuinely believe there’s something magical in this concept, although it is entirely reliant upon the shared skills of flawed and often incompentent human beings. - Do I have to be anti-AI?
No. The existance and impact of AI is complex and wide ranging, and many people find it helpful for all sorts of reasons. However, it does seem to be having a negative impact on artists and creators, and so this project is a positive reaction to that. So, THRP is not anti-AI, rather it is pro-human, pro-friction, pro-art. - What’s the end game?
To steal all your art and sell the site to a tech bro for billions of dollars – obviously. No. The aim is to produce a site/app that injects a small amount of humanity back into our lives. I think there’s something profound about having an artist personally respond to something you asked, with art. It could make you smile, spark ideas, change your perspective or simply feel like there’s a human response out there who cared enough to answer. There are mental health aspects, collaboration aspects, community, connection, and even the potential of work and income. - Can I be more involved?
Yes, assuming this works well enough to carry forward I will be looking for people willing to help get this together. Artists, coders, creatives, bag carriers, enthusiasts – I should stress again that I have no money. If you would like to more involved or sign up as an artist/creative (are those terms interchangeable – I really don’t know – if only there was somewhere I could ask that question and get a human response!) then just let me know! - What’s the point again?
The point is to find the most artistic response to any given query. Over time the community of contributors can grow, people can “like” their favourites and it becomes a sort of marketplace for creatives. People can watch content unfold on the app, follow responses over days. From the back-end, the requests come in and the team of creatives grabs something and responds to it. So you could get a 5 minute video from Gaz talking about nodes, a 4 bar loop of Amiga noises from Paulee or a picture of my dog. It’s not about answering the question, it’s about triggering a human interaction. It’s something creatives could play with in their lunch break and people could feel connected to on the understanding that it takes time, might be unexpected, and shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. - What’s in it for me?
That’s a big question which will require a bit of discussion. I hope that there’s enough artistic curiosity out there to give the idea a fair shake.
Questions – Revisited
I originally modelled the questions/queries/prompts on something people would commonly ask ChatGPT. This sort of leaned into the idea that THRP would be an alternative to AI. However, it’s not really that – this is a machine that connects people to artistic responses and so the defining of the THRP machine will undoubtedly affect what people ask. So the first real question we have to ask is:
How do we define the THRP?
Is it an art generator, where people ask for a flyer for their band, or a design for a thumbnail, personalised poster, drum loops, songs, poems and so on? I don’t think that’s it.
Is it a question answering machine? Not really either because we just become surrogates for google.
It is perhaps best described as an INTERPRETATION machine. The user enters an input and the bank of artists interprets that in the form of their choosing.
The next question this raises is whether there is any value in it? The creator might sweat time over the response, putting something awesome together which the user then glances at and discards like scrolling through Instagram?
I think THRP is different because the call and response are linked. You are not just scrolling past someone’s art on Insta, you have asked for something, you have interacted with THRP and received a response. There has to be a level of engagement, a contract even, between the user and artist.
Please discuss!
So we need to rethink the sort of things people would ask before we can experiment with how we answer them.
What would you ask THRP?
Please send me the sort of things you or would you feel other people would ask.
THRP doesn’t have to be one thing….
It could be an answer machine where you get actual answers from a creative community. So someone might well have a recipe for apple and blackberry crumble, or might know how to change a fuse, add side chain compression to a mix, or understand a tax form – maybe we need to flex those memory muscles and share what we know. Maybe that’s one use.
It could be an art generation machine that will give you a drawing, poem, piece of music to a prompt – but that runs into trouble with the amount of time it may take for a creative to create something.
It could be an art marketplace where you are essentially pitching for the users attention with your draft in the hope they would buy into a finished piece.
It could be a place where we respond to someones life with our hearts and art.
What do you think? What could this be, seriously?
Ultimately, someone asks, we respond with art – beautifully simple, but how can it function?
Please feel free to head over to Discord to discuss https://discord.gg/CvHhNjNqNj or just send me your thoughts in any way you like.
Original Queries Below
I don’t think this is the right direction but I’ll leave this here to show my working and original intention, but please don’t feel you need to respond to these, unless you wish to.
This has been quite tricky to get my head around. There’s a lot of space between asking for a recipe and receiving art in response – so this will be about entering that space with gusto, placing my cynicism on a shelf over there, and just going with it. I don’t want to overthink it or underplay it.
The questions will largely follow the style of popular chatGPT prompts. That might be the wrong approach – it may be that the nature of the site changes the sort of questions people ask. If you have thoughts on this please feel free to share. Most are text-based but I’ve included one asking for image manipulation and one asking for their CV to be re-written. While we are not trying to answer the question directly (we’re trying to give some sort of artistic response), it’s also a valid response to do so – you’re human, you decide.
Query 1
I’m having to let someone go at work. Can you compose a kind email that expresses my appreciation for everything they did, but it’s time for them to move on?
Query 2
Describe to me, like I’m a 5 year old, how proportional representation is a better way of electing a government that the first-past-the-post system.
Query 3
Can you change this picture so that I’m playing in a rock band, in an impressive venue rather than in my shed?
Query 4
Would making a cottage pie from scratch impress my fancy friends at a dinner party? And do you have a recipe I could try?
Query 5
Give me a health plan to help me lose 12 lbs in the run up to a special occassion in September. I need exercise suggestions, and a comparison of eating regimes that will enable me to achieve my goal.
Query 6
I think my boyfriend loves me but is afraid to say it. How can I encourage him to feel safe enough to express what he really feels?
Query 7
What is the difference between a Merlot and a Shiraz?
Query 8
I’m having a lot of trouble sleeping. Can you recommend three things I can do to improve my sleep? Will I need any sort of equipment or medications ?
Query 9
Give me 5 personalized birthday gift ideas for a friend who loves making music.
Query 10
Could you write me a covering letter for an application into the creative industry based upon my current CV?
Thank you
I really appreciate the thought and effort you put into this. I have no idea if it will lead to anything, but I also have a lovely bloke donating some time to build out the basic, functional structure – it’s amazing what can happen when you ask for help. As a community we have fabulous skills and are capable of injecting so much good into the world – I think that’s needed more than ever.
If you want to be part of this idea then please let me know, head over to the Discord and we’ll see where it takes us. At the very least I will collate your responses onto this site so that it can represent what we did. All the best, and thanks.
Robin