Introduction -
This post is part of our AI6P interview series on “AI, Software, and Wetware”. Our guests share their experiences with using AI, and how they feel about AI using their data and content.
This interview is available as an audio recording (embedded here in the post, and later in our AI6P external podcasts). This post includes the full, human-edited transcript. (If it doesn’t fit in your email client, click here to read the whole post online.)
Note: In this article series, “AI” means artificial intelligence and spans classical statistical methods, data analytics, machine learning, generative AI, and other non-generative AI. See this Glossary and “AI Fundamentals #01: What is Artificial Intelligence?” for reference.
Interview -
Karen: I’m delighted to welcome Amanda Jeanne from Canada as my guest today on “AI, Software, & Wetware”. Amanda, thank you so much for joining me on this interview! Please tell us about yourself, who you are, and what you do.
Amanda: Sure. My name is Amanda Jeanne. I'm an artist, writer, and retreat facilitator based in Quebec. And I'm originally from Massachusetts. I work mostly on large scale intuitive abstract paintings, and I host workshops and retreats that mix art and somatic practices with focus on emotional processing and self-trust. Lately I've been experimenting with a lot of writing. I've actually been doing more writing than art lately.
But my writing blends art, personal narrative, neurodivergence, and AI ethics, sometimes all mixed into one. And I'm also a mom of five, which shapes a lot of my perspective on tech privacy and how we use these tools in everyday life.
Karen: Thanks for that introduction. I can't imagine how busy being a mom of five must keep you, and you must have some great perspectives on AI from that. I hope we'll have a chance to talk about those today. But I have heard good things from a friend about your workshops. That's actually how I discovered you.
Amanda: Thank you.
Karen: And I hope we'll hear more about your writing later as well.
Amanda: Yeah, for sure.
Karen: So tell us a little bit about your level of experience with AI and machine learning and analytics, whether you use it professionally or personally, or if you've ever studied the technology.
Amanda: Yeah, I've not studied it, but I use it extensively professionally and personally. I first started using AI, mainly a large language model like ChatGPT, about two and a half years ago. A friend showed it to me. I thought it was interesting. I didn't think I'd actually use it. But then a few months later I would type in things like "I have ADHD and trouble making and keeping a schedule. I have an art business, five kids, and a household to run. Help." Or I'd say, you know, "Explain the best way to learn chess." And even then I just was using it as a toy, just a novelty.
But then I got the idea to have it help me plan and prepare for my first art exhibition. And that is a big project. It's so overwhelming for me to figure out how to put together something like that, that I decided, "Okay, let me just ask. Let me just type this in and see what it spits back." And it spit me back a seven week plan or 12 week plan, whatever it was, on how to prepare for an art exhibition.
Then I said, "Okay, great. I have my list. Now I can go through and I can start just checking these things off." And then as I was going through the process of doing that, I started feeding it pieces of my writing, like my artist statement, some other pieces that I've written in the past, blog posts, things like that.
And I started teaching it more about my work and myself, and over time started using it for bigger things. One of my favorite things, I think, that I've planned with ChatGPT is my first retreat, a creative retreat. And I'd feed it a rough idea like "Write plans for a self-discovery retreat. The retreat's four days long and begins in the evening, incorporates somatic dance, art therapy discussions, a hike. It'll be held in the mountains, in a cabin in North Carolina." And then I would get back an actual structure to turn that into reality, which is pretty cool. So that's how I've used it professionally.
On the personal side, I also use it to help sort out what I want to say, how to process through things. Like, I lost a close friendship, and so I was struggling on how to handle that. And so — not as a therapist, because you got to be careful with that, of course — but it helps me process through what I want to say. So that I'm then able to take that to a real person.
And it's also helped me understand and advocate for my kids' Neurodivergence. I have five kids who are all different flavors of neurodivergent. Some are still in the process of being diagnosed. Some are just going through life in a slightly different way. But being able to advocate for them in the schools is something that's really difficult for me, especially since I'm an anglophone, and I'm based in Quebec, in Canada, which is completely French speaking. So it's given me a lot more agency, and the words I need to speak up for my kids when I'm not fluent.
So I use it sort of as a thinking partner both professionally and personally. I think that kind of sums up how my relationship is shaped through it.
Karen: You said a lot of things there that I'm curious about! You mentioned that you're not fluent in French and that's a challenge.
Amanda: Not yet.
Karen: Have you ever tried any of the large language model based tools for learning a language, for learning French?
Amanda: I have not. And it would be interesting to try that. That's just not been a priority of mine, to be perfectly honest. I know enough French that I can read it. If an email is sent to me, I can understand most of what's being said. But then it comes to putting together sentences, it's not so much. But I haven't thought of using a LLM to actually learn the language. That's interesting.
Karen: Just thinking that tools like Duolingo, under the hood, they've got a LLM in there. Most of the language tools, even if they started out not using that, they probably use it now.
Amanda: I mean, it's hard to find something where you're not using AI at this point, I think.
Karen: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I'm really curious about your experience with planning your first art exhibition. It's great that you were able to get so much help with it. Has the exhibition already happened, by the way?
Amanda: Yeah, this was two years ago that I did it.
Karen: Okay. Yeah. So you went through the whole planning process. By the time you were done, did anything jump out that, “Oh, ChatGPT forgot to tell me about this?” Was there anything missing? Or did it turn out to be really a pretty good list?
Amanda: It did pretty good. I mean, towards the end I started going off book a little bit. Once things started rolling, I was like, "Okay, now I'm just going to follow what happens next." And also, I meet every week with a group of artists. We get together and talk about our businesses. So I still had that real experience check-in to sort of weigh against. I don't want to just blindly follow, "Here's all the things you need". Anything that I've used chat for has been backed up and sort of run through, like, "Does this sound like a good idea? Does this sound thorough?"
But I've always struggled with the paperwork aspect of things, as far as, like, keeping documents current and things like that. And using the ChatGPT definitely very much helped me get better at that. Because I was able to say, okay, what are all the documents I need to have in order for a press release? These things that I had no knowledge of, it was able to make some suggestions, and I found it really helpful.
Karen: Yeah, that's very cool. I'm also really curious to hear about your kids and your advocating for them and meeting their needs as neurodivergent people. Can you talk a little bit about that? What are some specific things, if it's not compromising anyone's privacy?
Amanda: Yeah. No, no, no. Absolutely. Let me think. So one of my kids was having difficulty with school refusal, just absolutely refusing to go to school. And what do you do in that situation? So I would come to chat. I'd be like, "let's look at research on school refusal, what can you tell me about school refusal?" And it would come back some suggestions and I'd be like, "that's not a good suggestion." But then I'd talk to the school and they would have a specific recommendation and so we'd work through that.
A lot of this happened over email. So I was able to take the email from the school, pop that in and say, "okay, I hear what they're saying, but I want to say maybe that's not the right approach and here's why." I feel like that may not have been something that, especially not with the French aspect, something that I would've felt comfortable saying myself, even though in my gut, I just know this is the wrong way to handle this. And I was able to come back and say, "okay, well let's try this instead."
And just structuring the emails has been really good, whereas in the past I sort of tended to just not do that, because I didn't feel confident in communicating with the authority figures at school.
Karen: So you feel like it put you in a stronger position as far as negotiating? Either more confident or better negotiating?
Amanda: Yeah. I was able to go into the meeting with them and say, "Okay, look, I found this research based on this and this and this. And this is why they say you shouldn't just force them to come. You know, that's bad. Studies have been done." And obviously you can look stuff like that up online as well. You could Google. You could find your own references. But it's nice having that level of personalization and customization that I'm able to say, "Okay, of all the information, what is most applicable to what I'm dealing with?"
Karen: Yeah, that's a good point. So having some ammunition to back up your position and to state it more effectively. I'm curious, when it gave you references, were they all accurate? Did all studies actually exist?
Amanda: I think, the ones that I've checked, I've had pretty good luck. I have seen it give bad fake links. That's just like, "Oh, here's that information you wanted", and then you click on it and it's nothing. So it does require a certain level of going through, checking the information. But it gives me somewhere to start.
Karen: That sounds very useful and very effective. I would like to hear more about your kids and AI in their schools at some point. We don't have to go into that now, if you like.
Amanda: Sure.
Karen: Sounds like you've used AI tools and specifically large language models, generative AI, pretty heavily. Can you share a specific story on how you've used a tool that included these AI or machine learning features? And I'd like to hear your thoughts about how the AI features of the tools worked for you or didn't, and what went well and what didn't go so well? You've touched on it a little bit, but maybe share a specific story here.
Amanda: Sure. Let's see. Well, one big one was I used ChatGPT to make a business plan and a pitch to get funding from — I say from my investors. That's really my husband. So I started with a prompt and I said "I need to create a slideshow for a budget proposal for my art business." And I'd give it all the details. You know, “I want this much per month, and I need an extra chunk to cover a tour.” And I fed it the grant questions, and I said " Here's my basic idea. Turn this into a slideshow for me so I can explain it to someone." And it was really helpful in the way it organized out the details, and just as a sounding board to get organized.
But the parts where it didn't work so well is, like, numbers I found were not reliable. I'd always go back and double check what the real numbers were. And instead of just always telling me, "Oh yeah, that's a great idea, you can absolutely do it." And then I would go back and look, and I'm like, "yeah, but two plus three doesn't equal seven."
The other thing that was hilariously bad was, I was planning out this road trip. Three city festival tour that I was trying to put together. And I asked to make me a map graphic showing my road trip itinerary. And it was hilarious and terrible. They got some of the state shapes right, but all the names were wrong, and random words, so that was pretty funny. Kind of a big fail.
Karen: For anyone who is reading, we do have a copy of that really bad map. That'll be in the article. But it says North Carolina on the state of New York. It says Pennsylvania down on North Carolina. Quebec is badly spelled. And on Ohio it's just a total mess. Yeah. It's just a mess. It's just nonsense.
Amanda: Yeah. I've also used it for smaller things. Like, I've tried to use it to build playlists 'cause I use a lot of playlists. Music is a very big part of my creative process, so I'm always having music when I'm painting or when I'm doing a meditation or things like that.
It's not great at talking about specific song titles 'cause it will just say, "Oh yeah, I know the one you're talking about." And then a few minutes later you realize, "Oh, they're just going off of the name of the artist and the name of the song and vibes." And they're just like, "Yeah, that sounds like it would be like this." So I still choose most of the music myself.
But I'll feed it song lyrics, and we'll talk through how the feeling of a song could shape the mood of a painting session, which helps give me the language for the atmosphere I want to create. So it is helpful for that.
I do rely on Spotify's AI heavily, 'cause I love my Spotify algorithm. I have been working for years to perfectly curate my sense of taste in that. And I do love that one, even if their "wrapped" last year was not that great. I think they switched to using AI for their year end. And that was a little meaningless in some spots, where in the past having humans assemble music made more sense, I think.
There's always things that go well and don't. And I think that's part, for me, of the big thing is not taking everything that is given to you as being real true information that is factual and good and you can use. Anything that I get, I'm like, "Let's make sure this is actually what we want." You know?
Karen: Yeah. So when the map graphic didn't turn out, what did you do? How did you proceed with finishing off your business plan, and how did that turn out?
Amanda: To be perfectly honest, I used it in the business plan anyways. Because it was so bad that it was funny. And again, this was my business plan that I was presenting to my husband. So if I was presenting to a bank, I probably wouldn't use a map that's obviously faulty, you know? 'cause I want to show that I have a grasp of basic geography and I understand how that works. But to someone that I know knows that I know, if that makes sense?
Karen: Yeah.
Amanda: It ended up just being a funny joke.
Karen: Were you able to get into the festival that you wanted?
Amanda: Unfortunately I got into one of the three festivals. Okay. I didn't get the grant money. But I did still use it to plan my trip to the one festival that I did. So I sort of came up with a modified version.
Karen: Okay. So your investor bought into it!
Amanda: He did. He did. It worked. He was able to back me and I was able to go to the Berkshire's Arts Festival last year in Massachusetts.
Karen: Very cool. So you mentioned Spotify and AI wrapped.
Amanda: Yeah. That's the other thing. I might have to get rid of Spotify now, which makes me really nervous. I don't know what I'm going to do without my Spotify AI. But they're doing some shady stuff. We might have to drop them. I haven't looked into it enough yet. I think I'm a little bit willfully ignorant on that point. Because I know these big tech companies, that they're not really there to help me get my music for my meditation sessions. It's low on their list of priorities of what they do as a company. But I have to find something better because I live by my playlists.
Karen: Your husband's probably thinking of the way that they are using AI-generated music and slipping that into the streaming, and it's taking revenue away from real human music.
Amanda: I have heard about that. I can't remember. I'm going to have to ask for more details. Yeah.
Karen: You know, when I set up my Substack for this podcast, I synched it with all of the ones that they offered, and Spotify was one of them. But I've actually been wondering if I should just detach from Spotify and not push this set of interviews out to it. I don't use it personally.
Amanda: Yeah.
Karen: But maybe I should pull back from that. It's not like I'm paying them money, but I don't know that I really want to support and encourage companies that do things that I'm not comfortable with.
Amanda: Oh, for sure.
Karen: So I can kind of empathize with your husband there. But I know it's difficult. I mean, there are people that run their businesses on Instagram, and even when Meta is treating them like crap, they feel like they don't have much choice. You know, it's hard.
Amanda: Well, Instagram is another one that I do use. I'm trying to move away from using Instagram so much. But as an artist, that's very much where we've been hanging out for years online. It's difficult. This kind of goes into one of the later questions, I think, but my brother — they’re an artist as well — was telling me they deleted their Instagram because they came out and said, "Oh, we're using your data for training and you can't opt out." So that's happening. And I'm like, oh, okay.
Karen: Yeah, yeah. When Meta made their announcement last year, those of us who are not covered by GDPR didn't get any choice about opting out. It was like, "Yeah, we don't have to acknowledge your request." So, okay, I deleted all my stuff. But I wasn't using it professionally, so it wasn't a hard decision for me. But I know it can be quite a hard decision in other cases. So I don't judge anybody for whether they do or don't do it. But I think the important thing is just to be aware of, by staying, you are agreeing that they're going to do this with your stuff.
Amanda: Yeah, absolutely.
Karen: Yeah, that's really tough. Has your brother ever looked into some of the tools that will basically poison an image so it can't be used for machine learning?
Amanda: I don't know that we've talked about that.
Karen: There's two. They're called Nightshade and Glaze. They come out of the University of Chicago. And basically, the picture looks the same on the screen, but if they try to use it in machine learning, it throws a monkey wrench in the works.
Amanda: Yeah. I'll have to check those out because yeah, I do upload a lot of images online. And I remember in the days of building my own website, I remember them telling us, there was some way to save a thing so that you couldn't right click and save the image. But now it's like the next level of that, right?
Karen: Yep, yep. Yeah, I did that too when I first put up a website. My late husband and I ran a nursery, of flowers, and so I would try to protect my pictures of the flowers that way.
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah, then it becomes, "Okay, is this worth it? Is it worth the time and effort and what I need to put into it?" Maybe it is, I don't know.
Karen: All these protective measures, they become sort of an arms race, you know? The tools get better for protection. And then they find better ways to get around it, and you have to counteract those. So yeah, "Is it worth it?", It's a good question to be asking, always.
So you've talked a lot about the way that you've used AI-based tools and the way that you check that they're giving you something that's actually meaningful and useful. Have you avoided using AI-based tools for some things or for anything? And can you share an example of when, and why you chose not to use AI in those cases?
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. One big place I do try to avoid using AI is for generating images. I've used it here and there, as you can see by the map. But I do try to avoid it just 'cause I get an icky feeling about it. 'Cause as a visual artist, I don't want to be a part of something that's going to replace or undercut other visual artists.
If I want to share an image, I want it to be actually mine. Last week I've decided that I'm going to learn to draw. Because I want line drawing illustrations that go along with my Substack that I'm writing. I did feed one of my articles into chat and say, "Hey, can you make me some illustrations for this?" But I immediately felt gross about it. So I was like, "No, that's something I can do myself. That's not okay." For some people it is, I guess, but for me it's not. I can't do it.
Karen: Yeah. A lot of people that I've talked to feel that way, about art especially, and about music especially. Some people feel that way about words, especially if they're book authors and they've had their books stolen and scraped for use in a large language model tool. But, yeah, especially with art and music, those seem to be the two that people feel the most strongly about.
Amanda: Yeah, for sure, for sure. Big cuts.
Karen: That's actually one of the biggest concerns that I hear more and more about today is where AI and machine learning systems get the data and the content that they train on. A lot of times they are using data that we put into online systems or we published online, and the companies are not always very transparent about how they intend to use our data when we sign up for their services.
So can you talk a little bit more about how you feel about companies that use data and content for training their AI and ML systems and tools?
Amanda: Yeah. Being perfectly honest, I don't have a huge amount of technical knowledge, so my understanding is that basically, the LLMs basically ate up the entire internet up to a certain date. And that's where they got their knowledge. And now they keep updating and reshaping them based on what they've been fed since then.
Like I said, I don't really understand all the details. But big picture, if a company's making money off of other people's work and words, they should have to ask first, whether it's consent, credit, compensation. Something.
At first, I didn't really think about it that much. I did find that you could turn off the setting that lets OpenAI use our chats for training, but I left it on, thinking I'm a pretty ethical user. Maybe the way I could use it can help balance out racists and bigots and all that.
But I read about OpenAI taking government contracts. And for some reason that was the moment for me. I was like, "I'm going to turn off the training. I don't want it to be using my work for something that I'm not comfortable with."
It is a bit sketchy that the default is to use your data. You shouldn't have to go find the setting and turn it off to not give them consent. It seems a little backwards.
Karen: Yeah, definitely. There's a lot of discussions about opt out versus opt in and the idea that we have to go find this and opt out. I don't know if you spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, but had that whole thing last year where they basically said, "We're going to automatically opt in everybody for everything they've ever done on LinkedIn up to this point. But you can opt out from now on if you want to."
Amanda: Oh, geez.
Karen: And there were two places you had to go to opt out, as it turned out. Not just one.
Amanda: Yeah. It's ridiculous.
Karen: Yeah. Yeah. So as someone who's used some AI tools, it looks like you were able to find the opt-outs when you went looking for them. Is ChatGPT maybe the main tool that you've used?
Amanda: Yeah. I did cancel my subscription to it, 'cause I'm like, I need to find a different one. And so now I'm sort of hopping around to different LLMs. But that's mainly how I've been using it. Yeah.
Karen: So you're looking into Claude and Perplexity and some of the others?
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. I was talking with my artist friends earlier today and she was like, “Oh, well there's this one that you can get that's local, that's open source.” And I'm like, okay, I think maybe that's the direction I want to be going in.
Karen: Oh, so you're going to install the LLM open source on a local machine and run it in your own home so that what you type in doesn't go out?
Amanda: We're going to see if that works.
Karen: Oh, awesome.
Amanda: If that is a thing, I don't know. We'll see if it can handle the way that I use it. I'm not sure. Yeah.
Karen: Yeah, I think we're going to see more and more people trying that. I don't know if you were planning to write about this on your Substack. But if you do that and try it out, I hope you'll write about it and share that.
Amanda: Oh, I'm sure I will. Yes.
Karen: Yeah. Great. So with all the tools that you're looking at, do you feel like the people who provide the tools have been transparent about sharing where the data used for the models came from, and whether the original creators of that data consented to it being used?
Amanda: Yeah, no. I think they've not been clear where it comes from or who gave permission, if that permission was given or if it was just assumed. And I feel like I want to take some of the blame for that, 'cause it's not something that I set out pushing to understand. It's just not something that came to me that it would matter. I've been writing online since high school, so my words have been floating around the internet for a long time and I don't mind people learning from how I write.
But yeah there should be more awareness, credit or pay, if the work helps build something bigger. But, at this point, it's like the ship has sailed. So I try to be more conscious now about what I'm feeding into these tools. But no, I don't think they've been transparent in any sense of the word.
Karen: Yeah, when these tools first started coming out, I think that a lot of people just defaulted to being trusting. They assumed that the tools were built ethically and without stealing from people, and didn't really think to question it. But now we sort of know that we have to question it, which is kind of sad.
Amanda: Yeah.
Karen: But also, it's an awareness that I think we need to have. They're not going to be financially motivated to behave ethically and responsibly if we don't make them.
Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Karen: So I'm wondering, as consumers and members of the public, you mentioned writing online, and your data being out there. Our personal data and content has probably — I would say certainly — been used by an AI-based tool or system. Do you know of any specific cases that you could share? Obviously without disclosing any specific sensitive personal information.
Amanda: Absolutely my personal data has been used. And one example is that, a couple years ago it was a social media trend, you know, where you make yourself look like a 'this', make yourself look like a 'that'.
So I'd upload a bunch of photos of myself, and I think I even paid for one once. it felt like it was just something fun. And now I'm like, "Well, okay, you have all my facial recognition stuff. I guess whatever you're building, it's yours now." And probably my email and all. I mean, if it's online, I just sort of assume at this point, it's not mine anymore.
Karen: I think a lot of us did that. And it actually happened again recently, you know, with people uploading their pictures to get a digital drawing or something that was created, that whole craze with Studio Ghibli and how they stole the work of the Japanese anime studio.
Amanda: Oh, that is one that I'm proud to say I did not participate in that one.
Karen: I know that so many people probably didn't even realize that, by uploading
Amanda: No!
Karen: their latest family photo and getting it Ghiblified, that okay, now they've got your family photo.
Amanda: Yep, yep.
Karen: So your awareness helped you to avoid that!
Amanda: Yep.
Karen: That's good.
Amanda: Yeah.
Karen: Do you know of any companies that you gave your data or content to that made you aware that they might use your information for training AI or machine learning? Or did you get surprised to find out that they were going to do it? A lot of times it's buried in the license terms and conditions, and which sometimes they change after the fact. I'm wondering, was this something that you were ever made aware of, and did you feel like you had a real choice about opting out or about declining if they changed the terms?
Amanda: Yeah, for the most part, I just assume that they're going to use everything. I can't think of anybody that came right out and said in a way that I heard, "Hey, we're using this to train AI." And like you said, it's usually buried in a ‘Terms of Service’. Nobody's going to read it. And I don't feel like I've ever really had a true choice to say, "No, don't use this." It's always just, you know, hey, ask them not to use it. What does that mean? You know? Aside from stopping using an app, I don't really know that there's a way that you can say with any certainty my data's not being used. Short of, like I said, not using that app or any app.
In particular, my brother was telling me that recently they had to tell friends to stop using this app called Partiful, which I'm not familiar with. But the data they collect is being used for military targeting applications, for the genocide in Palestine. My brother's in their twenties, so I assume it's something to do with parties, but I don't know that for sure. But yeah, I'm glad to have them as my go-to. They have done a lot of this AI digging, so I haven't done a full deep dive. I'm sort of skimming the surface, still, of finding out the downsides to using it. I count on their input, have that trusted voice that can give you the information.
Karen: Yeah, it's good that they’re aware of it and keeping up with it.
Amanda: Because it changes so fast too, right?
Karen: Absolutely. There are new apps that come out every day. A lot of people, for instance, have switched away from WhatsApp or another app to Signal, because at least Signal won't give away your personal chat information to people. And I know people that have switched from sharing family photos on Facebook to sharing them through Signal. Just "I don't want Meta to have all the pictures of my kids that I'm just sending to my mom and my dad, and my uncle."
Amanda: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Karen: Yeah. Do you know if a company's use of your personal data and content has ever created any specific issues for you? Like violating your privacy, or phishing attacks, or any loss of income, or loss of money?
Amanda: Not anything that I can think of that's particularly egregious. I mean, I get a fair amount of phishing. I'll get a slew of spam comments to my website, or emails. But nothing that I feel has really made me nervous. Not yet.
Karen: Okay.
Amanda: I'm sort of just always, a little bit, waiting for it. But I can't think of a specific example.
Karen: Yeah. I hope it stays that way! I've talked to some people that have had to deal with identity theft, or having their credit card stolen. Or getting phishing messages on their phones late at night and it looks like it's something important, and it's just a scammer.
Amanda: I don't know if I'm just naturally kind of cynical or suspicious, but anytime someone contacts me, I'm like, "What do you really want? What are you really after?"
Karen: Yeah. Yep. And it's good to ask. When you hear all these pronouncements from the tech bros, you know, "AI is inevitable. You have to use it or you’re going to get left behind." Okay, well, how was it in their financial interest for us to believe and go along with that?
Amanda: For sure.
Karen: Obviously they're making their money and making their big payoffs in their stock value, the value of their portfolios. There's always a financial interest. I used to not look for it as much as I've learned that I really need to do now. "Okay, who said this?” And are they selling services?
Amanda: Yeah.
Karen: Or how are they making money by advocating for this? There's so much hype, and a lot of it does seem to come from just financial incentives.
Amanda: Yeah, absolutely.
Karen: Well, last question, and then we can talk about anything else that you want. In general, the public distrust of AI and tech companies has been growing. And I think it's actually healthy because it means that we're more aware of what they're doing with our data and that we're able to ask better questions about it.
What do you think is the most important thing that these AI and tech companies would need to do to earn and keep your trust, if that's even possible? And if you have any specific ideas on how they could do that?
Amanda: I think the biggest thing that would help me trust them more is just real clear consent that is a real clear understanding of "This is how we're using this. Do you agree to that?" But it's difficult 'cause I still don't think I would trust. Even if they came right out and said that, I'd be like, "Nah, I'm sure you've got me somewhere."
I actually asked this question to my younger brother because I knew they would have a good answer to it. So if it's okay,
Karen: Oh, sure!
Amanda: I'll give you their input, because they had some good points. One thing to earn and keep trust is losing the corporate structure, and making the research and training data open source. So that's kind of an interesting idea, I guess.
Another thing they said was, a huge problem with the conversation around AI right now is that it's so user-centric. And we're talking about the potential benefits and harms of these systems. It's most important to discuss who's receiving the benefits and who's shouldering the risk.
Even though people are starting to distrust AI a little bit more, maybe, I think a lot that people really just don't understand about the real harm that it is already having in places like the global South, where, you know, they're using reinforcement learning from human feedback, where human workers interact with unfiltered LLMs and rate the content. And that's part of how it's so useful to those of us that are using it as a tool. But we tend to miss that real cost of who's really paying for this? Not necessarily financially, but who's really being harmed by this technology?
Karen: Yeah, that whole area of work, they call it 'data enrichment' or 'data annotation' work.
Amanda: Yes.
Karen: And that would be one thing if the people had proper support and they weren't being exploited, but they have moved a lot of it to the global south. This is actually one of the things I wrote about in this article in March. Then that motivated me to write this book that's going to be coming out by early September.
Amanda: Oh great!
Karen: But that's one of the five things, that whole exploitation of the data workers. And they have this content moderation that they do. They have to watch this horrific stuff and label it, hours at a time. And they get underpaid. Or sometimes they just decide "Well, we're not going to pay you at all for this." And they just get terribly mistreated in multiple ways, and that's just not acceptable.
Amanda: No.
Karen: Yeah, and some of them, they dump it off offshore. There were lawsuits from, I think it was Facebook around 2020, and they got caught and they had to pay some fines. It was in a couple of different states in the US where they had poor communities, and they were exploiting the people there. And so they moved it offshore, and they farm it out through an outsourcing company. And now the outsourcing company is treating the people badly in Kenya and the Philippines and all these other countries where they have less regulations to protect them. And that's just very exploitative.
Amanda: And I think that your average user has no concept that that's even a thing, you know?
Karen: Yeah. So your brother was aware of that?
Amanda: Yes. Yes. They’re the one who keeps me honest, keeps me aware.
Karen: Yes. Well, they don't have five kids and an art business, right?!
Amanda: Exactly. Exactly.
Karen: Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for sharing all of that! That's the last of the standard questions. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our audience?
Amanda: Yeah. Thanks for having me. If anybody's interested in hearing more about my work, you can follow my Substack, which is called Squirrel Brain, Chickadee Soul. That's also the title of my retreat that I've held two years now, hopefully returning again next year. In there I explore themes like neurodivergence, creativity, emotional processing, the occasional dabbling in AI tools.
I'm also planning a solo art exhibition, another one at the local library here in my town. But then I'll have all of that online as well.
And I'm working on putting together an online workshop that will combine art, somatic practices, and emotional processing. So if any of that sounds like something you would like to learn more about, yeah, go ahead and shoot me an email, or check out my website, and I'm happy to connect.
Karen: Cool. Yeah, that sounds great. I'm curious about the name Squirrel Brain, Chickadee Soul. Can you explain where the name came from?
Amanda: Yeah, yeah. So how did I come up with this name? It came up in a random brainstorming session. I wrote it down and I didn't do anything with it for several years. I wasn't sure. I was like, is it maybe a book? It describes me. It sort of describes the two sides of me. So like my squirrel brain, 'cause I'm always running after one thing or the other. And Chickadee Soul is sort of a calmer side, the side that wants to just meditate and be chill. I also identify with the Chickadee 'cause it's a Massachusetts State Bird and I'm from Massachusetts. And you can see I have a squirrel on the wall behind me here. I have two in my office. And I have a chickadee painting over on the other side. So they've become totems for me a little bit. So I called my first retreat Squirrel Brain Chickadee Soul, and that was like a four day self-discovery, art creative retreat.
And then I stole the name, reused it for the Substack 'cause I thought, you know what? That name's got some staying power. I can run with that topic for a while yet.
Karen: Yeah. It's a cool name and very memorable. You should probably trademark it.
Amanda: I should look into that. Yeah.
Karen: Your newsletter looks interesting. I found you from the other Amanda referring me to you and your workshops.
Amanda: Yes.
Karen: So I will definitely be following up with that. Your online workshop, now, sounds neat. I mean, conducting one online's got to be quite different than doing one in person.
Amanda: I actually have not done an online one yet. I was meant to have one a few weeks ago. And then the night before my first online workshop, which I was very excited about and even had three whole people signed up for, we had a huge thunderstorm. And it killed our power for like two days, and I had to cancel my workshops. But I'm going to come back. I'm going to do it again. I have it all planned. I just need to get the date and actually do it.
Karen: That sounds very cool. Well, it's been so much fun talking with you, Amanda, and getting to know you and Amanda Jeanne Artwork and your Substack newsletter. So thank you so much for joining!
Amanda: Sure. Thank you for having me.
Interview References and Links
Amanda Jeanne Artworks
Amanda Jeanne on LinkedIn
Amanda Jeanne Artworks on Facebook
Amanda Jeanne | Intuitive Abstract Artist on Bluesky
Amanda Jeanne on Substack (Squirrel Brain, Chickadee Soul)
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