AI Art, A Generalist Future, Roblox, MoonSwatches, and Fall Foliage

Weekly Review of News in Technology, UX and AI

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Here’s the latest news, resources, and use cases from the world of product, UX, AI and technology. Let’s go:

• 💡 UX Insights

• 🎨 AI Art

• 🔮 Generalist Future

• 🖼️ Ask Photos

• 🕹️ Roblox

• ⌚ MoonSwatch

• 🍂 Fall Foliage

Podcast

The Intersection of Authenticity and Innovation: UX Insights from Oak Theory Founders Hannah Ryu and Veronica Shelton

Hannah and Veronica break down the latest trends in design, from the rise of AR to the subtle shift toward softer, more organic visuals. They also offer a candid glimpse into the rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship—highlighting the grit, resilience, and creativity it takes to build something truly unique. If you're into cutting-edge design, tech innovation, or just love a great startup story, this episode is a must-listen.

News and Useful Reads

Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art

We talk a lot about AI and art. But this essay in the New Yorker does an incredible job discussing why AI isn’t going to be good at making art. Because art, whether writing a novel or painting a picture, requires thousands or millions of choices. Those promoting AI are technologists, not artists. They are not the ones who create art, and don’t understand the work that goes into creating it, and often think it can be simplified down to a few decisions rather than millions.

Art is notoriously hard to define, and so are the differences between good art and bad art. But let me offer a generalization: art is something that results from making a lot of choices. This might be easiest to explain if we use fiction writing as an example. When you are writing fiction, you are—consciously or unconsciously—making a choice about almost every word you type; to oversimplify, we can imagine that a ten-thousand-word short story requires something on the order of ten thousand choices. When you give a generative-A.I. program a prompt, you are making very few choices; if you supply a hundred-word prompt, you have made on the order of a hundred choices.

Why Generalists Own the Future

I’ve always struggled with being a generalist versus a specialist. My interests vary widely and, while I can spend time in a specific domain, I don’t ever feel like I can commit all of my energy to becoming a full-time specialist.

Generalists are usually curious people who like to hop around from domain to domain. They enjoy figuring things out, especially in areas that are uncertain or new. They’re good at solving problems that domain experts struggle with, because they’re able to bring bits of knowledge from diverse fields together.

Google's AI-Powered 'Ask Photos' Search Feature Now Rolling Out

Searching in Google Photos may be about to get a lot better. Which is the kind of thing I’ve been waiting for. Traditional search has many limitations, but search powered by Gemini can understand contextual clues and search for photos with a variety of different questions.

With Ask ‌Photos‌, users can use natural language search terms to find specific memories or information in their images. Google says that Google ‌Photos‌ users can ask all sorts of questions to find content from their image libraries, with the feature able to search through all of a person's Google ‌Photos‌ images to bring up relevant results.

Roblox’s CEO on getting to 1 billion users

If you have kids or are a gamer yourself, you are probably familiar with Roblox. It is a massive platform and has its sights on growing much, much bigger.

Roblox CEO David Baszucki has a goal that even he admits is “a little audacious”: to grow the company’s share of the global gaming market’s revenue to 10 percent in the coming few years. 

Other Interesting Finds

You Can Finally Buy a MoonSwatch Online

This may be more of a watch-nerd item, but that is me. I picked up a MoonSwatch last year in Switzerland. They are fun watches, but can only be purchased in-store. Which has made them limited to locations with Swatch stores. But now, you can get a few models online.

Four of the original references have been chosen as the initial online offerings: the classic Mission to the Moon; Mission to Mars, a nod to the Speedmaster Alaska Project watch; Mission on Earth; and the bright yellow Mission to the Sun. So, sadly, no online Snoopy MoonSwatches yet.

Fall Foliage Map for 2024 Predicts Midwest Will Outdo New England

I am all about the fall foliage. Though I am disappointed to be in an area that is labeled as “dull” this year.

In a wedge of the country stretching from the interior Northeast and Great Lakes region down through the Mississippi River Valley, conditions this year are ideal, the forecast predicts, for the sort of bright red, orange, and yellow leaves that make for memorable autumn road trips and excursions to apple orchards and pumpkin patches.