Carnival creators contemplate AI

Above: Carl “Beaver” Henderson photographed in his St James Studio in 2014. Photo by Mark Lyndersay

BitDepth#1426 for October 02, 2023

At a symposium hosted by Queen’s Hall on September 18, nine Carnival or Carnival adjacent practitioners and two technology experts discussed the impact of artificial intelligence on two panels.

One of those experts, Keith Laban, considered the implications of source bias because of how AI gathers information.

“An AI system is trained on data,” Laban said.
“The latest open source dataset was created from a machine learning model called Falcon. It was taught using a system of 180 billion parameters. They train [the models] using all text data from the internet. Probably some from social media, bought some from Meta, and the [open] internet.”

“These data sets are what you use to train the various models, so the main advancement in AI that we are all benefiting from right now is in the area of large language models and diffusion models. If you have biased data going in, then you have biased data in ChatGPT. If there is a particular ethical slant or political slant with respect to the bias, with garbage in, you get garbage out.”

“Then there is the concept of hallucinations. The AI system has a tendency to make up statements at times and scientists still cannot figure out why it does that. It will seem that it knows and state facts as if they are real, but it is just making it up.”

Rayshawn Pierre-Kerr regarded the new reality of image creation with concern.
“If you want to generate a brand-new image, AI will recreate a new image that does not exist but [is derived from] live images from the internet that were taken by photographers who would have spent money [to create them] including photographs that are protected by copyright law.”

“You feed it to the AI and it produces the picture. Who benefits and who loses? I also feel there is a potential that AI will erode the beauty and the magic of collaborative community creativity. There is something that happens when people come into a space, and they are workshopping and throwing around ideas.”

*A Tidio study found that 96% of internet users know about AI hallucinations, and around 86% have personally experienced them.*

“There is a certain kind of magic that only exists when human beings come together. Why do I need to come into a room with 20 people if I can generate the idea in 2 minutes? So we’re talking about ethics, but we’re also talking about the loss of core communal creative values.”

Musician and producer Carl “Beaver” Henderson argued that AI is just a tool.

“At the end of the day, we are humans,” Henderson said.

“We run the game. If we get lazy and complacent and sit back and let AI do our exams, our research, our productions, our creativity, then all today’s fears will become a reality. AI is not your friend or your best friend. It is a tool like anything else.”

“What I’ve seen in my industry is a lot of young musicians, engineers, producers – because these tools are available now – they try to create a product. I can go into the studio with an artist. He can’t sing to buy Crix in the morning, but when I’m finished with the product, he will give Machel and Kes a run for their money. I will use all the tools of AI autotune to make him the greatest thing ever.”

“Then, I put him on stage in Queens Hall and I remove all those things. He has no knowledge of how to sing. He has no craft. His business crashes immediately.”

“You still are coming back to the human side. The development of craft, the knowledge, the education, it all comes back to the things that a human has to do to be successful.”

“Our local stars who are now international stars; Machel, Kes, Bunji, they have developed their craft over the years. Some young artists and producers now want to take a little shortcut. They do not develop their singing ability, their playing ability, their production ability.”

In the symposium’s second panel, Alvern Porter, a Carnival entrepreneur, worried that there is a paucity of information about Trinidad Carnival available on the internet, affecting the value of large language models for regional users.

“Trinidad is not a digital country,” Porter said.
“When you land in Trinidad, you still fill out the landing card and where that information goes, nobody knows. Jamaica digitized their landing card. So now when you go to Jamaica, you can complete the landing card 30 days before getting to Jamaica. Your information is there.”

“Where’s the information for Tribe from 10 years ago? Where’s the information about people like Wayne Berkeley who have passed on? We don’t have that information.”

*Valmiki Maraj in his office at the Lost Tribe headquarters in 2017. Photography by Mark Lyndersay.*

For Valmiki Maraj, leader of The Lost Tribe, AI is helpful, but only as a starting point in the creation process.

“I think it’s a responsibility, and I preach that to my crew. It’s the responsibility of those of us that are involved, to find out, but it’s also our responsibility to inform the next generation. Somebody laid a roadway for us to be able to walk on, jump on, dance on, wine on right now. And we need to do the same thing for them.”

“Our mas is kinetic. It’s something that Carnival’s forefathers speak about, they say the mas is something that you dance. It’s something that you move. What AI generates is an idea, it can put it on paper for you.”

“It may be may be able to give you some information, but in terms of an understanding of space, in terms of understanding of how it moves on our body that is something you still require skilled practitioners to be able to do.”

“When we used to go to mas camps when we were younger, we would see Minshall and Berkeley put drawings up, but a lot of our designers right now, they design when they feel and touch materials in front of them. Which is a part of the prototyping process, so something may look beautiful that I draw in front of me.”

“I draw, and that happens to me all the time. I draw something, but then my entire design changes when I go and I see materials that may be practical for something that is stationary but impractical for something that’s dancing on our streets.”