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Day 6 — QUESTION What would you need to know about an image before treating it as evidence? #MediaLiteracy #CriticalThinking linktr.ee/carlbond beacons.ai/artbycarlbond

1/13 What artistic effect draws you to a picture the most? Watercolor washes (Waterlogue), pencil lines (Pencil Camera), etching textures (Engraver), or vector shapes (Imaengine)? Is there some other artistic effect you prefer?

2/13 A phone or computer can be a personal creative workspace: a camera, notebook, word processor, sound recorder, or drawing tool. Return to an idea, try another app, and decide what to keep or share. Begin with what you already own.

3/13 Creative work needs room to be finished. With suitable apps and settings, you can work offline and keep files on your device. Feed one app’s output into another. Check syncing, backups, and uploads. Choose what to reuse and when your work leaves that private space.

4/13 I’ve explored image-making with these apps since 2015. What feels more urgent now is ownership and accountability: when people are treated as replaceable costs, who controls the tools, who receives the gains, and who has a say?

5/13 Demand for your labor cannot measure your worth. Many of us already have a phone or computer for writing, photography, and making. We can use these tools to build skills, connections, and choices about how we live and work. We need to give ourselves permission.

6/13 AI’s abilities are uneven. Success on a defined task does not establish that it can reliably do a whole job. People bring context, judgment, relationships, and responsibility. Replacement claims should be tested against the actual work.

7/13 The archive I’m building is meant to guide that work: check claims, name uncertainty, preserve corrections, and ask who benefits and who can refuse. Giving AI those standards provides guidance; we still have to check whether it follows them.

8/13 Think of these tools and techniques as colors on a palette. Choose what serves the work. Owning a system is not proof of superior judgment. People affected by its use should have a say in what it does and how its results are judged.

9/13 A phone can help you document conditions, contact neighbors, arrange a gathering, exchange ideas, and coordinate a shared project. Those are practical means of building influence together. We can begin using them before any promised AI future arrives.

11/13 People can begin building local connections and alternatives alongside the work that pays the bills. As those alternatives become viable, more people could choose to step away from the rat race. The goal is a choice people can afford to make.

12/13 A neighborhood hub could bring people together to brainstorm, print, display, sell work, and return with new ideas. Local demand, sustainable funding, and fair compensation could help that loop support earnings close to home.