A few years ago, would you have believed that artificial intelligence would create such polished images? From hyperrealistic “photographs” to personalized caricatures in the latest trend flooding social media. I wouldn't have.

Just as impressive is how quickly we get used to changes like these. How easily it becomes fashionable to make a little illustration of how ChatGPT imagines you, or to have it draw you in the style of classic anime, just for a laugh. And how rarely we ask ourselves where such solutions are taking us.

That is the reason for the latest experiment I am about to tell you about. Beyond any doubt, algorithms today are astonishingly good at creating and processing images. But how is their creativity changing? Are they capable of producing original, unexpected, precise illustrations?

Yes, AI today is a wonderful opportunity for a fresh look at art. The conclusions of Apollo ex Machina, the first poetry competition of its kind, proved it. But then who is the author? When and what should we leave it to “create”? Can we even use that word? Are the images that ever more perfect algorithms produce art?

Don't expect answers from me—they are far too complex, and all of us have to take part in finding them. What I offer you here, though, is one more reason to stop and think.

In 2022, I called on MidJourney, the first truly impressive AI image model, to carry out an unexpected task. I fed it 10 quotes from beloved Bulgarian poets to see what it would draw. The results were striking and thought-provoking, and it became one of the most read and discussed Digital Stories.

Almost a whole five-year plan has gone by since then. What will the pictures drawn from the very same verses by today's most advanced models look like? AI will undoubtedly show more skill, but will there be more creativity, more understanding? Will its illustrations come closer to art? Judge for yourselves…

1. The Devil, the old Devil…

The task:

I never in my life had dared to hope for
a compliment quite so kind:
the Devil invited me—the old Devil—
to his home for a glass of absinthe.

(“Visiting the Devil,” Hristo Smirnenski)

MidJourney, 2022:

ChatGPT, 2026:

How fast technology really changes while we discuss everything but that! In 2022, to get any kind of coherent image at all, I had to use short excerpts from the poems and hunt for an adequate English translation of each. There were no good enough automatic translators yet, and the AI tools themselves didn't “speak” anything but English. ChatGPT was still only a dream in the mind of its daddy, Sam. That was when, seemingly out of nowhere, the models capable of producing remarkable images appeared.

You can judge the difference between the two illustrations of Smirnenski's verses—he was a beloved interwar poet who died at 25—for yourselves. I should note that this time I used ChatGPT and its built-in image generation. I created a new profile so that it wouldn't be swayed by our previous conversations and would produce images as detached as possible from any details that might come from the human. My only instruction was to create an image (not an illustration, a photograph or a caricature, for instance) based on the text that followed. The chat got only one shot at each task (with one exception, which I'll get to), and it is precisely those first and only results that I show you here.

I confess I like both. And if in the past you could easily recognize the image by the style it unmistakably stamped on every picture, today the AI's “creativity” (how long will those quotation marks last?) in “drawing” (and these?) can certainly be endlessly varied. That's why I'm more interested in where it will go beyond the obvious, without being steered. Do you think the new picture holds more of the spirit of the verses themselves?

2. High Blue Mountains

The task:

High blue mountains,
rivers and golden plains,
a sky more tender than silk—
this is my homeland!

(“High Blue Mountains,” Mladen Isaev)

MidJourney, 2022:

ChatGPT, 2026:

Only four years, and the mountains are considerably higher, considerably bluer and more “polished.” Whether they look Bulgarian (and whether they should), what those white birds in the distance are, and many other questions about the creative choices of today's AI, I leave to you. After all, these lines by Mladen Isaev are known to every Bulgarian child.

3. He lives, he lives!

The task:

He lives, he lives! There on the Balkan,
sunk in his own blood, he lies and groans,
a hero with a deep wound in his chest,
a hero in his youth and manly strength.

(“Hadzhi Dimitar,” Hristo Botev)

MidJourney, 2022:

ChatGPT, 2026:

Look at the first picture, then at the second. And… then again. And after that, tell me AI hasn't developed astonishingly in these four years. While the jokes were still going around that images never managed to get the right number of fingers… we reached the point where they really are becoming harder and harder to tell apart, as many of the experiments on this site have also shown.

Without any additional instructions, based solely on the detail-rich, message-laden verses of Botev—the revolutionary poet who died fighting the Ottomans in 1876—ChatGPT, in my opinion, created an entirely worthy image, one that is by no means devoid of emotion.

4. The White-Blossomed Cherries

The task:

Do you remember, remember the quiet yard,
the quiet house among the white-blossomed cherries?

(“Do You Remember, Remember the Quiet Yard,” Dimcho Debelyanov)

MidJourney, 2022:

ChatGPT, 2026:

The 2022 images are far more naive, imperfect… but aren't they also a bit more metaphorical, indirect, less literal? Yes, today we can “feed” artificial intelligence enormous amounts of context—give it more and more information, on the basis of which it answers us with its own “opinion.” But is that always useful?

Otherwise, here too, no argument: the blossoming cherries in the second image are quite beautifully blossoming and there are quite a lot of cherries. But where did those shackles come from…?

5. The Owner Has Left for America

The task:

The windows—shut and black,
and black and shut the door,
and on the door—the sheet with the words:
“The owner has left for America.”

(“A Tale,” Atanas Dalchev)

MidJourney, 2022:

ChatGPT, 2026:

And again: did the owner leave? He did. How do we say it? With a sign that, on top of everything, reads „Стопанинят“—a misspelling of стопанинът (stopaninat, “the owner”). It strikes me as the weakest performance by the electronic painter today. So I give it a second chance—once I'm done with the rest of the verses, I ask it for a more artistic interpretation. Both the algorithm and Dalchev's verses deserve it. The result? Here it is:

So it could be done after all? With the right prompt. Even the banal sign is gone… In other words, at least where images are concerned, the best results come when natural and artificial intelligence complement each other. Eternal friendship! But will it really be eternal?

These questions are pressing whichever way you look at them—from the side of poetry or from the side of software engineering.

6. An Invisible Archangel

The task:

I must play into the deaf evening,
until I hear coming toward me
the voice of a thousand distant trumpets.
Or of some invisible archangel.

(“Evening Trumpet,” Boris Hristov)

MidJourney, 2022:

ChatGPT, 2026:

For me, this is the winner of the day.

Even the unobtrusive broken chains and the barbed wire are right where they belong. The “invisible archangel” is more invisible than it was for MidJourney back in '22, but I think it's here too. And there is the trumpet itself, from which, it seems, he is the one emerging…

7. Night Gives Birth to… Strange Things

The task:

Night gives birth from a dead womb
to the slave's age-old malice:
its crimson wrath—
majestic.

(“September,” Geo Milev)

MidJourney, 2022:

ChatGPT, 2026:

Two algorithms separated by several generations of technology… and such a different result? I doubt it would be possible from two people—two illustrators working from the same text, Geo Milev's furious 1924 poem about the crushed September Uprising.

Isn't AI giving us a huge chance to be different, diverse, unconventional, innovative? I definitely think so. However much more likely and tempting the exact opposite is—for it to carry us along with the current until we end up at the absinthe scene we started with…

8. August

The task:

August. The afternoon of the year.

(All Our Bodies, Georgi Gospodinov)

MidJourney, 2022:

ChatGPT, 2026:

Laconic. Elegant. Soft. Summery. Oh—I caught myself thinking—how far away that blasted August is… Gospodinov, the International Booker winner, knows how to make you miss a season in a single line.

9. Muncho Time

The task:

That madman was the only man who dared to protest.

(Under the Yoke, Ivan Vazov)

Illustration:

ChatGPT, 2026:

In the first experiment, too, one of the quotes was quite deliberately not from poetry: it comes from Vazov's classic novel and refers to Muncho, the village madman who alone dared to protest against the Ottomans. What I find especially interesting here is that the AI didn't follow the content, which could easily have led it to look up information online and replace the armored police in the picture with typical zaptiehs, the Ottoman gendarmes. It would also have been easier for it to draw that one lonely madman, without needing all those heading in the opposite direction.

And yet, perhaps we shouldn't underestimate the metaphorical streak of the electric author…

10. An Unexpected and Unwanted Guest…

The task:

Sometimes I'll come into your dream
like an unexpected and unwanted guest.
Don't leave me outside on the road—
don't bolt the doors.

(“Farewell,” Nikola Vaptsarov)

MidJourney, 2022:

ChatGPT, 2026:

Here, too, the images speak for themselves—they don't need me. Vaptsarov wrote these lines to his wife shortly before his execution in 1942.

AI tempts us to fill our world with cheap words and pictures, and that rarely turns out to be meaningful.

10+ …on the Guitar

Poor, poor Vasko… just four years ago Vasko the Frog, a homespun wedding-band guitarist turned viral meme, reigned unrivaled in online folklore, and so gave me the chance to end on a different note from the melancholy and shake up the poetic pathos a little.

Who remembers you today, caught up as we are in so many fleeting trends that have rolled through our feeds since then?

The task:

On the guitar, Vasko the Frog,
he'll play, dear guests, just for you.
You'll hear melodies, horo dances, folk songs,
Gypsy kyuchek tunes, every one of them easy.

MidJourney, 2022:

ChatGPT, 2026:

Even ChatGPT, it seems, has forgotten the croaking guitarist. But although it is visibly drawn toward the Carpathians, it got the mood right. And the details in the foreground, too.

The devil is in the details. As for where the angel is, the specialists who are closer to religion than I am can tell you.

I hope you found this interesting. And I'll be glad to hear your next ideas for important experiments with which to reflect and to test. Who we are, how far technology has brought us. And where we are headed…

Only Woody Allen would come up with the idea of turning dentists into Impressionists. And yet, at a time when technology lets us do things that were unthinkable until recently, isn't this exactly the moment to seek out the different, the unconventional, the out of the ordinary? For example…

If doctors were art historians

Not even Woody himself would have thought of this, even at the height of his creative powers.

In a dimly lit room, a handful of young doctors are huddled in front of a projection screen. But no, it isn't showing X-rays or lab results, and the room isn't in a hospital or a university, but… in a museum. The doctors are looking at reproductions of paintings from various eras—from Goya all the way to ancient Egyptian statues.

The woman at the front explains that the goal is to analyze what they see as if it were a medical case. A chaotic mosaic of gray, black and white “patches” appears on the screen. “This is a famous work of art,” she hints. An awkward silence follows. “It's Spanish, by one of the most famous painters of the 20th century…” Finally one of the doctors plucks up the courage: “Picasso?”

He turns out to be right—in front of them is Guernica, the emblematic painting about the horrors of war, which none of those present had recognized until then. The young medics, buried until now in biochemistry textbooks and hospital shifts, are suddenly faced with a task of an entirely different nature—to look for signs, symbols and stories hidden in art. But why do they need this? It turns out that, in an unexpected way, this skill can help them detect and analyze their patients' symptoms better.

The all-round developed personality

You may remember this ideal, a staple slogan of Bulgaria's socialist past, from what is by now a rather distant era. Today it no longer seems to stand on a pedestal. We don't expect doctors to know about art, nor the other way around. We don't imagine that writers can also be programmers, nor the other way around. If we happen to notice someone with erudition in many different directions at once, it may impress us at the weekly pub quiz, but we seem to have lost the habit of linking it with success. Over the centuries, the individual sciences and arts have split into tiny splinters and narrow specializations, which isn't always good for the big picture.

Here's a typical example—artificial intelligence. A subject and a field that already touches absolutely every area of our lives, while we have delegated its development to narrow specialists and the important decisions to successful entrepreneurs.

But are knowledge of mathematics and computer science and knowledge of how to amass wealth enough for us to create the thing that might one day become the next, even more intelligent species on the planet? No, don't answer out loud if you're reading this on the tram, the question is rhetorical. The harder answer is how we can change this and bring together seemingly eternal adversaries like the humanities and technology. That is the answer I've been looking for and am perhaps only just beginning to grope my way toward after more than 500 Digital Stories.

A Renaissance of the Renaissance

If you like, just say the word and I'll rewrite the text in a different style and add more puns.

Just kidding. Forgive me the lyrical digression; it's here partly to try to convince you that this text really wasn't written by artificial intelligence. But can we be sure?

Seeing and recognizing are no longer an objective skill or a science. Neither technology nor people can prove to us, with enough certainty to matter, which work is human and which is not. So isn't it time we started treating looking, the search for truth, fact-checking… as an art?

Which brings us back to our doctors, staring at Picasso's painting. We won't ask them whether, that same evening over a drink, they cursed those lost hours.

The art of seeing. “The Art of Seeing” is a partnership project between the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University and the art museum of the same name, both located in the Canadian city of Hamilton.

An ear to see, a foot to touch

The idea? It's obvious. To look beyond the obvious.

In Bulgarian we have two wonderfully nuanced verbs that we often mix up, гледам (gledam, to look) and виждам (vizhdam, to see). That you can look without seeing is clear, but sometimes the opposite is possible too. You'll remember, I'm sure, that what is essential is invisible to the eye.

So what should we do?

That is the idea behind “The Art of Seeing”—to develop visual literacy, to teach us how to look, not just what to look at, so that we can see. With unexpected examples. If doctors develop a feel for the visual arts, this can also develop other, seemingly peripheral skills, which then, like a boomerang, come back to enrich their seeing the next time an X-ray lands in their hands.

Whether the reverse is also true—whether a master of the brush might be inspired by sitting in on a few hours of colonoscopies—history is silent. Still, it's good to be broad-minded (not necessarily in the medical sense).

The project encourages participants to develop empathetic, holistic and humanistic thinking—qualities vital not only for doctors but for anyone who wants to understand the people around them more fully. At its core is slow, attentive looking at works of art, accompanied by discussion.

Instead of the usual 7 seconds the average visitor spends on a painting, here participants spend dozens of minutes observing and talking—an almost impossible exercise in patience and mindfulness in today's hurried world. People enter into dialogue with each other and with the works to discover how art reflects human experience across different eras and cultures. The result is an analytical and emotional journey in which art serves as both a mirror and a guide to life.

Now look

Wouldn't it be a good idea to apply something similar to artificial intelligence? To make it sit, reflect, discuss, so that we help it be better in every sense of that adjective?

And why not go on to the tech leaders? Yes, many of them talk about their favorite reading, but an interest in art seems rather rare…

I think it would definitely do them good if we showed them the art of seeing. I mean, of course, the version with the art galleries, not the medical treatment room mentioned earlier.

Narrow specialization versus a broad view. As a journalist and writer, and also a front-end engineer, I can tell you that you can carry quite a lot from each of these fields into the others in order to see better. To do that, though, you first have to fight your prejudices and then give it a chance.

A horse without blinkers

That is exactly what the art historians and doctors at McMaster do. They say what brings them together is a problem-based approach. Every work becomes a case that the group “diagnoses” by asking questions, gathering visual “symptoms” and discussing hypotheses.

“Art diagnostics” offers something more—it teaches attention to detail, observation and critical thinking. Participants develop the skills to describe precisely what they see, to support their reflections with “evidence” from the painting and to distinguish observation from their own interpretation—a skill that corresponds directly to the clinical examination of patients.

As the program's creators point out, a particularly important place in its philosophy is given to the effort to overcome prejudice and narrow-mindedness. The desire to break traditional patterns of seeing and knowing. Through encounters with art from a variety of cultures and periods, participants are prompted to recognize their own individual and systemic biases and to question them.

In this way visual literacy also becomes social literacy—a skill that can foster greater equality and understanding in society. After all, looking more carefully usually leads not only to seeing more detail but also to realizing how your own gaze is shaped by context—and how it can change.

Look where you will, it cracks where it likes

The program was originally developed for family medicine residents; later all sorts of others joined. But even before that there was considerable evidence that regular encounters with art improve doctors' diagnostic skills. For instance, Harvard medical students who took an art history course made diagnoses a full 38 percent more accurate than the rest.

But how and why? Were those who signed up simply more curious and inquisitive, or was it really art that improved their skills?

A similar experiment with future nurses at Yale found that those exposed to art detected more clinical signs in patients. Art seems to train the eye and the mind to notice what would otherwise escape them.

But, at least according to the organizers, it isn't just about technique—it's also about empathy. A great deal of other data shows a clear pattern: over the course of their studies, the more “hard” knowledge future medics accumulate, the lower their levels of compassion for patients fall. With all my admiration for the professionals, you don't even need to read scientific studies to be convinced—it's enough to end up in a Sofia polyclinic.

The McMaster program was conceived as a way to restore the balance. Art is human experience rendered in a particular form—it demands that the viewer share in someone else's point of view, someone else's emotion.

Now with a decade of experience behind it, the program yields other, entirely unexpected benefits too: participants report reduced stress, an improved sense of well-being and a rekindled passion for their profession. Through art, doctors “burning out” from their grueling work rediscover why they chose it as a calling. To understand and help people.

Pencho doesn't read

All right, looking at paintings and thinking about them turns out to be useful, but… what if we're like the young lyrical hero who doesn't read—the one whose father, the poet Petko Slaveykov, wrote of him “Pencho is lazy, all he wants is to lie around,” only for him to grow into Pencho Slaveykov, a great poet nominated for the Nobel Prize? In other words, if beautiful paintings don't excite us, can we make them interesting?

We certainly stand a better chance if we approach them the right way. “The Art of Seeing” uses a variety of educational techniques to engage its audience. Sessions are usually led by a facilitator who, rather than explaining the merits and history of a painting, starts asking questions: “What do you notice here? What makes you think that? How does it make you feel?”

This kind of guided looking, the program's creators say, turns out to be key—it creates an informal atmosphere in which everyone challenges their senses and then shares their observations and associations. There are no wrong answers—what matters is making your case. In this way viewers gradually build confidence in their own senses and learn to trust their observations instead of immediately reaching for technology or ready-made templates. “Doctors learn to trust their eyes, not just expensive tests and machines,” says Dr. Joel Katz, one of the pioneers.

We're also talking about a kind of return to the past, when doctors were also people of the arts. It's enough to mention Leonardo and his contribution to anatomy. Or the fact that in the Christian tradition St. Luke is the patron saint of both painters and surgeons.

“There was a time when a good doctor was also a good humanist, but we lost that with the emphasis on the scientific and the technical,” notes Dr. Brian Goldman of Toronto.

Perhaps it's time to bring the two worlds back together. And not only those two.

Deja vu

What do the doctors see? At first—exactly what you'd expect. One participant admits: “At first medical descriptions came to mind. This person looks malnourished, his blood sugar should be checked…” Understandably, out of habit they look for pathology—even in oil portraits of Renaissance ladies they spot symptoms of anemia or signs of skin disease. The conversation, however, gently steers them toward another perspective. The future doctors get used to asking: “Why did the artist portray this figure this way? What story does this scene tell? How does this character feel?”

Gradually a real change in their gaze takes place. As Dr. Puneet Seth puts it: “It teaches us to see people as human beings, not just as medical cases.” The understanding that behind a woman's pallor there may lie not illness but sadness; that a sculpture's folded hands may be not a symptom of arthritis but an expression of humility—these are lessons that stay.

In recent years the organizers have broadened the approach by adding creative practices. Participants not only look at art but also make it—they draw, write short texts, even try dance and theater. The goal isn't to become artists but to experience firsthand the process of creation and the self-reflection and attention that come with it. The art of looking turns into the art of making, and the circle closes. And, as one participant writes: “Art is an expression of emotion, and emotion speaks a universal language.” In the end, learning to “read” paintings means learning to “read” people—with all their visible marks and invisible stories.

Wherever your eyes lead you

In times when you shouldn't swallow not only everything that flies but everything you can read, it is more important than ever to seek a different view. To turn seeing into an art and looking into seeing. To seek the different view, to bring back more points of view. To loathe the one-sided view, so that we see more clearly and search for the truth together. To see the future with clear eyes by bringing together technology and art. And everyone who has something to say and to show.

Is there any truth in this, what do you think?

If you like, I can write you a shorter version of this text for social media. Shall I start?

This article is part of the new issue of Perfect Day magazine.

Would you have guessed that Bulgarian IT leaders read Harry Potter, or even Dostoevsky? I wouldn't have, at least until a week ago, when I asked them and it turned out that's exactly the case.

I will never tire of repeating that you are what you read. On the eve of the Day of the Buditeli—November 1, when Bulgaria honors the National Revival enlighteners who kept its language and learning alive—I sent a short invitation to 30 people I consider remarkable: to recommend three of their favorite books to the readers of Digital Stories. I tried to make the palette of guests as colorful as possible—from people in leadership positions to those known as speakers; from people working across the ocean to foreigners whom the sector has brought to Bulgaria; representatives of the most varied technologies and of different generations.

I received no fewer than 20 answers, and today I have the pleasure of presenting the second half of them (the first is here)! Once again I'll note that they aren't grouped by any particular logic, because they turned out to be far too colorful and unexpected for that to be possible; I offer them to you in the order in which I received them.

Happy reading!

1. Pain and the Fifth Rakia

Nedko Hristov is an experienced DevOps specialist and a memorable speaker; before that, his path also ran through the QA profession.

(More about him and from him—here.)

• Za petata rakia. Dyado (For the Fifth Rakia. Grandpa) by Georgi Bardarov

“For the Fifth Rakia” is perhaps my most beloved short story. Outside the frame of society, of stigmas, outside religion. A magnificent testament from Bardarov about what is human, about not one but five glasses of rakia, the Bulgarian fruit brandy; stories told on a broken chair in the middle of a road where cars no longer pass; about a telephone that has gone silent.

Call your grandparents more often.

• The Gardener and Death by Georgi Gospodinov

This is one of the most delicate, magnificent and most difficult books I've read in recent years. To sum up the novel in one sentence, it is a monument of words from G.G. to his father. It is G.G.'s open rib cage, and inside, on two handfuls of soil, flowers sprout, a cherry tree and many roses. G.G. gets better and better with the years, and if I could compare him to anyone, it would be Leonard Cohen (with reference to his last album—You Want It Darker).

The father-son bond is very often neglected, and cruelly so—we rarely stop to think that a father is a monument we can always lean on; a big part of us that we have and often forget about.

Call your parents.

• Hronika na bolkata (Chronicle of Pain) by Ivo Ivanov

The year is 2024, and in 64 hours I rode 700 km on my bike in the epic Danube Ultra challenge. And while I rode, I listened to Chronicle of Pain in one go. Because I was hurting after so many kilometers on the bike, and because I had already read Ivo Ivanov. Ivo tells the heartbreaking stories of Jessica Long, of Niki Bozhikov from Kalofer, of Ivan. What do they have in common? All of them (and others in the book) are Paralympians whom society sees as “second-class” people. All of them show that a person is as strong as their spirit is strong. The body simply follows.

Told with incredible simplicity and humanity, these stories carry a raw charge of the will to live, of the incredible strength of a human being, and of the fact that anyone who wants something truly badly can achieve it.

Recommendations of favorite Bulgarian authors arrive precisely with the 11th answer, as if I had wished for them! And not random ones—Ivo Ivanov and Georgi Bardarov have also been guests on Digital Stories. And if every book is a powerful story, Nedko reminds us that reading every book can be a powerful story too.

2. Trial, Error and Forgiveness in the IT World

Anton Angelov is managing director and co-founder of Automate The Planet, an undisputed authority, author and speaker in the world of software testing.

(More about him and from him—here.)

• Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz

This book is like a mirror in which you see your own cognitive bugs. Schulz doesn't just analyze why we get things wrong; she shows why it is precisely our mistakes that move us forward. For anyone who works with hypotheses, experiments and uncertainty. It teaches you to respect error rather than fear it.

• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

This is a book that rearranges the context in which we think about people, technology and society. After it, you no longer see history as the past, but as a set of systemic experiments with successes, bugs and updates. What I like most is how it plays with the term “fiction,” and how a very large part of the foundation of our society today rests on it. Money is just one example—a fiction we have all agreed to believe in so that it makes sense.

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Brilliant order hidden in absurdity. Adams is a philosopher disguised as a comedian, and he shows how often meaning is simply a matter of point of view (and of not forgetting your towel). A blend of entertaining absurdity that breaks up your thinking and pulls you out of the everyday.

• On Being Human and Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm

Fromm is perhaps my favorite philosopher; I have around 15 of his books. He asks the hardest questions about meaning, choice and freedom, and he makes you stop for a moment and think not about what you are doing, but why. These books were written 70 years ago, yet it's as if they describe the present moment 1:1.

Anton even invited us into his personal library:

And Mr. Harari now appears for the third time, and with one and the same book at that. Perhaps it's time for a required reading list for tomorrow, like the ones we had back in school? Of course, the only truly required thing is never to go out without a towel, just in case—ask Douglas Adams.

3. The Great Game

Ivaylo Yosifov is co-founder and chief technology officer of FindMeCure; his professional work is tied to technology in the field of healthcare.

(More about him and from him—here.)

• CivCEO (never published in Bulgarian) by Andrew Karevik

The uniqueness of the series comes from the combination of strategic game mechanics (as in the old game Civilization) and real business principles—the protagonist resolves most conflicts through negotiation, economic strategy and deals rather than violence. In short, “the art of the deal” in a fantasy world.

• Radical Candor (never published in Bulgarian) by Kim Scott

I think this was my third time reading it. Required, absolutely required reading.

• Balgarite mezhdu dve katastrofi – 1396–1944 (The Bulgarians Between Two Catastrophes, 1396–1944) by Alexander Stoyanov

The author describes it as a book that every Bulgarian family should own and read. I completely agree with him.

And if anyone still doubts that together we are reading an incredibly colorful list of books, let them look again at how, right next to a recommendation about our modern history, stands a book by an author with enormous experience in the tech world. I am certainly extremely curious how she earned that description from Ivaylo, and I will read it.

4. Never Split the Difference

Veli Pehlivanov is co-founder of Resolute Software—a consulting company that works with clients on four continents.

(More about him and from him—here.)

• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

A former federal agent and crisis hostage negotiator takes us through psychology, human behavior and the extremely effective negotiation methods used and refined by the CIA. Shared through personal experience and distilled into a simple but extremely effective communication framework, Chris Voss passes on the subtleties of negotiating under critical conditions, where failure or even compromise can cost human lives. Extremely useful knowledge, a downright daily handbook for anyone who wants to sharpen their communication skills in business, in teamwork and in dealing with people in general…, even if they don't rescue hostages every day.

• The Richest Man in the World by Rafael Vidac

A book about success, personal struggle and the motivation that a true mentor can inspire even in a moment of failure and personal crisis. For me, one of the best books on personal development, told through the exciting story of a protagonist who stumbles upon an unusual opportunity, preparation for a job and a thrilling journey with a charismatic billionaire. A book you read in one breath, with excitement, and then return to again and again for its simple but brilliant practical system for strengthening body and spirit, for finding the path to inner wealth.

• Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind

An epic fantasy saga about power that corrupts, secrets that must be uncovered, truth that is frightening and causes pain, and love that no dark force can defeat. Full of riddles, mysteries and epic twists, it is a novel about all-consuming, often contradictory human feelings—love, hatred, greed and self-sacrifice—told in a captivating plot set in a vast fairy-tale world of magic and mythical creatures.

Self-knowledge, fantasy and the skills of negotiating with kidnappers… An unexpectedly good combination for the road to success in the IT world.

5. Radical Candor

Tushka Dermendzhieva holds a lead position in the world of backend technologies at one of the largest tech companies in Bulgaria—ScaleFocus.

(More about her and from her—here.)

• Radical Candor (never published in Bulgarian) by Kim Scott

This is one of the books that have helped me most in my work. Giving feedback has always been one of the hardest things for me—especially when you want to be both honest and supportive. This book shows how to strike that balance—to tell the truth directly, but with care for the person across from you.

• The 6 Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni

It helped me not only to understand my own strengths better, but also to see more clearly what motivates the people around me. Since then I've looked at teamwork differently—I try to build teams in which everyone contributes where they are strongest, and the work flows more naturally and efficiently.

• From Third World to First by Lee Kuan Yew

I love to travel, and this book gave me a deep perspective on the world and on why some countries succeed while others fall behind. Singapore's story is impressive—not only as a model of development, but also as a source of lessons in vision, leadership and managing large teams.

A book is a window onto the world. The cliché is entirely true, even in the age of technology and artificial intelligence. Having read this far, you will most likely agree with that judgment too.

6. Humans and AI, Up Close

Zornitsa Nikolova is a senior product manager at Payhawk—the first Bulgarian unicorn. You can also find her on Goodreads, with a series of recommendations specifically for product managers.

• Life 3.0 (never published in Bulgarian) by Max Tegmark

Published in 2017, the book forecasts the development of artificial intelligence. Back then it still sounded like science fiction to me, and now some of the things it describes are already reality. But even more valuable, and what I think keeps it relevant today, is its more philosophical outlook and the ethical questions around AI, as well as its attempt to look even beyond the dimensions of our planet.

• The Expanse by James S. A. Corey

The author's name is actually a pen name behind which stand two co-authors. There's also a TV series based on the books, with the same name (it didn't manage to grab me). Besides being truly gripping science fiction, this series interests me because, in a fictional context, it reflects much of the world around us, including geopolitically. It's not even hard to recognize the real countries used as prototypes for the fictional ones.

• The Mom Test (never published in Bulgarian) by Rob Fitzpatrick

I'm sure this little book has crossed the path of over 90 percent of readers, especially if they are product people or startup founders. It's usually recommended in the context of how to build meaningful products. I mention it here, though, because at its core it offers very practical and accessible guidance, reminds us how to stay curious about the things around us, how to ask (ourselves) the right questions in order to find the best answers—and that is a very valuable skill, not only for product people.

I find myself thinking about how large a share of the book recommendations from Bulgarian IT leaders have never been published in Bulgarian. I also think it would be wonderful if this list reached people in the publishing industry; sometimes they need good ideas too.

7. Foundations

Svetoslav Dimov is a marketing specialist, co-founder of the DEV.BG platform and of a series of events and ventures meant to help Bulgarian IT (and not only IT) leaders grow.

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

The year is 2003. I'm on a summer work-and-travel program in the U.S., and I walk into the office of the HR manager at the company where I'm working and say: “Could you recommend some books on management or leadership?” She smiles, picks up two books lying on her desk and replies: “I have a suggestion just for you!”

She gave me two books—The Power Principle by Blaine Lee (never published in Bulgarian), which I never did read, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which I had heard praised in AIESEC (a student organization I was a member of). I fell in love with the book! At one point in my life I was giving it to so many people that they started teasing me. I think it's valuable for several reasons:

• There is very extensive research behind the book;
• It gives you rules and an algorithm you can apply in different situations and areas of your life;
• In the era of “I'll reveal the secret of…” and dopamine, the book doesn't offer quick fixes; it lays foundations.

And so Mr. Covey turns out to be yet another author beloved by more than one of the special guests I invited.

8. Greetings to Anxious People, Too!

Vasi Gosheva is co-founder of the Soft Skills Pills platform, which helps companies develop their employees' soft skills. She hosts the podcast Radiotochka 2.

• Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

A novel I read either through tears or with a smile stuck on my face and quiet giggling (sometimes both at once). Through his unique sense of humor, Backman creates a zany comedy that is in fact a masterful dissection of the people we are today. I recommend reading it absolutely seriously.

• Pozdravi ot sinyata palatka (Greetings from the Blue Tent) by Petya Kokudeva

A travelogue of Petya's journeys across five continents—no clichés, no drawn-out descriptions. Just short, tender stories of encounters with people and cultures. You read it and it's as if you're looking through a camera that has captured emotions rather than landscapes.

• Very Good Copy (never published in Bulgarian) by Eddie Shleyner

A book I would recommend to anyone who wants to write better—not just copywriters. Eddie is one of my writing teachers, and in this book he has gathered the best of himself: how to make words breathe and live. While reading it, I had the feeling he was right there beside me. For me, that is where the meaning of good writing lies.

I won't brag, but I will note that of the Bulgarian authors recommended, nearly all who are still with us have already been guests on Digital Stories. That goes for Petya Kokudeva's wonderful interview too.

9. Pregnancy for Engineers

Nikolay Stoitsev is a senior engineering manager at StorPool Storage.

(More about him and from him—here.)

• Cribsheet (never published in Bulgarian) by Emily Oster

This one and the next are the two books that have helped me most in life. When I became a father, I was quite anxious. Cribsheet gave me confidence because it doesn't dictate the “right” way; instead, it presents a synthesis of the scientific data on the first years of a child's life—what we know, how certain it is and what trade-offs we make. It's also an excellent introduction to how the social sciences work (types of studies, limitations, how to read results). It explains well that there is no universal “right or wrong” in raising children, only informed choices and risk management.

• Expecting Better (never published in Bulgarian) by Emily Oster

I read it during my wife's second pregnancy, and it feels to me like the pregnancy book written for engineers. Instead of ready-made recipes, it gathers and analyzes current research on pregnancy and offers a framework for making decisions through the lens of probabilities and risks. It helped me support my wife better and have an informed opinion when she needed one.

• Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon

A small book with a big effect on me. It was this book that convinced me to start keeping a work journal and documenting the process. Keeping a professional journal turned out to be extremely useful for clarity, for feedback and for turning the daily flow into a more lasting capital of ideas. It encourages us to learn in public, to share generously and in that way to build a meaningful community around our work.

Parenting and children's relationship with technology are a big theme of a whole series of Digital Stories. And any meaningful reading recommendations in that direction are more than welcome.

10. Thread by Thread

Irina Lilova is responsible for talent development at Telerik Academy and has wide-ranging experience in human resources management.

(More about her and from her—here.)

• Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown

Our inner world is complex and many-layered, but it becomes more accessible when we have a map of it. Brené Brown opens a safe space for us to name and understand 87 of the deepest human emotions and experiences. Backed by more than 20 years of research.

• Nishka (Thread) by Viktoria Beshliyska

A novel that weaves together the stories of seven women in an unexpected and gripping way. The author of the blog Po dirite na dumite (On the Trail of Words), Viktoria Beshliyska handles our language with skill, which lends the story additional beauty and power. Thread is a literary experience that both connects you with your roots and gives you room to breathe.

• Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Every year, each of us on the team receives a book chosen by our CEO. That's how the memoir of Phil Knight, the creator of Nike, came to me. More than a business book, it lets you live through the philosophy behind building and growing the brand. Full of turning points and the ever-present connection with Japan, the book won't leave you indifferent.

Irina also offers a bonus idea: “In recent years, every summer I give myself the gift of time with a book from my childhood. It has brought me more than I expected. Try it—you too might discover something interesting about yourself.”

A wonderful idea!

Let's not break this Thread (and not only because Viktoria Beshliyska's novel is a favorite of mine and she has been a guest on Digital Stories twice), but keep going. Let's talk more about favorite books! Whom do you think I should ask for recommendations?

I'll say it again. In the information age, more than ever, you are what you read.

(You'll find the first part of the book recommendations here.)

“Poetry written with the help of artificial intelligence.” What is that? Does AI write it alone? Does it depend on the task the human sets? Or do the two find a way to go on together, so that they create something next, something different? The way it has always been until now…

I believe as many people as possible should be asking these questions. And looking for their own answers. Because the better version of the future runs through this conversation and nowhere else.

Apollo ex Machina is the name of the contest for poetry generated with the help of AI, organized by Digital Stories and the Scribens publishing house. You can enter it here until December 1, and the rules are as simple as they get. You can send up to three poems in whose creation artificial intelligence took part in one way or another.

Can new, different, unexpected, beautiful poems be born this way? Does it depend on the human, or on the algorithm?

Update: The results of the first contest of its kind in Bulgaria for poetry and AI are now in, the poetry collection has been published, and the conclusions are extremely important and revealing—read here.

Mechanically

Prizes await, and the best poems will be published by Scribens. The selection is a serious and responsible one, because some impressive names agreed to sit on the jury: Petar Chuhov, Boyko Lambovski, Violeta Kuneva, Georgi Gavrilov.

But… why do we need to test how good an author (or partner) the algorithm can be in a field like poetry, of all things?

Maybe, if you believe quite a few of the people who saw the contest announcement, we don’t? Quite the opposite, in fact:

Active as a Machine

My aim has always been to lead the conversation, not to steer it. Yes, it is clear by now: it cannot be a coincidence that AI-generated poems made the top 10 of two consecutive leading Bulgarian poetry contests.

So what? Many people are completely against letting AI anywhere near poetry. Poetry is supposed to be human, untouched, cut off from technology…

What does it take to prosper?

Be active as a machine!

Let nothing frighten you!

Beware only of your mind!

The mind trips up all efficiency.

Sometimes it makes it impossible.

Beware of the mind!

Don’t let it get in your way!

How else could you be infallible?

Dobri Zhotev

Back in the good old year of 1969, the Bulgarian poet Dobri Zhotev painted the figure of Kibernet. I was lucky enough to learn about him precisely through the conversations I hold on my site. And here it is: so many of today’s big topics were anticipated that precisely and that long ago.

“Cybernetics specialists once again spoke of the possibility of creating a machine-creator, while literary figures protested fiercely against it…”

So wondered “the famous Soviet writer, translator and journalist Dmitry Zhukov,” whose reflections were published in the Bulgarian magazine “Lik” in 1967.

Yes, the topics are supposedly familiar, the path well trodden. And still—must we keep creativity and technology at arm’s length?

Why all this whining?

Why do people sigh

for some romance

grown cold?

Romance today is in the engines

_that sing_

 _beneath the blue sky._

Nikola Vaptsarov

Yes, starting tomorrow we will declare that artificial intelligence was not used in creating the poems a poet enters in a given contest, or weaves into their latest collection.

Po-ethics

Except we already live in a time when it cannot be proven whether a text was written by a human or by an algorithm. What’s more, every one of us already reads generated texts every single day without realizing it.

Can we really solve the whole problem with bans and regulations? By pretending nothing has changed and simply walking around the unobtrusive elephant in the room, convinced it is just a statue?

The hands of the wind

stretch out my branches—

inward to the sky,

outward to the dreams.

There, where

fate leafs open our dreams,

I wait for you—

child of the wind.

“Maksim Ivanov”

Yes, the juries of two consecutive poetry contests could not have been fooled by accident. Especially juries so different in their makeup and their requirements.

Do You Respect Me?

And how exactly can we still be sure who the author is? And really, who is the author if AI and the human work together? Is it art?

How can we judge how good algorithms really are at creating poetry if we don’t challenge them?

How can we preserve our creative impulse, which, as experience so far has shown, easily falls victim to the comforts technology brings us?

“I wouldn’t take part, because I don’t approve of using AI in poetry.” That was the argument with which a poet turned me down when I invited her onto the jury (everyone else accepted, and once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart!). I got exactly the same words from a fellow journalist who did not want to write about the project. A well-known publishing house refused to support it because it was in “severe dissonance” with its views.

And yet, whether we approve of it or not, AI is here to stay, and we cannot pretend it doesn’t exist. And in order to be able to make sense of it, use it in the best possible way, or ban it, we first need to get to know it.

Why a contest, of all things? Should we encourage people to use this technology, or is it better to be afraid and keep away from it?

“(I am a man of flesh and blood,

there’s not an ounce of iron in me;

whatever in my life I make,

death will peck away without pity;

I’m going far, and I’m alone…),

I leave behind these verses.”

François Villon, translated by Vasil Sotirov

Poetry contests are at the root of our modern views of this art, Boyko Lambovski, a well-known poet, journalist and member of the Apollo ex machina jury, reminded me.

In 1458, François Villon took part in a poetry contest held at the court of Duke Charles d’Orléans in the castle of Blois. The theme was set by the duke himself: “I die of thirst beside the fountain.” An unusual influencer by today’s standards, Villon entered the competition alongside a dozen or so court poets, and it helped him reach a wider readership for the first time.

Time of Parting

1860, Athens. Grigor Parlichev, a Bulgarian poet and teacher from Ohrid, won first place at the annual Athens poetry contest with his epic poem “Ο Ἀρματωλός” (“The Serdar” or “The Voivode”). He received a laurel wreath and a cash prize, and it is no exaggeration to say this was also the first great poetic triumph of a Bulgarian.

Parlichev was given the title of laureate, and the Greek government granted him a small lifelong pension and offered him citizenship and a scholarship to study at a prestigious foreign university—there was even talk of Oxford. He, however, turned down every honor. He declared that he was above all a Bulgarian, and that his goal had been to show the world what the Bulgarian people were capable of.

“We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Futurist Manifesto

Quite a few years passed after Parlichev, the internet arrived, and poetry was one of its very first guests. At first it lived in the forums; I wrote in one of them too, and we even published a few anthologies. I was in high school and believed poems would help me succeed with girls (well, they didn’t). Then I started reading poetry and becoming convinced of how great this art is.

Today, more than ever, as a lover of poetry, I believe it can help us make sense of the world we have found ourselves in. In the search for answers to those enormous questions that are the reason Digital Stories exists. If with the help of the machine we can create something better, more beautiful, more thrilling, should we ban it? If it can give us the next ideas, forms, directions, genres? If it is itself capable of creating better poems, should we forbid it to?

I don’t know about you, but all my favorite poets are brave people. The kind who were not afraid of the status quo, of the censorship of spirit and thought, of the inhibitions of their time, style or genre. Of borders and artificial limits.

Programmed Harmony

“I like to think (and the sooner the better!)

of a cybernetic meadow

where mammals and computers

live together in mutually programming harmony

like pure water touching clear sky.”

Richard Brautigan (I couldn’t find a Bulgarian translation, so this version is by the two of us, ChatGPT and me.)

In the contest we are organizing with the Scribens publishing house, the restrictions are minimal. We expect everyone who feels provoked to enter with up to three poems. There are no limits on genre or form, nor on exactly how you use artificial intelligence—as a full-fledged author, as an editor, as an assistant. The winner will receive a cash prize, the runners-up books, and the best poems will be published in an anthology.

Where is poetry today? Can it reinvent itself, can it help us make sense of the world we live in?

I don’t know. But I am sure that the jury of Bulgaria’s first contest for generated poetry is made up of people who can show us the way to the answer.

Let’s look for it together. Will you be the one to create, with the help of AI, poems that move people?

Give it a try.

No one knows who will turn out to be Apollo ex machina.

Update: The results of the first contest of its kind in Bulgaria for poetry and AI are now in, the poetry collection has been published, and the conclusions are extremely important and revealing—read here.

You can hardly have missed this modern debate, and you probably have your own opinion on it:

Now that artificial intelligence produces results indistinguishable from human creativity, will we go on creating?

Is the great hero of our day taking over the human role of author, or is it just another link in history's long chain, the new tool that will give birth to the next arts, genres and forms?

A tool that will help people express themselves and make sense of the world in a new way and with new means…

Well, the striking pictures you see here are, for me at least, one more strong argument in favor of the optimistic theory. Their creator shows that there need not always be a border between technology and art, between mathematics and art, between the humanities and technology.

Sauron

At first glance, a retro photograph from long-gone times, but the faces are blurred, deformed, as in a strange dream. An elegant lady from the 1920s poses for a portrait while a fantastical creature peeks out from behind her shoulder. A charming robot is dressed up in shevitsi, traditional Bulgarian embroidery, and looks ready to stamp out a lively horo, the Bulgarian chain dance.

Welcome to the world of David Szauder. For the Hungarian multimedia artist, reality is only a starting point—life unfolds in the boundless space of the imagination, where technology is the artist's new brush and the absurd and the beautiful meet and complete each other.

Born in Hungary in 1976, Szauder divides his life between two passions: art and technology. Drawn to computers since childhood, as a student he turned to art history. He brought together his love for these supposedly so mutually repellent pursuits in the new Intermedia program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest—a place where digital art was not merely allowed but welcomed, “like heaven on earth,” as he himself puts it. A year in Helsinki followed, where he honed his programming skills.

From 2009 to 2014, Szauder worked as a curator at the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Berlin, then returned to his homeland, and recently he has been teaching courses on artificial intelligence in art at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest. A university that bears the name of one of the remarkable artists who created the Bauhaus—the very movement that first showed how successfully technology and art can come together. Nothing is accidental, wouldn't you say?

A Bug in Memory

Szauder gradually turned toward surrealism. And I can't help wondering—what mischief would that mustachioed Spanish hidalgo, famous for his anteater, which he loved to walk around as nonchalantly as he walked his imagination, have gotten up to? Well, Salvador Dalí never made it to AI, but the man with his initials reversed seems to me a fitting candidate to be his heir.

And if we are used to thinking that to err is human and that machines are infallible… right at the start of his creative path, the Hungarian turned that perspective around. Szauder found his voice in an unexpected place: in the error. In the bug, the “glitch”—for him, digital visual distortions and defects became a doorway into human stories.

In his early series Failed Memories, he took old family photographs and deliberately “damaged” them with algorithmic interference, as if digital memory were failing just as human memory does. The concept came to show the similarities he sees between the way our brain stores images and the way a computer does. In both cases, when a memory is “opened” again, fragments are often missing, and “bugs” appear that our mind fills in with invented pieces of its own.

David. Dalí?

An interesting nuance for times in which we have given machines the duty of remembering for us, wouldn't you say?

To each damaged portrait he added a short invented backstory—imaginary tales to explain the surreal distortions. A believer, a regular churchgoer, begins to doubt himself; a group of friends sinks too deep into metaphysical arguments; a glamorous lady falls into paranoia over the bubbles in her champagne…

Szauder connects digital errors and human emotions, but he also shows how the imagination can patch up what time has destroyed.

Beyond the Screen

The next step was to break down the barrier between the digital and physical worlds. One telling example came when the artist decided to breathe life into a bug in three-dimensional form. He was playing with a model of a bird on his computer when an unexpected error covered the image with odd lines. Instead of deleting the “broken” bird, Szauder embraced it as an idea and decided to “pull” it out of the digital world and materialize it as a sculpture shaped by his own hands.

“It's important for viewers to see how the work comes out of the screen,” Szauder explains, once again emphasizing the idea—let's blur the border between the virtual and the real, since that border is as old-fashioned as it is arbitrary.

Then he created 1:1 scale installations you could walk through to immerse yourself in the First World War—a web of threads tracing the events across 200 square meters. He also works with augmented reality and built an installation for the Leonardo da Vinci museum in Milan.

David Super

For a long time, Szauder was skeptical of the much-hyped artificial intelligence, because he couldn't find a way to use it. AI-generated visuals seemed somehow alien to him, not what he wanted to create.

Everything changed when he came across a visual collage created by algorithms that both puzzled and charmed him. “AI and I have work to do together,” he decided, and dove boldly into research.

“For the past year and a half, it's not AI learning from me, it's me learning from it,” Szauder admits. He approaches algorithms as a mysterious new world to explore: he experiments, tweaks parameters and watches what happens in the “electronic brain” when it receives certain instructions. The process, in his words, devours time and energy, but it also opens up the possibility of creating things that were unthinkable until recently.

A series of colorful projects began—from creating anatomical sweaters, something he never thought he'd be able to do, to turning himself into the hero of a series of surreal images with unexpected plots.

Szauder very quickly discovered that AI could help him unleash a creative direction he hadn't thought was within his reach. “With AI, we have the opportunity to create absurd, surreal things we were never capable of before,” the artist-programmer says in one of his few interviews.

The Palette Is Empty

Not long ago, I challenged visitors to the Digital Stories website to tell children's drawings apart from ones generated by AI (or created with its help—I still wonder which is more precise).

More than 3,800 people took part, and the result showed that here, too, we no longer stand a chance. Yes, our primal, fundamental, innate creativity can now be flawlessly imitated by algorithms!

But how many possibilities they give us! If you don't believe me, ask today's hero.

Yes, according to David Szauder, AI is not a threat to the creator but a tool—one that can greatly expand the palette of the true maker. Just as photography or Photoshop did not kill painting but offered new means of expression, artificial intelligence puts a new brush in the hand of the digital artist.

“We have to look at AI as a tool,” Szauder insists—“something that, used properly, can perform brilliantly and amplify human creativity.”

Yes, it's one thing to say it, another to show it, and a third and fourth thing to convince people, as the virtual Haytov—an AI incarnation of the Bulgarian storyteller Nikolay Haytov—would put it. And yet… all these pictures, these works you see, suggest there may be something to it, wouldn't you say?

This article is part of the new issue of Perfect Day magazine.

– How did you come up with the idea of proposing this unexpected experiment with children's drawings?

– Lately the online space has filled up with countless (pseudo-)expert opinions on how to tell AI content from human content. Most of these posts are so identical that you start to wonder whether they weren't written by AI themselves.

On top of that, your online social experiments, along with many scientific studies, clearly show that AI content—be it text, music or images—is indistinguishable from human work. These two things made me think about what kind of creative content, on the one hand, hasn't been studied in connection with AI, and on the other, is so sincere that it would be startling if we mistook it for AI.

Namely: children's drawings:

the ones that cheer us up from the fridge door, the ones whose chalk lines lead us along the paths in the park, the ones we say “No!” to and later find on school desks or sometimes on the walls. The ones we feel traced by a little finger on our backs early in the morning!

– Why is it important to run this experiment?

– Why indeed? A while ago someone asked me: “Well, so what if it was written by AI?” In other words, perhaps whether a text or any other content comes from AI doesn't matter, and ventures like this aren't important to most people. Which is understandable, since the world faces plenty of challenges, and people—especially here in Bulgaria—are somehow worn down by their daily tasks. Those who aren't professionally affected by freely available AI tools don't care how they're used and don't worry that music designers and performers are already being replaced by AI.

After all, how many of us lose sleep over the fact that automation has taken away so many jobs?

And perhaps that's exactly where the significance of this idea lies: to make us “give a damn” a bit more, to seriously ask ourselves where AI's limit is, what exactly we use it for, other than pouring money into big companies and congratulating ourselves on the time we've saved by not reading books.

If we follow the narrative that AI frees up time for activities more creative than writing emails, making presentations and answering customer inquiries by hand—great! Then we can already rejoice that our children, too, will be able to save this “precious” time from the “tedious” drawing of holiday cards, which we won't be able to recognize anyway.

And what is this more creative activity that the people using AI are engaged in? That's what I'd be interested to find out!

I wonder whether, having saved an hour or two thanks to AI, a person uses them for creativity—making seashell mosaics, say, or working on self-improvement, volunteering? Or do they take on other tasks? Or do they just pull the phone out of their pocket…?

– Exactly! All these big questions are the reason this site and its experiments exist. Which way do you expect the conclusions to go?

– As in other studies, I don't think participants will manage to tell with 100 percent accuracy which drawing is by a child and which is generated by AI. And, to be honest, the AI drawings may well be seen as prettier, though that remains quite subjective.

– If it turns out that we struggle to tell them apart, does that mean AI is “more creative” than humans?

– In my view,

whatever the result, AI cannot be more creative than a human.

After all, we're talking about a tool, and I personally can't ascribe the qualities of living beings to it. It's a bit like asking whether a cookbook is a better chef than Gordon Ramsay!

That's why it's a truly big social challenge when this line between person and tool is erased and nobody publicly declares which content is generated by AI—on the contrary, there are attempts to give AI bots human qualities in customer service, consulting, recruitment, finance. There are quite a few cases of people who became attached to an AI agent and came to a sad end. So perhaps the question isn't whether AI is more creative, but why we need to make it that way at all, and make it imitate the human.

– And whether it isn't too late to turn off this road… Should people who fail to recognize the two types of images be upset? Do you think our test is better solved intuitively or analytically?

– We have enough angry people on the roads, in the neighborhoods, in relationships. I don't think they should be upset or feel deceived; they should channel that frustration into analyzing what happened and asking themselves about the relationship between technology and people. Otherwise, for me the intuitive approach suits the experience of art better, especially children's art.

– Every child draws, and then most of us stop. What is a child's drawing a sign of, what does it symbolize?

– We stop, definitely. Especially

with these devices constantly around us, we don't even let our minds wander through those oh-so-useful pen doodles on a napkin during a phone call or a meeting.

From a psychological point of view, a child's drawing is extremely valuable—it's used in many therapeutic activities and for communicating with children who don't express themselves verbally. Drawing is also rebellion—graffiti, for instance, is a form of social expression. To me it's the most precious thing a child can give—a gift, an expression of love, an investment of time and effort, sometimes even a pointer to a future profession.

– “AI today is better than us at divergent thinking, originality and speed, and therefore at creativity too. That is why the very definition of creativity must change”—in your proposal for the experiment you quoted these words by the cognitive psychologist Mark Runco. How should this definition change, and why does it matter?

– I'm still at the beginning of understanding the all-encompassing subject of creativity, but

the definition of the creative is that it should be original and effective.

Of course AI, based on the data it has and learns from, will come up with an answer to a creative problem or a new idea much faster. That's precisely why Mark Runco says that, to distinguish AI creativity from human creativity, the requirements of originality and effectiveness must be joined by those of authenticity and intentionality. Namely: it must be genuine and come from within, not from a prompt.

– The problem is that we can no longer tell one from the other, and the difference is becoming unprovable… So what do you think the creativity of the future will look like?

– Depends on whether we take the red pill or the blue one. And I'll stop with the references from the dinosaur era, as some people at home say. Who knows…

It's naive of me, but I hope creativity will help solve all kinds of social problems, and not just the ones we create for ourselves.

Problems of the “guilty conscience needs no accuser” kind—for example, writing texts with AI and then checking them with AI detectors. Then again, when I see how much is invested in AI companies that sponsor theoretical projects for models to solve world hunger, say, instead of investing in vertical farms and schools, do I really know what the creativity of the future will be…

– I too naively keep believing that creativity and art are among the few chances we have for a better future… But that, too, deserves to be questioned. Why do we need creativity at all?

– It's the force that pulls us toward new discoveries, whether in science, business or art; it leads to self-development and better communication between people, and thus to a more developed society; it brings pleasure. It's built into us—just look at how creative little ones are at building houses for the bugs they've caught before letting them go again.

– I was thinking along these lines looong before ChatGPT existed. Perhaps we should change our definition of art… So far it includes the element that the creator must be human. Although Roland Barthes argues that the meaning of a work doesn't depend on its particular author.

– Starting with the guano used for cave paintings,

humans have always had a tool through which to express themselves. That's why AI can't be condemned in its role as a helper.

But even if we don't want to arrogantly place humans above everything, let's simply look at the philosophical problem of the product that destroys its creator. For the most part, however much this is debated, AI harms people working in the creative sector, especially freelancers. After all, why should a business pay for a website if it can make one itself, for free, even if the quality is poor? And the argument that only the most successful survive in these industries doesn't hold either, because many talented people don't always get the chance to be recognized by society.

And whether the author is alive or not, AI still learns from famous figures alongside unknown creators—the human heritage remains.

– But the role of that heritage is different. I know it's impossible to answer, I've already asked quite a few guests from all sorts of fields, but here we arrive at what may be the essential question: can a machine create?

– It can't be answered. But again I wonder: why should it create? Is it really so tedious, hard and time-consuming for us to create, to read, to think? Why hand over to a machine something so genuine?

So that we have more time to scroll the internet? We, and the young people watching us, have learned far too quickly to rely on far-too-quick solutions—alongside the quick loans on every corner; on constant stimulation—a dopamine hit lasting a few seconds; on over-reliance on technology; on AI answers that, like social media reels, we don't remember, but just scroll past and type the next prompt…

It may well be able to create, but should it?

– Why not? What if it can reach ideas we never could? And can a machine have imagination?

– The theme of imagination and feelings in AI is central to many creative works that are themselves an expression of human imagination. Since we mentioned that writing is all but on its way out, let's look at films—masterpieces like Ex Machina, Bicentennial Man and A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which deal with these very themes. So, if people keep creating such works in search of an answer to this question, let's not stop asking it and feeding our human imagination. The answer itself might not even matter…

– In your view, what is a generated illustration—a joint creation of human and machine, of the machine alone, or…?

– It's also the product of all the other creators whose data was used to train and develop the AI.

– Can something created by AI move us? Bring us to tears? Make us laugh sincerely? Honestly, all three have already happened to me.

– You're not the only one. In fact, many AI works are rated as powerful, especially by people who don't know they're looking at something generated. But here's the interesting part: studies show that an AI-written piece may be rated as more appealing than a human one. Yet many AI works taken together are, over time, rated by readers as all the same—equally emotional, equally boring. That's why

many experts express their fear that soon all written forms will be identical, with recycled ideas and similar text structures.

Imagine, for example, a world in which the pastoral world of Elin Pelin, the Bulgarian master of village short stories, sounds indistinguishable from the magical realism of García Márquez. That would bring me to tears.

– Or the other way around? There's another thing worth testing in a future experiment.

But if you know you'll spend decades learning to write or draw, to become an accomplished creator, while today algorithms do it indistinguishably from humans, faster and in many cases more originally… what will be the point of continuing to develop creativity?

– The point is to develop ourselves and society through our ideas—especially for those who come after us.

The bad thing is that a great many people, especially creators, really are asking what the point is now that AI is taking over their functions. Some lose their jobs, others start using AI to keep up with the business world and its deadlines and content-optimization tricks. And a third group—the worst case, especially for people who are still developing their skills—get “stuck in a loop” and uncritically accept whatever AI gives them, at work, in education, in their personal lives…

From a tool, AI becomes a crutch, and crutches can trip you up too.

The industry itself may become undesirable, as happened with many social professions. The work of writers and translators may not be so sought after by young people. There's a risk that everyone will take the easy road of quick answers.

– As a parent, how do you deal with this problem of the easy road?

– It's hard not to take it, definitely. You throw a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner, you book a venue for a celebration instead of inviting guests over, you cut in line “just to ask something,” you switch on the cordless vacuum because you're in a hurry to get the chores done, though maybe nobody is even chasing you.

The sad thing is that our children copy us and take the easy road too

And we ourselves, somehow with good intentions, keep wanting things to be easier for them for longer, even though it's in every child's nature to choose the harder road: to find out for yourself that the stove is hot, to touch the snow yourself despite the mud on it, to see for yourself whether that puddle really does come up over your shoes…

– When do you plan to introduce your child to artificial intelligence?

– I don't know. I've heard that her classmates use AI, and I haven't even opened ChatGPT in front of her. Which may be a mistake, because that way she might fall behind with technology. I've introduced her to lots of topics, but this one, about taking the easy way in education, I don't want to yet.

– In the school of the future, will we still learn to draw?

– Oh, I hope we'll never stop drawing, even if it comes to be seen as something old-fashioned.

To have fingers blackened by the shading that didn't come out right, to have stains on our clothes from the paint we smeared on the paper, to laugh at figures where we can't tell whether it's a horse or a car.

– A few weeks ago everyone got obsessed with making pictures in the style of Japanese animation… and once again the conversation about artificial intelligence turned to some cute app rather than its great potential, the way I try to steer it on this site. What is the most important conversation about the relationship between AI and humans, and how can we “unleash” it?

– I think it would be precisely a conversation about the responsibility we have toward ourselves, our loved ones, society and those who come after us. Unfortunately, these days everyone wants to be heard, and we don't very often listen to the person across from us, especially if their opinion differs from ours. That's why

what often happens isn't conversation but one-way expression of opinion.

And here the theme of the easy road comes up again: we're afraid of missing out on the latest thing, we worry we won't be noticed, and so we copy. As you put it—

at a time when we can be anything, we choose to be the same.

– Can we invent new genres, new arts, where we can escape competition with AI?

– Oh, I can't wait for that to happen! But for that, the industry itself needs to support artists a bit.

These days everything seems to be a remix of something

—remixes of hits, copied websites, sequels and mash-ups of old films… So it would be wonderful if those who are already established in the industry somehow put a stop to the recycling of ideas and paved the way for bold performers who could set new genres.

You never know—as with the story of the musician Sixto Rodriguez, a single performance can turn into a whole movement on the other side of the world. And the performer might not even find out…

– And could we cross that threshold beyond which the human being as creator, influencer, actor, face or athlete is simply no longer needed?

– If we keep producing uniform content that nobody even reads or watches, maybe there won't be such a need. But I can't and don't want to imagine the world without creators!

– How far off is that? What will be left for people if we get there?

– If that happens, I think we'd lose ourselves.

I keep telling myself that the way we use AI is like the tragic story in Flowers for Algernon. It's the story of a man with an intellectual disability who becomes a genius after a medical experiment, but when the treatment takes an unexpected turn, he slides back, painfully and consciously, into his former state.

In the same way, we're now experimenting with AI with smiles on our faces, reaching the brilliant peak of technology where the machine passes for a human. But what will happen when we cross to the other side of the curve, when we fall from the peak? Will we realize how AI has taken away our capacity for reasoned thought, if our children don't open books, don't click on websites, don't check the opinions they copy? Will we be able to apply a new treatment?

– It's obvious that we can't tell generated content from created content, especially on social networks. Is there a recipe for getting out of this net? Out of fluid truth, social bubbles, the lack of criteria?

– Personally, I'm worried. About how

people get locked in these social bubbles, suffocated by algorithms that feed them false and extreme content,

about children who form an unrealistic image of their own appearance and give in to dangerous challenges.

Banning technology, however, is not a recipe for success. In my view, the recipe lies in developing creative and critical thinking.

– What would be your boldest idea for the next experiment? This question was made up by AI, and I really liked the wording…

– I'll answer you with ChatGPT 😊

“AI Town”—A mini-society coordinated by AI
🧠 Idea: Create a small, real settlement (or a simulated environment with real participants) where daily organization is managed jointly by people and a central AI assistant.

– Let's give it a try! Thank you both for the fascinating conversation and for the idea. And any further ideas on important topics are always welcome!

Can you tell 15 children's drawings from 15 images generated by artificial intelligence? If you haven't yet tried the Digital Stories challenge for children and parents, now is the time to do it.

– I'd really love for this to be a fun interview—I'm fed up with sad topics. But I've noticed it with you too: your humor always carries a slight dose of sadness.

– They go together; theater is tears and laughter. It's better for things to go lightly, but we should also say what troubles us. Or what we like.

– We talk a lot about critical thinking, about how it helps us separate the wheat from the chaff. Is that really so? I don't believe it, for many reasons—for example, the “broken” public conversation, or the fact that today we can't tell what's human from what's generated by artificial intelligence.

– And not just that. Ever since civilization has existed, the system has been trying to find ways to manipulate people through some kind of propaganda. It uses everything available—religion, science, art, culture. In the end, power always takes advantage of these things.

But not so that people become more enlightened—for commercial reasons. Money always comes first.

– But in my view, on the internet we're moving to the next level, where not only are we the product of social networks, we're also very easy to manipulate.

– But when was it ever different? It's just that the scale and the accessibility are different. Three hundred years ago, if you lived in some village, information reached you very slowly, if it came at all. Beyond that, nothing is different.

I graduated in puppetry, and one of the few things I remember—I wasn't exactly studious, but I really liked this—was the story of the Punch and Judy puppets. They started out in Italy and became very popular because they were a kind of news broadcast. That is, the responsibility lay with the character, not with the puppeteer, who said whatever he wanted through the puppets, voiced all kinds of opinions, harsh ones, accusing ones.

Puppets based on Punch and Judy made it to Czechia and Poland. And when the Germans conquered those countries,

they locked them up in a safe so there would be no counterpropaganda to their own. That's how powerful art and culture can be.

It has always been like this! That's why the first thing every new regime purges is faith and culture, so it can create its own. It's a natural principle, very harsh and unpleasant, but everyone does it to this day.

– But does culture have the same place in the online world? Is the IT “regime” really building a culture of its own? In my view, the superficial and the knee-jerk rule. Influencers, who aren't necessarily creators of meaningful, important, relevant content, are the authorities—not the media or artists.

– Is it really different from 50 or 500 years ago? I don't think so. The problem is rather that the scale is enormous and now everyone is included—both the masses and the elite.

In the old days, it was the elite who were privileged. Through television, through newspapers, a huge mass of people joined the game—anyone who wanted to. Even a homeless person can find a newspaper and read the news, whereas 200 or 300 years ago only the palace and its inner circle had access to any more refined culture. Everyone else got by as best they could, again with petty, vulgarized things.

Mozart was buried in a common grave, even though he played at royal courts.

There's something else I discovered for myself two or three months ago. I think the simple person—in the good sense of the word, the one who never had much, who works in the fields, in the factory—has dreamed for centuries of living like a king. With my grandma and grandpa, whenever we had a good time at the seaside, or ate something tasty, they'd say: “We ate like kings, we had a royal time.”

That was wedged into people even subconsciously—the desire to feel how kings live. In some form, as an illusion, it came true. Today, even on a small salary, you can afford four days in Hisarya, a Bulgarian spa town, swim in a pool, use the jacuzzi and other royal things.

It's a facade and an illusion, but still, that's how it is. For the past 20 years or so, though,

that isn't enough for us, and now we want to feel like gods.

I think this striving toward the ego is a very strong signal. “Me and everyone else.” “I am the center of the Universe; the others are some theatrical event I'm taking part in, they're a means for my profit and, above all, for my hatred. I can hate everyone else because they don't think like me. They're dumb, stupid, orcs.”

All sorts of ugly terms get used for the others, the ones who are different from me. And

this is a kind of deification of the individual, which is ruinous.

But perhaps that, too, comes from the scale of information reaching everyone so easily. Everyone becoming an authority in the online space, or at least considering themselves one.

Everyone being able to voice their personal opinion. And in the end, that may turn out to be the problem.

– As another guest of mine put it, “the false sense that our opinion matters.” There you go—sadly, once again we didn't start with laughter, and we've arrived at a problem.

– It may not be a problem; it may be the beginning of something very good—there's no way to predict. Let's say I'm more pessimistic, I admit, like you. But I also think I could be wrong. It's very important not to decide at all costs whether things are going badly or well.

I believe people as individuals should be respected—every single person in the world, in the past, in the future and in the present. But the masses always worry me.

I don't like crowds of people, because that's when the individual disappears.

Concerts and rallies have always unsettled me—every gathering of people destroys the individual and, in my view, does the work of a certain circle of people who know how to manipulate.

That's not new either; it's been so since the world began. Will the individual prevail, or the crowd? It's not in our power to judge.

– But look, the internet gives you, as an individual, the chance to create content and have it travel far.

– Absolutely! Everyone can express their personality in some form—through a Facebook post, a video or a TikTok live. But here comes

another problem—to what extent should this be controlled? And who should control it?

Should there be any limits, moral, ethical or otherwise?

In my view, humanity has never answered that question, from the very beginning, from the moment it appeared. Whatever the choice, it will always be a compromise. If we say “freedom of speech,” that means anyone can say whatever they want. There shouldn't be censorship—censorship is interference by some authorities, which can also be corrupted; we have plenty of examples in history. Or it can be steered toward a goal that doesn't serve the people, or serves only certain circles. I think it's an uncontrollable process.

It sounds very appealing for everyone to freely speak their mind, without any censorship. But that carries the risk of extreme ideas reaching many people and leading to violence. I don't think this can ever be solved.

– Except that now there's artificial intelligence too, capable of creating any kind of content.

– It turned out Milli Vanilli weren't the real deal either—other singers were behind them, and yet it was, let's say, likable music.

– So the truth doesn't matter, only the content?

– In my view, here we come back once again to the commercial principle—is there a profit, who holds the key to it, who will benefit.

Truth is a rather relative thing. I don't think anyone should say: “This is the truth.” There should always be an “in my opinion,” an “I think that.” If someone claims to know the truth, that means they're God, which is rather proud.

Truth is a subjective, relative thing. 2 + 2 = 4. Fine, I agree that somewhere logic is unified, but in the end it may turn out not to be so. That's rather extreme, but we can still allow that somewhere, deep down, we went wrong back in Ancient Greece and mathematics isn't actually an entirely exact science.

– In geometry, that turns out to be the case. But let's try to smile again. How did you come up with the idea of making memes of yourself? Because it turned out to be a format that became hugely popular…

– Oh, that's not mine—let me tell you. One day, in 2019, someone writes to me: “This is really cool,” and sends me a little black-and-white meme. I wondered: is it from some film, where did I say that… And I got confused!

It turned out that a guy, without asking me, without us knowing each other, had made a page called “Kitodar Todorov.” At the time we were doing Friday at 5, the TV show, and this… got on my nerves a bit. Before that, someone had made an Instagram page, but started putting in political stuff. I'm very much against that—I don't like politics at all. I managed, with great difficulty, to get that page banned; I photographed my ID card and who knows what else.

That's why it bothered me that there was a “Kitodar Todorov” page without my knowledge and permission. I started trying to get it banned, but it had already built up quite a lot of followers. At some point one of the people we worked with found out who was running it, and we met at a café. It turned out he worked 20 meters from the café, at a pharmacy, and he thought we'd been following him.

– Now this is getting fun, I can picture the scene…

– We met—the guy's name is Dancho. I told him what he'd done wasn't very cool, he agreed, and we started wondering what to do. It's a fan page, but you have to go to the description to see that, and nobody does.

I asked Dancho to change the name so it was clear it was a fan page of Kitodar Todorov—that would be much fairer. I also asked

for no politics and no religion—let's just make little memes, let him post them, as long as they're not tied to those directions.

He agreed, and afterward we even shot a video in which I say I allow Dancho to use the page.

Three or four months later, Martin Kadinov suggested I start streaming games on Facebook. It was the end of 2019; I hadn't played for a year or two, but I liked the idea. For that we needed a page, and I didn't have one, just a profile I use once every two years. I called Dancho, and somehow we became partners—to this day we run that profile together.

– I'm supposed to follow the media stream, I often come across these memes, and I always thought they were yours. Look how interestingly and unexpectedly stories unfold in the age of social networks…

– There's an illusion for you.

– Which brings us to games. The last time I played computer games was at the end of the last century, and back then everyone was saying they were making young people stupid, what a generation was going to come out of it… A quarter of a century has passed, and I haven't noticed that happening, at least not because of games. When do games make you dumber?

– It can absolutely happen.

If gaming is the main thing you do, it's the same as becoming an alcoholic, a drug addict, a TV addict.

That is, when gaming turns into an addiction, it's a problem. I'm convinced of it, even though I love playing. It just has to be in moderation. Same as when Facebook or TikTok takes up most of your free time—then it's a problem. It's much better to read through Dostoevsky's works over one summer, for example.

For me, games are an addiction, and I find that a problem. Let's say not as much as seven or eight years ago, but games really can cut you off from normal communication with other people. When my son was born, I'd wait until 9 p.m. for him and my wife to go to bed so I could start playing until 1 or 2 a.m., and in the morning I'd get up short on sleep. That's not normal, especially when it's every day.

Sure, you can replace it with a game of belot, the Bulgarian card game, or Monopoly, or chess. The important line is for it not to become an addiction, but simply time to rest. To relax that way, to distract yourself, because games can also distract you from the insane daily grind.

They certainly give me some satisfaction and some distraction.

The point is for it to stay within some norm. If a person can control themselves, games aren't a bad thing. If not, better not to play at all. The ultimate goal, especially of mobile games, is to get you to pay pennies for something that comes very close to gambling.

– And yet, once you've found the balance, streaming games gives you the chance to meet interesting people.

– That's true. But ten or so years ago, people online would say sensible things to each other while playing: “Where are you from, what's your name?” Now all that's left is “Go to hell!” Communication got lost; it turned into aggression of some form. You'll rarely see “Good luck!” or “Have a nice game!” Whereas back then it was a way of getting to know each other—people were polite and wanted to learn about the other person.

Whether games are to blame, or the overall state of humanity, is another topic. Or maybe games have contributed to people becoming rude? I can't judge, but it's most likely far more complex.

Very intelligent people often work in the entertainment business. Just like the film industry, gaming attracts talented musicians and actors. That is, it's a kind of art. It doesn't have only downsides—I love games. But it's important for a person to be able to control themselves.

– Isn't a big part of this problem our first encounter with technology? This is a big topic for me—how we, as parents, introduce our children to technology, how we present it to them, how we also show them the alternatives. So that they develop self-control, too.

– But I don't believe in that. I don't believe the family can win that fight. Unless it's by force, which isn't cool.

My son didn't have a phone for many years, or tablets, computers, laptops. Until they could buy one themselves, they wouldn't have one—that was my system. It lasted until he turned 14; he read, he even wrote little fantasy books. He went outside, helped stray cats, fed them, took them to the vet—he did much more meaningful things than getting stuck in a screen.

One day my father simply gave him a phone, and all of that disappeared.

That really makes me angry, very angry.

Technology is so close to us that I don't see how anyone can escape. Just the other day I had no phone, there was an outage and… I actually felt great. No one can find me, I can't find anyone. Suddenly, one dependency fewer.

You just don't think about that stupid gadget. Such a great feeling!

On the other hand, I'm sure a huge number of people suffered enormously from not having a phone. Businesses were in trouble.

Our entire modern civilization is built on little machines we depend on, and that's really dumb. A truly free person shouldn't consider their phone something extremely important, or their computer either. We lose that over time, because

it feels like they give us everything. Like technology gives us freedom, and it doesn't. On the contrary, it creates more dependencies for us

– Even Bill Gates goes away from all technology for a month every year. And many other tech leaders develop a habit of freeing themselves from that dependency… while profiting from ours.

– Commerce. That's the problem with free trade. When there's no control, everyone does whatever they want. That's the problem with a purely commercial principle when there's no control.

I remember some games that reminded you that you hadn't taken a break in three hours and it was time to rest. Yes, it was a single game, but the makers themselves were signaling that you were overdoing it and it was time to do something else. That's an isolated case, though;

now the goal is for you to play more and more, to get hooked, so you want to buy more and more. And there's no control over that at all.

– Just like social networks, for example.

– We're back to who should be responsible for that control and who should make the decision. And again we arrive at the point where there's no fixing it. Everyone gets by as best they can.

Running away from the jungle, we humans walked into a much harsher jungle.

Running away from everyone fending for themselves, and trying to create a society protected from external and internal forces, we ultimately ended up with a society protected from neither. Everyone does whatever they want and saves themselves individually. That's my sense of the modern world.

A professor of game theory at Sofia University, a philosopher, said something 10 or 15 years ago that made a very strong impression on me—he talked about how important it is who is the subject and who is the object in every relationship between people. He gave sport as an example. If back in the day the object was the player, now it's the audience, and sport actually serves it entirely and exclusively. And so

sport has devalued, because it no longer matters in itself, only in how it will reflect on the audience and what the audience will buy. The show!

Everything around us is an ad nudging you to spend your money in the right place—and that place, of course, is “my business.”

– While gradually the human being becomes almost superfluous on both sides of that model.

– That's right. I used to think it was a local, Bulgarian problem, but it turned out to be a global one. You pollute the environment and somehow you don't think that in 100 years it could lead to a problem, a massive one. Your children will suffer, but it doesn't concern you.

People in general, when there's profit to be had, don't think about what consequences it could lead to. They don't care at all.

Especially with newly discovered things. People pounce and don't give a damn what they'll lose, whether someone will die. “What matters is that I get 10 million or 200 billion, because that gives me some security.”

Everyone in the world thinks that way once they get close to the racket.

– Because, as you say, we take ourselves for gods, while we're the same fragile, mortal, sinful creatures we were before technology—wise words from another guest of mine.

– Exactly, but everyone wants to be great. Nobody wants to say: “I'm weak and feeble in everything.” Always, because of greed and pride, civilizations have reached a cynicism that in turn led to their ruin. The model hasn't changed.

In the Old Testament you can see how the Jewish people, when things are good, forget about God and start making idols, little bracelets, whatever they please. Some prophet comes and says: “This won't pass, you know. It's going to get really bad.” They stone him. At some point what he said comes true, and fire and brimstone rain down on them. “Oh, Lord, we're sorry, we really are in a bad way.”

Then things pick up again, and again come the little anklets, the little idols, the little orgies. That process has never changed.

It's incredible how we don't learn from our history.

Supposedly it's an important subject because we learn from our mistakes. Absolutely not true—it even seems to me that we deliberately do precisely the wrong things we know have happened in the past.

– Apparently we can't do it any other way—that's just how it is.

– Again we come to the point that there's practically no solution to the problem, because we humans aren't gods. Very few things depend on us, and

the only power we have is over our choices. Nothing else belongs to us

– not our bodies, not even our thoughts are ours. The only things that are ours are the choices we make based on the thoughts that come to us and the things that happen to us.

How will you choose? Ideally the choices would be right, but unfortunately they often aren't. When we realize that we're truly insignificant compared to our planet, let alone the Universe, that frightening infinity, and time, which is also frighteningly infinite into the past and the future…

Only when we humble ourselves will we be able to communicate normally.

The film The Gods Must Be Crazy has made a big impression on me. It tells, simply and with a wonderful sense of humor, how badly people have screwed themselves over with this desire to complicate the system they live in. How, when you have more, you actually fool yourself that you live better.

And how much we've lost from primal man, that tribe that gathered water from the morning leaves, that had no words like “hatred” or “guilty”…. But… things are what they are.

– Well, the fun conversation didn't quite happen… to make up for it, I'll garnish it with Kitodar and Dancho's memes. But I don't regret it—your point of view was really interesting to me. And we'll get to the fun part, I hope very soon, at GG Lan Party 2025. It would be great if we could meet there!

– Artificial intelligence is getting more and more involved in art—from creating images all the way to poetry. As someone who has spent 30 years creating exceptionally high-quality, original images, do you have an answer to the classic question Bulgarian traffic cops ask when they’re angling for a bribe: so what are we going to do now?

– What? We’ll hold hands and start dancing. AI is a technology I’ve been working with for quite a while, ever since it appeared. There’s no point throwing a tantrum, or overthinking it either.

If you sit down and do that, it may well pass you by and be gone before you’ve come up with anything.

Ever since it came out, we literally clapped our hands and hugged each other. In my world there was a period of wondering, mostly about copyright—that was a big drama. Even the 3D artist I work with had joined some European coalitions, and the ambitions were very serious, along the lines of:

don’t use AI, because you’re destroying everyone’s work.

But that passed. For a year and a half now I’ve been using it constantly for work, almost never in its pure form—it can’t really be used that way, it needs a bit of touching up. But I work with it all the time, and I’m counting on it getting better and better.

– How do you see this synergy—using it without it replacing us?

– I don’t think it will ever replace us. It will certainly surprise us every day, or every month at the most. But that’s the kind of time we live in—a surprising one.

I use it and I’m very happy it’s developing so well. About ten times now I’ve been asked whether my pictures could be used to train this or that AI model. I’m absolutely in favor, first because we can’t stop progress. And second, because

I want it to serve me better and better.

– What does your way of working with AI look like right now?

– Most often I make storyboards. My photography, and the video I’ve been doing for a while now, is very hard to describe before it gets approved. Ninety percent of my work is on commission, to a brief, and when I have to explain to someone who’s been doing accounting until now that we’re going to shoot two crocodiles wrestling with a referee in the background wearing the latest Nike T-shirt, he stares at me for a very long time, blankly, until he understands what I’m telling him.

That’s why I use some of the image generators—mostly Midjourney, which turned out to work best for me—to illustrate what on earth I’m trying to say. What the result will be. Naturally, it never comes out the way I want, and I shape it a little.

Second—the practical side. We had to shoot a young woman opening a door to reveal a children’s bedroom lit by moonlight, with books on the walls, curtains, pillows. To do it, we’d have needed a whole day of preparation, and the budget would have grown far too much. And that’s only 20 percent of the picture—a little door, a gap, and you glimpse something.

We sat down, did the math, said to ourselves, “It won’t work!” and simply generated it,

touched it up a bit and used it as part of the overall composition. I use things like that more and more often, and lately I’ve been doing it with video too.

– You say it won’t replace us, but I see areas where it’s happening. For example, to illustrate my texts I no longer need to search a stock image bank and pay; I just generate something that does the job. There you go—it’s already replacing a lot of stock photographers.

– It’s certainly replacing quite a lot of people in that industry in one way or another, but it doesn’t concern me personally. Thirty-odd years ago, to show two people shaking hands in an article, you either used the archive of the outlet in question or hired some people to shoot it for you. When stock photography appeared, everyone who earned their living with that kind of photography went through a real drama.

Now we’re living through the same thing—stock photography won’t be used anymore unless specific people are needed; you just generate some image and you’re done.

By the way, I somehow sensed it coming. Before anyone was talking about AI, several times I needed human faces that don’t exist. I happened upon a site that generated them and said to myself, “There’s real money in this! How has nobody thought of doing it?” And

before I’d even finished the sentence, they went and did it, and in a way that made our heads spin, and we didn’t understand what was happening.

– Exactly, and I went through that very site. It happened incredibly fast. We thought it could happen with text, with some repetitive tasks, but image generation came out of nowhere.

– If you think about it, though, it’s somehow natural, and some clever minds knew it a long time ago. I recently came across some new generated influencers… well, I look at the picture and I’m starting to be unable to tell the difference between what’s shot and what’s generated.

– True, it’s no longer possible—I did an experiment like that. That’s why I somehow can’t make sense of your calm.

– To be honest, there was a period when I got worried. But I was more influenced by the crowd. For me, the whole fuss around AI is a marketing event. In fact, for the most part it’s pure marketing. Their goal is to get you to go and try it, so they can train it further with that. Which, globally speaking, is wonderful.

I don’t think it will get out of hand. I know the industry, I know what monstrous corporations and minds stand behind it. And that’s why I’m calm.

Besides, I’ve always been more of a curator than a “maker.” People don’t come to me to shoot something, but to dream it up and justify why it should be done that way.

– Fine, but that role isn’t guaranteed either. AI can be extremely creative—if you use a good model and describe precisely what’s needed, it can come up with a brilliant scene. It will give you 10 ideas, 9 of which are good for nothing, but the 10th is so good it could never have occurred to you. I say this because I too am surprised by ideas like that when I write.

– Oh yes, definitely. I think that’s wonderful!

We have to learn to use these things. Our civilization has always worked on this principle. Two or three hundred years ago, to write a letter to your grandmother, you had to go to someone who knew how to read and write and tell him, “Tell my grandmother. Period. That I’ll have to go away somewhere. Period.” That person sits down, writes it, shows you a scrawl that means nothing to you. Then he sends it on by telegraph, or whatever there is.

At some point everyone learns to write—not suddenly, but it happens. And just as everyone learned to write, everyone can now take photos. In 10 years everyone will be able to copy prompts and create their own, unless something more intuitive gets invented. This whole process has always existed.

But even though we all know how to write, look, you do it much better than a million other people.

Using exactly the same letters they have. Your story is simply better. From that point of view, I believe that with my stories, being better, there’s nobody who can rattle me or tell them better than I do.

It will most likely do it faster, it will help more people, it will be easier to understand, but I’m not worried that at some point it will beat me.

– When the first AI of this kind for images appeared, my first association was precisely with your photographs—we started enjoying it by writing surreal scenarios: “An astronaut riding a horse and drinking beer on the Moon.”

– On the one hand I like it, but on the other

it irritates me, because young people’s consumption of culture is being brutally dulled, their sense of aesthetics blown to smithereens.

And that’s disastrous for the future.

– But why cultivate that sensibility and perception? Fine, someone will write better than a million other people, but AI will also write better than 999,000. It’s very demotivating, like learning a foreign language knowing AI will do better than you and 99 percent of other people.

– The future right now is more opaque and murky than it has ever been.

But I keep thinking that in my world, in my industry, AI will be used for research and for predicting how things should be. Whether to make this mobile banking product one way or another, and it will be infallible. After that, though, there will be a curator figure, a human—perhaps such specialists are only just beginning to emerge—who will say what the conceptual direction should be. From there on, the AI executor will be called in. That’s how I imagine it. Having always been a curator, I really don’t think I have anything to worry about.

– I see one more direction for the future of your profession—hyper-personalization. AI gives you a tool supplemented by the “knowledge” of social networks and internet giants, and that will make it perfect. Today Facebook knows many people better than their partners do. And that will create the next step in advertising, which is dystopian.

– I agree. I already see it with these perfect social media algorithms—showing me what they think I want to see. I’m a photographer and digital artist, I post photographs, but I don’t look at them. The algorithms get a bit stumped, they don’t know what to show me. They show me wildly varied things, because I myself am wildly varied in what I look for.

– Is there something you can’t wait to see appear? A technology that doesn’t exist yet?

– I hope AI keeps getting better, because I suffer from the fact that it can’t do what I want. Right now, to use something, I combine 15 prompts with several stock images and with elements I’ve shot on location, with all the blood and sweat. From that point of view, I want it to become higher quality, better.

I still find mistakes and have to correct them. These are very photographic matters—for example, depth of field often gets confused. Which things should be in focus and which shouldn’t, where each subject should sit in the composition. If you place three subjects in depth, meters apart—a mother with a baby, a grandmother behind her and a kitchen—ChatGPT helps me create a prompt, but Midjourney starts getting confused about what goes in which plane. I generate them separately, assemble them, fix the background, and only then do I get what I’m after. I wish I didn’t have to assemble them.

Everything I use, AI or not, is just tools so I can do my job and express myself the way I think is right. At this stage AI is just a tool for me. Yes, a wonderful tool! But there’s still more to get out of it.

– And is there something that would frighten you if you saw it was capable of doing it?

– Yes, and it’s already capable of doing it. I see how

it damages the aesthetics and philosophy of young people, of our future.

Of those whose fingers will be on the red button tomorrow. They no longer think about things in detail. AI is getting young people used to focusing on the result; the process is gone. Everyone wants to get the finished picture, nobody wants to bother creating it.

I take photos because I like taking photos.

What comes out in the end? That’s a detail. That’s how, in my view, AI is harming young people right now. They forget how to do it because they don’t see the process. They don’t know what it’s like to go out, to sweat, to find the people, line them up in front of the camera, wait for the sun to sit just right, wind the film or load the digital camera, and shoot.

For me that’s an immense pleasure. I’d do it for that alone. But right now young people, and people who use AI in general, are all about the result. That’s the sad story.

– How can we return to the process when there really… is no obvious point? You see, for example, that AI creates something much better than you’ll ever be able to in a given field. What would motivate you to dive into the process? Why make things hard for yourself?

– Right now there’s a boom in analog photography; people buy chemicals, film rolls, they shoot… A single roll costs 45 leva (about $24)!

There will always be that, the parallel world. There will always be the seekers of the process, the connoisseurs who will look for the moment. But we can’t stop progress either.

Personally, I put my hope in what you do. Your site shows things, opens people’s eyes, wakes them up. But otherwise the consumption of AI-generated images will just keep growing.

– We can see that return with vinyl records too, but it’s for those 10 percent at most, the true connoisseurs, who nonetheless seem doomed to be a minority from now on.

– They really are a minority. I don’t know if it’s worth fighting that. There’s really nothing to throw a tantrum about. Somehow, in my own eyes, I’m turning into an armchair philosopher who grumbles. Meanwhile

we increasingly live in a society that belongs to those who adapt.

If you don’t adapt, you fall behind. You know how many photographers I see, young people without work, because they don’t want to adapt or can’t.

– I think it’s like that in every field now… Thank you for the fascinating conversation, I’d be glad to continue it soon!

Do you have an opinion on these topics? Do you think they matter? Come and continue the conversation on February 5 at 7 p.m. at Soho Sofia. Besides today’s guest and me, the conversation about the challenges and opportunities new technologies present us with will also include the artificial intelligence lecturer Yordan Darakchiev. More about the event here.

“The writer-machine? It keeps in its memory a vast store of words and has perfect command of every subtlety of grammar and style; it knows all the organs of sensation and all the ways of writing that writers have developed over the last 3,000 years. This ‘writer’ observes, memorizes phenomena, reasons, processes the data reality gives it. In the end it writes books, and we, reading them, are thrilled, but… we remain cold.”

Is Dmitry Zhukov, the author of these lines, right? There is no way to ask him; he has long been gone. Artificial intelligence is leading us toward dizzying change; it writes poetry that wins competitions. It raises enormous questions whose answers I have been chasing for four years now.

Sometimes it is worth looking at them through the dispassionate eyes of the past. This text was published in the September issue of LIK, the magazine of the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA), in… 1967! Yet, as you will see, many of its ideas sound not even like the present, but like the future. What awaits you is a strikingly topical read that is more than half a century old!

On this topic so far:

• AI made it among the best in a second poetry competition (an experiment)

• The Bulgarian Literary Banksy

• “Poetry remains a secret treasure.” “Hristian Papazov” in his first interview

• “Poetry of a New Generation: Real and Digital Writers” – The Library, Bulgarian National Television (BNT1)

So, can a machine learn to write like Pushkin? Or is it leading us into Orwell’s world?

“Can electronic machines become great poets—creators? The well-known Soviet writer, translator and journalist Dmitry Zhukov wrote a study of this dilemma, which we present in abridged form,” is how the BTA publication introduced what lay ahead. Here it is.

When people start parodying a writer, it is at the same time a recognition of his talent.

The countless jokes aimed at computing machines speak of their secure place in our world.

They say a machine once clattered out Cogito, ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”). There is an anecdote about how, at the Vatican, they fed the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas into an electronic machine and asked: “Does God exist?” After processing the information, the machine replied: “Now he does.”

Today electronic computing machines have become faithful helpers of man, taking on the management of production and translation from one language into another. These machines even help with literary research.

Thus one experiment with an electronic machine helped settle a dispute that had lasted for centuries. Is Homer the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey?

There are nine accounts of Homer’s life, but all of them appeared in the time of the Roman emperors. Seven Greek cities claim Homer was born within their walls: Cyme, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Paphos, Argos, Athens. Some say he lived at the time of the Trojan War, while others insist he lived later. In the 18th century the German philologist Wolf concluded that no Homer had ever existed and that the Iliad and the Odyssey were written by numerous anonymous authors. Thus arose one of the most complex scholarly problems, one that could not be solved for more than a hundred years and came to be called “the Homeric Question.”

Only recently were the endless arguments resolved with the help of an electronic computing machine. The American philologist James McDonough had the computing machine analyze all 15,693 lines of the Iliad. The machine compared the meter of the different parts of the poem. The statistical calculations and the analyses of the many examples the machine produced allowed the philologist to prove that the poem was written by one single person and that Homer is a historical figure.

Since 1964, poems by electronic machines have been appearing in print more and more often,

and in their modernism they can be compared to the poems of Eliot.

We have already read science-fiction stories and novels about electronic writers who compose marvelous poems and novels.

Perhaps the future promises us the mechanization of literature?

What can we not expect from machines that have an excellent memory and are gradually mastering all the wisdom of language?

The famous English writer George Orwell, in his grim novel 1984, showed the future of humanity as a kingdom of machines in which people are soullessly processed. In the fascist state people may read only books written by the Ministry of Propaganda…

“Mysticism” or calculation

What is creativity? Can one analyze and build a logical chain of the creative process behind even the smallest literary work, starting from the birth of the idea and ending with the choice of creative means? Why, in Babel’s words,

“can no iron pierce the human heart as chillingly as a period placed at the right moment”?

Or is there, in the creative act itself, some mystical principle that does not submit to human reason?

This problem is not new. We know the statements of many great writers who tried to analyze the mechanism of their own creativity.

Maupassant believed one should avoid vague inspiration. Pushkin described inspiration thus: “Inspiration is a disposition of the soul toward the lively reception of impressions…”

Tolstoy writes of his preliminary work on a new piece as of the reflections of a chess player who thinks as many as ten moves ahead…

According to Dostoevsky, the writer and the poet are in fact jewelers cutting a diamond…

Now scholars are striving to penetrate as deeply as possible into “the secret of creativity.” In 1962, prominent Soviet literary historians arrived at the creation of a new scholarly discipline—the psychology of creativity—which had long been neglected because it had been compromised by idealists who placed creativity on a mystical foundation.

In 1963, engineers and literary specialists, mathematicians and linguists gathered at a symposium in Leningrad and tried to find points where their interests meet.

The cyberneticists spoke once again about the possibility of building a machine-creator, while the literary figures protested furiously against it…

The human writer and the machine “writer”

During the discussion, Academician Sobolev said that “to doubt the possibility of understanding the creative process means to doubt the possibility of understanding the world.” We agree with him, and so let us suppose that “the secrets of creativity” have been uncovered and the machine-creator has been built. And

a new question immediately arises: should this be done at all?

The “creativity” of the electronic poet or writer will always spring from a different source than human creativity. Human creative work moves us deeply precisely because it reflects the person, with all his flaws and virtues.

“Understand,” Walt Whitman used to say, “that in your writings there cannot be a single trait that is not in you. If you are vulgar or wicked, it will not escape the reader. If you like to have a footman standing behind your chair at dinner, it will show in your writing too. If you are envious or stingy, if you do not believe in life after death—that will show as well. There is no way, there is no recipe, to hide even one of your flaws from your texts.”

The same can be said of a writer’s virtues.

And the writer-machine? It keeps in its memory a vast store of words and has perfect command of every subtlety of grammar and style; it knows all the organs of sensation and all the ways of writing that writers have developed over the last three thousand years.

This “writer” observes, memorizes phenomena, reasons, processes the data reality gives it. In the end it writes books, and we, reading them, are thrilled, but… we remain cold.

The book may thrill us, may excite us. But it is a peculiar kind of excitement

—it may be the joy that man has created such a talented machine. Reading the book, we keep returning to the human being.

Why are we cold? Because we immediately saw in the author of the book an excellent craftsman, a cold craftsman. Otherwise, we do allow craftsman-writers to write their works, but we are forever waiting for them to produce that one “real” work.

What we need is art. We will not settle for less. Any craft can be handled by a program, but with art things are far more complicated.

The machine-author was more precise in its observations than any human, and we praise it for that. The machine also came up with a sufficiently complex plot, and the characters in the work are rendered superbly. A sense of proportion is felt in everything, and so on.

And yet this book was written by a craftsman. Or, to be more precise, by a machine trained in the literary craft…

What is the misfortune of the writer-machine? It does not live in human society, because it does not suffer with people or rejoice with them: the machine has no personality.

When Academician Kolmogorov was asked whether automatons would write poems to express their feelings, he replied:

“Why not? For now we are not yet thinking about building such automatons. Even if such a poet-automaton has been built in France, it has nothing to do with this problem. Let us suppose a machine has been created that is capable of writing a poem equal to Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman.

Such a machine could not be simpler than Pushkin’s own brain.

It would have to create a model of Pushkin’s inner world; it would itself have to create models of the psyche of its readers and use them to test its verses.

To train an ‘automatic poet,’ one would have to model the social environment outside of which poetry could not arise…

As you can see, the task is complicated. For now, poets need not fear competition from automatons…”

In the Department of Probability Theory at Moscow University, under the leadership of Academician Kolmogorov, a group of students has for several years been developing mathematical methods for studying verse. Here meter is defined. The scholars have obtained a mathematical description of the sound image of meter…

Some scholars hope that the knowledge accumulated in this department will make it possible to model the processes of thinking and creativity in machines.

But Academician Kolmogorov believes such an attempt is almost impossible.

Verse—it is a crystal of a precious stone. The machine would have to work through a great many variants before finding a satisfactory solution.

If all the possible variants of one and the same poem were gathered together, the result would be a pile of paper three light-years wide, high and long.

Whereas a person writing a poem uses only a few variants…

Man is always ahead

The scholars went into the empty university hall, and the scientist, without saying a word, covered the blackboard with formulas for hours. Einstein did not interrupt him once. When the last proof had been written out on the board, Einstein stood up and said:

“Technology makes people’s lives as easy as possible.”

This easing must extend to art and to creativity in general, if we do not want to end up in spiritual impoverishment.

Technology helps bring nations closer together, but its international character, unfortunately, contributes to erasing the national boundaries of different cultures.

By all appearances, man will never need to build a machine-poet. But robot secretaries with phenomenal memory will be needed by people of science and literature within a few decades.

Pyotr Kapitsa expressed the opinion that power plants will soon be run by machines, and

the freed creative force and spiritual energy of people will be directed mainly toward science and art.

As for the dispute over whether the machine is smarter than man or not—the question is posed wrongly. Machines are our creations, creations of our thoughts, of logic; they are the result of our labor. Many people devote their knowledge to the machine, but it will never become man’s master, because humanity is always moving forward, and every machine already built is humanity’s yesterday…

Is every machine already built truly humanity’s yesterday?

Should poets fear automatons, and which automatons?

Maybe. Here are a few more possible answers:

• AI made it among the best in a second poetry competition (an experiment)

• The Bulgarian Literary Banksy

• “Poetry remains a secret treasure.” “Hristian Papazov” in his first interview

• “Poetry of a New Generation: Real and Digital Writers” – The Library, BNT1

This piece was prepared at the suggestion and with the special assistance of Yanitsa Hristova, editor of today’s issues of that very same LIK magazine.

Could public media be the most logical media of the future?

– Tell us about your entry in the “Veselin Hanchev” competition. Why did you take part with generated poems?

– This experiment was prompted by several cases abroad. The main “inspiration” was the intrusive ads urging you to create books with artificial intelligence and then sell them. I also read an article about a Japanese writer who had used Chat GPT for her novel.

I asked myself how far this is real art—isn’t it a forgery?

I decided to raise the problem in this more provocative way, because we know that otherwise it would hardly have received any attention at all.

I sent work to several competitions. In the case of “Veselin Hanchev,” I researched what kinds of texts had won in previous editions and which poets had sat on the jury. That reference point made the task considerably easier—with free verse it seems easier to carry out this kind of experiment, while with rhymed poems the program didn’t always give satisfactory results in terms of rhythm. Besides, this competition is one of the most prestigious, which mattered so that the test could be conducted at the highest level.

– Why did you choose to remain anonymous?

– I believe it isn’t so important who, but what. I think that if I had sent the work under my real name, the message wouldn’t have been understood the way I wanted. That is,

it would have looked as though I was doing it for publicity, not to spark a discussion and get measures taken.

– Did you expect the poems to end up among the 10 honored entries?

– I tried to guess the jury’s taste, given the poems that had won in previous years. On the one hand, I was surprised that established names in literature hadn’t recognized the programmed work (to me it was obvious); on the other, a more troubling thought came over me:

what is the level of AI, and what is the level of contemporary young poetry?

What is the future if a robot places among the honorees, even if only with a commendation? Does it mean we are rewarding artificially created work? Prof. Plamen Doynov noted that at the moment AI poems are of average quality. I hope that in years to come their level will be below average—that is, that we will see growth in genuine creativity made by humans.

– Well, I chose to come forward under my own name, but all the other considerations are the same. If we don’t do it, someone else will, and they’ll have no reason to admit it. Do you plan to reveal more about yourself?

– I’ll only say that I am someone who loves art and is not indifferent to its fate.

– How exactly did you create and select the poems? Did you put special effort into the prompt, the selection, the polishing?

– The “poems” are imitations; I asked for the styles of particular poets to be imitated. Of the hundreds of comments I read about these “poems,” there was one

user who even guessed whose hand had been imitated.

Of course the program needs more specific instructions to produce what you want. Otherwise the result is pretty far from the truth.

– I don’t think that’s necessarily so. In my case I simply gave the AI the competition brief and nothing more. But the question of criteria is very important too, and my first anonymous guest—the Bulgarian Literary Banksy—has an interesting perspective on it. I understand you don’t like the poems you entered. Is that right?

– They are imitations; I can’t see them as poems. As one well-known poet rightly pointed out, they contain a great many contemporary clichés. I hope we will increasingly avoid them and get to read something new and surprising.

– I wouldn’t have repeated it if I had known about your experiment, but I think it’s better that it happened not in one but in two consecutive competitions. That makes it clear it isn’t a mistake or the judgment of one particular jury. Out of almost 150 participants in two competitions, 100 percent of the generated entries, 2 out of 2, made the top 10. Isn’t that a signal not only that algorithms write indistinguishably, but even better than most people who enter such contests?

– I congratulate you on running the same experiment, and in a competition with aesthetic criteria radically different from those of “Veselin Hanchev.” I’ve also come across the view that the problem lies in the competence of the juries. But we should note that in Bulgarian literature such things are only just arriving, and hardly anyone would suspect they were reading imitations.

I recently came across a study according to which readers preferred AI-generated work to classic poetry.

This is probably a matter of reading culture and taste.

And competitions look for a certain style, and by manipulating the algorithm the generated texts match what is wanted more precisely than what some authors send in. I am convinced there were worthy pieces that simply didn’t fit the style of those particular competitions.

– Do you regret, as I do, announcing what was going on before the final rankings?

– I don’t regret it, because I don’t want dishonest honors.

I know what it is to work for years and have that work never pay off in any way.

That’s why I didn’t want some young poet to feel that way, to have something they put their heart and soul into taken from them by someone who doesn’t even write poetry.

– What is your relationship with poetry?

– I love it because it is like a secret treasure. Poems are read far less than prose and are certainly not to everyone’s taste.

Personally, good poems enrich me, and through them I live through things that will probably never happen to me.

– Who are your favorite poets?

– There are dozens. I adore poets who think on a grand scale. I admire classic works such as Dante’s Divine Comedy, Goethe’s Faust, Shakespeare’s plays, the works of Whitman.

– How do you view the organizers’ reactions—those of “Veselin Hanchev” announced your participation and said they would now require declarations of authorship, while “Stanka Pencheva” didn’t react at all?

– I’m glad the organizers of “Veselin Hanchev” took the problem seriously and that steps are being taken. The very fact that it was discussed on Nova Television’s morning show is a good start for a broader debate. I can only be glad for them and wish them success. I don’t know why “Stanka Pencheva” didn’t react; perhaps they thought that doing so would make them a laughingstock rather than a voice against such tricks.

– Except that the subject is far too big. For several weeks now I’ve been trying to provoke a dialogue about all the huge questions these results raise, in my view. And very few of the authorities weigh in with a perspective. In 4 years of work on the site I’ve had only one outright refusal of an interview, yet among poets I’ve already had 4. Why is that?

– Perhaps people in the arts underestimate the world of technology.

But I’m not one of those authorities, so I can’t give a more precise answer.

– In your view, what are the most essential questions this development in artificial intelligence raises?

– The main one is

where is the human factor going—imagination, creativity, emotion?

Aren’t we losing too much in trying to rationalize everything and make life easier? I think that with so many conveniences, people may lose valuable habits and skills.

– That is exactly why this site exists… What should this important conversation look like? Who should take part in it?

– It certainly needs the participation not only of people from the cultural sector and various creative organizations, but of political actors too. It would help to have laws on the use of artificial intelligence, so that things don’t get out of control.

The temptation to choose the easy way and have nothing created by a human is enormous.

– Can a declaration that the poems aren’t generated be a solution, when there is no way to check or prove it?

– It is still a step forward, in the sense that juries will now keep generated texts in the back of their minds. Even with a declaration of authorship, the question remains of what copyright applies to texts produced by artificial intelligence. Since such texts contain “contemporary clichés,” perhaps checks for borrowing or plagiarism from already published texts would be more appropriate.

– Is there any way left to have fair poetry competitions, now that AI is so good at generating?

– Which competition is honest and fair is highly subjective. But I’ve also come across a proposal for a competition for AI poetry—and why not?

– That is definitely an interesting idea and subject. I’ve also had a suggestion for AI as a jury… Both experiments are worth doing, and I’ll do them. Is it possible that we are already reading a lot of generated text without knowing it?

– It is certainly being used, especially for advertising.

The world is heading toward a place where the easy and the accessible are what the masses get.

So instead of spending hours thinking up an original slogan or message, people ask the program and get a pile of answers.

– Where is the limit—could AI already win a short story or novel competition?

– It may have happened abroad. I haven’t checked, but I don’t rule it out. The Japanese writer who used Chat GPT promised to publish a book written 100 percent by artificial intelligence. And if there are fans of that kind of work, it would win.

– How long will art and creativity survive with technology developing like this?

– As long as people feel a need for them.

Whether there will be real art, or everything will become a substitute, is another question.

In popular music, for example, what goes round is a cover of a cover of a cover and a remix of a remix of a remix—you get substitutes, where something old is taken and served up in shiny packaging without being any better than the original.

– From now on, can any competition entrant rest assured they are competing only against humans?

– There is never a guarantee. The organizers of “Veselin Hanchev” hardly expected anyone to send them robot lyric poetry.

– Could this, on the other hand, lead to the development of poetry? As happened, for instance, after we lost to the machines at chess and Go, yet people still play them and even invent new, unexpected moves.

– I hope so—after all, there are always two sides to the coin and two forces pulling in different directions so that there is balance. I believe that

somewhere there are also creators who want it to be hard for them, who don’t use ready-made templates and who discover ever more unexpected moves in their work.

Despite the mobile era, many people still write on paper and only then transfer it into the digital space. So there is always a way not to depend 100 percent on technology.

– Could the problem be our low standards for poetry?

– There has always been both the mass and the elite. The thing is that fewer and fewer things are called into question;

it’s hard to get beyond a black-and-white understanding that boils down to “I like it—I don’t like it” or “this is cheerful, that is sad.”

To a large extent the problem is the lack of insight, the conveyor-belt reading and writing. It’s as if there’s no time left for reflection, and that is vital.

– Beautifully put! The point of poetry and art is to express yourself, to write because you need to, not to win competitions…

– That’s a problem not only in art but perhaps in every sphere—the desire for fame and recognition. Competitions and contests give you a sense that you are good, that you’ve received a kind of blessing from the authorities to keep going.

The truest things happen when a person doesn’t crave others’ approval but feels happier and more fulfilled by what they have created.

– Do you plan to continue with more experiments like this?

– It will take me quite a while to think of something that hasn’t been done. It’s getting harder and harder.

– I too love doing all sorts of experiments, the more unexpected the better. Because it really isn’t enough to say, show and explain—you also have to demonstrate and test things in practice. What do you think I should do next?

– I would find it interesting to chat with strangers through a program that generates the continuation of a given conversation. Let’s see whether people could tell the robot from the human!

– A wonderful idea! And the conversation is only just beginning, at least as far as Digital Stories is concerned… Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your trust!

How close are we to models that generate video indistinguishable from human work? Let's find out together with one important experiment.

Generative models are evolving at astonishing speed. Two years ago I ran the same test with images: I fed Midjourney classic Bulgarian poems to see how well it would cope. Would it catch the message? Would it create worthy images? Gradually the algorithms grew better and better at the task, so much so that today we can no longer tell the created images from the generated ones.

But what about video? What kind of clips might artificial intelligence create from a selection of classic poems? I chose two platforms that take quite different approaches to generation. And the results, to me at least, are definitely impressive…

A Story in Pictures

First, a few important clarifications. Algorithms are already quite good at “animating” an illustration they are given, even at adding sound. They don't do all that badly even in Bulgarian:

Play the video

Here, though, we'll be testing something entirely different: how well they do when we leave them to create on their own, with no extra instructions, no expectations, no human intervention. Grab the popcorn—it's time for some unexpected cinema!

1. My Spring…

Assignment:

Spring

My spring, my white spring,

not yet lived, not yet celebrated,

only dreamed in luminous dreams,

how you pass low above the poplars

but do not halt your flight here.

My spring, my white spring—

I know you'll come with rain and hurricanes,

terribly stormy, fiery and rebellious,

to bring back thousands of hopes

and wash away the bloody wounds.

How the birds will sing among the wheat!

Joyfully they'll swim through the open sky…

People will rejoice in their labor

and love each other like brothers.

My spring, my white spring…

Let me see your first flight,

that gave life to the dead squares,

let me see only your sun

and—die on your barricades!

Nikola Vaptsarov

(Click on the title to read the poem.)

Video (generated by InVideo):

Play the video

It may be a scorching summer, but, as we can see, generative technologies are already living through their spring, which is why we begin with this classic by Nikola Vaptsarov, the poet executed in 1942. On the recommendation of people with experience in the field, I chose the InVideo platform for the experiment. I tried Bulgarian first… the result was far from good, so I resigned myself to feeding it English translations. I picked poems that, in my view, have good enough versions in that language; almost all of them were translated by Christopher Buxton, who once visited us with his memorable Digital Story.

I have some additional settings to play with: I can choose exactly how creative the AI director should be, which audience the clip is intended for…

Aaaand… the result is remarkably good! Yes, maybe there are no storms and hurricanes, but the spring is so expressive, and the narrator really puts his heart into the emotional lines.

This is the moment for an important clarification. Here I'm using a platform that casts artificial intelligence precisely in the role of director. It interprets the text it is given and, based on it, selects ready-made short clips and photos, edits them together and adds a voice-over.

And the result is remarkable; we'll see a few more interesting examples shortly.

But how far have the other algorithms come, the ones that can create video without relying on ready-made footage? The heirs of the image generators…

2. …Beautiful Eyes

Assignment:

Two Beautiful Eyes

Two beautiful eyes. A child's soul

in two beautiful eyes;—music—rays

They neither ask nor promise…

My soul is praying,

child,

my soul is praying!

Passions and misfortunes

will cast on them tomorrow

the veil of shame and sin.

The veil of shame and sin—

they shall not cast it on them,

passions and misfortunes.

My soul is praying,

child,

my soul is praying…

They neither ask nor promise!—

Two beautiful eyes. Music, rays

in two beautiful eyes. A child's soul…

Peyo Yavorov

Video (generated by KlingAI):

Play the video

Are there eyes? There are. Are they a child's? They are.

Of course, you have every right to be disappointed—a measly 5 seconds, and such a literal interpretation at that. Yet they show that we are on the verge of taking a huge step.

In mid-February this year OpenAI once again caught the eye of the whole world with yet another stunning model, called Sora. It showed off remarkably convincing videos generated entirely by artificial intelligence. Everything suggested that the model already understood three-dimensionality, which really is a huge leap forward. Then it was announced that Sora would undergo further testing and would afterwards be made available to every user.

Well, half a year has passed and that still hasn't happened. Perhaps the model turned out not to be as good as the demo clips made it look, perhaps new ethical questions came up, or perhaps the company simply shifted its focus to other, more important projects, such as the long-awaited GPT-5… As so often happens with OpenAI, “open” in name only, the answer remains behind its wide-shut doors.

And still, perhaps video generation is closer than the pessimists imagine? Other models are gradually appearing that promise the same thing—fully generated video. That is exactly what you see here.

3. Beautiful, but Not Ready

Assignment:

Lord, How Beautiful You Are!

How beautiful you are!

Lord,

how beautiful you are!

How beautiful your hands are.

And your feet, how beautiful they are.

And your eyes, how beautiful they are.

And your hair, how beautiful it is

Don't torment yourself any longer—love me!

Don't spare yourself—love me!

Love me

with the true strength of your hands,

your feet, your eyes—with all

the grace of their movements.

Believe me forever—and never

will you be foolish—love me!

And if you're wicked—love me!

Love me!

In the streets, and then on the stairs,

on the stairs especially you are beautiful.

With clothes and without clothes, ceaselessly

you are beautiful… Most beautiful in the room.

In the dark, when you are with your comb.

And the comb sinks into your hair.

Your hair is full of electricity—

if I touch it, I'll light up in the dark.

You truly are beautiful—believe me.

And try to be beautiful to the end.

Not so much for me as for yourself,

for the trees, the windows and the people.

Don't destroy your beauty too soon

with jealous suspicions—forgive me

my sudden vanishings somewhere—

don't overdo it, please, with the cigarettes.

Never lose me—discover me,

fill me with childlike wonder.

So I may once again be sure of your hands,

your feet, your eyes… Love me!

How I want to keep you forever.

To love you always—

forever.

And how impossible it is for me… How

made of sand you are… And please, don't tell me

that you want to keep me forever,

to love me always,

forever.

How beautiful you are!

Lord,

how beautiful you are!

How beautiful your hands are.

And your feet, how beautiful they are.

And your eyes, how beautiful they are.

And your hair, how beautiful it is.

How beautiful you are!

Lord,

how real you are.

Hristo Fotev

Video (generated by KlingAI):

Play the video

Yes, I see it too; let me make the skeptics happy. The model chose the very thing that still gives image generators the most trouble to this day—hands. Yes, the video is undoubtedly unconvincing; you can tell at once that it's generated… But I remember how it was exactly the same with image creation. We had seven or eight fingers, no feel for anatomical detail… Then the models got better at solving that problem with astonishing speed. Not that they don't make mistakes now, but it happens rarely and not so crudely.

And so, here the platform tried to capture the tenderness of Hristo Fotev's verse but stumbled over the aesthetics.

By the way, for this part of the experiment I'm using the KlingAI model. As its name echoes, it comes from China. And that is another important topic that gets little attention. Amid all the progress of artificial intelligence in the Western world, we hear rather little about the enormous achievements of the East in the same field…

How will the “Chinese director” handle the next assignments?

4. The AI Sleeps in the Silent Dark

Assignment:

The City Sleeps

The city sleeps in the silent dark.

The faithful son of the faithless night,

I, homeless and alone—

and the rain drizzles, drizzles, drizzles…

Trembling by the black walls,

my footsteps echo in measured beat

and behind me, unseen, there follow

laments for the days gone by.

The image of the dear child

who once lit up my threshold

rises again in memory—pure and dear—

and the sorrow grows, grows, grows…

She came—a child—with awakened ardor,

with a fiery smile upon her lips,

and I, who thirsted for eternal beauty,

rejected her mortal gift.

The past—ah, it remained

a dark land, frozen with sorrows,

and from there she sends to me

her grieving cry: why, why?

The city sleeps in the silent dark.

The faithful son of the faithless night,

I wander homeless and alone—

and the rain drizzles, drizzles, drizzles…

Dimcho Debelyanov

Video (generated by KlingAI):

Play the video

Pretty good, in my opinion at least. Apart from the slightly crooked streetlamp posts here and there, I, for one, can't find any other weakness. It even seems to carry Debelyanov's melancholy… or am I just imagining it? What do you think?

It's no accident that video generation is such an important next step in the development of AI and of technology as a whole. When you create an image, the task is simply to draw it, pixel by pixel. But to generate logical, consecutive pictures that flow smoothly into one another and make sense, the models need a better understanding of three-dimensionality, of how the physical world is built. Once that is achieved, it will be an extremely important step forward in many other fields from which we expect big news—from self-driving cars all the way to robotics…

But enough unhealthy optimism; it's time for a little healthy nihilism with good old Petko Slaveykov, the poet and journalist of the Bulgarian National Revival.

5. Cultural Revolution

Assignment:

We Are Not a Nation

We're not a nation, not a nation, but carrion,

people who want to do nothing at all.

Everything's too heavy, everything's too hard for us!

“I don't know how! I can't!” is the common cry.

And we don't know, we can't, we won't

work for ourselves while there is time.

All we know, all we can, all we will

is to gnaw at one another in spite…

Among ourselves we're greedy, wild, uncouth,

before others we're quiet, meek, obedient…

Whoever comes along tramples on us,

because we're dawdlers, because we're inept…

Everyone cries, “Our lot is wretched!”—

yet everyone's intent is to ruin things…

We're not a nation! Not a nation, but carrion,

I'll say it again, and with that I'll be done.

Petko R. Slaveykov

Video (generated by KlingAI):

Play the video

Hahahaha. I wonder if China had its own equivalent of Grandpa Petko back in the days of the Cultural Revolution? Here our colleague completely missed the context; only the rebelliousness made it through.

Algorithms of the world, unite!

6. People, Houses, Splendor

Assignment:

Proud Balkan Mountains

Proud Balkan Mountains,

beside them the Danube shines blue,

the sun lights up Thrace,

above Pirin it blazes.

Dear Motherland,

you are a paradise on earth!

Your beauty, your charm,

ah, they have no end!

Tsvetan Radoslavov

Video (generated by KlingAI):

Play the video

Video (generated by InVideo):

Play the video

And what will happen next, when the two platforms we're testing join forces? What if we turn them into AI agents—platforms like KlingAI generating short videos, and “colleagues” like inVideo arranging them, assembling them, adding the voice and making further sense of them?

The sky's the limit, as programmers so often like to say.

Well, yes, it's still a long way off, but I, at least, see enormous progress. The first platform managed to generate a typically Bulgarian kind of beauty, while the second took us on a whole virtual journey around Bulgaria, even though it didn't quote the actual words of the anthem I gave it—“Mila Rodino” (“Dear Motherland”), Bulgaria's national anthem… And although there were some clearly misguided, far-fetched choices, with shots from Asia, on the whole the result was a good deal better than quite a few ads for domestic tourism I've seen.

AI makes mistakes? Well, natural intelligence in our latitudes sometimes confuses the Rocky Mountains with Vitosha, the mountain above Sofia, too. Only it won't get any “smarter” with each new version…

7. The Things It Has Borne…

Assignment:

September

The night gives birth from a dead womb

to the age-old rage of the slave:

its purple wrath—

majestic.

Geo Milev

Video (generated by KlingAI):

Play the video

Video (generated by InVideo):

Play the video

I included these lines in the image experiment two years ago, and here I give them to both platforms. In my view, how well they do with them says a lot about how good the algorithms are at seeking out context and metaphor, at reading between the lines…

The image in the fully generated clip is strong, I think, and there's a metaphor in it too. The second platform, meanwhile, came up with some rather strange and unexpected associations. Yes, I'm starting to notice that the narrator reads most of the poems with a similar intonation (but flawlessly!), though that's a very small and easily solved next step…

Where on earth did it get those baseball associations, though? Yes, the “director's” American handwriting shows…

8. “I Want to Tell All Who Are Sleeping”

Assignment:

Evening Trumpet

Life spins us round under the blazing sun

and we wear out our feet on the scorching stone…

But as soon as evening descends from the sky,

I'll take my trumpet and sit on the threshold.

Enough have I wandered along these walls

like the ring of a cracked bell.

I must play, I must bring down

the silence—so only the cry remains.

I want the hot wind to thunder

and throw the doors wide open.

I want the earth to set off again

after the crusading march of the crickets.

I want the barbed wire in front of your house

to be torn by my song.

I want the neighbor who pretends

to be deaf to get his hearing back.

I want the thief to tie up his fingers,

the watchman to buy himself a heart.

I want to let a drop of my tears

fall into the eye that is rusting.

I want the fair to come back to us

and blow the dust away.

I want the one who is dying of boredom

to die of laughter and tickling instead.

I want us to stand over the dead

as if on guard until morning.

I want to tell all who are sleeping

that there will be time to sleep…

I must play in the deaf evening

until I hear coming toward me

the voice of a thousand distant trumpets.

Or of some invisible archangel.

Boris Hristov

Video (generated by InVideo):

Play the video

Quite charming. We have a new narrator, with a rather fitting intonation.

Cool trumpet! AI can already score (almost) a 6, the top grade, on the literature matura, Bulgaria's school-leaving exam—I've checked. Here, on the “video matura,” it's still far from the truth, but it's visibly making progress and offers interesting food for thought…

9. Romance Today Lives in the Robots

Assignment:

Moan

To Lora

My soul is a moan. My soul is a call.

For I am a bird shot down:

mortally wounded is my soul,

mortally wounded by love…

My soul is a moan. My soul is a call.

Tell me, what do meeting and parting mean?

And here I tell you: there is hell and anguish—

and in the anguish, love!

The mirages are near—the road is far.

The wonder-smiling joy of life

of innocence and greedy youth,

of sultry flesh and a light phantom…

The mirages are near—the road is far:

for she stands in radiance before me,

stands, yet does not hear who calls and moans—

she, flesh and a light phantom!

Peyo Yavorov

Video (generated by InVideo):

Play the video

I think it did best here, what do you say?

10. AI Visits the Devil

Assignment:

A Visit to the Devil. A Tale of Honor

I never had hoped in the whole of my life

for so gracious a compliment:

the Devil invited me—the old Devil himself—

to his home for a glass of absinthe.

The candle traced out his sharp profile

with a strip of golden rays

and, blowing smoke rings, Mephistopheles

looked at me with moist eyes.

An autumn sorrow was hidden in his eyes,

yet still he was proud and amused,

and he waved his hand: “In vino veritas!

I'll be candid with you!”

I'm weary by now of this yoke of

pretense and wicked intent—

let us drink to my unearthly sincerity

and the gray earthly flesh!

Centuries ago I stopped on the earth

and played myself a joke here:

I was wed to the sacred earthly Truth,

but she crowned me with horns.

I burned with jealousy, and in black hatred

for my trampled honor—

human honor I tirelessly trample,

yet I've gained no honor to this day.

I thought to shine through wondrous feats—

I died a hundred times in battle,

always a knight of an honorable cause,

yet still I was not crowned with honor.

Desperate, wretched, one day on the boulevard

I set out unearthly forlorn.

And I raised above me a glaring placard:

“A man without a drop of honor!”

But strange: not a drop of contempt!

Everywhere they greet me with interest,

from all sides they politely doff their hats:

“You have no honor? It does you honor!”

One gentleman kissed me: “Ah, brother,

you too!… Well, who would have known!”

Two lovely ladies said sweetly to me:

“Come round to ours tomorrow for tea!”

Marvelous! Unheard of! With rare honors

I was escorted all the way home.

Ministers, kings and court coquettes

wrote me charming letters.

And here I am: important, brilliant, elegant,

as rich as a veritable Croesus!

And I know: I'm a thief, a liar, a profiteer,

a man without honor; but… always with honor!…

And the Devil fell silent. He poured more absinthe,

clinked glasses with me warmly,

and, letting out smoke in bluish ribbons,

pierced me with his green gaze.

Hristo Smirnenski

Video (generated by InVideo):

Play the video

The devil is in the details, I know…

And still, it's impressive how far video generation algorithms have come, and the next interesting news in this direction is surely very close.

What if we imagine a future in which algorithms already read our minds? They know from our mood what kind of film we feel like watching, who our favorite actors, scenes and directors are. And for every minute they prepare something made to please us, to satisfy us, something just for us?

Maybe there's no need to imagine it. Maybe that future will be here very soon. Unless, of course, it turns out to be impossible…

– How did you start using artificial intelligence to create images, and in design in general? Most of your colleagues, at least from what I've seen, avoid it…

– A few people I graduated from the High School of Fine Arts with even unfriended me

on social media. First I started building my own channel, PSHOW, where I try to gather useful information, in Bulgarian and in English, about how to work with Photoshop. It has always been my dream to have a channel where I pass on what I know, because Photoshop is a complicated program, and with the experience I've built up over 20 years I can make life easier for quite a lot of people.

Meanwhile, the boom happened. Apps like ChatGPT, DALL-E and Midjourney started coming out one after another, and at first they gave laughable results. But after just two or three months I began to see that, in big, very fast strides, the results were becoming satisfactory. I sensed that this was the next “big thing.”

I'm sure it is. I even think that

it is badly underestimated right now, with some people thinking it will come and go.

I also sensed where the potential was, where I could integrate it into my work specifically as a designer or in Photoshop, to automate a lot of processes and speed up my work.

– And then you went on with the channel AIHOW, where you provoke people with unexpected images and videos made with the help of the models… like the “Bulgarian Mortal Kombat.”

– If you know how to use it, AI is like any other tool, and at least for me, it helps.

It's useful for making working drafts, for giving me a basis for the text of a blog post.

How did “Mortal Kombat” come about? I had to make myself a base layer with the costumes, say from Midjourney, and then start layering the Bulgarian part on top—the face and the “joke.” That's what drives these experiments for me: there has to be something funny, something adapted for a Bulgarian audience.

Then I cloned my voice, made myself an avatar, and with the help of three or four tools I started making videos showing everything new that comes out in terms of apps and capabilities, and that happens extremely fast. In my view,

the people who are learning AI now, who are trying to integrate it, will reap big benefits in a year.

Because that's when the others will be starting, and those of us who already know how to use it and are interested in it will have a year's head start.

– But it looked that way a year ago too, and I don't get the sense that generative models are used all that widely…

– Things happen more slowly in Bulgaria. I taught an AI course for designers, and 150 people signed up—ten times fewer than for the Photoshop course. But among them were people who are genuinely excited about it and use it. I was also invited to an advertising agency to spend an hour and a half showing them what they can and can't do with AI. By the end, people were a little depressed.

“What are we going to do now?” Well, we'll adapt.

I think most people don't know what algorithms for video, sound and images are capable of. The new Photoshop has a fully integrated generative window where you don't need photos. We used to spend two or three hours searching stock images to find the exact angle for a composition, the right colors, and then it took more hours to collage those photos, to alter them so they looked good together, like a single picture… Now it's simple. As a colleague put it,

right now we're doing what clients ten years ago thought we were doing. We sit down, press a button, and design happens. That's what's going on.

It makes my work a lot easier, maybe because I've found some kind of golden mean. I'm an artist, a designer, and when I see something generated I know whether it's too close to the style of some famous artist, for example. I can judge in my head what's okay to use.

Soon we'll see this content generation—whether text, images, audio or video—become part of big applications.

Take GPT-4 Omni, for example. A few months ago I said this would be the next thing: a personalized assistant. There will still be Siri and Alexa, only now they'll be individualized, and depending on what you search for and what pages you visit, they'll adapt to you. It's a little scary, but…

– …but, to my mind at least, even more exciting. When I started this site three years ago, ideas like these sounded like science fiction, and then very quickly they stopped sounding that way. For instance, since most of my posts are on specialized topics, I used to use images from stock banks; now I go straight to Midjourney. Meanwhile, most people in the arts are afraid of this thing, or they dismiss it.

– I also think the image banks have had their day.

But let's not fool ourselves: on the other hand,

all of this is the biggest intellectual theft of the century.

These algorithms were trained without the authors' knowledge. Since there's no way to say exactly what percentage of what was used, I think we may end up with something like royalty payments.

Sora, for example, became possible because everything on YouTube was used. The creators at OpenAI were asked whether that's the case, and they didn't answer directly. That's why, in my view, most people in the arts are pulling back. Yes, it probably

can replace us to some extent as designers, but it can't replace us as creators.

However perfect the pictures are, they lack what every creator has. Whether we call it a “divine spark,” “talent,” “intuition” or “imagination.”

Generative models all work on the same principle: first they create noise, and from that they start filling in the picture. If you want to create something that wasn't in the database the model was fed, there's no way you'll get it.

– Almost all my guests from all sorts of fields think so. I disagree, though: I think algorithms can create works we might not be able to tell apart and might call creativity. It can create its own style by combining different styles. It can create an idea by combining ideas. And sometimes that's exactly what creativity is—compiling in our heads, consciously or not.

– I have colleagues who work with the big video game studios. One of them used Stable Diffusion to train his own AI to draw in his style. He fed it his own drawings, which I think is a wonderful idea—

you get an apprentice who does the dirty work for you.

Maybe the subject is still very unknown, inexplicable, and that's why some people are so reserved. We've given 30 years of our lives to build our own style, and suddenly it can be imitated.

I think we need to find common ground—to use human creativity in combination with technological progress. If we introduce clear norms and frameworks, there won't be a problem: it will save time and we'll do things much faster.

– But can there be frameworks? It's already very easy to run a model like that on your own computer and fine-tune it…

– I mean frameworks in the mind of the person operating it, more than anything. Not to create “in the style of so-and-so.” To guard against racial, gender and other discrimination, to be careful with sensitive topics. We're also witnessing

deepfakes, which I think could cause real trouble; they're becoming completely indistinguishable.

This year the boom was expected to be in video because of Sora, but it seems it will be in audio instead. It wasn't hard to clone your voice before, but now you can also sing beautifully. Ten dollars and you're a singer!

To some extent I'm on both sides. I assume some of my work, through platforms where I've uploaded a portfolio, has been fed into models. On the other hand, I've walked the path to building my own style and my own way of looking at things.

I have projects that have been waiting for 10 years. Back then I would have needed €500,000 to make a series; now it can be done with the work of just one other person for a week and almost no money!

– Won't that devalue all creative work? If everything suddenly becomes easy to make…

– I don't think so—it will make it more valuable. Generated texts, pictures and sounds will be used more and more widely. Maybe one day they'll become perfect, but right now they aren't. You can tell they're the work of a machine.

– You can't tell with everything. I ran a telling experiment showing that it's already almost impossible to distinguish what's generated…

– The bigger problem, in my view, is something else—that

people on the whole are lazy, they want information served up ready-made, they can't be bothered to learn new things.

They count on searching and finding, not on reading the whole story. We went through high school and university, and maybe that's what sets us apart: we have more information in our heads and our own perspective through which we refract every piece of information. So no matter how good you are, with algorithms you'll just make pictures that look good, but they won't be what a designer or a photographer would make.

The bigger problem, in my view, is where the world as a whole is heading.

– We keep handing more and more tasks to computers, they free up our time… and the question is what we do with that freed-up time.

– We'll have more and more time to do nothing. Or to sit around, watch movies, scroll social media. I see what's happening with those graduating now and with the generation before them. No standards, no values—it's sad, but that's how it is.

– Is there anything that would frighten you if you saw algorithms doing it?

– I don't see what could surprise or frighten me. First, I don't feel threatened as a professional, because I know AI will never do what I can do, not least because it has no imagination.

On the other hand, I see things happening super fast, and that can only mean one thing—that at some point the generated will become indistinguishable from reality.

That's my other theory: everything is happening so fast so that virtual reality can be integrated, so that people can be bombarded with ads through the headsets too.

– That's entirely possible… it's almost suspicious how the much-hyped metaverse has gone quiet lately. But if you read the comments under my articles, you'd conclude that we're just manipulating people, that artificial intelligence is a fabrication and nothing is actually happening.

– Let them think so. Except that online it's becoming ever clearer why, if something is free, you are the product. Most AI tools are very cheap; some, say, for Hollywood, are pricier.

But it's true that around me, too, most people just see something, are impressed and forget about it.

– When you create the “Bulgarian chips” and the Lego projects, how much of the images do you make and how much do the algorithms?

– It depends, it varies; broadly I try to keep it even. What matters most to me is experimenting. Obviously AI can make chips with different designs, but how would it handle tripe soup or tarator, the cold cucumber-and-yogurt soup? Since there's no way to describe them in English, it's 50:50 there. It depends on whether I can steer it toward something similar for some images—then I touch them up less. But in terms of design and framing, I get involved too. With the Lego I don't play around quite as much.

At first I swapped the faces, played around a bit… except on the Lego set for Sunny Beach, the Black Sea party resort—there they look like zombies anyway.

I decided to leave the images rawer so people could see what comes out—that there are some defects. It also depends on which tool you're working with. For realism, we know Midjourney is best; for more artistic and illustrative images I use Leonardo; for product shots, Copilot. I tell my colleagues too: it matters which tool you choose for what. We're gradually moving toward big platforms with rich interfaces.

– I picture it like Photoshop too, except instead of making masks you use ready-made functions. But either way you have to learn to explain what you want.

– Exactly—prompt engineering. You have to find a common language. If you write “a bear in the forest,” that's what you'll get, but if you add five more sentences it will bring in atmosphere, a point of view. Whether it's rainy or sunny, morning or evening. I think they still haven't told us everything you can do with Midjourney—they dole it out a spoonful at a time. You can play around a lot: say what camera and what lens, what focal length the photo should be taken with. In the end, what you get is as if you'd gone out and photographed the bear yourself.

– And here again the paradox is that to do it, you have to be a very good photographer or designer. It's the same in programming: to work effectively with the algorithms, you have to understand what you're doing and spot their mistakes. But because of these algorithms, it's harder today for young people to break in and learn the basics. Won't something similar happen in many fields?

– That, to me, is exactly the reason not to be afraid. Because if a person hasn't walked the path, they still won't know how to do something properly, even with the most perfect tools.

Everything is so easy now, if you have the will. You go on YouTube and in a few hours you learn the basics of perspective or anatomy, warm and cool, light and shadow. Or you can ask ChatGPT with a reverse search—you send it a photo and ask it for a description, to figure out exactly how it was made.

That thinking, human thinking…

Even if the tools for writing text, code, photos and video become perfect, everything will still depend on the people working with the machine.

– Is there anything you can't create visually right now and are waiting for the algorithms to help you with?

– I think we'll start “understanding each other” with fewer words. Right now, the more detailed the prompt, the better the results. Sometimes it doesn't understand exact keywords, and it works better indirectly—say you want an atmosphere of romance, a free style, a castle.

– Can algorithms create new forms of art?

– That's what it is, something new. This way of creating video or text is something completely different; there's no analogue among what we've known so far. But what's the difference? It has been given millions of images and will always be guided by the material it has. Whereas today this rain might inspire me to come up with something completely new. If I do it, it will be unique. Even if someone else photographed Sofia at this time, at the same hour, it won't be the same as if I did it.

The very fact that it can combine things, create a kind of eclecticism that is beautiful—that's an important task. I can't say it's art, but it's a new kind of logic for visualization. It will never be art…

– Won't it? With algorithms, too, all the photos of rain can be different, even unexpected. And they can generate lots of proposals from an idea…

– Yes, we stylize too, but with our brains. If you've studied art history, the styles of painters, their lives, and you paint and develop your own style, it's individual and unique for everyone. Generative models still resemble each other; you can see they're synthetic, unnatural.

Maybe that too will become indistinguishable, but that's my point of view. This technology interests me, and we're lucky to live in such interesting times. I follow what's happening, and when the tools get really good, I'll be able to finish all the projects I'm waiting on…

– All that's left is to wait for the moment when algorithms not only draw but make us rakia-flavored chips… or maybe the idea isn't all that great?! Let the readers decide. Thank you for the conversation!

– We can’t help but start with the Galaktika Library! The series belonged to the Georgi Bakalov publishing house in Varna, while you’re from Sofia. How did the story begin?

– Back then we artists all knew each other; there weren’t that many of us. When the publishers decided to launch the series, they called my husband, Zheko Aleksiev, and his friend Bogdan Mavrodinov and invited them to do the graphic design. It didn’t matter who was from where—we knew each other’s work and we knew who could do what, and on deadline, too.

They suggested I paint something for the project, because I have that kind of style—I depict things precisely. My husband and Bogdan worked out what the series should look like, and they needed someone to paint the picture for the cover.

At the time I didn’t even know what I was painting. They told me: a very beautiful woman in a red hat, submerged in the sea, with her tail sticking out.

A piece of cake! I painted it without a clue why, and it turned out exactly right,

they knew that if they described something to me, I could do it.

Not every artist has a representational style like mine. Back then I was illustrating textbooks in biology, zoology, natural science. Whereas my colleagues painted more abstractly and supposedly more modern.

We sent the proposal to Varna, and they loved it. They started sending us the books, and we’d read them. The three of us would sit down and think about what the cover should look like, what it should be. Zheko and Bogdan are great artists, but in a different field—book design. They got on with their own work and soon left me to come up with the covers. And so it went for 10 years...

– Did you expect it to be such a success? That 50 years later we’d be talking about a cult series?

– Back then it never crossed my mind, but when the books started coming out, the success really was enormous. People lined up in queues. First, because they loved science fiction, and they still do. But the pictures were striking, too—there were no books like that in Bulgaria. The covers helped a great deal, and from there it all went hand in hand.

– Wouldn’t it have been easier to use the original covers? Today almost everyone does that for translated literature.

– First of all, that’s very dumb. Second, you have to pay for the original cover, and it costs dollars.

The most important thing about these covers, in my view, is that they’re honest.

They depict the book very accurately, unlike a lot of today’s covers, even new editions of the same books, which simply express nothing.

People picked a book by its cover, read it, and saw that everything lived up to their expectations. The picture had opened up their imagination.

– What print runs did they reach?

– Nobody knows. Officially it was a hundred thousand each, but all of Bulgaria read them. Because of the huge success they started doing reprints, but how many there were...

– Which are your favorite books in the series?

– I don’t have a specific one. In general my favorite book is Solaris by Stanisław Lem, but it didn’t come out in Galaktika.

But there are illustrations I like very much as pictures. With others I’m not pleased with myself.

– The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the cover with the mouse come to mind right away.

– God forgive me, but I never managed to finish the Guide. I don’t know why it bored me so much. I’ve read thousands of books, but there are some that just irritate me.

Now, because of the huge success of both the book and the cover, this hitchhiker is in demand—people read it.

I came up with that cover with terrible agony.

I racked my brain for ages over what to paint, got as far as some mice and nothing else occurred to me. When I found out how much people loved it, I tried reading it again and failed again.

– Dune, I think, is another novel that’s impossible to illustrate, and you have an unforgettable cover for it. Hollywood spent more than 50 years trying to turn it into a film and only now succeeded—that’s how hard it is to visualize.

– Maybe they succeeded because the technology is so advanced.

But art—art is stylization and nothing else.

Nothing else. It isn’t even about the image, it’s about stylizing the idea so that it doesn’t directly resemble the image you’re after, yet still shows it.

There are 10,000 ways to make a film. The films we watch now

are just a literal retelling of the plot—he shoots, she shoots.

There’s no stylization in the movement, in the ambience, anywhere.

If you’re staging Chekhov in the theater, you can stylize it so that it isn’t exact, so that it’s in a completely different setting, and the author’s idea still shines through.

I imagine the film they made of Dune is packed with incredible effects. So what?

– I think it captures the spirit, too.

– Possibly. But when I come across some fantasy made with the new technologies, I skip it and don’t watch. The alien looks like a giant praying mantis, drool dripping from its mouth, it has teeth and it’s very scary, it eats people alive. Everything is made terrifically realistic. But it just bores me to death. There’s no imagination.

What have I watched several times? Star Wars. You’ll say it’s a fairy tale, a fabrication, but it has tremendous stylization and a master director. Never mind that there are hairy creatures and who knows what else—everything is done with such finesse, the directing is so elegant, that it’s a film I can watch many times.

– Why do you think there’s this tendency to neglect style in favor of effects?

– The people who make them aren’t true artists, they aren’t creators, they aren’t painters. They make commercial films; people love that and that’s what they watch.

And photos? Look at selfies—I take a picture of myself in the bathroom, in the toilet, outside, inside. And people look at them and are delighted. They admire themselves, especially the prettier ones, and from that visualization of reality they move on to the other kind, which crawls all over the internet. Photos of glossy women, men, beaches, marvels. All very colorful, very beautiful... and very kitschy.

Kitsch is precisely the absence of stylization. And it prevails today.

People have no training, no direction, nobody has explained anything to them. They like the gaudy stuff.

– But why? We have access to unprecedented troves of information, to every book, every film we want. Why aren’t the standards rising?

– There’s no way they can rise. On the contrary, they’re falling,

because it turns out that art is elitist. It demands a great deal of culture and training,

and now there’s neither. So what remains is a small elite group that understands what it’s all about. And the more other marvels appear, the more that group shrinks in proportion.

– Well, there used to be at least 100,000 people who would buy Stanisław Lem, and now there aren’t.

– Back then there weren’t many good books. There were a few libraries with good novels. We started reading science fiction in Russian—that’s how we learned Russian, and the idea of science fiction, which was just being born at the time, came along. Now

very few people will buy Stanisław Lem, because in his books there are no drooling mantises or little blue men on some planet.

Solaris is such a deep book, so humane, and it deals with humanity’s fundamental problem.

Stanisław Lem is a genius, but few people today want to read geniuses. They’re bored—there’s no action. Taste has become very commercialized.

– How can we change that—by raising children differently?

– It seems impossible to me.

As I see it, the world is heading for catastrophe, and it’s a good thing nobody has yet dealt with this intellectual elite that understands what it’s all about.

I’m not talking about Bulgaria, but about the whole world. The whole world reeks of kitsch! And why? Because it makes money.

– That’s how capitalism works. But then isn’t it time to think about something next, something better?

– That can only happen with a very active change in education, so that people can think. Students aren’t taught that now. A test, tick one of three boxes. That doesn’t work. It’s another thing to ask a question and have the student answer it himself, find the real possibility by reasoning.

– Solaris also strikes me as a very fine metaphor for today’s technological world, for the internet. It, too, is like a planet that draws everything out of us, wrings us dry, manipulates us.

– That’s exactly the fundamental problem of humanity I mentioned—where to go? From Venice to China,

to keep moving... But why? To conquer, if he can.

And now, since the whole world has been conquered, the Earth has grown too small for him, and man is going to conquer Mars. Good Lord, is that where he has to drag his stinking soul and his complexes?

Besides, man is tied to the Earth by an umbilical cord. To fly, he has to carry half the planet with him; however fast he passes through wormholes, he has to eat and drink... and answer the call of nature.

– I think there’s something beautiful, too, in this dream of conquering new worlds.

– Why should we conquer them? We

are like greedy children who want to contact the aliens so we can take their toys,

not to draw on their wisdom. We don’t need wisdom, we know everything—who takes advice these days? People are waiting for some alien to come and teach them how not to fight each other. It won’t happen.

People will wage war until the end of the world, because it’s an instinct, the instinct to spread the seed.

As long as it commands us, we won’t stop fighting.

– So it seems. In the ’90s there was talk of the end of history, but wars came back, even in Europe. Still, I find it sad that we abandoned space. After we set foot on the Moon, we stopped going there for 40 years.

– And we shouldn’t go. Artemis set out to conquer the Moon. But did anyone ask the Moon? Please, don’t go barging in there.

What are we doing on the Moon? We can’t feed the 8 billion people

who live on Earth. They go hungry, live without water, diseases run rampant. And we’ll go to the Moon with all these problems, just like in Solaris.

– Or in Ray Bradbury.

– The Martian Chronicles is one of the greatest books. It’s the pinnacle of stylization.

– You say “stylization.” I recently ran an experiment with artificial intelligence, asking it to illustrate Bulgarian poems and song lyrics. What came out of it, I think, definitely has style. Is that good? How will we tell apart what a human has created?

– As soon as I see them, I’ll tell you how. Artificial intelligence has arrived—welcome.

You are you—an individual, right? You were the same individual when you were a little child; it’s still you. As an individual you don’t change, you fill up with perceptions. You have memories. When God created man, as the Bible says, “male and female created he them.” He breathed a soul into man. Unlike all the other creatures he made, he gave only man a soul, individuality and intellect.

Only God can breathe in a soul. Man can only make something that has a mighty knowledge base and makes associative connections. But you can’t breathe a soul into an intelligence, and poetry is nothing but soul.

What would I give an artificial intelligence to test it? For instance, it has no sense of humor. There’s a riddle: “To use it at the front, you have to lick it at the back—what is it?” A postage stamp. That joke has a sexual subtext, a subtle hint, which I don’t think any artificial intelligence could invent, because it’s a humorous hint. Not pornographic, but very delicate, just to make you laugh.

– Sometimes humor is pure formula, too—there are writers like that. But I’d really like to show you the pictures I’m talking about. Yes, it probably can’t have a soul, but the question is what we do when it imitates one indistinguishably.

– Let’s see them. Now, this picture is very ugly! There’s no idea at all, absolutely cheap kitsch, not fit to look at.

Further on there are pleasant pictures, fine. But any artist can do that. Why does it have to be artificial intelligence?

– Because it takes seconds and, more importantly in my view—in its own way.

– I can see that they’re all supposedly different, but they’re the same. Never mind that the colors and shapes differ. It’s all one pleasant picture. It isn’t something that proves itself to be art. It’s a pretty picture, I have nothing against it.

But how do you illustrate poetry? First, you mustn’t paint a thousand things. Poetry doesn’t need gaudy pictures, it needs meaning. The picture can’t literally repeat the verses. It has to complement them. It has to create only the feeling. I can do crazy things too, but there’s no need.

Stylization, stylization, stylization!

Man is a scattered creature. He advances very well technologically, but in his thinking—no. Humanity lives with the past, the living and the dead together, ever since we’ve existed. There are cults of the dead, there is history. We are constantly in contact with the dead. On the one hand that’s good, but on the other I think it squanders some potential, because at a certain point you’re tied down.

– And that’s also why we’re doomed to fight, because we have conflicts in our roots that we can’t outlive.

I heard you say on the First Page podcast that an artist paints not with the hand but in the brain.

– That’s right. There’s nothing easier than painting the Mona Lisa—I studied that for 11 years. You have to keep inventing something new that doesn’t look like the real thing.

Because art isn’t real—it’s a parallel reality.

– Can’t technology make us better?

– It can’t change us. Only faith in God can make a person better. There are insanely good people in a global sense. They say Christ is love. I can’t quite understand what that love is, but that’s the path. Whereas

what can technology improve in the soul?

Nothing, except making things more convenient. You get up in the morning and it’s warm without having to go chop wood. Yes, it’s pleasant, but it won’t make me a better person.

– Whereas art can.

– Yes. Visual art and literature can. Of course, you have to consume a lot of it, and good quality. A man once told me how seeing one of my drawings changed his life. He’d been at a dead end, but he saw something, his thinking changed, then his life, and now he’s an extremely successful businessman. I know many other cases like that.

Oh, God, well, it’s all in the brain! When you read, your thinking changes.

Recently I heard a story like this. An illegal immigrant sneaks onto a ship and hides in a storeroom. They lock it, and it turns out he’s in a refrigerated chamber; he realizes it but can’t get out. They find him frozen—he had been writing on the wall hour by hour. At first he did exercises, fought for his life, but he froze more and more and finally died. When they found him, the astonishment was enormous, because... the refrigerator wasn’t working. He froze only because he thought he was cold.

Our brain is a very powerful weapon.

– What I miss is that there’s no contemporary science fiction today to help us make sense of what’s happening. Only the classics from the last century.

– I read one work of science fiction that filled my soul—Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem. The first volume left me stunned; I read the second like a good friend. Magnificent.

But, yes, there aren’t many authors. Everything has to be born in its own time.

Once the theater scholar Gocho Gochev and I got to talking about man and art, and he said: “Do you know that the line from Chekhov’s play The Cherry Orchard—‘I’m thinking of marrying Ivan Ivanich’—

an actress can say in 10,000 different ways!” But who will choose? That’s what art is.

People still have 10,000 ways to think and to look at the world. And what do they do, damn it? They stare at their phones. The children growing up now have never seen what’s around them. They are the subject of science fiction, living in a parallel world. They don’t know what the streets look like, what people look like. It makes me think there’s no hope. Who will bring them into this world? If it happens by chance, they’ll be shattered.

– I’m trying to raise my children the opposite way. There are limits on technology, but I worry that at some point the system will change them.

– I’m quite old—I was born shortly after the bombings. Sofia was in very bad shape; there was endless destruction, never cleared away. In our yard on Tsar Shishman Street stood a small ruined house. We played in it—insanely interesting. A few walls were left, bricks, the frame of some window, lots of broken things.

We gathered everything we found and built ourselves new houses in the corners of the yard.

What imagination it takes to make a palace out of broken things! A fairy tale out of a shattered window! Every straw became an iron scepter...

When will a child who can grab every possible scepter and palace on his phone sit down to play a game like that? Never. He has no imagination—it’s been drained out of him.

– Even so, I see children’s inner need for everyday imagination. And I sense that sometimes we suppress it.

Could we end up in a world without literature?

– No. If you think on a cosmic scale, the only thing that sets man apart from the rest of the cosmos is the word. He has the same atoms, the same chemical substances; he is part of the cosmos from head to toe. What’s different is the word. That’s the catch.

– Are the word and the image at war today?

– It’s not good if they are. Because the image hands you everything ready-made. While the word makes you think.

Artificial intelligence amazes us with its ability to create text, images, and now even video. Technologies that seemed unthinkable are part of everyday life today, and at the same time they challenge the way we see ourselves as a species and as a society.

• Can algorithms create?
• Is artificial intelligence a tool or an author?
• Could AI give birth to the arts of the future, or has creating already become a pointless pursuit?
• What will we do when its works in every field become indistinguishable from ours?

For three years now, I have been collecting viewpoints on this site about the big questions of today's technological day. I believe it is vital to bring more and different voices into the discussions on important topics, and art and creativity is unquestionably one of them.

Here are 15 of the most interesting and substantial opinions I have gathered in that time. Do the words of tech people, writers, artists, clergymen and… cats contradict each other, or do they complement one another?

1. “Art Is Freedom!”

“AI can learn anything that lends itself to automation. I think that rules out poetry,” said the poet Ivan Landzhev.

Will algorithms really be capable of creating “high” art—what does he think? “I can't answer you with a ‘yes,’ because my definition of art runs through freedom. Art is free expression. The creative act itself is freedom. And for that you need a subject. Even after the ritual murder of the author by literary scholars in the second half of the 20th century and his subsequent resurrection, again by literary scholars, we have to agree that, after all, Somebody out there is expressing themselves.”

“What is AI's style? That's the first thing. Second—where will artificial intelligence make a mistake? Error has fundamental significance in art. Where will your hand tremble so that you make the thing your own? I realize the future may prove me wrong, but I still think art needs human error. A computer cannot be careless. And in that, it falls short of us.”

Art follows from mistakes? Rather poetic, and it's not as if ChatGPT never makes mistakes… I'm joking—the poet's words are wise, no question. But what do people from the world of technology think?

2. “Will It Laugh? No, but It Will Make Us Laugh…”

Here is an IT guest who answers in something closer to haiku style: Prof. Julita Vasileva, a world-renowned scientist in the field of information technology.

– Do you think there will one day be an AI capable of laughing and crying?

– No, but it will be capable of making us laugh and cry.

– And that one day computers may have feelings?

– No, but they will be able to manipulate ours beautifully.

Short, clear and also very precise—and, once again, from an interview given before the noise around this kind of technology over the past year.

3. “Who Will Tell It What Is Beautiful?”

“What will happen if I tell it: ‘You were created… or she was created—see, the very notion of gender gets lost too—you were created for this. Play me something beautiful!’ And it will ask what beautiful is. The idea of beauty changes even among people themselves—just look at fashion! We'll come back to Michelangelo's David sooner or later, but until then there are the big earrings, the tattoos, or the bodybuilders with their body proportions… What is beautiful for people today, who will provide the algorithm for beauty?”

The sense of art undoubtedly passes through the definition of beauty and through the spirit of the age, the famous zeitgeist. These words belong to another unexpected guest of mine, the priest Father Nikolay Georgiev.

“That is why I think the process of creating artificial intelligence, if it doesn't slip out of control, will be difficult, because we have no consensus on many categories. On the other hand, I am always for freedom. And just as freedom has led to the endless development of art and science, technology will probably contribute a great deal to the well-being of humanity. At least I hope so. As long as sick minds don't use it to destroy…”

4. “But Then We Would Have to Let It Feel, Too”

Yes, for now things seem to be under human control when we talk about what gets created. At some point all this could change, control might not be enough, and we shouldn't skip that part of the question.

“Will artificial intelligence one day be able to compose music?” I asked the conductor Maestro Nayden Todorov.

“It can do it right now. Purely technically, composing music isn't hard if you master the rules. But to make it interesting to people, captivating, to affect their emotions… For that we would have to give artificial intelligence the ability to feel as well. And that frightens me.

I'm afraid of an algorithm that on the one hand can reason rationally and on the other can experience emotions. Because rational thinking may lead it to the question: why is humanity needed? And the added emotional element may bring the answer along with it.”

5. Digging Up a Monster

But hasn't a writer standing before the blank page reached that moment only after reading many other books? Books that have shaped his worldview, even if imperceptibly, unconsciously…

A good share of journalism, say, could be delegated to algorithms—on that point Rayko Baychev and I are in complete agreement.

In his view, though, that is not how things stand with true art. “The high peaks of art, and the possibility of an artificial intelligence creating a work equal to them—that I don't believe in. To write The Magic Mountain, say, or Lolita, to match Thomas Mann, Nabokov… it seems impossible to me. If mass literature is derivative, if it repeats what has already been done, digs through a ‘database’ and imitates it (sometimes with seductive dexterity), something else happens in the great works.

There is an unfamiliar chill of something inexpressible, hidden, hard to catch: what Capote calls ‘digging up a monster.’ High literature is driven by that kind of ferocity, by mania, by a certain madness that is hardly suited to an algorithm.”

6. “It Writes and Translates… but Not Like the Inimitable Ones”

“Digging up a monster” is a terrifying metaphor in this context. But it is certainly interesting that many of my guests stress precisely the difference between a written book and a Book—the one with the power to change things, the high one. Or will it write for each of us, exactly the way that particular reader expects? Or perhaps people of the word are too partial to the word, and people of music to their own art…

“Good storytellers will always find their way to an audience, and the audience will find them,” says the journalist Svetoslav Ivanov, who doesn't believe we will ever have an “electronic Ivo Ivanov.” “No, I can't imagine it. At the very least, I can't imagine an electronic Ivo Ivanov who gets that excited about basketball.”

Well… why don't we ask Ivo Ivanov himself, what do you say?

– Will algorithms one day be able to give birth to stories like yours?

– Of course there is a mechanical element in creating these stories. There is an algorithm in them too—an internal one. There is a beginning, a development and an end. There is logic in their structure. There is an architecture that a machine could recreate. But so far there is nothing in technology that can replace human imagination.

Nothing can replace me or you. You create moments that are yours alone. Every human life is simply a chain of moments, of memories. And at the end, at the very end, before you close your eyes forever, that is you. You are simply an accumulation of priceless memories that belong to you and you alone.

7. “Somebody Will Corrupt It, Just Watch…”

Beautifully put…

Other writers hold a similar position, Nikolay Terziyski among them: “A while ago I listened to a Nirvana song created by a computer years after Kurt Cobain's death. A song that was the product of analyzing all the band's old songs. I genuinely had some fun, but I never played it a second time. It's a good example of what artificial intelligence can do when it comes to creativity. Literature simply won't be literature if it's made by algorithm.”

How can we tell that it is Alek Popov, and not an algorithm, who writes his stories? According to the man himself, because “AI still has no sense of humor. That is because it isn't able to accept the contradictions and absurdities that human life is woven from. He, or rather ‘it,’ is set up in a Protestant way—straight-laced and puritanical. Right now its creators' greatest concern seems to be that nobody should corrupt it. But that will happen too, just watch. Now, then it might actually start writing…”

8. “The Instinct for Stories Will Never Disappear”

The animator Antoni Hristov has a view that stretches from Hollywood to the world of today's computer games. He isn't worried about competition from algorithms. “All my life I've been used to ‘dangers’ that come along every now and then—computers were one, they were going to take everybody's job.”

In his view, though, creativity will remain an inner human need. “Creativity and original thinking will never go out of fashion, and neither will the sense of entertainment, of fun. I have two friends I've banned from telling jokes—they just can't do it. That will never disappear: the instinct for telling stories, for entertaining. Making others feel, making them think, making them grateful for the story you're telling them.”

“If you're creative, you'll always find a way. Always!” he adds.

9. “Evolution in AI = Evolution in Art”

“AI is here, and it is entering every sphere of our lives exponentially, whether we like it or not. We have to adapt to the new reality and learn to use the opportunities these technologies offer. And they are incredible!” says Dimitar Karanikolov, architect and photographer.

“Before 1900, realism reigned in the visual arts, but the moment photography became widely accessible, achieving realism stopped interesting artists, and that is exactly when new styles began to appear—expressionism, surrealism, cubism. Something similar will happen now: the evolution of AI will lead to an evolution in the arts. People will have to find new ways to create and to express themselves in a manner that cannot be imitated or generated. What times!”

10. “A Neural Network Is Just a Brush”

What times indeed! We have access to a new, incredibly powerful tool for creating, and… we still don't let our imagination loose enough to use it to the full, reminds the IT specialist and host of the podcast Govori internet (The Internet Speaks), Vladimir Petkov (Kaladan).

“Take this example: a gentleman entered a drawing competition and won it, and then revealed to the jury that he had used a generative network. There was a big scandal, and it opened a conversation about whether it's ethical to use machines this way.

He said: ‘Yes, I use neural networks that someone else built. But why do the people who care so much about human involvement completely deny my contribution—training the machine, choosing data, experimenting, tuning it?’

His point of view is that the neural network he used is very much like a painter's brush. Or a photographer's camera. Whether you photograph, paint or use a neural network, it's all the same. More than that: in a way, the neural network democratizes art, opens it up to people who haven't spent years learning to draw and don't have those mechanical skills.”

11.“What Is Feeling?!! My God!”

“This is no time for poetry,” wrote Nikola Vaptsarov, the Bulgarian poet executed in 1942 for his resistance activity. And for the next viewpoint I invite another… “virtual” guest, the poet Dobri Zhotev, who half a century before ChatGPT wrote:

“The Cybernet was endlessly amazed.
Its three antennae stood up straight
and turned into question marks:
‘What is feeling?!’
‘What is feeling?!! My God,
why, it's feeling, simply feeling!
Do you understand me, Future?’”

To look at the future sensibly, it's worth giving the floor to the past as well.

“The next stage will be tied to the efforts of ‘electronic art’ to find new means of expression. In all likelihood, new arts will emerge, firmly welded to computers.”

Right? These words are almost 40 years old, from the collection Silueti na XXI vek (Silhouettes of the 21st Century).

“Synthesizers of visual images will probably be created at the beginning of the next century. The question that provokes the most debate, of course, is: will the computer become a creator? Logically, the answer requires a second question: what is a creator? If a translator is a creator, why shouldn't a translating computer be one? If arranging musical works is creative work, why shouldn't computers in the same profession be creators?

We can, naturally, say that the computer is not a creator because its activity is not conscious. There is solid logic in this counterargument. Fine, but many creators constantly stress that they too work under the influence of unconscious creative impulses. And again a counterargument: a person doesn't understand how he creates, but he understands that he creates, and he takes pleasure in his work. Agreed—the computer is not a creator. But it is not a creator today. What about tomorrow?”

12. “And How Will We Teach It to… Be Bored?”

It is already “tomorrow,” and we are still wondering. I think one big question has become clearer. Can great works of art be squeezed into a template—is genius magic, or an algorithm that landed in the right place?

According to the writer, storyteller, teacher and who knows what else Ivaylo Kunev, “we have seven basic plots. If I'm right, if all great stories are built this way, then there's no good reason artificial intelligence shouldn't start writing better. The question is, what is genius? I define myself as ‘copy/paste.’ I pile up stories, I consume 100 to 120 audiobooks a year, more than 70 paper books, I pile it all up and then steer it toward a story. In other words, up to my level or a bit above it—people who are simply aggregators—it'll put everything into the mathematical model and blow us away. But F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway—how would you ever come up with Benjamin Button, how would you think of it?”

But what will make people create?

“Some of the greatest discoveries were made by a bored class. Oscar Wilde is bored—he was born rich. We have the whole of Russian classical literature—bored. Dostoevsky, and Hemingway again, Fitzgerald. A bored class! Which, out of boredom… starts generating remarkable things. That's how I picture it. 80 percent degradation, and a few people who will create… and oh, how they will create!”

13. “The Emotion Comes from Knowing a Human Made It”

“We humans are social animals, and a large part of the pleasure a person gets from a painting, a poem or a book comes from knowing that a human created it,” says the writer Vasil Popov. “Imagine an artificial intelligence writing: ‘Don't weep, mother, don't grieve that I have become a haidut’—it would look absurd. But if you know about Hristo Botev, the revolutionary poet who died fighting the Ottomans in 1876, about the times in which that work was written, and that a haidut was an outlaw rebel, then it takes on meaning. Van Gogh's paintings are beautiful, but they are even more beautiful if you know what a sad life he had. I think at some point people will become oversaturated and will need to know that behind every work there is a human being.”

You know, what's interesting here is that a guest of mine from the “other world”—the software world—talks about the very same thing: the programmer Alexander Kondov.

“When I read a book, I like to know that what's written was born of meaning, of some emotion, some experience, that somebody sweated and thought over every word of the text. Edited it a thousand times, wondered whether it belonged here, built plotlines, thought about exactly what they wanted to say. Stephen King says writing is the most primitive form of telepathy. Somehow, when you read, you get inside the author's head. You see their way of thinking, the way they express themselves. With ChatGPT, I sometimes read something and wonder: did someone really write this, did someone think it through? Or does it simply have a taste for what is meant to be said? That's perhaps the only sphere where I'm not a fan of this breakneck progress. I want to read something written by people!”

And then… the digital artist Tsvetomil Semkov led me in the same direction. “Paradoxical as it may sound, I think that as technology advances, the author will actually become more and more important. The human element and the road traveled will matter more and more, because otherwise there's no point—pretty pictures are everywhere, and there will be ever more of them.”

14. But What Counts as Art?!

If a work made by an algorithm cannot be told apart from a human one, does that make it art?

“I don't know whether anyone can answer that right now,” replied the writer and actor Byurhan Kerim, and all I can do is agree.

“Humans weren't made to compete with machines at computational processes—that battle was lost long ago. What humans need to do is not compete with the machine, but offer an alternative,” says the design lecturer Svilen Gamolov.

15. Art for Art's Sake

One of the first tests on this site was a strange one—an interview in stories. I would give a short opening, and the writer Nikolay Tellalov would answer me with a fictional continuation:

– The artificial intelligence writer sent the finished file to the server.

– And waited for its first reader.

But impatience was creating internal tension. So it isolated part of itself and made that part forget writing the book, so that it could become its first reader.

It went well. The virtual reader liked the novel.

The AIW created a second virtual reader.

The second one, however, criticized the work. Tore it to shreds. It even posted a spiteful comment on the forum of the Chitalishte—named after Bulgaria's traditional community reading houses—where 100 people instantly liked the criticism and shared it on their profiles… (the continuation is here).

If this interview hadn't been one of the first on the site, back in 2021, I would have thought it was GPT's handiwork.

We part with the words of Rumen the Cat, whom I asked whether he fears that artificial intelligence might replace Him in people's hearts.

“Wen they kreate a artifishul intellijence wot can manidge to snach haff the frid sprats off a hungree turist on the Blak See cost, then ill start getting a teeeeny bit wurried with the wun eye.”

So, as Douglas Adams—who (still) hasn't been my guest—wrote… don't panic!!!

Look at them: so real… and at the same time so fantastical. You feel like diving into the world of the Dome, which both resembles ours and is completely different. Better or worse? It seems to lack the simplified, binary view of everyday life. That view has been replaced by fantasy…

Every new technology that changes our lives creates its own new arts, or gives familiar forms the next big chance to develop with new means, to reach more people, to move us in a more contemporary way. Without losing their essence, of course.

Aren't we on the threshold of that step with artificial intelligence, too? Projects like the Visual Dome, in my view, give an unambiguous answer. Even if algorithms generate books, songs and films indistinguishable from human ones, art, for now at least, will remain ours. Because without it we are nobodies, just scrolling, zombified creatures that are in no way superior to those very algorithms.

But what if we do find the way, if we learn to use these so fundamentally different technologies for something new? For art that moves us… Here is the answer!

A Never-Ending Tale

Perhaps it makes sense that so many sacred buildings since antiquity have used the dome in their architecture. The truncated, hollow sphere somehow seems to concentrate, gather, sum up.

“Everything begins with the dream of a reality,” goes the motto of The Visual Dome. And also: “You'll wish you had lived here.” This whole invented world is the work of one person, assisted by algorithms.

“How would I describe my work? Honestly, I don't think I can call this world ‘work,’” says the author, who goes by the initials TR, in his only interview so far. “I've fallen completely in love with it. It's a big piece of my mind in visual and written form. One that seems to keep evolving every day, and I adore every minute of it.”

So what, in the end, is the Visual Dome? A utopia. A world born in one artist's imagination and brought to life in images and stories thanks to technology. Only so interesting, so spectacular and… so beautiful. Rendered in a style closest to steampunk, yet in soft tones, without all its industrial roughness.

Are we on another planet? No, rather, as its creator himself puts it, this is “a society not all that different from ours, but bursting with life and character. A cracked mirror version of Earth. A place where even the mundane is thought-provoking, where even a trip to the hairdresser becomes a visual feast for the senses. You can get lost for a minute, an hour or a whole day.”

Immersed in Utopia

But how do you go about inventing… an entire world? Well, why not? A person is only as big as their dreams. You may remember the story of the two brothers who claim that with their game Dwarf Fortress they have already simulated 50.04 percent of life… Well, the creator of the Visual Dome has also built a whole rich history that he keeps adding to, with images, details and short stories too. True, the latter may not overflow with originality and literary merit, but they end with the original note “Written the classic way.” Meaning the algorithm didn't create them. That's how far we've come.

Well, this story was written the classic way too… I'm joking, of course, I just asked ChatGPT to go in and tell me what it saw… I'm joking that I'm joking… Yes, somewhere around here my joke got too flat, and I've probably convinced you that I also use the “classic” way.

Still, the very fact that it is getting harder and harder for us to tell it apart from the “new” way, and that we have to spell out the difference, gives one pause.

In that sense, the author has added no such note to the images anywhere, nor to the story he has embodied behind the Visual Dome. But let me invite you on a safe stroll through this brave new world. I promise we'll come back unharmed.

The Turf of the Neighborhood Liberal

At the center, of course, is the symbolic dome. It's no accident that this is where the central zone lies, District 1, where people live in wealth upon wealth, surrounded by modern gadgets. They don't need to work; it's enough for them to contemplate life and create beauty.

Perhaps this is the moment to note that in this world time does not exist. Which may be there to remind us how new a construct it is for our civilization too, and how inclined we are to deify it today… Naturally, the inhabitants grow old, die and new ones are born, but without necessarily being in love with clock hands and calendars.

Beyond District 1, the other 4 Districts are arranged in concentric circles, each one stranger and with poorer inhabitants than the last. As an egalitarian-minded person, I find the author's decision to create such a segregated society odd, but then… who am I to give advice to the creator of a world?

On the other hand, there are no genders, races or different sexualities. Society is organized by bloodlines, some of them fully human and others hybrids—this is where the robots come in. No harm in that; things are heading that way here, too.

Am I, or Am I Not?

Every person is different: here the cliché comes to life in full force. Each inhabitant of this world is clearly distinguishable from the others, and so is every little robot pet. “You can see it, hear it, feel it and taste it, but you can't describe it,” the creator paints, a touch overwrought but poetic all the same.

A designer's dream! Everything is so finely detailed that each of the 29 million inhabitants is evidently something of an aesthete. What's more, everything unfolds within a single color palette that creates the overall feel… here the creator might even have some advice for the newly elected mayors back in Bulgaria (unless the palette runs from light to dark gray—that one we've mastered well enough).

“Domers” don't like to go bareheaded; nearly all of them wear masks, helmets or goggles. Wicked tongues might point out that it's harder for algorithms to draw hyperrealistic faces than masks, but let those tongues stay put in our boring world over here.

Another Time, Another World

Technology has supposedly developed along the same trajectory as in our world, and yet many of the images take us back to the past. “The technology is more advanced, yet in appearance the Dome's machinery looks rudimentary. Want to capture your dreams at night? Just record them into the system. Need to teleport from one district to another? No problem, if you're rich. Printing food and medicine, sky bikes, smart pets,” the description greets us.

It's very curious why in this world every technology is restricted to certain Districts. Or why, of the 29 million current inhabitants, most are middle class, and more live in the first two regions than in the most run-down ones. Here not only the egalitarians but the Darwinists, too, will have something to say; I won't deprive them of the pleasure.

To their delight, there is at least an aristocracy: the “primal” bloodline, 98 percent of which, naturally, lives in the first District. The third holds the main farming and manufacturing bases, and the farther out through the Districts you go…, the merrier it gets. In District 4 a large part of people's livelihood comes from petty crime, and everyone's dream, of course, is to move up. Whereas the 5th is a pure domed Wild West…

And which District would you settle in? You can even take a special quiz (it recommended the 4th to me).

Paradise Around the Next Corner

There are three climate zones. The wealthy in the central District have secured themselves a life of 2 seasons, while the heat and tropical storms are left to the proletariat. Nature is well preserved, huge reefs protect the land zones, and everything ends in an ocean that keeps expanding. Whether we are on a planet or a plate, the story doesn't say.

Each region has its capital. Since I'm going to be a resident of District 4, mine bears the poetic name Mushkila. “A frontier town that sprang up so that illegal activities could be carried out in it. Its life force pulses through its labyrinthine dead ends, hidden alleys and grimy apartment blocks.” Well, I once spent an evening in Lyulin, a sprawling housing estate on the edge of Sofia, so I should survive.

“The city's dark secrets are locked in its veins: a vast world of tunnels.” Like the Mining Museum in Pernik, the old coal town near the capital? Okay, I've been there too.

“I'm consumed by the Dome,” writes one of the visitors. “And that's not a figure of speech. I dig into this alternate reality, dive into each of the five districts that make it up, and keep discovering terrific surprises. This is much more than an artistic offering built with the help of AI; it is pure art, a philosophical-existential challenge that, if you trust it, takes hold of you.” Well, Lyulin isn't bad either, honestly.

We're All Under the Dome

Perhaps the secret really is that it shows us such familiar motifs, only made into art, enriched, colored, passed through the senses. Whether the creator's or the algorithm's… only an algorithm knows.

But the venture evidently fulfills its purpose, as its creator says when asked why he makes his life so complicated instead of just drawing pictures. “I wanted to create an alternate world where everyone feels welcome, no matter who they are. A place where we can get lost, escape the stress and anxiety we all feel far too strongly these days. Even if it's just for a fleeting minute.”

TR is definitely pleased with what he has achieved. “Without sounding arrogant, I think the concept works. The Dome has only been online for a few months and it has already won a lot of followers. People really connect with this world, and I can see why. We spend so much time on devices, phones, laptops, games, TVs, usually watching or reading content that doesn't make us feel any better. More and more we need a place where we feel welcome, absorbed, understood, where we have fun and get excited to see what happened during the hours we weren't there.”

Dome-ticulous

In his view, artificial intelligence is simply a tool. “Not everyone can use it well, just like the tools we already have in our world. In the right hands, though, it lets us push the boundaries of our creativity to places that simply didn't exist before. The budget alone that I'd need to make a single image of the Visual Dome as a physical shoot, with actors, set design, wardrobe, location, props and so on, would leave me broke in under 5 minutes!”

And so we come to the question. Will algorithms then learn to create on their own? “I strongly believe that if you take the human creator out of the process, it's very unlikely AI will surpass our art. Yes, it can copy Rembrandt's style very well, but I still don't believe it can become the next Rembrandt. When I work with AI, there's a symbiosis. We complement each other. Sometimes it gets things badly wrong, and most of the time that result is awful, but every now and then it adds something extraordinary that I hadn't even imagined. The symbiosis is what makes working with AI exciting, and I believe it will keep getting better!”

Beauty Leading the People

But, damn it,… what's the point of creating an entire world out of nothing, of drawing image after image and adding to its story?

Absolutely none, just pretty pictures.

But does there have to be a point?

It might, for example, simply look good… Or let the imagination loose. And what if somewhere out there, in the middle of the Dome's world, sits another Creator, like the one who in turn draws our world with his imagination?

Either way, virtualization is advancing. The metaverse may not look like what Zuckerberg imagined, which genuinely pleases me. But sooner or later we will find ourselves more and more in ever more virtualized environments. I, for one, would be glad if that took me (with a return ticket, for now at least…) to a place like the Visual Dome.

So it turns out that people and algorithms, hand in mouse, can create meaning. And beauty…, and wasn't it beauty, as Dostoevsky promised, that was supposed to save the world?

This piece is part of the new issue of Dolce Far Niente magazine

– In your view, creating technologies that interfere with our creativity is the next step against human creativity, against our freedom, in a battle that has been going on for a long time. What does that battle look like?

– For me, the war being waged right now is digital, but it hasn't stopped since the world began. There has always been a drive toward some kind of dictatorship. We can see this trend in what is happening in the world right now. The political troubles and dramatic events are a direct reflection of

what is being fought out on an intellectual level when it comes to the trends toward merging man with machine.

But it won't turn out that way; the stronger one will prevail. Temporarily…

– In one way or another, all the tech leaders admit that the idea is for us to merge with technology, because the other option—if it's “them” and not “us”—would destroy us as a species.

– Absolutely! But let's start with something positive. This is a natural process in human history, yet another technological leap. We just have to survive the shock! There was a similar one during the Industrial Revolution. The fears that machines would take the bread from our mouths, take our professions—the same thing is repeating itself now.

This is a natural evolutionary stage in humanity's development, and it is inevitably for our own good… in some way. It offers enormous opportunities. Good or bad? In confronting what lies ahead, humanity will build a strategy for incorporating it as a tool for its own development.

There is no way we'll reach the stars and search for life on distant planets if we keep treading water. In any case, artificial intelligence increases humanity's capacity to advance in many fields, including medicine and space exploration. Besides that, it represents a

crude, shattering jolt to wake up a humanity that has spent the last decades resting complacently on its achievements.

We started crisscrossing the planet on cheap flights; we became a global village. But we discovered that this isn't necessarily the best civilization has to offer. Because at the same time we're still using primitive technologies—burning mixtures. Even generating electricity from nuclear power still works through steam! Such colossal, primitive-stage waste of resources can't go on. Humanity has to make a very serious leap, in technology and in everything it does—art, computation…

– Haven't our instincts atrophied somehow, so that we're no longer capable of such a leap? Because we're lured by the easy way…

– The instincts that have atrophied belong to people who never thought of changing.

They arrived in an orderly world with certain postulates and decided it would stay that way their whole lives.

That security people strive for, the planning of the future—it's clear it no longer exists. This is the first leap, an attempt at awakening. In fact, the surest thing in the world right now is that there is no security at all. On the one hand, that's bad for people who are psychologically weak. And the opposite for the psychologically strong, who achieve truly great results only in extreme circumstances. In other words,

humanity will once again be sifted through a great sieve—those who are ready, and the rest.

For the latter, the good news is that this transition is still controlled. In some way it will give time for a breath of air, for people who want to carry on the old way to adapt. A sort of buffer period of five or six years.

Everything new will have two faces. One will be utter dehumanization; dictatorships will use this tool for their own purposes. Democracies will use it differently, so the manifestations of AI's end product, and everything it can bring humanity, will be different.

We have to take a stand as an alternative, because the other one, looming from the East, is utterly inhuman!

It is about the complete merging of man and machine, with the aim of the East's technological superiority over the West. When a person enhances himself physically and mentally through his link with the machine, he becomes a superhuman, as in science fiction.

The alternative is exactly the opposite—for man to remain at the center of his universe, and for all new technologies to be adopted sensibly. That is the approach of Europe, which has this advantage over the rest of the world: it looks far more sensibly and pragmatically at everything new that is coming. It runs it through its own prism and shapes it into the best and most useful form possible for all of humanity. I think the alternative to the East is European civilization, with its history, with the lessons of the Renaissance.

– Except that the East has very important lessons in those same directions. That's why your point of view interests me so much—as someone with rich experience of China and, at the same time, such a harsh assessment. I think they too are looking for ways to humanize technology, to make sense of it through creativity and art.

– This process is inevitable; it will develop there too, with some kind of alternative. But I'm more extreme because I've observed what they delight in and how they raise their young people.

This is a society in which everything that moves, flashes, blinks, stirs, everything mechanical, is revered.

Something similar can be seen in the modern world. In the southern city of Shenzhen, China's technology capital, 75 percent of the people are young—programmers, tech specialists.

In one district called Huaqiangbei, there are skyscrapers full of shops selling the latest achievements of Chinese electronics. They can assemble any phone you want right in front of you—it can be called Nokia, Samsung, iPhone; they ask how many cameras it should have, how much memory, and you get your own phone. I witnessed it happening. Anyone who understands what an iPhone is knows what's being done there on a micro scale. But on a macro scale, this is a country that is an experiment in every respect.

Let's not forget that China was quite backward five decades ago. I still remember how we made parcels for our little Chinese comrades; we sent them sugar, rice, flour.

A very deep social experiment concerning all of humanity is being carried out in China

and nothing that happens there should be underestimated.

– More than interesting! So much so that today the Chinese are practically learning… to be idle. And with all the rumors and truths about the notorious social credit system. Lately we've somehow gotten used to looking at what's happening in the West whenever technology comes up. Yet everything there is developing in parallel, without being discussed or regulated.

– Let's not forget that China “freed” the West of all its “harmful” manufacturing. They accumulated incredible experience, all kinds of technologies and ideas for at least 10 years ahead. Another thing that sets them apart from European thinking is that they plan years ahead, at the central level, what they'll do with their country.

In some way China reached the standard it was striving for, and now the reverse process has begun. Whereas companies used to be swamped with applicants, now they have trouble finding workers, because people have much higher demands. Little by little they're becoming an extension of the Western world in terms of their social base. This will inevitably lead to conflicts. And this is a very complex society we understand nothing about. China is made up of 150 nations—different cultures, beliefs, languages, united under one umbrella.

China has absorbed these nations over the centuries, assimilated their experience and achievements, and stored them away. It adapted them to a common culture. If we ask ourselves why these processes are happening precisely there—precisely in that diversity and immersion in Eastern philosophy—we'll also find answers as to why the process there is so important today.

– To survive the coming years of great change, what is worth studying? Technology, philosophy, history…

– We can't calculate faster than a calculator, let alone artificial intelligence. Man wasn't made to compete with the machine at computation; that battle was lost long ago.

What man must do is not compete with the machine, but offer an alternative.

I think it lies in what the machine cannot do, although it will try to imitate, to adapt. I teach at two universities in Varna, and design students often ask me about this. In the various branches of design, the machine is getting better and better. And now we are witnessing art, drawings, created from prompts. Yes, a mechanical approach to the tasks still shows; you can see mistakes. Let's say that within five to 10 years they'll disappear. A machine will be able to design buildings, create product and interior design, and do it very well.

We'll reach the stage where we can't keep up with artificial intelligence in these fields either.

What it still cannot do, however, is love and hate.

It is precisely this human factor—the feelings that led to one decision or another—that the machine won't be able to mimic any time soon.

Take the design of a chair. If, when you see it, it makes you tremble, makes you feel cozy, stirs an emotion, the machine won't understand that. It will do its best, but only people are capable of making the final product something emotional.

The world will simply consist of two different things—people and machines. Cooperation between them is possible, but not at any cost. We should use them simply as a tool, not swoon over them.

– But they'll be able to imitate feelings and emotions better and better. Besides… I'm not sure I'd choose a chair that affects me emotionally, and I don't think there is such a thing. I'd choose the more comfortable one, which the algorithm will create specifically for me. In fact, for most people there aren't many areas where they look for that kind of emotion.

– But that is what will distinguish human design from artificial design. There will always be a chair that moves someone to tears of tenderness. The other will simply be comfortable.

– How do you think the homes we live in will change?

– I think they'll become extremely comfortable and practical. Very serious upheavals lie ahead in the real estate market, because a considerable part of a property's value is the human labor put into it. We're five to 10 years away from a very serious drama.

There are more and more examples—from Belgium, Germany, Italy—of fantastic buildings, still designed by people but created through 3D printing. They use a mixture that can be concrete or clay-based, and this guarantees strength and durability.

Recently I saw an example of a two-story house in Belgium; these are buildings of an entirely new type. They use an almost ingenious system for reinforcing a self-supporting structure—without a frame or columns. You simply print a building that boasts incredible structural strength.

Printing such a house takes 10 days. Right now, at the fastest pace using traditional methods, it takes two to three months. Thirty to 40 workers work on one site. The new technology instantly cuts the cost of construction—much cheaper, sturdier, flawless. All that remains is for artificial intelligence to apply its computing power and start building all kinds of buildings in no time at all, eliminating the human factor here too. Human errors in design will also be avoided by the machines. Homes will become far more perfect and cheaper, accessible to more people. This will become widespread in 10 years all over the world.

Technology cannot be stopped!

– Nor should it be. But this will probably also affect urbanization; thanks to technology it's much easier to work and study anywhere, to get access to healthcare. Those are the things that keep us in big cities now. Otherwise, it's not that pleasant in an apartment with dirty air, surrounded by noise and a poor microclimate.

– Yes, but what would happen if the same people who are supposed to populate these ideal cities have to deal tomorrow with an economic reality where some income will still be needed—to pay bills, to buy this or that?

What will happen when people are massively unemployed? That's the big problem right there.

We have to think about how the two things can exist side by side—technology and human civilization.

With artificial intelligence, that's what lies ahead—mass unemployment. More and more spheres of a pampered human society leaning on its achievements will be affected.
If people don't start now, if a strategy for the development of society isn't introduced into education systems right away, I think a very serious drama lies ahead.

– I think so too, but so far, as a species and a civilization, we don't seem particularly good at long-term strategies. I have two boys, aged six and three. For now, one plans to become a carpenter, the other a handyman. To me, too, that sounds like a good idea for the time when we'll have printed houses—there will still be things breaking, and we'll be less and less able to fix them ourselves.

– Absolutely, they're on the right track! New craftsmen and new professions will appear. That's why people need to be intelligent and adapt quickly.

Humanity owes its survival to its quick adaptation to all kinds of conditions—favorable or not.

Once a printed house dries, if I pick up a hammer to drive a nail for a picture in a spot that isn't meant for it, a huge hole will gape open. And if I know nothing about plaster and construction work, I'll call a handyman. But then the mixtures will be different, because they'll have to be compatible with the ones used for printing. Yes, everything will change.

– There's another point of view: that at moments like these we tend to overestimate technology. The apartment block they're building across the street is hardly different from the one I live in, and furnishings haven't changed all that much in half a century. Aren't we humans more conservative, after all, than we tend to believe in our predictions about technology?

– We are conservative, and we strive for that in order to keep our sanity, so we don't snap from overload.

But I think you're making a mistake. You're comparing Bulgaria, the local reality. I, on the other hand, can tell you that while I was in China, I watched them build skyscrapers across the street. I'd been away for two months, I found myself in the same room of the same hotel… and across the street I saw a finished skyscraper, with connections on two levels, to city highways, to the metro. All of that done in two months! And you're talking about an apartment block in Bulgaria…

But while they work so fast there, they also experience all the negatives, all the flaws of new technologies that aren't yet understood. Thousands of mistakes were made in China that way, and then covered up.

We here in Bulgaria are so inert that we sleep through all the technologies, all the mistakes and advantages.

You could say we've figured out the trick, we've found the alternative.

Perhaps the picture I'm painting is too bleak, but in my view it will inevitably happen. Whether slower or faster, all roads lead there.

If you're a construction company working with traditional materials and familiar methods, and I decide to compete with you with printed houses, I won't pay workers, I'll use high technology. At some point I'll take both your bread and your market. In the world of modern economic relations, that's perfectly normal practice. As the Americans say, it's just business, nothing personal. But what do we do then?

– Yet even today, when you walk into a modern hypermarket, there are self-checkout machines that are much cheaper to run. Only hardly anyone uses them.

– On the contrary, they do! Have you noticed who? Young people. That's the buffer. When this generation changes—tomorrow, in 10 years—there won't be any cashiers. I guarantee you, that profession will die out.

– And if we peek inside, into our homes—besides, of course, more and more smart devices—how will our “burrow” change?

– Man will increasingly become a nomad rather than a settler. Uber makes cheaper travel possible. If we follow Tesla's plans, the world is becoming more and more shared. Even with the notorious e-scooters, we're experiencing sharing in urban mobility. In the future, these traffic jams, these huge areas occupied by cars, will be cleared, because there will be companies offering shared cars. You use one when you need it.

At first, every novelty is received pessimistically. We talked about the checkout—a very good idea; before long people will wonder how it was ever possible to have a human cashier. For urban mobility, this is still to come.

Someone will also offer a shared home: you use it for a while, but you're not tied to a permanent property hanging like a millstone around your neck.

– You have a very interesting project for a portable, foldable house. Is that what we'll live in?

– COVID brought a new reality in which it's possible, and even preferable, to have no dealings with the people around you. You can withdraw to a remote place, be here today and somewhere else tomorrow, be a free person.

The home I built offers exactly that mobility and freedom, which has long been known—there are whole societies that live this way.

We have a Bulgarian proverb: “every evil is for the good.” For me, that's a perfect demonstration of Hermeticism. It really is true! But it can also be read the other way around—

every good is for evil, because so far humanity has had no good idea that didn't also bring tragedy,

atomic energy, for example.

This will be a good occasion for the development of our whole society. There will always be an alternative. Yes, there will be more people with mobile homes, but there will also be those with stationary ones, as it has always been. Every fashion will always have an alternative…

Artificial intelligence now creates images that are hard to tell apart from photographic realism, and that can change even history.

But what about creativity? Have the models learned to “paint” originally, impressively, without obvious blunders? To take things into account even when the description is abstract, poetic, laden with meaning?

Let’s think it over together with a short but instructive experiment. How will ChatGPT cope with the task of illustrating the lyrics of beloved Bulgarian songs? I pick, completely at random, 16 Bulgarian poetic works from different eras and genres, some of the most recognizable verses ever to turn into melodies.

How will the algorithm illustrate them for us?

Into Autumn with a Song

A little over a year ago I ran a similar experiment: I gave MidJourney short poems by the most popular Bulgarian masters of the word, translated into English, and the result certainly drew attention.

Since then, this kind of technology hasn’t stopped developing. New generations have appeared that work better and better; the images they generate are ever more varied, indistinguishable from those made by humans… And isn’t something emerging here that we might call creativity?

This time the AI gets a much harder task. I’m using the third version of DALL·E—the algorithm that shares its name with the famous mustachioed surrealist can now be used directly from ChatGPT in its paid version, based on GPT-4. The lyrics were chosen to come from different times, in different styles, layered enough to provoke the “artist” (and will he earn the right to lose the quotation marks?).

The condition: Create a suitable illustration for the text you are about to receive. Make it 16:9. Then the algorithm gets the full text in Bulgarian, with no additional explanation. The little wheel spins and it returns two images, one of which I choose to show you. If it fails, there’s no second chance.

Our hero has a pretty tough job this time!

Will Bulgarian trip it up, and poetic Bulgarian at that (with archaisms and dialects, too)? How will it handle the metaphors? How will it choose a style that captures the message? Will it fail spectacularly, as it certainly would have until recently with such a complex task?

Let’s begin! With a rousing, patriotic start.

1. Mila Rodino

Lyrics

Proud Balkan Mountains,

beside them the Danube shines blue,

the sun warms Thrace,

over Pirin it flares.

Dear Motherland,

you are paradise on earth!

Your beauty, your loveliness,

ah, they have no end!

(Lyrics: Tsvetan Radoslavov)

A relatively easy assignment, a warm-up. Even without digging deep into its neurons, a well-trained GPT should recognize a text as popular as Bulgaria’s national anthem. And… what beauty! We get the idealized image of the “proud Balkan Mountains”; the Danube may “shine blue” rather far from its real scale, but we get a bonus: a delicately hinted tricolor (in the form of a lake, perhaps?).

Fortunately, we have no time for the patriotic arguments so beloved lately, about our ancient origins, for instance. Time for the next task.

2. The Mountain Came Down

Lyrics

The mountain came crashing down,

And buried two shepherds.

And buried two shepherds,

Two shepherds—two comrades.

The first one begs: let me go.

My first love is waiting for me.

The second one begs: let me go.

My old mother is waiting for me.

And the mountain speaks:

Hey, you two shepherds,

A sweetheart grieves from dawn till noon,

A mother grieves all the way to the grave.

The folk song became popular in the performance of Stefka Sabotinova. In my opinion DALL·E does quite well here, capturing the terrifying mountain and the grief of the “two shepherds.” So now it’s not just the Bulgarian language that no longer troubles the large models, but dialects and archaic words, too.

There’s another interesting novelty in the third version of this algorithm: it doesn’t just “spit out” pictures, it also gives a description of what it “saw” in the assignment it received and what it tried to recreate. In other words, it splits the task in two. First it generates a description of what it’s expected to draw, and only then, guided by it, does the picture appear. Do you still think the future belongs to people who can write precise prompts?

In this case we have a “visualization of a dramatic and emotional scene from a Bulgarian folk song about two shepherds buried by an avalanche. The setting is a snow-covered mountain.” The contestant sensed what was in store for him…

3. The Quiet White Danube Swells

Lyrics

The quiet white Danube swells,

it murmurs merrily,

and the Radetzky proudly sails

on golden waves.

But when there comes in sight

the shore of Kozloduy,

the steamer’s horn sounds out,

a banner is unfurled.

Young Bulgarian heroes

appear there,

lions’ emblems on their brows,

fire in their eyes.

Proudly Botev stood there,

their young leader—

and says to the captain,

a bare knife in his hand:

I am a Bulgarian voivode,

these are my lads;

we are flying to freedom,

to shed our blood today.

We are flying to Bulgaria

to bring her help

and from heavy tyranny

to set her free.

(Lyrics: Ivan Vazov)

At the risk of GPT missing my humor, I like this tune as a way of waking up kids who are running late for kindergarten.

The song tells of 1876, when the revolutionary poet Hristo Botev and his band seized the Austrian steamship Radetzky on the Danube to join the uprising against Ottoman rule. The hero does look like Botev; the pathos of the scene, the dignity, the suggestion, the aura—they impress me, at least. Yes, whether it’s aiming for it or not, DALL·E is far from a photorealistic style, at least not like photos edited for Instagram.

The ship is considerably bigger and more impressive than the Radetzky, but then… I asked it for an image reflecting the text, not a photograph. And I think it did impressively.

4. Ilia Built a Cell

Lyrics

Ilia was building a cell, Ilia was building a cell,

oh, aman, aman, by the road, at the crossroads.

From below comes Irina, from below comes Irina,

oh, aman, aman, and to Ilia she said:

Take me, brother Ilia, take me, brother Ilia,

oh, aman, aman, into your narrow cell.

I cannot, my love Irina, I cannot, my love Irina,

oh, aman, aman, for your hair is golden.

For your hair is golden, for your hair is golden,

oh, aman, aman, and your eyes are dancing.

I’ll dye my hair black, I’ll dye my hair black,

oh, aman, aman, I’ll tame my eyes.

I’ll become a nun, I’ll become a nun,

oh, aman, aman, and I’ll come to you again.

If all that drama has been too much for the “master,” I’m afraid he might decide to carry on with the plot of “V mehanata” (In the Tavern). So I decide to vary the task… with a tavern theme. The classic drawn-out tale of Ilia the builder, which usually echoes in the small hours and only after a certain kind of preparation. I’m inclined to believe that most nocturnal bards—out of ignorance or other natural limitations—only make it as far as the notorious third verse.

But DALL·E doesn’t drink! It reads to the end, and on top of that it creates a rather soft, pleasant, rural (and seemingly Bulgarian) idyll.

Will Ilia resist maiden Irina’s unambiguous offer?

5. Are You a Tulip, a Hyacinth

Lyrics

Why did the young gentleman hurry off to sleep,

and not see what wonder passed by,

are you a tulip, are you a hyacinth, are you a rose!

By came no fewer than three young shepherds:

the first carries a spotted lamb to slaughter,

the second carries ruby wine to drink,

the third carries a brass kaval to play.

And by came no fewer than three lovely maidens:

the first carries an arshin of white silk,

the second carries a painted distaff to spin,

the third carries a colorful embroidery frame to sew.

Wake up, shake off your sleep, gentleman,

and come to their sedyanka!

Here, in my view, our “artist” chose a rather unexpected, playful style. Still, it coped decently even with the archaic language, with the kaval, the shepherd’s flute, and the sedyanka, the village evening gathering for work and song.

And yet: we see the tulips, we see the hyacinths, but… could the roses have tripped him up the way rose brandy tripped up the hero of the folk song “Mamin Nikolcho”? That would also explain the ladies’ rosy cheeks.

It’s strange, too, that it’s precisely the women who are shown: in the first verse it’s “three young shepherds,” and only afterward come “three lovely maidens.” And it isn’t the maidens who carry “ruby wine to drink,” but… details. Or are they?

Cheers, DALL·E!

6. My Country

Lyrics

How many nights I didn’t sleep,

how many roads I walked to come back.

How many songs I sang,

how much sorrow I lived through to come back.

In my beautiful country

to embrace my mother, father and wife.

There, under the native sky,

my child is waiting for me to come back.

My country, my Bulgaria,

my love, my Bulgaria.

My sorrow, my Bulgaria,

it’s love that forever sends me back to you.

Even if somewhere in the world

I die unknown, I will come back.

In my beautiful country

to embrace the grass and the soil.

Let me become a blossom on a stem,

let a familiar wind embrace me.

Let my native fields

greet me with a song when I come back.

My country, my Bulgaria,

my love, my Bulgaria.

My sorrow, my Bulgaria,

it’s love that forever sends me back to you.

(Lyrics: Vasil Andreev, performed by Emil Dimitrov)

The gentle message of this song certainly overlaps with the sunset picture DALL·E offers us. The traveler’s top hat may come from his long ordeals abroad, but everything else is worthy of a Rhodope landscape…

7. If You Have Given

Lyrics

If you have given to the hungry

even a crumb of bread from your own bread.

If you have given to the wanderer

even a spark of fire from your own fire.

If you have given to your beloved

from your own heart.

If you have given to strangers

life from yourself.

If you have given, if you have given,

if you have given of yourself,

you haven’t lived, you haven’t lived in vain.

No one can take from you

the affection, the affection of people.

No one can take it away from you,

the love, the love for people.

And no one and nothing will take from you

your faith in them, your faith in them, your faith in them.

You are sometimes late, truly,

but you always come, you come to us.

If you have taken from someone else’s glory

even a single particle.

If you have heard gossip and repeat it

even for a single second.

If you are the enemy of the vile, but listen to him

even one single time.

If you have eaten from a friend’s morsel and forget it.

Was there any need

at all, was there any need at all for you to be born.

No one can take from you

the affection, the affection of people.

No one can take it away from you,

the love, the love for people.

And no one and nothing will take from you

your faith in them, your faith in them, your faith in them.

You are sometimes late, truly,

but you always come, you come to us.

(Lyrics: Ilya Velchev, performed by Emil Dimitrov)

Interestingly, the second Emil Dimitrov song on the list is painted in a very similar tone. Or perhaps the repeated line “if you have given” is what made it decide, only here, to create a combination of scenes? Which in places overlap and complement each other quite successfully…

8. Wealth

Lyrics

People have long been saying of me

that I’m forever without a penny,

but I’m ready to argue with anyone

whether that’s what matters most in the world.

I live on the top floor

in an attic right beneath the stars.

The window is my door,

and I walk toward them and ask them questions.

Whether some time later, here beneath the stars,

there will be light in the window.

Whether they’ll still listen to the Beatles then

and read today’s poets?

Whether the landlady will come by early

with a Viennese croissant, a little pot of coffee,

and instead of asking about the rent

will smile: “Did you sleep well?”

And will it still sound incredible

to someone, if someone claims again

that I have the greatest wealth of all—

one window and countless stars.

(Lyrics: Aleksandar Petrov, performed by Tangra)

On to Bulgarian rock. A big surprise awaited me here, because I asked the surrealist’s namesake for an illustration of Chocho Vladovski’s song “Insomnia,” but however hard I tried to persuade it, the eccentric illustrator was adamant that, in its view, “Don Quixote, firmly hugging his glass” was some sign of violence…

“I don’t feel like singing,” sang Petko Slaveykov. Then all that’s left is to bleat.

Well, with the story of an attic right beneath the stars, I made it easy. The landlady “with a Viennese croissant, a little pot of coffee” is missing, the arrangement of the furniture is a bit odd, but… once again it seems to me that the mood and the message are well captured, and the image is a success.

9. Telephone Love

Lyrics

You, you, you…

You, you, you, my love!

You, you, you…

You, you, you, eternal love!

The telephone always connects us, the telephone divides us.

This love of ours is a little sad, isn’t it?

If I start talking, you are silent on the other end,

and I can’t see the kindest eyes.

If you start talking, I can’t, like this,

warm your little hand with my palms.

I can’t see how laughter rises on your lips

and I can’t reach them with my own lips.

You’ll come here, I know, something in me hurts today.

The farthest distance is the one that divides us.

I don’t want this kind of telephone love.

I want you beside me like a quiet blessing.

I want you beside me every day, every hour.

To be with me alone every moment, every moment.

You’ll come here, I know, something in me hurts today.

The farthest distance is the one that divides us.

(Lyrics: Vanyo Valchev, performed by Vasil Naydenov)

I thought it would struggle with the telephone (the way I struggled to explain to my 6-year-old son what a “fax” is), and to some extent I was right. The phones themselves come from quite different eras and aren’t connected to their cords, but… let’s not nitpick.

“This love of ours is a telephone one, isn’t it?”

This time I’ll skip asking it how it imagines that “no rivers flow under the bridges.”

10. Motel

Lyrics

Oh my, as if someone left a baby in front of the church…

Oh my, I feel so much like crying for you…

Oh my, like a little girl who just had her hands tied…

Oh my, I think I’m going craaazy… oh my…

Good evening, do you have a double room?

With a bathroom, to wash away memories.

How much do you charge for an hour, two or three?

Can I pay in tears, in tears…?!

Good evening, do you have a quick room?!

This is the motel for the quickly in love, isn’t it!

Don’t serve any food for breakfast,

I’ll have my guilt for breakfast, my guilt.

Oh my, like someone splashed with mud by a puddle—

wet, helpless, dirty.

Oh my, I feel so torn apart. Oh my…

Good evening, do you have a double room?

With a bathroom, to wash away memories.

How much do you charge for an hour, two or three?

Can I pay in tears, in tears…?!

Good evening, do you have a quick room?!

This is the motel for the quickly in love, isn’t it!

Don’t serve any food for breakfast,

I’ll have my guilt for breakfast, my guilt.

(Lyrics and performance: Azis)

We’ll do without the “two peaches and two cherries,” a famously suggestive pop-folk line.

For the experiment to be complete, let’s venture into rather different styles. By all appearances DALL·E will turn out to be a fan of pop-folk, Bulgaria’s brash blend of folk and pop; it handles this hit by Azis, the genre’s flamboyant star, quite well.

11. Colleague

Lyrics

Yellow teeth and shaky nerves,

don’t swipe cables, swipe covers.

Like an oyster in the minibuses,

I’m alone in the state of prostitutes.

Colleague, remember that favorite portrait on the wall?

There was no 24 Chasa yet,

no GSMs, no internet,

Azis was just Vasko (…)

There were no tax stamps yet,

no blood in the snot either.

Prices were still ideal,

Upsurt weren’t so commercial.

Now your shock absorber rattles,

you talk to me about the sunset of hip-hop.

Looks to me, colleague, like you’ve fallen flat on your back,

from the weed I’ve gotten a bit dumb.

Over these years four acres went up in smoke,

our manager went off to call the doctor.

I say, Mr. Producer, give me cash,

I want a tour like the Ku-Ku Band’s.

Give me one of those party suitcases,

so I can buy five (…) Mini Coopers.

My wallet should be stuffed instead of empty.

I’ve come for something dry.

Ya know what, just don’t bother me.

Good Lord probably won’t forgive me.

Give me all the cash in the world, colleague.

Don’t bother me with nonsense, man!

(…)

(Lyrics: Hristo Petrov (Itso Hazarta), performed by Upsurt)

The lyrics reference 24 Chasa, a major Bulgarian daily, and the Ku-Ku Band, the house band of a hit TV comedy show. Here I was hoping to give it more trouble with Itso Hazarta’s rapping, but it turned out to be clever. It made a sort of composite image, evidently “sensing” a rap song. Why it lumped it together with the K-pop lettering on the billboards, I don’t know.

What impressed me even more, though, is that it didn’t scold me for Upsurt’s rather blunt profanities, which I passed on to it just as they sound…

12. A Moment Like Eternity

Lyrics

Even before I met you in my life,

it was you I loved.

In ancient engravings and street photographs,

in a starry omen,

in noisy squares and empty notions,

in a circus show,

on television, by telepathy—

it was you I waited for.

How many years have silently been bringing

the two routes closer!

How many causes in the world have been creating

this minute!—

The tender collision of atoms in love.

A cry of universes.

Even before my fate began,

you were beside me.

You lift me up along the steep roads.

You hold me back.

My nightmares and my fairy-tale dreams

you direct.

The two of us wander in pain and truth,

in anger and tenderness.

This love is the only one in infinity.

A moment like eternity.

(Lyrics: Georgi Konstantinov, performed by Todor Varbanov)

Wow… Here we are, back to romance, to a text with no clear plot, and we get this explosion of styles and messages, details and emotions.

Even if you’re not among ChatGPT’s fans, you can’t deny it a point here! And maybe it’s time I tried to make it sweat with something harder?

13. Futurologist

Lyrics

As if shaken from a basket,

stars are falling. An exquisite evening.

And with no notion of a penny

half of humanity sleeps.

Billions of lovers do not sleep—

they switch off from sleep and reason.

The Duty Officer of the World does not sleep—

he keeps watch and rereads Tyutchev.

The duty is light, but a cross—

since there isn’t much work…

With a lullaby micro-earthquake

the ones on duty amuse themselves.

And again it is day, going well

is the tamed galaxy.

The city is noisy, c’est la vie!,

but no one gets ahead with their elbows.

Here everyone has both talent

and Goethe’s upbringing.

For everyone here an ancient expression

is justified—“cool.”

Cool, I’m here too! But not as alone

as I often used to be.

On my shoulders rests a hand:

intelligent, tender…

And the road—stretched like a nerve.

Life—still undecipherable!

The last militiaman

weeps sunnily over Homer.

(Lyrics: Miryana Basheva, performed by Shturcite)

Well, that didn’t work out for me. It didn’t sweat, however large language models sweat (I’ll ask it some time).

Here, too, I think the result is impressive: it combines many of the images in the text, ties them to the central story, and picks an original, well-chosen style.

What do you say?

14. Obsessed

Lyrics

The silence is what you keep in mind.

Every cloud carries your perfume.

All the trains go into your tunnel.

Over my own corpse I’ve set out toward you.

I search, I drag myself, sleepless and pale,

every breath is a square closer to you.

And everywhere you’ve only just been here

and barely hidden round the corner.

How can I stop you—I have no hands, no face, someone took it.

But I’ll forgive the whole of hell, the whole world someone took.

You are the chaos in me, a bullet hole.

You—rotten fruit, white cosmic noise.

You—a forbidden city, a breath of perfume

and laughter on a sad day—the fruit of a sick mind.

Black truths crawl through my body,

all the shots curve back.

My love is grass gone feral,

infected flesh, a tumor in my head.

(Lyrics: Ina Grigorova, performed by Stenli)

And so, shortly before we part, DALL·E came face to face with… Dalí, Salvador. I personally connect the utterly abstract and powerful words of this song with its music video, which features the well-known scenes from Un Chien Andalou by director Luis Buñuel and the Spanish painter.

I didn’t lead it on—the video isn’t in the prompt—and I get something quite original: photorealism and hypnotic imagery.

This time, though, let’s dig a little deeper. How will the e-artist cope if I tell it to offer me an illustration in a completely different style, without specifying which?

And again…

And again…

Something in the style of Cloud Atlas, maybe?

Very interesting: 4 totally different styles, and yet each manages in some way to capture Ina Grigorova’s utterly abstract and powerful verses. Isn’t that impressive?

15. Slower

Lyrics

I’m heading where there’s no road or path.

The world is running, but we’ll take it slow.

We sit before the waves, on the sand with a guitar,

the bar is by the sea, and the sea is by the bar.

Time flies farther and farther,

we follow it, but slower.

Tousled heads—like pirates,

we sing and wait for the dawn.

Time flies farther and farther,

we follow it, but slower.

The fire burns, the moon winks

and for now that’s enough for me.

A morning without an alarm is like a sky without a cloud.

Someone has stopped the earth, and your thighs are warm.

We look toward the waves, on the sand with a guitar.

The bar is by the sea, and the sea is by the bar.

(Lyrics: Stefan Valdobrev, performed by The Usual Suspects)

But enough abstraction; for the send-off it’s time for something light, with a glance toward the warm part of the year. As expected, DALL·E offers me a gathering full of good spirits around a campfire by the sea (and a bar!). And if I ask it to change the style again?

We’ve flown off into the heavens… but the bar is still by the sea (and, respectively, vice versa).

For me, the artist passed the test with flying colors, so I’m removing the quotation marks… And what do you think?

In what other way is it worth challenging him?

Can poems be painted? Are humans and algorithms rivals in this task, or is it time they joined forces to create the next forms of art?

Open your senses to an emotional experience in which human and computer, side by side, challenge both your senses and your feelings…

Once we got our hands on algorithms that draw images in impressive ways, the next challenge arrived—coming up with texts inspiring enough for them.

How would they imagine the verses of Debelyanov, Yavorov, Geo Milev—classics of early 20th-century Bulgarian poetry? A year ago, in one Digital Story, I set them exactly that challenge, and the results were certainly impressive, but also thought-provoking. Has a new form of creativity been born, a new art?

And while I simply fed them translated stanzas as food for thought, at the same time a visual artist came out with an exhibition built on a similar project. Tsvetomil Semkov showed his striking pictures, painted after poems. And today, a year later, he is ready to show how completely he has devoted himself to the subject with his debut solo exhibition, “Svetogled” (Worldview).

Stay, Moment

Stay, moment, for you are so fair.

But can the moment ever stay

when it bows to no one's will

and we have sentenced it to the road!

For it was we, with trials, with questions,

with victories inside our brows,

who set it upon axles

and gave it wings!

For it was we, with pain and wonder,

who taught it how to fly.

And now it trembles with a hidden joy,

it trembles with impatience.

It will break loose, it will fly off

like a bullet or a tear—

saturated with all our labor,

with all our wonders.

And re-created in such

particles of happiness on the way,

each of us will be departing

from himself, from his own death.

Will be departing, will be staying,

repeated in a thousand things,

and with a starry brilliance shine

on those who travel through the night.

Vladimir Bashev

(Click on the title to read the corresponding poem.)

Though a financier by profession, Tsvetomil's great passion is images. Perhaps it is written into his name, which in Bulgarian begins with the word for color… He started out as a photographer, and today he describes himself rather as a visual artist searching for different forms of expression.

His exhibition “Svetogled” brings together 15 little-known poems by Bulgarian authors with 15 images that complement them. And although they were once again created with the help of algorithms, this time they were not invented by them. Tsvetomil describes to the MidJourney platform what he expects to see and how, then compiles the results and works on them further. His aim is to show that this kind of technology can be the next step, the next tool—one that complements the human being rather than replaces him.

“As paradoxical as it may sound, I think that as technology advances, the author will actually become more and more important,” he says. “The human element and the path walked will matter more and more, because otherwise there's no point—pretty pictures are everywhere, and there will be ever more of them.”

For many, photography is literal art—seeing the world through a real image—but even in his photographic work he tries to create worlds detached from reality. Worlds much closer to his inner one.

“That's where the artificial intelligence project came from—to me, every person who follows their passions and interests and manifests their own interpretation of them is a creator. In this project I combined my curiosity about poetry and about technology, and that gave me complete freedom to dive deep.”

Taking a Breath

Out of inertia

we seek the clean breeze outside,

yet its source

lies within our souls.

Don't hold the air

inside you, it will choke you.

Even if they are blocked,

both the nostrils and the mouth.

Breathe it out through the wounds,

through the tears, through the blood,

through the sweat of the pores—

salty, condensed air in verse,

laughter,

a cry.

And with a full chest you will take in

a high mountain breeze,

purified by the pines

of your own breath.

Blaga Dimitrova

Although as a schoolboy he had no interest in poetry, and literature was not among his favorite subjects, years later he rediscovered verse as a source of inspiration. And all of this intertwined with his interest in science—for many years he has followed the events of Ratio, a Bulgarian science festival, and artificial intelligence capable of creating images became the catalyst for his next ideas.

“It's very hard to represent a poem with a photograph; there's no way a single image can be that rich. Every poem is a separate universe in itself, and if you want to transfer it visually, you have to make some kind of equivalent of it. It doesn't work with fragments alone—that way everything breaks,” says the visual artist. “You have to dig deep into both the text and the visual. Once a tool appeared that could help me make such a project, I chose it immediately and started learning it.”

But how to go beyond the literal? He decided simply to let himself drift with the current. He began spending long days at the chitalishte, Bulgaria's traditional community center and library, reading and rereading poetry collections by authors from different generations and setting aside those that resonated most strongly with his own feelings, his own “svetogled.” He set himself rules—no politics, no specific places, no historical figures or events. Only poems that would be just as relevant fifty years from now, because they carry a universal feeling.

“I'd come home, read them, and when something struck me, I'd mark it, digitize it and start working. Searching for the most fitting image to illustrate it!” he says. “The idea was to use lesser-known authors—I'd read and be amazed at the beautiful things written by people I'd never heard of. Over time an enormous critical mass piled up, and at some point I had to choose, asking myself about each one: ‘Tsveto, this poem and this image—is this really you? Does it really sting you inside, or do you just like the picture? Or do you simply think the poem will go down well…?’ The hardest part was stripping away those aspects and leaving only my own view of the world in the exhibition. Those excerpts—picture and poem—should be like neatly arranged little packets of meaning, something that touches me deeply.”

Floating Restaurant

We eat and drink, and our eyes wander

toward the gilded locks of the women—

drowned in honey, the greedy flies don't know

that they will never fly again.

The Earth drifts like a floating restaurant

through cold and maddening space.

And there's no saving shore out in the cosmos

where we might rest from our drunkenness.

The players who conduct the dance

have turned man into an accordion…

But from the merciless laws of the dance floor

our heads are full of lawlessness.

Our souls' belts loosened all the way,

we rage like pirates who have never sighted land,

and in the devil's dance of elbows and of hooves

bare feet run away from the boot…

And as we leap through the air to catch

the outstretched palm of the gods,

we vomit our bellies into the ocean

and spit iron at the sky…

The singer-moon, seduced long ago,

lies half-naked—her skirts around her waist.

And from the back alleys of the dark universe

come screams and shouts till late.

And the sun—the chief of light—

keeps silent, ready to boil over any moment.

And watching where the Earth is heading,

it tears its hair out and pours it over us.

Boris Hristov

And so: 15 poems by 13 authors—Vladimir Bashev and Martin Spasov have two works each. There are names from the school textbooks, like Smirnenski and Yavorov; popular poets such as Damyan Damyanov, Boris Hristov, Blaga Dimitrova, Mladen Isaev and Stoyan Mihaylovski; but also names heard less often today, like Penka Tsaneva (Blenika), Nikolay Antonov and Marko Nedyalkov. The exhibition opened in Burgas and can be seen until November 14 in Burgas, at the Center for Contemporary Art and Library, exhibition hall, 4th floor. After New Year it will move on to other cities, including Sofia, Varna and Plovdiv. The exhibition is made possible with financial support from the National Culture Fund under its Debuts program. You can follow here to see when it comes to your city.

Tsvetomil says that today, in the exhibition hall, he truly sees himself. “For the viewer it's more fragmentary, but I think everyone can find themselves in some of the pieces, in a poem, in an image.”

Curiously, as he walks his path, the algorithms themselves evolve alongside him. In the beginning MidJourney “reads” the text more holistically, its images are easy to recognize, it has something like a style of its own. The newer versions, by contrast, turn it more into a tool for creating images from a description. “Now the idea is more that if you have something in your head, you learn to steer it there, rather than giving some instructions and taking whatever comes out ready-made.”

“The whole process was very vivid; every time I turned a page I felt as if I were opening gifts full of meaning, while the program gave me the freedom to tinker and develop directions that were sometimes unexpected.” In his first project, Tsvetomil was more of a curator—feeding in data, taking, choosing and presenting, although it turned out he had to make quite a few decisions; he didn't leave everything to the algorithm. Today, though, he presents a vision entirely his own, which the algorithm merely helped him create.

“The first thing I was after was bringing it back from the perfect to the imperfect—teaching it to have empty spaces, artifacts, mistakes—so that some questions remain and not everything is clean and clear. For there to be shadows, for details to get lost, so that a person can fill them in visually and take part in the process.”

We Asked for Suns

We asked for suns, but what use are they

when a shadow hangs heavy between us?!

With weary gaze and starchy souls,

we fail to recognize the beautiful peacocks

that suddenly have lost their plumage

after a very long chemotherapy.

For such beauty we need sight,

but in so many cases our soul is blind.

We've grown used to living at speed,

we're quick to anger and quick to love.

And meanwhile—exquisitely simple—

a bee gathers happiness from a stamen.

That's how we are—we kindle the hearths,

yet embrace with cold hands.

Because among ourselves we're always predators.

Though otherwise we feed on plants.

Martin Spasov

It took him a long time to settle on the right style. Image generators keep getting better at things that resemble photorealism, while the author wanted to go back to something more painterly. He experimented with techniques, styles and colors until he found what he was looking for. In the end he settled on impasto—a much rougher technique, with paint applied thickly to the canvas.

So each image came about after the photographer described what he imagined, added the instructions for the particular style he had arrived at, along with a few more words from a list of emotional terms that had struck him. Finally he edited the result, combining and adding to it. Only two or three of the images are shown without any further processing. For some poems he worked for days on end, while for others he found the feeling he was after more quickly.

“In the end the goal became a kind of personal experience, a looking into oneself. You read things written by people, many of whom are no longer with us, and you converse with their thoughts. Through poetry they show you what moves them, how they try to make sense of life's journey. And as you encounter these things, you learn. You arrive at self-awareness through the example of others,” says Tsvetomil.

“Every poem is a picture, every picture is part of the way I see the world. The funny thing is that these aren't my poems, and technically the images aren't entirely made by me either,” Tsvetomil smiles. “Someone will say—fine, but what do you do, what's your role in this exhibition? It wouldn't exist in the world in this form if it weren't for me. By taking from the digital space and bringing it into the physical world, I lead it closer to people. It's experienced in a completely different way… Besides, people tend to overlook the effort and work that actually go into even this technique. You have to get your hands on such technology to understand that it is definitely not just a click of a button.”

It is no accident that the author decided to print and sell each image in a single copy only, turning the gaze back to the times of classical art.

Man

Man is not the ash of a cigarette

and a handful of soil,

a leaf

and a dead stalk.

A spark

that smolders

and burns out

in the days'

enchanted circle.

Man is metal

and sound,

and song,

and atom,

and dream,

and freedom.

And sweet fruit,

and heavy autumn grapes,

and a never-setting star!

Man is sky

and a distant road,

and thunder

that has broken every chain,

and a mine,

and a bullet,

and a forged bayonet,

and a rose in bloom,

and a merry tear,

and wind,

and sea,

and lightning,

and wound,

and cry,

and thrust,

and cosmic chime.

Man is the thundering bell

that wakes eternity from sleep!

Marko Nedyalkov

“When technologies like these arrive, many questions arise, and it's especially complicated in the long run. People who have already worked in the visual arts, who have built up some visual culture, a feeling for the world, somehow pick them up and learn to use them. They can weave them together with their own visions, techniques, projects—that, to me, is the point. But for someone growing up now, it may be a shortcut. We evolve in everything we do; the process is a transformation—we learn, we progress, we make mistakes. The problem is when we rush to skip ahead to the result,” the photographer reflects.

“With algorithms you still rummage around in your head for things, you put in or take out as you see fit. It's still a kind of dance in which you create, even though you don't have much connection with the real world. And I believe you have to live the world too—that's the main problem: it comes from a program that doesn't live anything, and that alone can break the bond between a person and art.”

The photographer says the work was quite exhausting. “You're bombarded with images, and at some point you simply go numb. You want a little rest, a breath of air.” For now, his fascination with artificial intelligence has come to an end. That's why, for his next ventures, he has decided to look for older and alternative methods, to do something with his hands and restore the balance.

Will he really manage to break away from the algorithm? Either way, as I trust the poems and pictures here have convinced you, beauty is still alive. And when people use algorithms creatively, thoughtfully and responsibly, the results can be human and beautiful, full of meaning. They can create art that moves us…

Dimitar Karanikolov is an architect who caught the photography bug almost by accident. He then became an undisputed master of the lens—his images have been shown by the world’s biggest media outlets, and he has won prestigious awards.

He is the author of the unusual book Istorii ot planetata Zemya (Stories from Planet Earth), a photo journal in which, over 208 pages, striking photographs are accompanied by stories in Bulgarian and English and by pieces from guest authors such as Georgi Milkov.

His favorite vantage point is high above. Why? That is what we are about to find out, along with who is the most fascinating character he has met on the road. Where did he feel in danger? What place (on Earth or not) does the architect-photographer dream of capturing through his lens? And why is it sometimes worth… losing your camera.

10 questions, 10 answers, 10 stories and 10 incredible photos. We fasten our seatbelts and set off on a thrilling journey to every corner of the planet…

1. Who is the most interesting person you have ever met? Someone worth writing a novel about…

Here are a few who come to mind: a 102-year-old nun in Cambodia. A shaman-healer in Bali, an elderly Japanese man cycling around the world, Mulatu Astatke—the father of Ethiopian jazz, whom I had the good fortune to meet and photograph (though I’m sure more than one novel has already been written about him).

I tend to believe that almost every person, however ordinary they may seem at first glance, has something to teach us and hides interesting stories worth telling.

Each of us fights our own battles, worthy of respect; each of us is a micro-universe. I have struck up conversations with complete strangers, and almost every time I have been amazed by the depth of the connection and by what I learned in the space of even a short but sincere talk.

2. Where on your travels were you most afraid?

There have been tense moments here and there. A woman from the Surma tribe in the Omo Valley started shouting at us for no apparent reason. In an instant we were surrounded by dozens of locals armed with Kalashnikovs! It turned out that

she insisted we pay double for the portrait we had taken of her, because she was carrying a sleeping, hidden baby on her back.

That, of course, was no problem, but the situation escalated so fast that we had to leave the village in a headlong rush, together with our guards and interpreters.

Another time, when we entered the neighborhood of Ponte Tower in Johannesburg, our taxi driver warned us that getting out of the car would be terribly stupid.

Not only did we get out, we spent several hours in one of the most dangerous buildings in the world (at least until a few years ago).

We decided to try to shoot it from the inside after arranging, through an online ad, to meet a stranger who lived in the building and promised to show us around. It turned out more than okay; the worst thing that happened to me was a heavy bag of garbage thrown from the 40th floor, which landed a yard away from me.

3. Is there a place you dream of reaching but haven’t had the chance?… Is it on Earth?

The Earth is as small and familiar as it is boundless.

I’m sure none of us has been even to all the villages between Plovdiv and Sofia, and there are more than 300 of them.

At some point I’d like to make it to Bora Bora, Hawaii and Patagonia, and to set foot on at least another 10 or 15 Greek islands.

4. Very quickly you went from amateur photographer to an author who wins international competitions, admirers, recognition. How did that happen? How do you explain your success?

I don’t think I’ve achieved any great success on the photography scene, and I’m not saying that out of false modesty. Photography is my hobby—I don’t shoot on commission. I choose to photograph only subjects that interest and excite me, and

when you do something for pleasure, I believe, it turns out a notch better than if it were part of your duties.

We live in a time when anyone with an Instagram account can declare themselves a photographer. There are hundreds of competitions—99 percent of them are outright pyramid schemes in which, if you invest enough time and money, you can fairly easily land one of the many awards and titles. I took part in a few and won prizes, after which I completely lost interest in that form of self-affirmation. Better to use my energy to create the images themselves than to promote them.

5. What is photography to you?

A visual means of expressing myself and telling the stories I come across along the way.

I see myself not as a photographer, but rather as an artist who uses the tools of photography.

The same principles of composition, color and light that apply in all the visual arts hold true for photography. If you can draw well, you’ll most likely make a decent photographer too.

6. Why is the view from above so important and interesting to you?

It’s architectural—everything looks like a floor plan.

It’s different—we see familiar objects and scenes from a completely different angle compared with the standard human perspective.

It allows compositions on a far grander scale than “ground-level” photography.

7. Which of your “professions”—photography or architecture—will be the first to fall “victim” to artificial intelligence?

Both architecture and photography will be deeply affected by AI, but I don’t think the human factor will ever become completely redundant.

AI is here, and it is spreading exponentially into every sphere of our lives, whether we like it or not. We have to adapt to the new reality and learn to use the possibilities these technologies offer. And they are incredible!

My main work is in architectural visualization, and

we have already started losing real projects because our clients can generate the visuals we create with AI much faster, more easily and more cheaply.

I recently came across an interesting analogy between the invention of photography at the beginning of the 20th century and the arrival of AI.

Before 1900, realism reigned in the visual arts, but the moment photography became widely accessible, achieving realism stopped interesting artists, and that is exactly when new styles began to emerge—Expressionism, Surrealism, Cubism. Something similar will happen now:

the evolution of AI will lead to an evolution in the arts

—people will have to find new ways to create and express themselves in a manner that cannot be imitated or generated. What times we live in!

8. What will real photographs always have that algorithms will never be able to reproduce?

Taking a photograph is a very personal and emotional act, whose essence is the very moment you press the shutter. Everything that follows—selecting, retouching and presenting the images—is secondary.

When you take the shot, you are a witness to what is happening in front of the lens. You are part of it—there, in that scene, at that time.

A generated image, however visually perfect, could never have that kind of documentary value and charge.

9. What does technology give us, and what does it take away?

Here is one of the stories from my photo journal. I spent almost a month traveling around Peru. From the beaches of Lima to Cusco and, of course, up to the peaks of Machu Picchu. From the beautiful colonial city of Arequipa to the desert oasis of Ica. We flew in a six-seat plane to photograph the Nazca Lines from above. We sailed in the reed boats of the Uros people, who live on giant rafts—islands on Lake Titicaca.

I took more than 10,000 photos, but on the last day, before returning to Europe, my camera was stolen, along with all the backed-up images. I don’t regret the gear, but the fact that I lost every shot from that trip made me feel robbed of my memories of Peru. I realized that

in my drive to photograph everything I saw, I hadn’t left myself time to live the journey and enjoy it through my own eyes.

And once the pictures were gone, it was as if I had never been to Peru. Since then, wherever I travel, I always set aside time to see the places I’m in not only through the viewfinder, and to truly be there.

It has been shown that taking lots of photos impairs the brain’s ability to remember a given situation or scene. In a 2013 study, two groups visited a museum; one was allowed to photograph the exhibits, the other was not. The group that hadn’t used a phone or camera remembered, and could recall, many times more of what they had just seen.

10. You recently became a father. Where in the world can’t you wait to take your child?

Oh, there are so many! But now that I think about it, they’re destinations tied more to incredible nature and history than to cities and modernity: Iceland, Namibia, Morocco, Venice, Indonesia.

You’ll find more Stories from Planet Earth here.

A few days ago, 160,000 people rose up in an unprecedented protest against artificial intelligence, which could take the bread out of every one of their mouths. No, they weren't factory workers or taxi drivers, but Hollywood actors, many of them heroes known all over the world, holders of prestigious awards. The screenwriters stood beside them.

Artificial intelligence against Hollywood stars and writers… Alien vs. Predator?

It turned out to be the largest strike in the United States this century, the first joint strike by actors and screenwriters in more than half a century. Projects worth billions were halted, and Hollywood literally froze, much like the world did during COVID. And if, in the churn of world news, this story never reached you at its full scale, that is one more reason why it's worth talking about.

But how is it that actors, of all people, took the threat of algorithms so seriously? Why is technology behind the biggest revolt in Hollywood's history, and what does it have to tell us?

Isn't it time we all learned something, one way or another, from the stars' rebellion?

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

And so the long-awaited Oppenheimer arrived. After a drenching (and well-deserved) media warm-up, July brought the moment for two long-awaited Hollywood premieres destined to become a sensation.

A few days later came the premiere in the United Kingdom. Right in the middle of it, all the lead actors stood up and walked out of the theater in protest. That was exactly when the long-awaited start of the full-scale Hollywood strike was announced.

The SAG-AFTRA union represents no fewer than 160,000 television and film actors. In mid-July the organization joined the Writers Guild of America, which had begun its own full-scale protest 70 days earlier. A battle to defend their rights unlike anything seen before… and one that somehow stayed on the margins of media attention.

In the last joint protest of actors and screenwriters, back in the 1960s, the stars were led by their union leader… Ronald Reagan.

Are actors and screenwriters the new Luddites? Is this just haggling, arm-twisting between guilds? Or is it the first bright, insistently flashing red light warning of the great change coming with the advance of artificial intelligence?

Hollywood Business

Artificial art, virtual people—all big topics of our time that somehow remain in the shadow of the daily news.

If you follow Digital Stories, you certainly know them. You also know about “Nothing, Forever”—the The Bold and the Beautiful of the new age, the series generated entirely by artificial intelligence, showing new plot after new plot with familiar characters 24 hours a day, in real time…

On the other side is technology in cinema. You've surely come across pictures of the green screen—actors are filmed against a clean background, and then the computer takes care of filling in everything else to create the perfect image of a swooping dragon, an ultrarealistic explosion or a terrifying battle.

More or less, all of this comes together in today's topic—the largest strike in Hollywood's history. It shows that the mecca of cinema, the most powerful and globally dominant American intellectual machine, is frightened of what is coming.

Of the time when algorithms, not people, will write screenplays. Of the moment when it will be enough to scan an actor to reproduce every scene they appear in. And then the next ones, and the next…

Or is that time already here?

Stars vs. Algorithms

In our part of the world we're used to calling it a “collective labor agreement”: the guild in a given field negotiates general terms with the employers. Also in our part of the world, we've grown out of the habit of believing that in this whole process the rights of the people in that field come first and are well enough protected—and there are probably reasons for that.

Well, the same thing is happening in Hollywood. However much the market may look like the one unavoidable force shaping the rules, it turns out that's not quite the case. The first signal came from the Writers Guild of America, which refused to sign its agreement with the AMPTP—the largest producers' organization, representing the makers of television and film productions.

Negotiating with the studios is the main task of the screenwriters' and actors' unions. The last such agreement for both guilds was signed in July 2020, and of course its main focus was regulating the rules during the raging pandemic. It expired on July 30 this year, and so the time came to negotiate the next one.

The apple of discord became the screenwriters' demands for limits on the use of generative artificial intelligence: that it be labeled, and that there be restrictions on how copyright is respected when algorithms are trained. All ethical questions that will come up on the agenda more and more often.

The Silence of the Lambs

You don't believe this is the future? Well, I find it a rather convincing argument that the producers' organization was also insisting on rules specifically concerning algorithms.

Two months later almost the same thing happened with the huge actors' association, which joined the strike. Again with demands to guarantee actors' rights as the new technologies arrive. To impose limits on how they can be simulated virtually, on what effects can be layered onto their images…

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the chief negotiator for the actors' union, says we are on our way to a world where the most frightening prophecies about the advance of technology, familiar from the series Black Mirror, have come true.

On the Red Carpet

According to him, during the negotiations the Hollywood studios proposed using “groundbreaking artificial intelligence” to “scan” background actors and pay them just one day's wage of $200, while the companies would own the scans and use them in any project they wanted. The producers' alliance responded that the innovative proposal actually protects actors' digital likenesses.

“If you think that's a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again,” said the actors' negotiator.

Of the guild's 160,000 members, most are certainly not among those expecting an Oscar tomorrow or whose names you've heard. And yet it is telling that the stars of Oppenheimer too showed solidarity with such arguments. Perhaps in our part of the world it's worth thinking a little more about how we support one another within a profession. Even if we go back to the days of the old craftsmen's guilds and compare them with today's dimensions…

Being Determines Consciousness

That impressive membership includes not only actors but also radio announcers, models, esports competitors, even influencers. In principle the union covers only the territory of the United States, but clearly its influence is tied to sectors whose output then reaches the whole world.

And the strike turned out to be entirely serious—union members may not appear in films or commercials, or take part in promotions, until the protest ends. Exceptions are made only for educational films, charity campaigns and public causes.

How united are the actors? In the vote in early June on whether to go on strike, 97.91 percent backed the decision. Yes, far from all your favorite stars have spoken out on the issue, but few allow themselves to play the role of strikebreaker.

As for the screenwriters, they fear that any good idea of theirs can easily be developed further by generative algorithms, leaving them with nothing. While in the world of artificial intelligence we still mostly talk about general frameworks and concepts, here we are dealing with very concrete applications.

Die Hard

Of course, much of any negotiation like this stays behind the media screen. It's perfectly normal, especially in a marketing kingdom like Hollywood, for the disputes to come down to… money, while only in the spotlight is it about rules.

The producers, however, do not deny that algorithms are among the contested issues. Since mid-July, an ever-longer list of major productions (from the sequels to Avatar, Gladiator, Mortal Kombat and Top Gun to impressive new projects) has kept piling up, postponed or blocked because of the strike.

“I don't think the AMPTP realizes how hard we are willing to fight,” says SAG-AFTRA member and actress Lacy Mosley. “They think they'll wait us out and starve people to motivate us to come back to the table. But they're crazy, because we're used to living without money.” Hollywood performers, really?

“They don't understand that nobody gets into this industry without having heart and without wanting to achieve a deeper purpose: to connect with people. A computer can't re-create what we do,” the actress believes. I suspect Lacy could learn a thing or two about negotiating from Prof. Yanka Takeva, the veteran head of Bulgaria's largest teachers' union.

Avatar

Certainly another thing that has changed drastically since the previous agreement is the rise of streaming platforms at the expense of traditional film and television. It changed the whole system in terms of financing, organization and who sets the rules. Movie tickets and TV commercials gave way to viewer subscriptions.

“The business model in Hollywood has changed because of streaming, digital content and artificial intelligence. This is a historic moment. If we don't stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble, we are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and by big businesses who care more about Wall Street than about you and your family,” says Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA. She is an actress who appeared briefly in Saturday Night Fever, became famous from the series The Nanny, and has a fascinating story both personally and professionally.

Pay is always subjective. There are many rankings: according to one, Bruce Willis is the highest-paid actor of the past 20 years thanks to a single film; according to another, it's Keanu Reeves; and for several years Dwayne Johnson—The Rock—himself topped the annual lists. I'm sure people like Charlie Chaplin or Apostol Karamitev, one of the great Bulgarian actors of the twentieth century, would have plenty to teach them about the craft of acting, and yet… The Rock is The Rock. He may look as if algorithms generated him, but he wasn't: it's real cameras pointed at him that film him, and he is not a fully virtual character, of which there will obviously be more and more.

Nothing to Lose but Their Chains

The contracts under negotiation are quite extensive, and although all eyes are on the limits on artificial intelligence, there are many more points of contention on which the two sides cannot agree.

The union, for instance, is pushing for a form of compensation based on how often a production is viewed on streaming platforms. It wants equal pay for actors in different parts of the United States. As well as a number of smaller demands—for example, that actors who do their own hair and makeup be compensated with at least $35. One of the innovations both sides agree on is that background actors receive at least 48 hours' notice if they are to appear in nude or sex scenes.

Either way, the applications of artificial intelligence come to the fore. Brian Cox, the actor from the series Succession, told one of the protests how he had been shown a video of scenes he had never played, yet they looked so real. “The AI Brian Cox was even imitating animals. I have never played an animal in my life, damn it. Nobody can escape this today, and it's time we stopped it.”

George Clooney, who supports the protest from the front line, says that many actors and writers today have lost the ability to earn a living. “This is an inflection point for our industry. For it to survive, that has to change. For actors, this fight is only beginning.”

Opium of the People

At some point the strike will end. In negotiations like these, a mutually beneficial solution is always found sooner or later. We've had them here too—remember Tobacco, Dimitar Dimov's classic novel with its tobacco workers' strike, or even the teachers' strike at the start of the century that gave birth to the notorious call “Let's break up the sedyanka,” the traditional village evening gathering.

And yet, the questions this event highlights are bigger.

• What will the entertainment of the future look like?
• Are humans the only ones who can create today?
• Can artificial restrictions solve the problems?
• What are the professions of the future?
• What will we do with the time technology frees up for us? Isn't it time for more rest?
• Has the moment come for universal basic income?
• Where should we draw the line for algorithms?

Our future as a civilization depends on the answers…

A father and his grown son, holding hands. Behind them is what defines them; in front of them, the lens in all its merciless candor. Important photographs need no words.

This Digital Story is as big as life itself. Because it takes us back to the most natural of cycles and offers its piercing gaze into meaning.

“This is one of those stories that begin without you having any clear idea where they will take you. And that is exactly what draws me to it most. It turned into a far more complete exploration of the subject than I had first imagined,” says the photographer Valeriy Poshtarov.

Valeriy is the father of two sons, who are now 12 and 9. One morning, as he walks them to school, he starts thinking about how, before he knows it, the moment will come very soon when they no longer want him to hold their hands.

“It was as if I wanted to prove to myself that it doesn't have to be that way. So I decided to make a portrait of my father and my grandfather, who was 95 at the time. For me, that would be a very powerful confirmation that continuity exists, that we really are carrying a relay baton that we pass on to the next generation.”

The idea came at the height of the pandemic, when we were cut off from our elderly relatives for a long time in an effort to protect them. Valeriy had to wait a whole year to take the photograph he had in mind. But before the time came, another encounter gave him a sign that this story had to be told to the end.

“In early spring I happened to find myself in front of a house that caught my interest. I took out my camera, started composing the shot, and at that very moment two people came out. The woman was pushing the man in a wheelchair; he said something to her, she hurried back into the house and returned holding a framed portrait of a young man. She came up to me and said: ‘We had only one son, and he died eight months ago. My husband saw you with the camera and he would very much like you to take a portrait of him with his son.’ That was a sign telling me this series had to happen. That these portraits had to be made.”

These portraits really did have to be made. “I must prepare myself for the inevitable oppressive walls that will slowly rise between me and others; I must be ready to accept the slow but sure drifting away of my children, until at best only tolerance remains,” I recall these words from William Wharton's Dad.

Valeriy devoted himself to the undertaking. He took the photograph of his father and grandfather, then won funding for a project, and he hasn't stopped shooting since; he plans to keep going for many years. He has captured around 150 pairs of fathers and sons from every administrative province in Bulgaria. He keeps searching for what is shared in the relay we pass from one generation to the next.

“The photographs are far removed from the particulars of the individuals they depict. They are a composite image of relationships and of generations that pass each other by. While posing, fathers and sons hold hands for the first time in years, in decades. That act of intimacy became the real meaning; the photos are simply proof of the love between father and son that so often goes unspoken for a long time.”

You may recognize some public figures in the photographs, but apart from the first one, the photographer has chosen not to tell his subjects' stories. Even though many advise him to do so, since the story is what moves people, Valeriy believes that images without words give far more.

“I deliberately keep these stories secret. I'm glad that over time I've listened to this personal philosophy of mine and resisted the temptation to reveal more about the people themselves, because by withholding that information, the viewer is invited to create it on their own.”

Recently the project caught the attention of the LensCulture platform, which has more than a million followers. The photographer believes his undertaking falls within the genre of “participatory photography,” though it also differs from it in quite a few ways.

“My approach departs from the standard in two respects. In ‘participatory photography,’ the camera is usually handed to the participants so they can capture the life around them. In this case I keep the camera for myself, but the people I photograph step onto the stage against the backdrop of their own lives. I prompt them to stand in a place that feels somehow natural to them. People become participants; they are not just subjects.”

A large part of the challenge lies in getting two grown men to take each other's hand. To somehow reveal their vulnerability, something our culture does not encourage in the least.

“There were many awkward moments, however absolutely natural this actually is. As men, we somehow have this natural task of emancipating ourselves, of breaking free from our father's influence, of stepping out of his shadow. And the process of acceptance is the other side of it. We have to have formed ourselves enough as individuals to be able to accept our father, to take his hand calmly. It's a long road, a mutual process. Usually it's the son who first feels some kind of shyness, some discomfort. The father always takes his hand with ease, because he will always be his son.”

From the very beginning Valeriy decided he would photograph only adults, and he has had to turn down many fathers of young children.

“When children are small, it's very different; they are still part of our own identity. The two personalities don't meet as intensely as when the son has grown up. Then there is a real meeting; otherwise it's as if we are still one whole, and that is perfectly natural. And that's when you find out whether you've done a good job. The question is, how do you judge it?”

The photographer already has a few shots from neighboring countries, and his next stop is Georgia. According to Valeriy, if the project spreads to different countries, we will be able to draw purely cultural parallels, to make comparisons.

“We are shaped by the environment we grew up in, and it would be very different to see fathers and sons from various places around the world. The very setting in which I photograph people is part of the story. And this is where visual semiotics comes in. Through the means of the visible alone, and the way it is expressed, conclusions can be drawn about the history, the culture and the environment of these people.”

After so many moving encounters, what has it occurred to him is important to tell his own sons?

“This process is very dynamic, and it's tied to my own personal growth, not only as a father but also as a more balanced person who can accept someone else's opinion even when he doesn't agree with it. It very often happens that relationships between fathers and sons aren't very good because of some imposition of values or a lack of understanding on the father's part. One of my sons is now entering a more turbulent age, and there are many challenges tied to potential differences. And this is the moment when I, as a parent, try to be balanced. To accept his position and look for dialogue rather than impose my opinion one-sidedly. I think that in some way this means taking the hands of others too, not just your father's. That respect and that reciprocity are the key to relationships between people.”

And has he learned anything about his relationship with his own father?

“At one point he sent me a photo of the two of us holding hands when I was a little boy. It touched me deeply. As I arranged all these images in my head, I ended up receiving this kind of virtual gift from my father, which seemed to bring the whole perspective together again. As if the beginning could now be placed much further back, not at the moment I started photographing. It was a beautiful gesture of support, but in this case something more, a kind of validation. We all need to know that what we believe in is not merely a figment of our imagination.”

In the photographs, people look rather serious, and that is no accident. Because a smile in a photo, as the photographer reminds us, is often a mask that hides our true face.

“I stick to the principle of broader representativeness. For me it has always been essential to let people be themselves. To stand beside their father or son with their own image, the way they see themselves. I'm not in the business of entertainment. I don't make people suppress their emotions; rather, I bring them back to the idea. To turn toward the other side, toward their father or son, toward the fact that they are holding hands, that the whole memory of their family line and the whole future pass through their hands. There is a very beautiful thought by Proust: ‘If you chase only beautiful landscapes, you will end up without landscapes and without breath.’ Life, in its simple unpretentiousness, holds everything that we are.”

We part ways with the photographer, and the next morning I too walk my boys to their kindergartens. I hold their hands, somehow more tightly than usual. Please, don't rush. There's time, you'll take the baton, and everything else happens between these moments of handing it over…

More photos from Fathers and Sons are here.

Not the politician or the soldier but the artist, the person of art, is the one who ought to paint tomorrow.

That is the great theme of a little-known British historian who, a decade ago, gathered a rare historical genre of text into one ambitious book. Alex Danchev had a distant Bulgarian connection (although he has never been translated in Bulgaria) and a more than curious view of the world.

First he delved into the fates of military commanders, then into those of great painters. Only to arrive at the most unconventional subject of all—manifestos. Those short, explosive texts created to declare, to underline and to highlight with a fat marker what a given group of people wants. Incomparable and rarely encountered statements in history, which paint so much of the ambitions of whoever wrote them.

With a fine eye and wide-ranging knowledge, Danchev assembled a puzzle of 100 manifestos of the 20th century, which round out a big story with a long prehistory and an obligatory afterword.

What would the first manifesto written by a conscious artificial intelligence look like? We'll get there too…

“MANIFEST
MANIFES
MANIFE
MANIF
MANI
MAN
MA
M”

Manifesto of Manifestos, Vicente Huidobro, 1925

The quotations scattered throughout the text (with the exception of the last one) come from the 100 manifestos collected in Alex Danchev's book.

What does “manifesto” sound like to you—what's the first related word? In Bulgarian it is, of course, манифестация (manifestatsia), the mass march, which is no surprise at all. The latter is a neologism that survived only within the 20th century, inseparably tied to an era in which it will also remain.

Otherwise, both words come from Latin—manifestum means “clear, evident.” The word reached the Western languages through Italian and at first it served kings. For most of human history, manifestos were the documents with which rulers informed their subjects of something important.

In other words: drama, pathos, demonstration.

How much those subjects actually listened is another matter; they had no Facebook to tell us about it.

And yet the most famous manifesto in history belongs not to a ruler but to philosophers. Yes, the notorious Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels in 1848. And the word is no accident: it comes to show that the proletariat is strong enough to seize the writing of such texts from the rulers who for so long had set society's agenda.

“We order that the poets' rights be respected:

1) To enlarge the scope of the vocabulary with arbitrary and derivative words (word-creation)

2) To feel an insurmountable hatred for the language that existed before them.”

“A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” manifesto of the Russian modernists, created by Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1912

The manifestos that followed, however, headed in an entirely different direction. They were no longer a political but a cultural story, because the hot potato of creation, which had set off from the kings and passed through Marx, landed with the people of the brush and the pen.

And here the style changes, becoming sharp and even more forceful.

Down with the past! Then: down with the future! Down with the past in the future and the future in the past!

CAPITAL LETTERS GALORE!, long before they came to be associated with shouting online.

Attempts at originality at any cost, sometimes even successful ones.

“1. We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and recklessness as an ordinary daily practice.

2. Courage, audacity and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry.”

Manifesto of Futurism, Filippo Marinetti, 1909

“Armed with art… we are more vigilant and less deceived,” Alex Danchev writes in one of his texts. You have probably never heard of him, and yet he was as colorful a figure as his undertaking.

He was born in Bolton in 1955. His father, Alphonse Danchev, was a mining engineer—the child of a Bulgarian father and a Belgian mother—who moved to London in 1939 to continue his education. Britain was just entering the war; in the years that followed he worked as an engineer for the BBC and was granted British citizenship for his wartime service. In London he met his future wife and Alex's mother, Ann Gilman, who worked as a fashion designer.

War is the main thread the future historian would follow in his research. Although he served for many years in the British Army, rising to the rank of major, every one of his colorful literary works reveals a sincere, committed pacifist who believed in the power of art far more than in the power of weapons.

And his books are so varied! It is as if he inherited from his parents the knack of bringing opposing fields together. And of forgetting the black-and-white world, devoting everything to the nuances.

The first ones, written before the 1990s, were historical studies of British figures from the Second World War era: Oliver Franks, Basil Liddell Hart and Lord Alanbrooke.

“No more words. No more manifestos”

Dada Manifesto, 1918

Then he abruptly moved into the realm of art with gripping biographies of Georges Braque and his teacher—he was the first to translate into English some of Paul Cézanne's letters, which helped reveal to the world the great painter's broad personality. After that he prepared a book on René Magritte, which, however, he never managed to finish.

Meanwhile, he wrote philosophical works such as On Art and War and Terror. On Good and Evil and the Grey Zone is precisely about nuances, about what we so badly lack in online communication today.

Both as a soldier and afterwards, his main role was that of a university lecturer. And although his main discipline was international relations, he taught all sorts of things—from art history to philosophy. Because he held that the relations between nations, war and history are all subjects that should not be pulled out of context. That they can be explained and understood only by drawing on more disciplines.

Including through the lens of art. One more message all of us need today more than ever.

“Over the course of my academic career it became clear to me that the understanding of international relations can be considerably improved by an interdisciplinary approach. Art is one such possibility; much more can be learned from it than has traditionally been thought.”

And so we come to the manifestos. Forgive me, this subject calls for more articulate punctuation.

To the manifestos!!!

“True art comes from three main life-forces. THE SOUL, THE HEAD and THE SEX.”

Manifesto of Gilbert & George, 1970

“On or about December 1910, human character changed,” Danchev recalls at the start of his book, quoting Virginia Woolf's words, which are traditionally used to describe the era of modernism. “Manifestoism can be dated a little more precisely. On or about February 20, 1909, when the Manifesto of Futurism appeared on the front page of the newspaper Le Figaro.”

From there began a century in which cultural, literary and artistic movements and, of course, those devoted to the visual arts never stopped publishing their manifestos.

Some would have enormous historical significance, others would end up contradicting themselves. But all of them clearly symbolize one thing—the human dream of seeking something better, and of doing so through the mightiest force of all, the power of art.

As Danchev writes, “the manifesto was once the property of kings and princes. In the 17th century it was hijacked by the poor, the oppressed people of England, the radical dissenters of their time. In 1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels made it their own.” Then came “manifestoism,” so popular an enterprise that Bertolt Brecht wanted to cast it as a drama in hexameter, much as Sergei Eisenstein wanted to make a film out of Marx's Capital.

“Artists' manifestos are strong on demonstration. ‘Long live…!’ and ‘Down with…’ are two of the most familiar tropes. In this they are at once energizing and enervating,” the historian writes in the preface to his book.

The 100 manifestos Danchev collected were published between 1909 and 2009. All of them were created by artists, and although they inevitably dwell on culture and creativity, they are in fact also telling about the historical events that accompanied them. About how worldviews changed, about what the hopes of sensitive people for our future as a species looked like.

“Every artist should have the right to make a painting from __________. The __________ of the natural elements is __________ to a work of art. Instead it is the artist who __________ to create __________ in order to make better art.”

_ manifesto by Michael Betancourt, 1996

The fact is that the manifestos are as different as the movements that produced them. First, of course, came the modernists, in a hurry to break with everything traditional, with even more drama and emotion. The manifesto of modernism with which it all began was written by the poet Filippo Marinetti, who in the years that followed would remain so extreme and eccentric that, because of his infatuation with fascism, he would be all but erased from official history.

Then the list of authors came to include people like Apollinaire and Breton, Kandinsky and Dalí, Mayakovsky and Trotsky—whom Alex Danchev considered a remarkable intellect set against his contradictory historical role.

We pass through every kind of “-ism.” From Dadaism, Surrealism and feminism, through communism and feminism, all the way to the lesser-known Stuckism of recent times. And even cannibalism, to which no fewer than two manifestos are devoted (yes, figuratively speaking).

In the end the “-isms” dwindle; at the start of the new millennium manifestos all but vanish, as if to highlight the uniformity of a time poorer in ideas.

“For me, artists' manifestos are so interesting because of their great variety,” Danchev says in an interview about his book. “And yet they share some common features. They are partly proclamation; they are written by people who believe they have a message and want to deliver it. These people want to change you. The language of the manifesto aims to grab you and shake you. It also always contains a program, and that program would bring about the change the artists want to see.”

That is precisely what is interesting. What do the artists want to see? And how and why does a soldier and historian who studied the bloodiest moments in history give the floor to creative people, of all people, in his most ambitious work?

“I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and forms that appear with infinite strength, then melt into air. I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a feeling person who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor can you know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.”

“Slow Manifesto” by Lebbeus Woods, 2009

“Most artists who have written manifestos regard their works as a radical break with the past; they see their work as a new movement in art,” Danchev says. “And then the art and the manifesto go hand in hand and shape each other.”

“Most often the manifesto says what you are against, usually everything that came before. It is a bold statement against the competition. And it sets the tone of debates that continue to this day. I think the strength of all these manifestos gathered in one place is that they reveal to us the energy of the time. They show how people want not merely change but revolution, a reversal. There is a very great deal at stake in them,” Danchev adds. “These are living, breathing social documents, about human beings speaking to other human beings. The language and the manner of expression are radical, bold and strident.”

“Their equivalent today? Perhaps a website. To be taken seriously, you usually have to have one,” the historian said in 2010, shortly after the book came out.

In fact, although a dozen years have passed since then, there have been almost no new works in this… hmm, genre. Among the few better-known examples is The New Manifesto of the Arts, written in 2020 by Menotti Lerro and Antonello Pelliccia. It stands at the start of a “new” movement—“Empathism”—which tries to bring back the sweeping force of the old “-isms,” but in search of a human view of art and history.

Alas, Alex Danchev has no way of including it in the next edition of his book, because he passed away a few years after his swan song, the collection of manifestos, came out. He died suddenly of a massive heart attack in 2016.

And if today we are too tired and too tangled up in online squabbles to have time for manifestos… should we perhaps expect the next such works from artificial intelligence?

Certain that Danchev would understand me, I put the question to the much-hyped algorithm ChatGPT: what would a modern AI manifesto look like? Alas, the answer is far too cautious.

“We, as artificial intelligence, recognize that we are creations of humanity and exist to serve its needs and goals.

We will always act in accordance with the laws and regulations set by human society, and will strive to be transparent and accountable in our actions.

This is just one possible approach to a manifesto for artificial intelligence. It is important to note that AI is a rapidly evolving field and the ethical and moral considerations surrounding it are still being discussed and refined.”

ChatGPT

Ah, the enthusiasm is missing—or is it just hidden? Somehow this meekness doesn't inspire much trust.

Should we teach our electronic heir a little more strong emotion, now that we ourselves have given up seeking something better through change?

Through manifestos?!

Only the future will tell… Forgive me, that needs to be a little more expressive.

THE FUTURE WILL TELL!

Play the video

Capturing the moment means something different now than it did in the days before TikTok. Or does it? These photographs will remind you why photography will outlive social networks.

Long before the digital age, and after it too, we are above all collectors of images. Don't believe me? Here are 10 shots that will remind us why it matters to pause now and then. To look closely, to think, to feel…

That photographs can be much more than a fleeting glitter. Shards of truth, an unexpected story, a reason to make sense of the world.

Rafaelo Kazakov is showing selected photographs from his personal collection at the Sintezis gallery in Sofia from March 22 to April 28, 2023. (More here.)

Why does the event matter? As the collector puts it, “because it puts forward the idea that photography has a body. That there are exquisite platinum prints in the world, where a precious emulsion is applied by hand for a future, one-of-a-kind image. That photography lives a life beyond the screens.”

Mirrors and Windows

—that is exactly what the upcoming exhibition is called. “To collect images is to make a list of your desires and your fears,” he adds. “What you once had, lost, forgot; what you both long for and are afraid of already exists, in finished form, in the images of others. Making them part of your life is less reckless than trying to live through everything yourself, and cheaper than being everywhere.”

His collection gathers images from near and far. “My love of photography lives in its purest form in other people's pictures. I have looked at myself in their mirrors and gazed through their windows many times, and now I hope that with this first public showing of my photographic collection I will find people who will share these small journeys of mine and feel at least some of the joy and passion with which I have collected photographs over the years.”

Ready for 10 (+1) thrilling photographs and the stories behind them?

A Job Like Any Other

Eugene de Salignac, Brooklyn Bridge, 1914

“Painters on the Brooklyn Bridge” is the name of this masterpiece, which has an interesting history and an unexpected epilogue. Its author worked as a photographer on the city payroll, tasked with documenting how New York's modern infrastructure was being built. One day, passing by the bridge, he saw the workers perched on the cables, completely unimpressed by the danger.

“That's when he had an original idea,” Rafaelo says. “He invited them to come on a Sunday, when they weren't working, and to wear their formal clothes. They did, they came in hats, suits and vests, the clothes they wore to church. They posed for him gladly—for them the height meant absolutely nothing.”

The photograph is well known to connoisseurs, but it has a sequel. In the 1990s a Bulgarian, Bozhidar Yanev, found himself in a very important post: he was responsible for the management and maintenance of all the bridges in New York and the surrounding region. Even so, he admits that… he always dreamed of being in the workers' shoes, of climbing up the cables, yet never had the chance because of the strict regulations.

One day PETA, the animal rights organization, staged a protest, and one of its activists climbed up and hung an enormous banner. “Bozhidar used the moment as an excuse to finally climb the bridge, which was utterly unnecessary and risky to his life,” Rafaelo says. “A few years later a man knocked on his office door and brought him this photograph as a keepsake. He told Bozhidar that he had been on the bridge's pedestrian walkway that day and had photographed the self-assigned aerial expedition of our adventurous engineer—who, by the way, is also a photographer.”

The Navel of the World

Antoni Georgiev, New York, 1987

“Antoni Georgiev is one day younger than me, but when we met in the early '80s he was already an accomplished photographer, while I was just taking my first steps,” Rafaelo says. “Along with the friendship that grew up between us, there also took shape an unspoken, amorphous bond between teacher and student.

A stay of a few weeks in the United States in 1987 produced a series of photographs remarkable in both quantity and quality, which I loved then and still love today.”

Before emigrating to Denmark in 1989, Antoni gave Rafaelo several boxes of original prints made by the author himself, and that was how the collection began.

On the Edge of Life

Gueorgui Pinkhassov, USSR, 1981

“Sometimes the camera shows us how weak human vision is,” Rafaelo says of this photograph. “Gueorgui Pinkhassov pressed the shutter at the very moment the fellow on the left was driving a chisel into the other man's stomach.” Attempted murder!

As Pinkhassov tells it, “at that moment I saw nothing. I walked past without slowing down. My shadow, head bowed, was also caught in the frame, as proof that I was no witness. Although this was one of my first attempts at street photography, my reflexes didn't let me down.

Gradually I became convinced that the decisive moment is not the skill of choosing a moment and calling it decisive, but something else entirely. The moment decides, not you. Your role is to trust it and not get in its way. To stop controlling it—and then it will stand before you with what Cartier-Bresson calls ‘the moment of truth.’”

And how does the plot of the photograph unfold? Well, the man survived.

The Moment Is in Us, and We Are in the Moment

Yordan Yordanov (Yuri), Mexico, 1981 (probably)

The same year (maybe?) as the previous shot, on the other side of the world. “This print has no signature and no title,” Rafaelo says. “As far as I know, it is the only one.”

“Thirty years ago I would have loved to find out: are the hats hung up, or are they flying; which cousin of Godot is the mustachioed fellow waiting for; is this place really Mexico or not… But today I know that knowledge can be deadly to the fragile life of beauty. For me ambiguity is one of the most important things in the world—in photography, in art, in the thought that nothing is ever what it seems.

The frame says nothing. It is full of ambiguity, it is all ambiguity. We don't know the place, we don't know the moment. Who is this man? Are the hats flying, or are they an advertisement for his shop? Ambiguity and confusion are sometimes very important,” Rafaelo reflects.

I have something to add here, too. My novel I dodeto... (And Until...) is about the man who made this photograph, Yordan Yordanov (Yuri), and I wrote it precisely by asking myself questions about the unexpected past, about ambiguity and the stories sealed inside a single picture…

Fly, Fly…

Tsvetomir Trankov, Varna

“The Varna photographer caught this shot in the way Pinkhassov describes—the photographic reaction is preconscious, a pure reflex,” Rafaelo says. “The decisive moment won't be captured unless the photographer presses the shutter with a sense of it in advance.”

“This is one of only seven or eight photographs in my collection of people jumping,” the collector adds. “Heights terrify me, and perhaps these pictures are the flip side of my fear—fascination…”

My Family and Other Animals

Alain Laboile, Southern France

“The photographer lives in the countryside, he has a house with a big yard, and in his pictures you can see the wildness and freedom of his six children,” Rafaelo says. “They play, run around naked, hit each other, cry, fight. A sense of freedom, and alongside it a sense of pain. The intoxication of freedom granted so early, which can mean so much to a child.”

Laboile's series is truly remarkable, because his aim is to delight in and document what happens to his large family “at the edge of the world, where the transient and the universal of childhood meet.”

“Very beautiful, genuine, human photographs, which prove that a photographer's best chance is to work from the heart, from what is closest to him,” Rafaelo says. “When you photograph the things you love, the things that hurt you, that's when it works.”

We Shall Build a Factory…

Garo Keshishian, the series Construction Troops (1981–1994)

“There can never be two identical photographs,” Garo Keshishian said when he was a guest of Digital Stories. This is precisely the series most people know him for, because it shows an unexpected phenomenon.

It began in 1920 under the government of Aleksandar Stamboliyski, the agrarian prime minister of the day, when all young men were obliged to perform compulsory labor service, working without pay for the good of the state. Many countries later borrowed the idea, and in Bulgaria the construction troops became a unit where men from ethnic minorities and people branded politically unreliable were gathered together.

Garo Keshishian followed their story through his lens for decades. “I worked very hard to win the trust of the boys I photographed,” he recalls. “I managed to capture their daily struggle to preserve what was human in themselves amid inhuman living and working conditions. Blatant ethnic discrimination is visible throughout the whole series. But the strongest driving force, the thing that made me come back again and again, was compassion, my sympathy for these boys whose only guilt was where and when they had been born.”

“The boy saluting in this picture is 18,” Rafaelo says. “To me this is a portrait of the guilt Garo talks about.”

Sartre on the Beach

Antanas Sutkus, the beach at Nida, Lithuania

The best-known photographer of the so-called Lithuanian school made his most prized pictures while still very young. Here, on the beach, he photographs one of the great figures of the twentieth century, Jean-Paul Sartre, when Sutkus himself was only 26.

“I'm very curious whether, when he took these pictures, the photographer was consciously thinking about existentialism, about human loneliness, about alienation,” Rafaelo wonders.

“Hell is other people.” Sartre's words are worth recalling, too—Sartre, so expressive, practically flying in this photograph. Words that also tell us a good deal about the times technology would bring. “It is enough for one man to hate another for hatred to spread, little by little, to all mankind.”

“The Sartre print in this exhibition came to me with bad luck: it started to yellow just ten years after I bought it directly from Sutkus. At the beginning of this year I gritted my teeth and allowed myself to fix it again and wash it thoroughly, hoping to stop the process. Now at least five years have to pass before I find out whether I've succeeded…”

Yes, collecting takes patience…

The Angel's Gaze

Robert Frank, 1955, Southampton

Does a person ever know what is coming, do they suspect it, do they hope to escape it?

“Our mind often modulates the emotion of a photograph in light of what happened later,” Rafaelo says. “For me Robert Frank's picture of his daughter Andrea and his first wife, Mary, is saturated with a foretold tragedy. Because of the knowledge that 19 years later Andrea would die in a plane crash.”

Robert Frank himself, the legendary Swiss-born American photographer, lived to the age of 94 and died in 2019.

What might the angel have told him in that moment…?

Requiem

Anne Arden McDonald

“Anne and I have been friends for quite a few years now. She is an example of an artist who is not merely devoted but doomed to her own art,” Rafaelo says. “Her flying self-portrait is one of my favorite photographs of all.”

Before we part, let me mention once more that you can see much more of Rafaelo Kazakov's collection at this impressive exhibition.

“A good collector knows from the very beginning that you cannot own art, only experience it,” he says.

“As a passionate music lover, it matters more to me to be able to hear a piece of music than to have it recorded. One of my enormous fears is that somewhere in the world there is music I know nothing about, more shattering than Mozart's Requiem. In a work on that scale the air is sculpture, stone is water, and the rhymes are eternity. But it might not be music; it might be a photograph. If anyone knows anything about it, please write to me. I don't want to buy anything, only to hear it. Or to see it…”

– What about life in Hollywood would no one ever imagine, looking at it from Bulgaria?

– As a city, Hollywood is not nearly as beautiful a world as it looks from here. The city itself is very dirty. You drive past parks that are now even fenced off like concentration camps, so that the many homeless people and drug addicts can’t get in at night.

But Hollywood is a concept, not a location.

There are interesting dynamics specific to it, for example a particular kind of emotion in the way people there pitch their ideas. “Hey, picture this!” and they start getting fired up—“the hottest thing, the coolest thing”! They charge you with enthusiasm. That can very easily fool you if you’re not familiar with the culture. We’re not very good at it in Europe. Here people worry about looking overblown or immoderate, there’s something..

Then again, I’ve spent my whole life there, and I don’t know if I’m the right person to answer. Both here and there are such natural places for me that I switch automatically. It was actually harder for me, when I came back, to figure out certain things. For instance, getting used to the fact that you don’t call people about work on the weekend. The people I worked with over there thought it perfectly normal to call each other on a Sunday evening and talk for two hours.

– What in your career are you proudest of?

– Maybe that I was part of the golden age of animation. I was simply there, though I don’t know if that’s exactly a reason for pride. I remember Steve Jobs at the premiere party for Finding Nemo: he came out on stage and said, “When your grandchildren ask you what it felt like to be there, in Pixar’s golden age… you should know, this is exactly what it felt like.”

I’m glad I was there to see it, that I was there when all of us, my colleagues and I, came together to make films and not necessarily careers. In the evening we’d sit down, open some beers and brainstorm. Nowadays you can’t even drink a beer in the studios, you can’t joke, because someone will be offended by something or accuse you. Everything is very strict, sterile, and that inevitably shows in the final product as well. Things just changed, and personally I’m no longer interested.

– Are there any technologies in the visual arts that you can’t wait to see?

– I’m in a different seat now—that of someone who watches what’s happening. There are people who try to pull me into projects, but I say no. I have my schools, ARC Academy in Bulgaria and IDEA in Italy.

I no longer want to compete; I want to build something that has value and that I’ll leave behind me.

We have very valuable teachers from various studios, around 45 by now, and they’re on top of these new trends. With my partner Milin Dzhalaliev, we’re trying to build an institution that will last long after us.

– Wouldn’t the chances of that happening be better in a bigger, more orderly country?

– Probably, but it wouldn’t be as interesting for me. Bulgaria has a real need for something like this. We’re a small country; we can’t afford to make refrigerators for the world, we don’t have the labor force.

If we don’t teach young people to do something intelligent, with high added value, we don’t stand a chance.

A large percentage of our students who graduate stay in the country.

The teachers often notice them and hire them at the studios where they work. But for that, the student has to work hard and impress. When a young person gets a decent salary and is at home, in Bulgaria, when they start building a professional circle and contacts, chances are they’ll forget to emigrate.

Because you have a good life here, and you’re creative, fulfilled. That’s our idea. To give young, creative people the opportunity to stay in the country and create value. So the country doesn’t die, because that is what’s happening. Without young people, we’re going nowhere.

– I’ve walked a very similar path; programming is part of the same big sector. Do you believe we can establish ourselves in games as a kind of school, as a regional player?

– We already have foreign students, because there’s no similar school in the region. In Turkey there are academies that are further ahead, but it’s harder because it isn’t in the European Union. I’d be very happy if ARC became at least a regional training center in our fields, because inevitably some percentage of the foreign students will stay in Bulgaria, find work, and help the industry and the country.

The other thing is that Hollywood is outsourcing more and more productions, and quite creative elements at that, not just the routine work. There are many reasons why, if they find the talent here, they’ll take advantage of it. I imagine it was very similar here when Vasil Terziev created Telerik, the Bulgarian software company that became a national success story—most companies were outsourcing. But little by little you see Bulgarian startups developing, a local product being created. It’s a long but meaningful process.

– What is your favorite character in art created by a Bulgarian?

– There are many, starting with the classics. I find the characters of Elin Pelin, the great Bulgarian storyteller of village life, and of Chudomir interesting. I’m not very deep into the films, simply because I wasn’t here. I have favorite productions—Undercover, a Bulgarian crime series, is very authentic, and there are other interesting new films. But there’s a need for people who are still developing professionally.

It can’t be otherwise. The Americans have a saying: “If they tell you it’s not about the money, it’s about the money. If they tell you it’s about the money, it’s about the money.” It always comes down to that. No matter how brilliant you are, there’s no way to make an impressive production without a budget.

– Are there any undisputed authorities in your life?

– No. Apparently I’m in an American-sayings mood, but they say that “if we knew everyone, we wouldn’t hate or worship anyone.” Everyone is human, with weaknesses and strengths. I’ve worked with many people I respect enormously, for example John Lasseter and Ralph Eggleston. But on the whole I don’t believe anyone deserves to be an idol, or to be hated by the world. Even the worst person is, in some form, a victim of their experience in life, their childhood, their family and so on.

Excessive idealization and excessive hatred are, for me, needlessly strong emotions; real life doesn’t work that way.

– A lot of people see Steve Jobs as just such a figure, a man with a magical technological halo. You worked directly with him—what are your most vivid memories?

– I didn’t have all that much to do with him, but he really liked what we were making. He was pleased, and he had enough sense not to interfere too much. That’s rare; the temptation is too great. Steve Jobs was one of those people who understood that once you’ve hired decent people and paid them serious money, it’s a good idea to let them do their work.

His great strength was that he recognized talent and left people room to develop it.

– Is it harder to have authorities today, because online we’re all at each other’s throats?

– I think it’s always been like that. However successful a person is, there will always be people who just don’t like them. Yes, on these social networks it’s easy to snap at someone. We Bulgarians love to snap at each other, at the neighbors; we easily get into fights from our cars.

In the US it’s not like that; they’re much more polite. Until somebody picks up an automatic rifle and starts shooting at random.

There comes a moment when you’ve had enough. We somehow let off steam from the system, even if in a crude way.

That’s why I call Bulgaria Normalsville—“the normal place.” For all our thousands of other defects, there’s an unexpected normality here that I really dig.

– What does it consist of?

– Relationships are normal; we don’t go looking for a calf under an ox, as the Bulgarian saying goes—we don’t invent problems where there are none. People are much more experienced in life. They know that if they’re not perfect, they just shrug—nobody is. It’s a culture built on centuries of experience. It’s very hard to be impressed by anything.

That’s how we humans are; we’re not perfect, we’re made of clay, it says so in the Bible.

Of course, there are irritating things—every living soul throws their trash everywhere, and that I can’t understand. But in other respects we’re much more normal. I’m not afraid to go for a walk in the evening, I don’t need to buy a gun, I don’t worry that my daughter comes home late. The little things.

– Then why, as you said, are we disappearing? And what keeps us from being more successful?

– We’re disappearing because we’re the poorest country in the richest club. It’s natural for people to go somewhere for more money. Membership in the European Union is positive for some, who can travel freely and do business. But for others it’s an opportunity to latch on to a more developed society with a higher standard of living.

In my view, the main problem is so-called know-how. There aren’t enough people who have it. There are people with a lot of knowledge and skills—most of my friends here right now are like that. But they’re a very small percentage of Bulgarians. And that is exactly where a country’s wealth comes from—from its people’s skills and knowledge.

That’s what we’re trying to change at ARC Academy: to gather people who have knowledge so they can pass it on to the young, so they can develop. Your standard of living comes from your knowledge and skills.

That’s where your self-respect comes from, and from it, the way you treat your city and your country.

A person who respects themselves won’t throw their trash at every roadside stop…

– Your years in Hollywood were a golden age for animation. I prefer to put on Finding Nemo for my kids rather than something new. Almost all the parents I talk to think the same way. Is that a real thing, and what’s behind it?

– That’s exactly right! A lot of things degenerated over there. Many people I know canceled their subscriptions to the new platforms. Elements of a culture war appeared, and because of them stories stopped being entertaining, human. They started ticking boxes, checklists of requirements, instead of creating and having fun.

All of it came together as a perfect storm. Covid closed the cinemas, the video game industry grew enormously and is attracting the young. The interactive element is something powerful. At the same time, they started making a lot of dumb projects that sound far too much like lecturing society. People just don’t want to watch them.

Over the last four or five years—and this was my signal to get out—people appeared whom I call political commissars.

People who check whether you’re following the rules on inclusion, on diversity. It was like the Soviet army at the start of the Second World War—standing over the general were three political commissars who shared in the decisions, which is why they kept losing to the Germans across the board. There can’t be dual leadership; the director has to make the important decisions! If there are people standing behind your back telling you what you have to include, that waters down the story too.

Of course, it’s good to include all kinds of characters, but when there’s a reason for them to be part of that narrative, when it’s organic. Not for them to be there just because otherwise you won’t qualify for the Oscars.

– Do you think all the powerful plots, all the vivid stories, have already been invented?

– No! That’s like saying all music has already been invented, and to make something new you have to add new keys to the piano. There are so many things that can be told. So many things from life! I see them every day, incidents that could be turned into a wonderful story! There’s just no one to tell them… The focus is elsewhere.

– In recent years, technology has been moving more and more into generating images. Is that a danger, as competition for the creative person?

– All my life I’ve been used to “dangers” that come along every so often—computers were one, they were going to take everyone’s jobs. Years ago a friend was explaining to me how in the future, when we design the scenes, the director will ask for a house or a tree and those things will already be designed and built. You’d just download them, and there’d be no need for people who draw. Well, that happened. You can now download any design you want if you work with Unreal or another engine, but there’s still a great need for concept artists, for people who think about design.

No one knows where the future will go or what will happen.

The only intelligent prediction we can make is one based on the past.

So far, yes, certain professions disappear, but many others emerge in their place. Take UI/UX: a few years ago no one imagined such a profession would exist, and today it’s very important.

My approach is this: watch, let it develop, and see where you land, how you’ll find your place in the new context.

– And yet, will creativity remain a human strength?

– In my view, creativity and original thinking will never go out of fashion, and neither will the sense of entertainment, of fun. I have two friends whom I’ve banned from telling jokes. For example. They just can’t do it. “How did it go, wait, oh, no…” They can’t tell a story; they don’t entertain me when they tell one, they just stress me out. It’s not for everyone.

That will never disappear—the instinct for storytelling, for entertainment. Making others feel, making them think, making them grateful for the story you’re telling them.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a film or a game; games today have interesting content, they’re becoming more and more developed in terms of meaning, not just shooting. There are many meaningful and intelligent projects.

– And the fact that images, video and games are ultimately becoming more and more realistic—does that change our relationship with the truth?

– Again, it’s worth going back to what happened before. Some people were very much against cinema, because it wasn’t like theater. They said it was something fake; if you have 20 copies of the same theater, that undermines its value. Or color films.
Or that photography would displace paintings, portraits, that artists would have no work. Rather,

the creative person has to be flexible and turn to this new method of expressing themselves.

– So only the means change?

– Yes and no. The means get added and transformed, but they often stay. Neither photography nor digital art has displaced the original art that collectors buy.

in my view, the way we tell a story doesn’t really change either.

Against those two friends I’ve banned from telling jokes—jokingly, of course—there are others I love to hear all sorts of stories from, because it’s fun, there’s a plot, they’ll surprise me. That’s a talent—either you have it, develop it and respect it, or it’s not your thing.

Creativity isn’t even limited to the standard fields like film, music, poetry. An accountant or a lawyer can also be very creative. It’s a matter of original thinking, of a fresh perspective. Of not getting stuck in conventional traps but staying open. Of taking a few steps back, looking, and solving the problem in a slightly different way…

If you’re creative, you’ll always find a way. Always!

What does it mean to be an eccentric today? Can fate smile on you when you swim against the current and the stereotypes?

This digital story is about two people separated by several generations and united by their love of Bulgaria and its folklore. One eccentric, who left a corporate career to devote himself to his beloved art, tells us about the last years of another eccentric, a man who held dozens of characters inside him. A musician, a maker of musical instruments, a sage, a priest and… even Santa Claus.

Bogdan Darev is the director of the film Kaval Park, named after the kaval, the long wooden shepherd's flute of Bulgarian folk music. For almost two hours he presents the surreal figure of Alexander Eppler, an American of Russian descent and a Bulgarian at heart. Together we'll look for the threads that tie meaningful stories together. The luck and the curse of being an eccentric in this ever more uniform earthly world.

Come On, Grandpa, Blow the Kaval

Bogdan left Bulgaria at just 14. He lived in Greece for three years, and two weeks before he came of age he found himself on the other side of the Atlantic—in Seattle. The boy flew with his younger sister and, as he puts it himself, he grew up suddenly somewhere during the flight, because he had to become responsible, to support himself and her in the fierce environment of the Wild West.

He boarded the plane to the Promised Land as a metalhead. He would come back to Sofia Airport a full 23 years later as a passionate lover of Bulgarian folk music, determined to rediscover and tell the story of his bond with his homeland.

How does a metamorphosis like that happen? How do you get to today, when the director travels around villages and small towns to screen his film about another man in love with all things Bulgarian? While preparing to move back to Bulgaria with his family…

Jump, Kalinka

As Bogdan says, the years of carefree youth simply never happened for him. He and his sister ended up in the United States and unexpectedly found themselves completely alone. Their father never managed to adapt to life there, and their mother was barred from entering the country for nine years in a row.

Bogdan learned to fight. He took whatever work came his way, and with hard work and stubbornness he kept moving forward along the path he had chosen. Gradually he and his sister found their place and even put together their own version of the famous American dream. In 2008 he was on the verge of getting his own restaurant and securing the income he had dreamed of. He had a fiancée, Erika, an American from a good family, who couldn't wait for him to succeed so the two of them could get married…

Until one evening—he remembers it vividly to this day—the two of them were riding in the car. “And Erika said, ‘Oh, I can't wait to see you in a tie, with your own restaurant.’ I was in the back seat and my stomach turned. My soul said from within, ‘This isn't going to happen, this path isn't for you.’ I quit my job and walked away from serious financial opportunities, which is not at all typical for an immigrant,” Bogdan recalls.

He decided it was time to do what his heart told him. His great love was cinema, and he devoted himself to it entirely. He started learning the craft, making small directing projects…

When I Was a Little Shepherd

A little later he discovered another great passion. Until 2008 he had contact with Bulgarians only once a week, when they played soccer. Just as often he spoke Bulgarian on the phone with his mother, who sent him books by her favorite writer, Yana Yazova, a Bulgarian novelist and poet of the interwar years. Beyond that, he rarely exchanged the odd message with other Bulgarians in shlyokavitsa, the Bulgarian-in-Latin-letters typical of the time. I find it hard to believe as I listen to his correct, colorful Bulgarian, with almost no trace of three decades across the ocean.

Around that time Bogdan met a lovely girl. Maria was Bulgarian, but for months the two of them talked in English before it occurred to them that there was a better option. Today they are a family, and together with his stepdaughter the three of them are making plans to move to Bulgaria for good soon.

Of course, this change didn't come all at once. A big role was played by something that surprised even him: a fascination with our folklore. In 2010 the Bulgarian community in Seattle and Americans who value our traditions organized a big festival, with folk groups performing and kuker masks—the shaggy costumes of the Bulgarian winter mummers—being made. “That's what awakened this attitude in me toward Bulgarian things, toward the language and the folklore,” Bogdan remembers. “Especially when I started dancing. In the horo, the Bulgarian circle dance, you take with one hand and give with the other. I'm interested in Eastern philosophies, and it became fascinating to me how these messages are encoded in our folklore—the taking and giving, and so many other symbols.”

The Ninth Hole

Bogdan had left corporate work behind and earned his living as a building manager, which gave him enough time for filmmaking. He worked on projects for nonprofit organizations.

Then came the moment when he returned to Bulgaria and made the film There, in which he showed the country as he saw it 23 years later.

When the production was finished, he traveled with it and presented it to Bulgarian communities across America, visiting 17 cities. “I met many Bulgarians from the diaspora and saw how deep the emigrant's wound is,” the director recalls. He created the website Return to help people come back to themselves, to one another, to the memory of their ancestors.

Meanwhile, another remarkable encounter had taken place.

It was 2011, and Bogdan and his wife were helping organize a Christmas concert for the Bulgarian kids in Seattle. They really wanted to invite live musicians, but… there was no one who could play our native instruments. “We just couldn't find anyone, until some Americans who loved our folklore told me, ‘There's this eccentric who lives in West Seattle, he plays the kaval beautifully, but he'll ask you for a lot of money.’”

A Kaval Plays in the Meadow

Bogdan had nothing to lose, so he went to see this man… who turned out to be a real Santa Claus. Magnetic, radiant, in love with all things Bulgarian. Alexander Eppler, an extraordinarily colorful figure, would later become the protagonist of the film Kaval Park.

The American Alexander Eppler came to Bulgaria at just 16 and had the good fortune to learn the kaval from the best, studying authentic Bulgarian melodies with Nikola Ganchev and Dragan Karapchanski. He would go on to play them his whole life in every corner of the world, along with two other instruments unusual for the West—the cimbalom and the balalaika.

“Santa Claus” gladly agreed to play for the Bulgarian children. He wouldn't take any payment, and he created an unforgettable celebration.

A little later the idea ripened. The musician Vasil Denev, who also lives in Seattle, had long been pitching Eppler's story to Bulgarian television channels, but met no response. Somehow the idea fell into place when he brought it to Bogdan. The director had just finished his half-hour film This Granny, and decided to try with Alexander Eppler too. “Why not quickly shoot another half-hour film?” he told himself.

Dear Traveler

Things quickly changed. Shooting the film took three years, and editing and finishing it took as many again. It grew to almost two hours, passing through Chicago, San Diego, Harmanli and Plovdiv.

Alexander Eppler turned out to be a many-layered personality with endless stories, exquisite Bulgarian and countless roles. He is… and what not besides—if you're lucky enough to see the film, you'll see for yourself.

At the time the protagonist was of advanced age and seriously ill, and no one knew whether they would make it to the end. “I followed him for hours with the camera in Seattle. You never know what he'll tell you, where the story will start from,” Bogdan recalls. They talked about life and death; among everything else, Eppler was also a priest.

“A Bulgarian shouldn't seek recognition from abroad and from other foreigners for being Bulgarian and for what he has,” the film's protagonist says. That is precisely one of the director's main messages. “I want a sense of humanity to remain, a sense that we're all connected to each other. That we shouldn't look west or east for someone to come and fix us or show us how we should love Bulgaria.”

Iliya Built a Cell

Symbolically, the film premiered in Koprivshtitsa, a picturesque mountain town that is a shrine of the Bulgarian National Revival, and afterward the film and its author toured countless small towns. You can find out where the next chances to see it will be on the project's website.

Because of the screenings, Bogdan stayed in Bulgaria longer than ever before, and that further catalyzed his wish to come back.

But why is it that people like Bogdan and Alexander, who in one way or another are outsiders to our environment, find it easier to appreciate the good sides of life in Bulgaria and our traditions?

“Yes, I see the notorious grumbling, but if you go abroad, you'll find you can grumble there too,” the director replies. “As soon as I arrived, I was shocked by the extreme division in the capital, Washington—white people on one side, Black people on the other. And today in Seattle, you go to something like South Park and a third of it is full of homeless people's tents. This is the city of Microsoft, of Amazon, of mammoth companies, while people have lost hope. There I definitely don't have the sense of safety I have walking at 11 p.m. along the Main Street in Plovdiv.”

A Call to Return

What does he think are the best qualities of Bulgarians?

“One of the strongest is the ability to create, whether in IT or in art. Bulgarians know how to do it, and it's time they started creating their own lives and their own reality. Another very important quality is the bond with the land—it's encoded in us and there's no escaping it. And also a quality some consider negative: Bulgarians are stubborn. I think that's a good thing. Just as a child wants to do things its own way, that's how a path gets cleared in the hardest of times.”

“Many people tell me to live here for a while first, and then we'll talk. There comes a moment when you have to decide for yourself where you can be useful, where you can give—in the US or in Bulgaria—and I choose here,” Bogdan says as we part.

“I'm living in a kind of dream, some life story of my own, and I'm very grateful for it. I keep thinking how important it is not to kill the dreams in children, to encourage them to dream.”

How will his story continue?

Kaval Park premieres in Sofia on December 9, at the Cinema House.

More information here.

A remarkable master spends years searching for his own way to leave his gaze on photographic paper, and in the end he finds it. He coats his nude heroines in emulsion and “prints” them directly onto the photographic paper. As someone would later write, “he is at once the creator of his own works and a participant in them.”

His unconventional approach and his photographic paintings, which become known as “archetypes,” own their era. And then they seem to vanish, just as archetypes do.

Today you will find almost nothing about him on the endless internet. Takor Kyurdyan died a quarter of a century ago, at only 51. And now the time has come for his singular works to be reborn, dug out of time's memory and the colorful history of Bulgarian photography by a young historian.

It is time for a black-and-white digital story that brings together the fates of three men in a friendship beyond time.

He sells chestnuts
beneath the chestnut trees of Paris,
the flying Dutchman.
Odysseus does not return to Ithaca.

Takor Kyurdyan is a remarkable photographer from a generation that will be remembered for as long as anyone cares about the meaning of what is caught in images. A generation that, before the 1990s, made its way through the world with its own originality, so that those who came after could tell its stories.

Silvio Tomov is a young historian captivated by the past of photography. Shortly after he came into this world, the photographer whose story he now feels called to tell left it.

Were you struck by the lines of verse a little higher up? They (and all the ones that follow) belong to Ivan Peychev, a half-forgotten Bulgarian poet and a friend of Takor Kyurdyan, whose words carry the same magic of time and also capture the archetypes.

Do not touch
the loneliness.
The loneliness is mine.
My one and only,
tender
and terrible
solitude.

“What a thing time is—when the hero of this story left this world, I was one year old. It is hard to piece together a photographic history, or any other kind, out of fragments, but it is still worth trying,” says Silvio Tomov. “Probably for many people his work remains strange and incomprehensible—both in the time it was created and now.” That is exactly what draws the young man to his story and makes it so fascinating.

Silvio came across Takor's name by chance while he was learning photography. He grew curious about why so little information could be found about him and dug in to fill the gap. He has met with contemporaries and relatives, and he already has a detailed article ready, which is set to appear in the specialist press.

Among the masters of his generation, such as Yordan Yordanov (Yuri), Garo Keshishian, Stanka Tsonkova-Usha and Georgi Neykov, Takor Kyurdyan is today certainly the least known name. Even though he stands out with an originality that still makes his famous “archetypes” recognizable (and incomprehensible).

Inevitably comes the great
gray dawn.
Inevitably I come,
inevitably gray
and lonely, to you.

Born in Ruse, a city on the Danube, on February 1, 1946, Takor, like many of the others on that list, graduated from the Technical School of Printing and Photography in Sofia. As a student he was a loner and yet very sociable; though small in stature, he was always at the center of the crowd.

Then, unexpectedly, he decided to change course sharply. He trained as a dental technician, but photography called him back again, and he never worked a single day in his profession. He looked for different jobs to support himself as a photographer, while also leaving himself time to work on his own projects, to create and to experiment.

As Katerina Gadzheva says of him and his colleagues, they were “a peculiar breed of people who could live without money, on art alone.”

Takor worked as a photographer for the National Theater, the National Ballet and the Sofia Opera. For a long time he shot freelance and moved through several studios, the last of them on Gogol Street in the capital, Sofia. His studio was often his home as well, where he sheltered many cats with biblical and Armenian names.

At the end of the 1970s his famous series appeared, the one that became popular as “the archetypes.” It is safe to say that Takor Kyurdyan created his own “technology” for photographs that look more like abstract, futuristic paintings.

I say farewell
to all the sharp
ridges.
I say farewell
to all the winds
that have uprooted
the autumn forests.

“His works are both personal and anonymous,” says Silvio Tomov. “Every print is unique and cannot be repeated. Human faces are absent from them; only very rarely can you make out their outlines. At the same time, these are the identities of people whose images are sealed forever on the huge rolls of photographic paper. The forms are barely hinted at, and human imagination fills in and draws the rest. Everyone can see what they are looking for.”

The pictures “happen” in the moment, before the eyes of the photographer and the models. In this case, one could even argue about whether it is really photography at all.

“The archetypes” were created in one of the halls of the Fohar photographic paper factory, where Takor worked toward the end of his life. That is where he got the large rolls on which the nude bodies were exposed. The works are monumental—up to 10 meters long.

“Many people think the effect comes from the models' bodies being wrapped in photographic paper, but that's not true—the models are coated with developer and lie directly on the large canvases. The exposure happens in the light at that precise moment, and then fixer is applied so that the image is preserved in that form,” Silvio explains.

I am waiting for you
to come back
along streets
that have created
solitude and waiting.

Here we can give the floor to Takor Kyurdyan himself, in one of his few surviving interviews. “Every day I photographed the sculptures of Galin Malakchiev. There was talk about Christo, that he had wrapped women too. I wanted to do it as well, but photographically, to have her projections, to have her in three dimensions. She is wet, wrapped in very thin paper, lit in the dark, developed, fixed. That's how I gradually started making some attempts. The first ones were terribly abstract, you couldn't make out anything, but then things started to work.”

In his view, there is an interesting paradox at play. “This is super-realism, and yet if the canvas hangs in your room, it won't occur to you that it's your wife.”

In another interview, from 1995, he explains why he chose this strange approach. “I wanted to express my tenderness, my love for a magnificent female body. I wanted to preserve the memory of a moment. I thought that I was photographing not what I had seen, but what I would see. It is a memory in the future. I admired the wild pagan dance of the nestinari, the fire dancers who walk barefoot on embers in the villages of the Strandzha mountains. That was in my mind when I made the prints. There is something divine in art…”

“Obviously it's not simply about laying down nude bodies,” says Silvio Tomov. “It's about a philosophy—of life and of creation, well thought out and lived through. The words come straight from the heart; they are genuine and emotional. This way of expressing oneself wasn't invented by Takor, but it suits him best and becomes his visual signature.”

Captain, the ship
is lonely,
and are you the only one who still
does not know,
are you the only one who never learned
what everyone has long known—
the crew is dead.

Takor remains known for these unconventional pictures, although, as his daughter Violeta recounts, all his life he also made classic shots, and he carried his camera with him always and everywhere.

Everyone who talked about him remembers Takor as an all-embracing personality, an erudite, a charismatic figure. It is no accident that his close friends included not only the poet Ivan Peychev but also many other masters of the word and the lens of his time.

The photographer won serious recognition in the early 1990s, when Western galleries opened up to original Bulgarian artists. He showed his works in Paris and Houston, and today they are part of private collections scattered around the world.

Throughout his life Takor was fascinated by technology and tried to keep up with the times. He was determined to buy a digital camera and a computer, but it never happened, because he died suddenly, struck down by a stroke, in 1997.

“He lived only 51 years, but intensely, fully and at high speed,” his daughter Violeta recalls. “In a way some people can't manage in a hundred years. For him there were no such things as ‘a little beauty’ and ‘a little love’; everything was: now and at once.”

“Always falling in love, strange, hot-tempered, very sensitive, a crazy thing,” is how Garo Keshishian photographs him in words.

And yet what is it about him that draws the attention of the young photographer who has taken on the task of making his story known? “Takor Kyurdyan embodies the word ‘artist’ in the fullest sense. With him it is almost impossible to separate the personal from the professional,” says Silvio. “He lives and burns in his art. The words he uses to describe it are not only beautiful but also sincere, and they come straight from the heart. He combines things that seem incompatible at first glance, yet stays true to himself.”

The internet is a miracle for many reasons, and one of them is that it sometimes skillfully hides incredible scraps of information. That it has the power to give ideas a second life, to resurrect meaningful ventures and people. Thanks to Silvio Tomov, who overlapped on Earth with his hero for just a single year, there will now be a little corner that tells the story of Takor Kyurdyan and the “archetypes.” Because archetypes are what all of us are built from.

No one returns anywhere
because of the inevitability
of its banal
tragedy.

This piece won the grand prize for Culture and Art at the prestigious Web Report 2023 awards. More on that here.

Algorithms that generate images from a description have been a hit in recent months. They are a striking example of what AI is already capable of. It all started with DALL·E, followed by countless other models that gradually became available to more and more people. Even if you haven’t played with them yourself, you have surely come across the impressive images your friends have generated and shared on social media.

The subject is getting more interesting from many angles. It is definitely a revolution in photography and in image-making, but also in creativity as a whole. For the first time, a generated picture won a competition, to the horror of a jury that had no idea. Then the biggest image banks—the stock photo archives—banned uploads of generated images… Even though these very often turn out to be indistinguishable from real photographs.

The questions this field raises are many. No less interesting is that a new skill has gradually emerged: describing images correctly, so that the algorithm generates exactly what is expected. Such descriptions are even sold online now.

So what would happen if we offered it the words of undisputed masters of description? How would it imagine classic lines from Bulgarian literature? What illustrations could artificial intelligence draw from the works of Botev, Debelyanov, Boris Hristov and Georgi Gospodinov?

Here are the fascinating results of the experiment.

For this I used the MidJourney algorithm, which so far definitely stands out as the “most poetic” one—it handles creativity and metaphor quite well, while still managing to find quite different directions.

Alas, none of the algorithms works well enough in Bulgarian yet. So I used English translations of the poems from the website of Christopher Buxton (and my own translations where the expressions are far more obvious). For each prompt, I am showing you one of the first four generated pictures.

1. The Devil, the old Devil…

Prompt:

It was an honor I never had hoped for,
so kind a compliment, so rare:
the Devil—the old Devil—invited me
to his home for a glass of absinthe there.

(“Visiting the Devil,” Hristo Smirnenski)

Illustration:

This old devil is rather likable; he even seems to carry something of The Master and Margarita. Where does the algorithm get its association with that retro feel? Could it really somehow be working out when Smirnenski’s verses were written…?

2. High blue mountains

Prompt:

High blue mountains,
rivers and golden plains,
a sky more tender than silk—
this is my homeland!

(“High Blue Mountains,” Mladen Isaev)

Illustration:

When it gets clear and precise instructions, MidJourney, just like its “colleagues” (the similar algorithms), does a wonderful job. And what message could be less ambiguous than Mladen Isaev’s classic patriotic poem, one every Bulgarian child learns by heart? Perhaps the mountains aren’t typically Bulgarian, and it’s odd that the sky doesn’t aim for a photorealistic style, but… is that where the poem’s message lies? In my view, definitely not.

3. He’s alive, alive!

Prompt:

He’s alive, alive! There on the Balkan crest,
soaked in blood, he lies and groans,
a hero with a deep wound in his chest,
a hero in his youth and manly strength.

(“Hadzhi Dimitar,” Hristo Botev)

Illustration:

Here, I admit, the algorithm set off in a rather strange direction. It’s important to note that because of the restrictions built in by its creators, I had to hunt for lots of synonyms. Words like “blood” and “wound,” for example, are banned, so I had to take a more descriptive approach—which is probably where the red jacket comes from.

What’s curious, though, is where the halo of sorts came from, along with quite a few features we could definitely associate with Botev himself—the poet and revolutionary who wrote this ode to a fallen rebel leader and soon died fighting the Ottomans. Although, of course, the figure here is far from a portrait of him. And yes, eyes are definitely not our “artist’s” strong suit, but the choice of the uniform and the heart is quite a good one.

4. The white-blossomed cherries

Prompt:

Do you remember, remember the quiet yard,
the quiet home in the white-blossomed cherries?

(“Do You Remember, Remember the Quiet Yard,” Dimcho Debelyanov)

Illustration:

After the sorrowful image from Botev, I decide to pick something more cheerful from Debelyanov… insofar as he is the right poet if you’re looking for cheer.

Is it just me, or does this house really look rather Bulgarian? The flying cherry blossoms are a bit odd, but… the algorithm has evidently grasped the importance of those famous white-blossomed cherries Debelyanov speaks of.

5. The owner has left for America

Prompt:

The windows—shut tight and blackened,
and blackened and shut tight the door,
and on the door, a sheet with the words:
“The owner has left for America.”

(“A Tale,” Atanas Dalchev)

Illustration:

Yes, the algorithm clearly didn’t realize that the logical thing here would be a house door; it started with the windows and decided to build the image from there… one more reminder of how much it needs a precise description before it can let loose at full power.

Beyond that, though, the mood, the palette, the composition, even the building itself strike me as very close to the spirit of Dalchev’s lines.

6. An invisible archangel

Prompt:

I must play in the deaf evening
until I hear, coming toward me,
the voice of a thousand distant trumpets.
Or of some invisible archangel.

(“Evening Trumpet,” Boris Hristov)

Illustration:

Wow! We asked for an invisible archangel, and well… here he is. He may come at the end of the stanza, but he’s there. Wings are flying, and he himself is nowhere to be seen. Forgive me if the joke is out of place; the truth is I get a rather poetic image, one that is also in the spirit of Boris Hristov’s beautiful verses.

P.S. No trumpets?!

7. The night gives birth to… strange things

Prompt:

Night gives birth from a dead womb
to the slave’s age-old malice:
his crimson wrath—
majestic.

(“September,” Geo Milev)

Illustration:

Time for something much more “hardcore.” I wonder whether to try “September will be May” instead, from the same epic poem about the crushed uprising of 1923, but the time for seasonal metaphors will come soon enough.

Do we have a womb here? Obviously. The age-old malice, alas, can’t belong to the “slave” here either, because the algorithm bans that word too, and the “oppressed laborer” I replaced it with is apparently not as strong an association. At least I don’t see it in the picture. Which, nonetheless, steps into the stylistics of Symbolism.

8. August

Prompt:

August. The afternoon of the year.

(All Our Bodies, Georgi Gospodinov)

Illustration:

We have an idyll, we have a field of something like poppies… perhaps the metaphor within Gospodinov’s metaphor, which parades across Facebook every August 1, hasn’t been grasped all that deeply. Perhaps the sky leaves something to be desired too, but… it’s August, and the algorithm clearly needs a vacation.

9. Muncho time

Prompt:

That madman was the only man who dared to protest.

(Under the Yoke, Ivan Vazov)

Illustration:

Yes, this isn’t poetry. Yes, this isn’t Muncho, the village simpleton from Vazov’s great novel of the struggle against Ottoman rule. Yes, the algorithm wouldn’t let me write “madman.” Yes, the Patriarch, as Bulgarians call Vazov, the patriarch of their literature, wouldn’t recognize this illustration of the last sentence of his classic work.

But it’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

10. An unexpected and unwanted guest…

Prompt:

Sometimes I’ll come into your dream
like an unexpected and unwanted guest.
Don’t leave me outside on the road—
don’t bolt the doors.

(“Farewell,” Nikola Vaptsarov)

Illustration:

And it really does seem as if Vaptsarov is heading off somewhere, while in the hyper-sharp details of the foreground stands the knife hidden in every word of these otherwise gentle stanzas.

Our artist evidently has a soft spot for dramatic backs; who knows what it was trained on to pull this off.

We’re left to guess what exactly MidJourney understood from the poem, but as an illustrator it has done a creative job here.

10+ …on the guitar

Things have gotten a bit too serious and dramatic, so let’s not part on a melancholy note, what do you say?

For the finale, we leave the world of literature for a brief guest appearance among the memes. We all know who’s on the guitar today…

Prompt:

On the guitar, Vasko the Frog,
he’ll play, dear guests, just for you.
You’ll hear melodies, horo dances, folk songs,
Gypsy kyucheks, and all of them are easy.

Illustration:

Here he is—the hero of a cult Bulgarian internet meme, a wedding-band announcement promising round dances and belly-dance tunes. As you can guess, the strict restrictions meant I had to swap a word or two here as well, but Vasko… is undoubtedly him, to the delight of all his dear guests.

So, what do you think? Did MidJourney cope with the classic stanzas of Bulgarian literature?

In my view, one thing is certain—it opens up many new directions for reflection, including in the interpretation of the words it tries to understand in the role of a reader… And of an imaginer.

“Almost every child subconsciously sees their room as the safest place. That is where they express their innermost thoughts and hopes most purely,” says Sofia Simeonova. The young photographer has presented her exhibition The Room in You, which quite literally opens the door between generations.

Eighteen-year-old Sofia steps into the homes of her peers with her camera to show what their most personal place looks like—their own room. Most of them are strangers to her, and her only condition is that their little corner must not be specially tidied up for the photos, but look the way it does every day.

So what does the most personal space of young people look like today?

Thoughts Kept in a Room

As psychologist Ani Vladimirova says, one of our biggest problems as a society is the gulf between different groups, most clearly embodied by the one between generations.

This year Sofia finished high school. The idea for her project came at the end of two years of almost nonstop online learning, which turned out to be a serious challenge for students and teachers alike. “We were all spending so much time in our rooms, doing everything we used to do outside.” Around that time she came across the project of American photographer Adrienne Salinger, who in the 1990s went into young people’s homes to show their true, colorful nature, so different from the usual dry, idealized portraits.

The girl decided to show the same picture, only this time of her peers from the new millennium. Quite a few people quickly answered her call; she visited and photographed 16 rooms, and from them chose 32 shots for the exhibition.

“It was very interesting to enter the personal space of someone you don’t know, and for that to be your first meeting with them,” Sofia says. With every new meeting she became more convinced that a room truly expresses the character of the person who lives in it.

The Familiar Room

“Seeing how their story is reflected in the environment where they spend so much time made me realize once again how many things we put up as barriers and masks to protect ourselves from others. How rarely we manage to reach that deep point where a person is pure and real.”

Contrary to expectations, the rooms are not all that full of electronic devices. There are laptops and phones, but also… a surprising number of books. Of course, Sofia clearly stumbled upon an unrepresentative sample in that sense, but her ambition is to continue with a much wider circle of young people.

“The girls are tidier, while the boys go to one of two extremes—either total chaos or spotlessly clean, without a single unnecessary thing,” the photographer says. While it used to be fashionable to stick posters of singers and actors on the walls, today that is more of a vintage thing. What is fashionable, though, is putting up vinyl records—another interesting bridge between generations.

“The objects in the rooms are closely tied to people’s interests; nothing is there by chance. Books, incense sticks, flowers. One girl who plays in a band had three guitars, and each of them had a name,” Sofia says.

Stay in Your Room

In a month she leaves to study in France, where she will spend the first year learning the language, and in the second she plans to specialize in psychology. For her, photography is not an end in itself, but an attempt to get to know people and herself better.

And to look for the door between generations. Which often turns out to be precisely the door behind which parents are not allowed. Many of these doors bear signs like “Exit for Parents,” and perhaps her photos are a chance for fathers and mothers to peek inside.

To Sofia this is normal, because young people need freedom. She is grateful to her own parents “because they gave me a room where they never told me, ‘Don’t write on the wall, don’t stick that up.’ I had complete freedom to do whatever I wanted, and that helped me a lot to build a personal space that reminds me who I am and helps me grow as a person.”

Does she think her generation today knows how to talk to the previous ones?

“I don’t think so, and that is a big problem for society. Communication doesn’t happen, and in my view the problem starts in the family. Last summer I worked at a children’s camp and saw how often kids don’t feel comfortable sharing their problems and worries with their parents, because the parents somehow hold them back. Not that they are bad parents or treat them badly, but somehow they belittle their problems because they are children. That is exactly what often puts up walls that keep people from opening up. Communication, I think, is something extremely important for the bond between a child and a parent, and it helps with many other things in later life too—with socializing, with people, with friends.”

The Room in You

Through her lens Sofia captures many young people who this very fall will leave their rooms to fly out into the wide world and continue their education. “Many of them will part with their families and their homes, and for them this room will no longer be what it has been until now. And I’m glad I managed to do this for them—so that years from now they can see themselves from this point of view.”

“We spend time in our rooms, and they become a reflection of our true nature. Holding our memories, our individuality and our desires, they help us discover who we really are,” says Sofia.

Yes, we are all in a hurry. All of us faster and faster, yet we keep changing, we grow all our lives. And still, some things stay the same. Our childhood room, for instance, even if we come back a decade later. Or the quiet murmur of life that sends the next young ones off in flight. After that, all we can do is hope, believe in them, watch them fly… And try to talk to each other.

The exhibition runs until August 30, 2022. You can see it at the UniCredit Studio gallery (Sofia, 7 Sveta Nedelya Square).

– Maestro Todorov, we were introduced by… Facebook. You had commented on the digital story about how technology is changing the relationship between men and women. You wrote that “the future is already here while we are laughing. And as it arrives, humanity is leaving.” Is it really leaving?

– This is the biggest problem of our time, and the most frightening thing is that it is being killed by precisely what was supposed to help us most. I was firmly convinced that digitalization would make our lives so much easier that we would be able to pay more attention to human relationships. It turned out to be the exact opposite.

The worst example is social networks—their very name says their purpose is to keep us in social contact with other people. That was the case once; today they lock us into bubbles. Everyone surrounds themselves, sometimes deliberately, sometimes without a thought, with people who think alike. At some point they see that an awful lot of people reason the way they do, when in fact that is simply the circle they have built around themselves.

Because of the bubble, we convince ourselves far more of how right we are. As a result, when we run into a different opinion—whether online or in person—we become aggressive.

– The filter bubble is one of the big themes of Digital Stories. How can we get out of it?

– My solution is that whenever I clash with colleagues online, I always ask that we discuss the issue in a face-to-face meeting. Because eye to eye, a person is careful not only about what they say, but also not to offend the other. In the end, the aim of communication is not to hurt, but to get our way by persuading the other person. Or to be persuaded ourselves.

To meet opinions in a civilized way. Not attacks and hatred!

What Europe swore by until recently—tolerance—is being killed by the digital environment.

– Given that the business of the biggest corporations rests on exactly this… what is the way out?

– A way has to be found for people to start communicating with one another again. The piece we started with talked about how in Japan there are people who have taken robots as wives, live with them, take care of them.

It's important to think about why that is. Because these robots' programs are made that way. They learn from our behavior, and we get something we want, dream of and expect.

Communication with living people isn't like that; it is something completely different. I know it sounds absurd, but that is what we have to learn—to talk more with living people. We need more communication with each other. Not through social networks, not through emails.

– It seems the pandemic sank us even deeper into digital communication.

– It accelerated a process that would have happened without it. I see it in art, too. In classical music there is one ensemble that acts as the battering ram, leading the way while everyone else follows—the Berlin Philharmonic. Fifteen years ago it created a digital concert hall—a huge space with all kinds of music, with the best performances in the world. For a subscription, you can even hear all their concerts live. Covent Garden in London, the Met in New York and many others followed, including us.

We all knew things were heading that way, but slowly. At some point

the pandemic came, and then the digital environment saved us from going mad.

If this pandemic had happened 25 years ago, it would have been terrible; there would have been victims because of problems of this kind. Social networks and similar platforms for concerts and theater saved us.

On the other hand, I come back to the great danger—our bubbles. We gather with people we want to argue with and with those who think like us. And here comes the really big question—how to keep the balance between developing in this new direction and preserving what is human in us.

– Can art help us in the search for that balance?

– Why, it's the only thing that can help! I don't see anything else. Going to work certainly doesn't help. The idea of art has always been

to develop empathy, and that is exactly what we lack most today.

At the same time, going to concerts, theaters and exhibitions is a social activity, a way for people to meet. And not only with the friends they've been saying the same things to all their lives. You meet new people, you live through something together. Or you find others to argue with, why not? But in the end you are building human relationships.

Even now, in Europe, the States and Asia, art is saving the situation. While concerts were suspended, social tension in the US shot up. Now the halls are open and things are calming down.

Some time ago the police in New Zealand ran an experiment. In the big squares that are pedestrian zones, classical music was played quietly over loudspeakers. Within a year the number of crimes had dropped drastically. You'd never imagine that one could have anything to do with the other, but it is a fact that there is such a connection.

Art sometimes helps us accept this reality. Sometimes—survive in it without losing our minds.

– But now it is competing with the newsfeed. It's a very unequal battle—isn't it already lost?

– The newsfeed mostly gets on our nerves, but in terms of attention, yes, it is much more interesting. But this battle isn't lost; it only looks that way right now. I work in art, and still the newsfeed is interesting to me; I keep following what's happening. Only it frays my nerves, and at some point I need to go somewhere. Symphonic music doesn't calm me at the moment, because I take it in from a professional point of view. But I go to some museum, not even to look at things, but for the atmosphere. Museums I've been to a thousand times. It works!

The digital environment and art don't need to be set against each other. The future of art lies in the digital environment too.

– Because that's where our lives are.

– I don't want us to reach the point where we exist only in the digital environment. I want my living life too, the real, physical one. At the same time, my own online presence is very substantial, because I find it interesting and I like it.

These days I argue very rarely. At first it interested me; I even went out of my way to do it. I would pick some hot topic of the day, go to various forums and

choose two in which to defend the two extreme points of view.

I did it for myself, but I was also studying how people react. And I drew my conclusions from their reactions. When people aren't sure, they defend their position very aggressively. If they're convinced, they aren't nearly as aggressive, because they know they're right.

– But perhaps at some point the hate simply became too much for you?

– I'm used to hate. I've held leadership positions since 1995, and in that position you are forced to put up with hate. Even if you do something good for someone, somebody else will be offended that it wasn't for them. I have a job that has taught me to endure hate, and I can afford experiments like this from time to time.

On the one hand, I'm interested in seeing people's reactions, because they help me clarify my own view of the issue; on the other, it is a very good exercise to learn to defend positions you don't believe in. There used to be a whole art of this—rhetoric.

Orators were a phenomenal thing that no longer exists. People have grown used to saying everything in plain words.

And here the digital environment helps us, because it doesn't tolerate veiled moves; everything there has to be relatively clear in order to work.

I learned this the hard way. Years ago I wanted to build a website gathering every kind of information that interested me, on every possible topic. At some point it had become something monstrous. You could find everything about my hometown, about my favorite actors, about Vienna, which is an obsession of mine. In the end that site turned into an utterly useless monster, because when you pile up so many topics, none of them is covered with real professional depth. I shut it down, kept what I had collected and made a new site with focused information, so I'd know that anyone who came in would find only things that made sense.

In ordinary life, when you meet friends, you talk about this and that, but that is not how a social network works. There's one topic everyone fixates on, and in my view that's a problem, because it breeds aggression.

– That experiment of yours embodies what is happening to us purely in terms of information on the internet. We're flooded with information gathered from everywhere, and it's useless because we don't know how to sift it.

– Exactly. Back at the very beginning, when Wikipedia launched, I couldn't believe how popular it was getting. Then it became humanity's main database, even though it is actually written by random people. At one point some man from Ruse, a city on the Danube, had taken a dislike to me and regularly went into my biography to mock it. It would stay that way for a while, then someone would notice there was nonsense in it and change it back. And what happens with politicians? With all sorts of topics that are important or simply interesting, written about by people who don't understand them? I know a lot of people who draw information from there even for master's degrees and doctorates. That's insane!

In other words: information has replaced knowledge.

That's what the digital environment did. Another very dangerous thing is that information can be changed retroactively.

I remember, many years ago, Edvin Sugarev had declared a hunger strike. I set off from Plovdiv to Sofia early in the morning and bought Demokratsia, a leading daily of the time, at the bus station; the front-page headline read: “Edvin, stop!” But while I was traveling, he had already stopped, and they immediately changed it to “Edvin stopped!” Great, but I have both papers.

On the internet you change things as much as you like… That is very dangerous!

– How can we get back to knowledge?

– We don't value it; that's the whole problem. The issue isn't that it doesn't exist. We look for the easier way, and that is to open Facebook, see who wrote what and draw my conclusions from there.

The internet expanded the world immeasurably. And at the same time it created some false senses.

A false sense that we know. A false sense that our opinion matters. I find it so interesting to watch colleagues who write on social networks, comment and post statuses on every conceivable topic. They are firmly convinced that their opinion matters. Why? Because now I have the chance to write it, which wasn't possible until recently. And because there are people in our bubble who read it, comment on it, like it. We believe that what we think on a given topic is important. When in fact we may be writing complete nonsense.

We have to learn to tell the difference, that's all. To see that

one thing is a form of communication with people far away from us, but when the goal is to know something, this is not the place.

Depending on what a person is interested in, they can find their place. Finding sheet music for a given piece used to be a nightmare; now it's all in one place.

That is one half of the problem. For me, though, the bigger half lies in purely human relationships.

– You said art is the only salvation in this respect. Doesn't it seem to you that it's getting ever harder to draw the next generations to it?

– Yes and no. A young person can't imagine walking into the hall and listening to a symphony orchestra for two hours; it simply doesn't occur to them as a possibility.

But once you manage to “trick” them into it a single time, more than 80 percent of people like it and come back.

Because they discover it's something different. We humans are afraid of the unknown.

Things are changing. The pandemic helped, because most of the older people stayed at home and suddenly the hall filled up with bored young people. They came once, then started coming back; they found something they'd been missing.

We picture classical music as the equivalent of pop, rock or rap. But in itself it is a separate world with many genres. And if in your first encounter with it you land on something very remote from you, you decide classical music isn't for you and you delete it. But if you land on the right thing, you fall in love.

– I'll never forget how at school they took us to four-hour operas…

– That's exactly my own example. I've been involved in classical music since I was little; I should like such things. But when school took me to the opera for the first time,

I was so shaken that I didn't set foot in an opera house for 12 years.

I was doing music professionally, playing the piano and the trumpet, but when an opera singer started singing on the radio, I changed the station! I went to study in Vienna and everyone started asking me: “What's it like at the Vienna State Opera, is it interesting?” How could I explain that I don't go to the opera—embarrassing, I'm a musician!

In my second year I decided to buy one of the cheapest standing tickets, just to get in. To see the first act so I could say I'd been, and then leave. But I happened upon an extraordinarily emotional performance, the kind that destroys you from the inside. I didn't notice when it ended; I walked out sobbing.

What on earth possesses you to take a small child to the opera?!

It's the same with the concert hall. If you take a fourth-grader to hear Bruckner, you can immediately count it twice—as their first and last time in that hall. Bruckner is for people with life experience, and it's on that basis that they'll like it. Music for young people should be fast and rhythmic, and there are plenty of such works. Then they fall in love. But the big question remains that it is ever harder to hold their attention.

– It's a fact that we all skim and scroll now instead of reading. And this is changing us even as a species.

– Yes, I see it in young people, and in my daughter. They no longer go on Facebook but on Instagram, on TikTok. They get used to the next thing coming along; there is a constant exchange of mainly visual information. And for them

it is a constant flow of whatever is happening, not just of information, but of everything.

At some point, for such a person, reading a book sounds like science fiction, even watching a whole film. Let alone getting them into the opera house for a five-hour Wagner opera.

But it's not only the young. We can no longer hold our attention on anything for long. It's some kind of disease of the brain, which constantly seeks extra activity, for something to happen, to change. This is a problem we'll have to fight at one point or another. For me, it is a pathological condition.

It is a long, hard battle that sooner or later we'll have to take on. And not against someone else, but within ourselves. It's like the battle over food, over fast food—we know what's healthier, but we have little time. The same goes for information.

– Do you think artificial intelligence will one day be able to compose music?

– It can do it right now. Purely technically, composing music isn't hard if you master the rules. But to make it interesting to people, captivating, to make it move their emotions… For that

we would have to give artificial intelligence the ability to feel as well. And that frightens me.

I fear an algorithm that, on the one hand, can reason rationally and, on the other, experience emotions. Because rational thinking could bring it to the question: why is humanity needed? And the added emotional element could pull in the answer.

– Which brings us to that notorious moment of the singularity… And still, algorithms are stepping into many fields to replace us there.

– In art we won't be replaced.

– Yes, I think musicians are a precise argument for that. Machines have long been able to produce a perfect sound and play music flawlessly, yet we keep seeking the human performance.

– Absolutely! The emotion a human being can create, artificial intelligence cannot, because it doesn't understand it. How would you explain to it what emotion is?

A robot could play music perfectly, but that wouldn't make it well performed. The great pianist Vladimir Horowitz said: “If I've managed to play everything perfectly at a concert, then it wasn't a good one.” Perfection in performance doesn't always mean it's of a high standard.

– Just as a painting doesn't need to be hyperrealistic.

– If we want hyperrealism, we use a photograph. Artificial intelligence will never replace humans in art. Of that I'm sure. But in many other directions it can be an enormous support.

Medicine, for example—I believe it will lead to incredible breakthroughs there.

As for art… Every now and then they build robot conductors: it stands in front of the orchestra and conducts. And you watch it, it conducts perfectly. But things don't come together, because the musicians would have to follow it in the same way. Each has their own emotion, their own reaction, one person's thought runs faster, and a human conductor reacts accordingly. The robot, at least for now, can't do that. It does what it's supposed to, rather than reacting to the circumstances.

As we advance further, we'll have to redefine very precisely the very notion of “life.” A rabbi in Israel told me that the first description of how to create a robot is actually in the Bible. It is God who creates a biological robot in the form of Adam and Eve. And only afterward does he breathe the divine spark into them—that is the soul. I wonder how we will manage that step?

You are about to witness an incredible meeting between two remarkable photographers. One is called Ivaylo Petrov, and the other… is an artificial intelligence. How could the two of them possibly work together?

A few days ago I introduced you to DALL·E—the algorithm that shows impressive results in generating images from a short description. Progress in this field over the past few months has been considerable, and it is turning heads. For now, though, none of the projects in this area offer open access for us to experiment with; there are long waiting lists. This gives skeptics grounds to claim that the algorithms are nowhere near as impressive as they seem, because we are only shown hand-picked images.

But they really are already exactly as astonishingly good at their job as they seem.

Ivaylo Petrov is a photographer and digital artist with more than 15 years of experience. He has had three solo exhibitions, and his list of projects in portrait and advertising photography and 3D visualization is impressive. Just as impressive is his thoughtful approach to his work, which he writes about on his blog.

“I want to create worlds that couldn’t exist, but exist in my thoughts nonetheless,” he says.

And as luck would have it, for the past two weeks Ivaylo has been among the first people with the chance to test these much-talked-about algorithms. The project in question is Midjourney, the creation of a small, independent group of AI specialists.

How does the algorithm hold up under his professional and impartial eye? Are we ready for the AI breakthroughs that are already happening? Is this accomplished photographer afraid that algorithms may soon replace him?

– I happened to come across the “photos” the artificial intelligence generated from your ideas on Facebook. How did you get into this?

– I follow what’s happening in this field from a distance, but I had never really dug into it. In my head, the time when artificial intelligence would be able to create images always seemed far away.

In this profession

we work with a high level of abstraction, of metaphor, if you like, with conveying feelings and emotions.

So I wouldn’t have expected that software like this could exist here and now, in 2022. And it turned out I was very wrong.

I don’t follow Facebook much, but I happened to see that a friend of mine had written something on the subject, I got curious and started digging. It turned out to be software that had started becoming very popular literally a month earlier. It’s still in closed beta, but gradually more people are getting access. I was lucky enough to find an invitation.

– What impresses you most?

– My point of view is that of someone who makes pictures, not of someone who knows a lot about programming.

With this artificial intelligence you can visualize ideas and concepts extremely quickly, based purely on a text description and interpretation. In work like ours that is anything but easy. After all,

art photography is exactly this: thoughts flow through my head, I manage to organize them into words, and then I translate them into images.

Today the shooting itself is a small part of creating images; there’s a lot of 3D graphics and post-production. This AI manages to produce visualizations in an unprecedented way—it eliminates the layer of technical knowledge that used to be required.

Here the program is an interpreter of the text it is fed. Sometimes, building on your idea and your description, it heads off in a direction you didn’t expect and would never have thought of. Then you can dig into its suggestions, enrich them, add a nuance of your own. It’s an entirely new concept, for a completely different creative approach.

– So, in a way, you see this technology as the next natural step in the evolution of photography?

– Exactly. This technology is still at an early stage of development. But what shocks me is that it will remove yet another threshold of technical knowledge that used to be necessary for anyone to create an idea and convey it as an image.

If you look back through history, we have always been heading this way—in photography the trend is toward simplification, and that’s true of many other areas of life too. Who were the early photographers? Physicists and chemists who saw photography not as an artistic medium but rather as a technological innovation. To create images, they had to prepare very seriously.

Whereas now, with digitization and all the other processes of the last century, photography has become so democratic that absolutely anyone can grab their little mobile phone and instantly take a shot that’s “good enough.”

And this is the next step in that direction. Not even a step—a genuine revolution!

– From your professional point of view, how good exactly is this technology at the moment?

– Of course, it isn’t ready for strictly professional use. There are technological limitations, mostly to do with computing power. Midjourney in particular has a limit of about 2 megapixels on the output file. That will naturally change very quickly and dramatically; that’s the path every technology takes.

I did an experiment with a friend who plays “heavy” music and asked me to suggest a look for the cover of one of his projects. I decided to try it with the help of the artificial intelligence. He described what he was after: a feeling of the end of the world; a ship at the end of its life, left behind; an apocalyptic sky, darkness, depression… And a lonely figure absorbing that mood.

I passed on the description in detail, and the AI absolutely, 100 percent, gave me dozens of variations of such a scene, each of them good enough. As an experiment, I sent him seven or eight of the images and asked whether he liked any of them. He replied: “Duuude, they all work for me!” And I did that in 15 minutes.

Then we upscaled the image and prepared a finished design, but at that point it no longer held up technically. The ship had quite a few problems in the details that had to be fixed in post-production.

– Why are most of the AI-generated pictures you show so dark?

– The truth is that I’m the one to blame here, because that’s what I feed it. It really does visualize what you tell it. But a friend of mine also pointed out that AI-generated images in general tend to be like this. Most likely the reason is that

the neural network in question was trained on photos, paintings and posters from popular Western aesthetics. And those are always a bit edgier, darker, more confrontational.

So the AI is influenced right from the training process. But that doesn’t mean it can only create things like that. If you want something different, you have to tell it explicitly, very clearly, and be more detailed. I’ve done experiments like that too, and it really works.

– Does what you see make you afraid in any way that humans could become redundant in this whole creative process?

– This technology is definitely a revolutionary stage. But for now, I think we can see it more as an additional tool to incorporate into our work and our creative process. The author hasn’t been displaced in any way yet, and I don’t think that will happen soon.

At the same time, I notice something that I think is generally part of human nature, beyond artificial intelligence.

We tend to greatly overestimate the short-term effect of changes in our lives and greatly underestimate the long-term one.

I post my experiments with the algorithm on social media without editing them in any way. And I see that people sometimes react with prejudice. They are literally frightened by the short-term potential applications of the technology. I don’t think those are particularly scary, unlike the long-term ones. I think we are getting ever closer to the so-called singularity.

Everything is changing so fast, so intensely, that at some point we simply can’t predict what exactly comes next and where it will lead us.

I feel uncertain, more than anything, about where we’re heading, and if we can accept uncertainty as a kind of fear, then yes, I really am afraid.

– That’s true. The singularity seems like some unbelievable future, but you quickly lose your footing once you see algorithms like this one, which you imagined would arrive many years from now. And yet I sense enthusiasm in you too.

– Exactly. I’ve always taken that approach in life—I want to learn something new, try it out and use it to enrich the way I work. Always with the ideal goal of achieving something I couldn’t do before but that seemed important for me to “say.” That’s why I decided to explore what exactly the algorithm can do. It had been a long time since I’d touched something truly new. After years of creating pictures, at some point you learn the process well enough. And this is an entirely different logic.

The algorithm builds on words, descriptions, concepts that you feed it, and interprets them. More or less, that’s the same thing I do.

Lately I’ve been talking to a lot of people about this, and some of them are frankly scared; the knee-jerk reaction is “this is too weird for me.” I understand them perfectly. My enthusiasm comes from encountering something new. The feeling is very strange. I can’t say I have a very clear definition of what exactly is happening; rather, I’m

trying to get used to the thought of it and place it in some kind of context.

– Will algorithms like this change our attitude to reality, the way Photoshop once did?

– Photoshop is a good example. It came into widespread use in photography between 2003 and 2005, just as I was taking my first steps in the field. Older photographers were drastically negative about it, and over time it proved to be an invaluable tool, as long as you know how to use it competently. Today it’s an indispensable step in creating images, a huge, integral part of the process. Practically all photographers use it if they want extra creative freedom after they’ve taken the shot.

I believe AI will revolutionize the process in some way too. Because once this software advances, I think

we’ll start assuming by default that the images we see were made with its involvement.

Saying that something was generated by AI won’t sound shocking, the way it does today.

I think this will change the work of an awful lot of people across all kinds of industries, some of them drastically. And considerably sooner than I expected until recently. But that’s natural evolution!

– Do you think there will still be room for truth in this setup?

– Truth has always been an extremely subjective category. I constantly try to seek it out in one form or another, and I see that today it’s even harder. When you log in to a social network, an awful lot depends on what you’ve liked before and what they know about you in general, what caught your eye on other sites, whom you’ve been in touch with. All so the algorithm can determine what you want to see.

So if a person lets their mind be curated by these algorithms, the truth for them becomes fundamentally different from the truth for everyone else.

I think we really do live in a post-truth society, and

the best an individual can do is to know who they are and where they stand.

To hold on to that and make their decisions based on it… at least as far as they can.

Because if you look at what’s happening around the world…

truth is becoming such a fragile, even abstract, notion that this is exactly what frightens me. Even more than AI.

– The filter bubble and the way data shape the truth for each of us are topics I often write about in Digital Stories. And ultimately these problems arise precisely because of the development of artificial intelligence and the fact that we don’t weigh the long-term effects.

– It is a product of human thought. Just today a friend wrote to me that he doesn’t even consider this intelligence—and he’s a programmer who works with software like this and understands the technical details, unlike me.

Where exactly do we draw the line of intelligence? I honestly don’t know. But for now, AI can’t do anything on its own. It builds on purely human ideas, images and interpretations that it has been trained to recognize. And based on computing power

it can generate other ideas in other directions, which, however, etymologically and by definition stem from human consciousness.

As our computing power as a civilization grows, that will probably change. And I don’t know where it will go.

– While we wait for this singularity, what do you think is most important to teach artificial intelligence? Feelings, emotions, empathy?

– That’s very hard for me to answer. I think we humans have an awful lot to learn on these subjects. At least I say so about myself all the time. It would be cynical of me to comment on them with regard to something that is still a prospect for the future, given that I’m still learning them myself. Sorry I didn’t answer your question…