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Code as Medium
2.9 Refine the System

Session 2 · AI Art Crafting · Lesson 09

Refine the System

Return to the workflow you chose. Refine its rule and input. Adjust feedback behavior. Simplify — remove before you add. Midpoint check: what is your system privileging, and what is it erasing?

Concept

  • Refinement means removal more often than addition.
  • Privileging and erasing are the system's real content.
  • Ask where authorship is located now — and what changes if it runs longer.

What is your system privileging — and what is it erasing?

Slides

  1. 16

    Midpoint Check-In

    • What is your system privileging?
    • What is it erasing?
    • Where is authorship located now?
    • What changes if it runs longer?
  2. 17

    Student Practice: Refinement

    • Refine rules and inputs
    • Adjust feedback behavior
    • Simplify structure
    • Strengthen conceptual claim

Student activity

20:00
  1. 01Re-run your chosen workflow and simplify one element — remove, don't add.
  2. 02Answer the midpoint check-in below: what does your system privilege, and what does it erase?

Output becomes new input · Repetition produces drift · Drift reveals system bias.

  1. 01Choose a seed image

    Pick one photograph from your archive — the loop starts there, and it is the only image you choose. Good seeds have a clear subject plus some ambiguity for the loop to chew on. Nothing is uploaded here; the image goes straight into the chat.

  2. 02Build your loop prompt

    How many times the loop runs. Three is enough to see drift.

    One detail the loop should report on every round.

    Your loop prompt

    You are one half of a feedback loop. I will upload a seed image. Round 1: describe the image in two or three plain sentences — only what is there, no interpretation. Then generate a new image from your description, exactly as written. Every following round: describe the image you just generated, then generate again from that new description. Run three rounds. After each round, add one line noting what changed from the round before. Do not improve, correct, or stabilize the drift — the drift is the material.

  3. 03Run it in one ChatGPT thread

    ChatGPT

    Multimodal chat with a free tier. The workshop's default interpreter — give it an image and it will describe, read, and re-read what it sees.

    Not started

    Open ChatGPT, upload your seed image, paste your loop prompt, and let every round run in the same thread — the thread is the loop. If it stops early, reply "next round".

    Open in new tab(opens ChatGPT in a new tab)

    External tool — it has its own privacy policy and may change or require an account.

Read the drift