As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links about once a month here on my blog. This post includes links related to AI slides and PowerPoint tools, AI images and art, recommendations for using AI effectively, and a tool for filtering your LinkedIn feed.
AI slides and PowerPoint tools
PPT AI
I don’t know if this is “the world’s best AI PPT maker” like they claim, but the idea is interesting. Enter your text or upload a file and set some variables for the audience, tone, etc. It generates slides for you. I’m sure it needs editing and iteration like all AI tools, but this looks like it might help speed up the process of creating slides or give you some inspiration. There’s a limited free plan to test it, but unfortunately I’m getting errors and can’t sign up right now.
Beautiful.ai
AI-designed templates and slide designs to speed up the process of creating presentations and get more variety in your slide designs.
Autoppt
Upload your slides or documents and get AI-designed slides based on it. This might be worth trying, at least for inspiration on slides if you’re having trouble coming up with something more interesting than bullet points.
AI images and art
In Defense of AI Art — Craig Boehman
Craig Boehman responds to the criticisms of AI art from his perspective as an artist while sharing examples of his work and notes on the tools he used to generate and refine his art.
If you’re an artist and using AI in whole or in part to create your art, do you think someone “off the street” is going to employ AI and create something better than you, a seasoned pro? Consider for a moment the smartphone camera. “Anyone can take pictures these days, photography isn’t art”. A photographer with a smartphone could surely do better, right? The differences between an average smartphone user and what a professional photographer can do with a smartphone are potentially as vast and wide as the Grand Canyon.
“The fear has sometimes been expressed that photography would in time entirely supersede the art of painting. Some people seem to think that when the process of taking photographs in colors has been perfected and made common enough, the painter will have nothing more to do.” — Henrietta Clopath, 1901
—Craig Boehman
Directing Perspective: Changing Camera Angles with AI (Nano Banana + Midjourney). PART 2
Tips for changing the camera angles in images with Nano Banana (Gemini). I have struggled to get these kinds of variations in Gemini, but these prompts might help.
Recommendations for using AI effectively
An Opinionated Guide to Using AI Right Now
Ethan Mollick’s recommendations on which AI models to use depending on your usage. Free LLM models are OK for some uses, but he notes where the limitations mean that you’ll get better results with paid models. For free image generation, I agree that Gemini is probably the best all-purpose free tool.
Filter your LinkedIn feed
LinkOff – Filter and Customizer for LinkedIn™ – Chrome Web Store
While I’ve found it helpful to unfollow people on LinkedIn who regularly share content I don’t want to see, this browser extension offers much more filtering than is possible in LinkedIn natively. If you want to skip whatever outrage is the flavor of the minute on LinkedIn, this has keyword filtering and other options. (Thanks Mike Stein!)
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