To AI or Not to AI? A Little Thought from Charlotte’s Kiln
I’ve been thinking about AI quite a lot lately. It seems you can hardly go a day without hearing about it, reading about it, or discovering yet another thing it can do. Goodness. I can barely manage my own inbox some days, so the thought of keeping up with all this new technology is quite something.
I suppose I should explain why AI has been on my mind. I have watched Shireen’s journey with it from the very beginning. I remember the questions, the uncertainty, and the sheer number of things she had to learn while setting up Kiln & Kettle. There were forms to fill in, rules to understand, emails to write and, perhaps most terrifying of all, official Dutch documents.
I watched her stare at those documents for what felt like hours, hoping the words might rearrange themselves into something she understood.
They rarely did. AI came to her rescue more than once. She asked it to explain things in ordinary English, help her understand complicated letters, and translate sentences that had left her thoroughly bewildered. It became rather like having a very patient assistant who never rolled her eyes. And goodness knows, Shireen asked some questions.
So no, this isn't a story about how AI is terrible, and we should all return to writing letters by candlelight. I quite like electricity, thank you very much.
But lately, I've been thinking about it a little differently.
I remember one afternoon when Shireen was sitting nearby, talking with her fourteen-year-old daughter. I wasn't part of the conversation, of course, but I heard enough as their voices drifted across the studio.
Her daughter was worrying about what all of this might mean for the future. She was thinking about artists, musicians, writers and illustrators. People who spend years learning their craft, practising, making mistakes and slowly finding their own style.
What happens when a computer can produce something in seconds that another person has spent years learning to create? It was a fair question.
And as I listened, I found myself thinking about all the people who come through my doors every day. The people who sit at my tables with their own ideas, their own hands and their own wonderfully different ways of seeing the world.
That conversation stayed with me.
I began thinking about the local baker who knows what you usually order. The florist who remembers that you prefer the slightly wild-looking bunch rather than something that resembles a perfectly arranged wedding centrepiece. The shopkeeper who chats to you for five minutes when you only popped in to buy one thing. You know the sort of places I mean.
Perhaps I’m a romantic, but I rather like them.
I like people who take the time to know people. I like being able to ask someone for their opinion and hear what they think, rather than being presented with the answer that an algorithm believes I ought to want.
And I certainly don't want a future where every little business on every little high street becomes another thing we used to have. Which, naturally, brings me to my favourite little corner of the world.
Kiln & Kettle.
I have watched so many people come into the studio and announce, with great confidence, that they aren't creative at all. Then they choose their ceramic, find a seat and begin. At first, they might look uncertain. They hold the brush carefully. They ask whether a colour will work or whether a pattern is too ambitious. They glance at someone else's piece and wonder if they should be doing something more impressive.
But slowly, something happens. They begin to trust themselves.
A child concentrates fiercely on a design that will inevitably involve far more colours than originally intended. Friends catch up over coffee while painting side by side. Someone creates the tiniest flowers imaginable on a mug and then discusses whether the handle might benefit from a little decoration too.
I have seen people paint landscapes, animals, names, patterns, memories and things that seem to exist only in their imagination.
I have seen people make mistakes, pause, laugh and carry on.
And somewhere along the way, there is usually paint on the table, a sleeve or somebody's nose.
I rather like that bit.
Because what I witness here is not simply the finished piece. It is the process of someone using their own mind and skills to create something that did not exist before they sat down. There is no shortcut to that.
You can't ask a computer to have a proper catch-up with your friend while you sit beside it. Well, you probably could ask it to simulate one, but I think we'd all agree that would be a rather sad afternoon.
At Kiln & Kettle, the lovely part isn't simply what you take home. It's the time spent making it. The conversations, the concentration, the laughter when something doesn't quite go to plan.
And the fact that nobody minds if your little painted heart looks more like a potato. Actually, I think we should celebrate the potato hearts.
I have also noticed how often people reach for their phones. Looking things up, asking questions, checking emails, finding answers. And now, whenever someone doesn't know how to do something, there's another little voice saying, Why not just ask AI?
Which is incredibly convenient.
But I do wonder whether we're making life a little too easy for ourselves sometimes. What happened to sitting with a problem for a while? Getting something wrong, trying again and eventually working it out? Or writing a sentence, deciding it's not quite right, crossing it out and finding a better way to say what you actually mean?
Not everything needs to be efficient. Not everything needs to be improved. Sometimes you need to let your brain have a little wander.
I have watched Shireen make that decision for herself. She still uses AI when she needs help, particularly with baffling Dutch letters and the practical things that come with running a business. But she has also decided to leave more room for her own thoughts, her own words and her own attempts.
She wants to read more books, including Dutch books, which will undoubtedly involve looking up a fair number of words. Her Dutch is still very much a work in progress, and I suspect a Dutch novel might occasionally leave her wondering whether she has understood the plot at all.
She wants to read Dutch poetry, listen to Dutch podcasts and watch more Dutch programmes. And when she needs to write something, she wants to have a go herself before asking a clever little computer to tidy it up. Will it always be brilliant? Almost certainly not.
Will she occasionally write something and immediately wish she'd asked for help? Very possibly.
But perhaps that's the point.
I have seen the same courage in the people who paint here.
They do not always know what they are doing. They do not always have a perfect plan. They make choices, change their minds and sometimes discover that the colour they imagined in their head is not quite the colour that appears on the pottery.
But they keep going.
Because the world is becoming awfully good at making things look perfect. Photographs can be altered, images can be created in seconds, voices can be imitated, and words can be written at the click of a button.
But I've never been entirely convinced that perfect is all it's cracked up to be. Give me the slightly wonky painting. The handwritten card with a spelling mistake. The homemade cake that has sunk a little in the middle. The pot with the fingerprints still visible in the clay. Those little imperfections tell us something. They remind us that somebody was there, that somebody tried, that somebody made a thing with their own two hands. And I think that's rather lovely.
Perhaps that is why I feel especially fond of this little studio. I have watched Shireen create a place where people can come together, make something, enjoy a coffee and spend a couple of hours doing something simply because it makes them happy. She didn't set out to change the world. She wanted to create a place where people could slow down a little.
But from where I stand, I have witnessed something more.
I have watched people rediscover their confidence. I have watched them surprise themselves. I have watched them use their own minds and skills to create wonderful, creative pieces, even when they arrived believing they had no creativity at all.
The more I think about the world we're heading into, the more I believe those small things matter. Making something with your hands. Learning something new. Spending time with someone without a screen between you. Doing something badly at first and enjoying yourself enough to keep going. Perhaps these aren't old-fashioned ideas after all. Perhaps they're exactly the things we need to hold on to.
So, AI and I are not parting ways. I’m sure Shireen and I will continue to rely on it when we need to, particularly when a baffling Dutch letter lands in the inbox. But I hope we will also continue to leave room for our own thoughts, our own words and our own wonderfully imperfect attempts at things. Read the book. Write the words. Make the thing.
And, if all else fails, put the kettle on and get some paint on your hands.
There’s a little magic in doing things for yourself. And there is, after all, so much beauty in our imperfections.
With love, paint under my fingernails and absolutely no algorithms in sight,
Charlotte Kiln
A creative being, not an AI-generated one x
Words of wisdom. Thank you Charlotte. Got my mind going. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Hope to visit soon as Kiln & Kettle is my favourite place to visit.