Dog lover Jamillah Knowles is on a mission to change the way that people see artificial intelligence but where will her drawings, and her love of math, take us?

Hi I'm Dhruti Shah, and this is my podcast Have You Thought About. I'm a writer, journalist and poet. I love to find out about what interests people chase after in life, and also how they manage to blend together these passions in unusual ways. In each edition, I'm going to chat with someone I find particularly interesting and who's been able to fit things together in their life or

Before we were working together, I was working in radio working on Radio Five Live, and I was working on a programme then called Pods and Blogs, and then changed up after that to Outriders and interviewing loads and loads of people in technology. And so I was obviously very curious about what they were doing, how they were doing it. I dabbled in a bit of code. My dad taught me

But how did you even know what artificial intelligence was, to go and study it back in the day? Now, it's discussed a lot, but I remember talking to you about it way back when and I was like, what is going on? This person is clearly a polymath; is clearly intelligent. But what are they actually doing?

Well, thank you. I'll take all of that hype as a recording from my ringtone. It was just interesting to me, it was in the things that I was reading, and the stuff that I was interested in. Like, as a teenager, I was really interested. And I loved Wired Magazine back then. And it was, to be honest, it was kind of expensive, because I think they only had the American

Dogs are allowed, we like dogs, because it could be that dogs come as part of this 'have you thought about'. Dogs are more than welcome. But let's go back to funding and AI and dogs can join.

Dogs can join. Come here. It was going through a bit of a dip, I think but I was curious. And I could see that some people were interested in like developing it. And it's kind of a cool subject, like if you're into computer science. Anyway, it's one of those subjects that has a huge philosophical element as well. And we're still sort of arguing about that today, when we look at

You don't just look at things in isolation. And again, that's what I love about you, and how we, I think, in a way became friends, because you have this interest in artificial intelligence, but you're using it in a very unusual way.

Again, I think through a lot of stuff comes back and forth. And I have to say, also, I think you think of things in unusual ways, too. And that's probably why we're we're friends. There's always a different voice, a different angle, something else to look at. My first degree I dropped out of, and I did Fine Art History of Art and Film. And it just, I mean, it didn't gel with me

But how do you actually follow that path? Because, you know, how do you get it out of your brain onto paper or the screen? I mean, can you give us a little bit of snippet into your brain?

I can try. I suppose you get you get used to learning about things. I think familiarity is important when it comes to drawing some things for me particularly things that are I mean, technology like AI, and also say quantum computing is somewhat opaque if not invisible, so you don't get to see how it works entirely unless you I mean you for programming it, you will see some of how

But do you use old school methods to work on these new school methods? Like, can you give us a little bit of an example so that somebody who's listened to this can be like, Oh, actually, maybe this is something that I don't have to be scared about, that I can actually think about, too.

I mean, I recommend everybody have a think about things, think about scary things. It doesn't have to be AI. If you think about things and you learn about things, then they're not as scary as you thought they weren't no matter what that is. Knowledge, I think makes us a little bit more empowered. But you know, for me it is it kind of starts with the reading. And I think if you are

On a day-to-day basis. We are interacting with AI even if you don't realise it, that's pretty much what you seem to be saying. And blimey, that's an understatement. But that's what I'm giving you right now. Because it's like a blimey moment. I hadn't thought about that at all. For you, though, it's not just purely about AI and illustration you doing a lot of different types of

Different artists will obviously approach things in different ways, some very clear style that they will use and apply to lots of different subjects. And I find that really admirable because I'm not quite there yet. Like I'm still busy playing as you say there's a lot to learn. But sometimes it's down to what kind of image am I making. So I'm working on a project at the moment

I'm just going to bring something in because again, this is about 'have you thought about' and often we end up in little rabbit holes. So a few years ago, I wrote a piece, which was probably the first embroidery related piece I'd ever written. And that was for the BBC News website. And it was about a woman who had spent much of her life creating a very interesting chair. But

I mean, I told quite a few people I was, you know, an art student and a writer. And I think I had convinced myself over a number of years, that I couldn't do maths. And you know, when you tell yourself the same thing over and over again, you believe it, you know, you don't, you don't always need someone else to tell you, you can't do something, you can be busy doing that. And

there's a lot of mathematics in the world. And the more I did it, I actually found it quite reassuring. Like you'll understand as a poet and a writer, the rules of writing and poetry, I think I'm not I'm not a poet, can be flexible. They can, they can mean very different things to the reader, to the writer, to an audience. Over time, they'll change. And it's very flexible. The reassuring thing I

But it's interesting that you say that because on one hand, you're talking about these rules and having those rules but a lot of the things we've discussed, we're talking about things that evolve like going back to the AI yes, there's rules, but you're breaking barriers. So you're a person of contradiction here, I think.

I don't think a life without contradiction is a bit, it's probably going to be a bit dull. Like it's just going to be expected, isn't it? There's not going to be any surprises. Things change. And you know, it's a contradiction to live, you know, a couple of decades going I can't do maths, I'm not interested in maths, maths is rubbish, what a horrible thing to do. And even

It feels like you're not afraid to start over in order to perhaps take a few steps backward in order to move forwards. How do you get over any sense of ego because you are very good at the things you do do, there is no question of that. Once you get your head into something, I'm not saying you are perfect everything, but there are certain things you are good at, you can't take that

You do have to get over yourself. And, you know, we do all get to a stage, I think, where we think, okay, I know a bunch of stuff. I know stuff, it's okay. But obviously, there's a tonne of stuff we don't know, even about our specialist subjects. You know, I think in, in doing the computer science degree and focusing on AI, the AI stuff was like the new frontier that I didn't

Again, because you're sparking clearly some neurons in the brain at the moment, when you just said about having too many fingers, some of the things that are coming around around visual, and perhaps the AI usage is where images perhaps aren't quite human enough. And they have got too many teeth, or too many fingers. And again, with the pair of us, one of the other commonalities that

That's a tough and big question. I know, colleagues that worked with Better Images of AI, were asking things like, how can you tell that this image is AI generated? And so that is a learning experience of critiquing stuff? Because sometimes you can just look at stuff and go, Yeah, I definitely like it's definitely you know, AI generated. But other times, it's not about whether

But you still think there's a space for the labour of a person who's or maybe an animal because some animals also draw we will not forget about such creatures that does such things. I was thinking about elephants then for some reason. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Elephant paintings are intriguing, too. I think it's down to the individual. I think it's down to our own tastes. I know people who don't like, I don't know, big abstract paintings that don't seem to have a lot of detail in them because you get the usual, to be honest, slightly boring critic. They're like, Oh, my six year old could do that. And I'm like, Well, okay, but what

And that was the wonderful Jamillah Knowles who brings together artificial intelligence, illustrations and the beauty of maths. Do you have an interdisciplinary life because I would love to hear from you. Perhaps we can chat on this podcast that goes with my newsletter, which is called Have You Thought About. It can be found via www.dhrutishah.com. Please do join me next time for this