Resources

Readings 

• Speculative Everything (Chapter 1) — Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby, 2013
• The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction — Ursula K. Le Guin, 1986

• Anatomy of an AI System: The Amazon Echo as an Anatomical Map of Human Labor, Data and Planetary Resources — Kate Crawford & Vladan Joler, 2018 (website)
  
• Do Artifacts Have Politics? — Langdon Winner, 1980
  
• Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts — Bruno Latour, 1992
  

• The Real World of Technology (Ch. 1–2 ) — Ursula Franklin, 1990
  
• Something Is Wrong on the Internet — James Bridle, 2017 (original blog post)
  

AI Tools 

• RunwayML - cinematic AI video
• Moonvalley AI - cinematic AI video 
  
• Midjourney - concept, moodboards, moving image
  
• Kling AI - good for characters 
  
• Google Veo 3 - short high quality video clips (1 year free for students), use within Gemini
  
• Google Veo 3.1 - API access
  
• Haliuo AI (MiniMax) - low cost, lower quality AI video 
  
• OpenAI Sora 2 - narrative and concept videos 
  
• Adobe Firefily Video - included with CC 
  
• Pika Labs - fast, socials 
  
• Luma Dream Machine - quick iteratioins, potentially less realistic
  
• InVideo - text to video 
  
• Higgsfield AI - emerging AI video, keep an eye on it 

• Midjourney - quick, high quality image generation and editing 
• Google Nano Banana - Gemini Image model (use in Gemini chat)
• OpenAI Image - GPT 40 image/DALLE successor. Use in ChatGPT -> Images 

• ComfyUI - reach out to me for tutorials. Needs pretty good computer to run it locally, ideally with GPU power.

• Fuser - More user friendly, web-based 

• Suno v5 - best overall for complete songs with vocals; stem editing 
  
• Udio - highest audio realism with lots of controls 
  
• ElevenLabs - best for voice, narration, and TTS
  
• ProducerAI - conversational music agent; runs on Lyria 3 + Gemini
  
• Google Lyria 3 - Google's flagship music model; use directly in Gemini 
  
• Stable Audio 2.5 - enterprise sound design 
  
• ACE-Step - open source, diffusion-based full song generation with vocals
  
• AIVA - orchestral and cinematic scoring
  
• Mubert - background music; targeted toward reactive audio and content creation
  

Miscellaneous Tools or Apps 

• Natural Reader App - this is an app that uses AI TTS (text-to-speech) to read documents out loud. The voices are very natural and you can follow along on each page in the app. It’s currently the best option for this service that I’ve tried. It is free to download, but you’ll need to upgrade to a paid subscription to read longer texts ($20/mo). 

• Freesound - community-driven database of sounds and samples, free with attribution
• BBC Sound Effects Archive - 16,000+ effects, free for educational/personal use
• ZapSplat - 100k+ free SFX and music; requires free account
• 99Sounds - free high-quality sample packs
• Epidemic Sound - professional sound library; premium, listen-only without subscription
• Earth.fm - free nature soundscapes, streamable and downloadable
• Free Music Archive - curated royalty-free music across genres
• Extreme Music - professionally produced catalog for film, TV, and ad licensing