One Week Later: Seeing the Difference

 

I am writing this from Hillcrest Mall.

It has been one week since my left-eye cataract surgery. I have noticed a small improvement almost every day, and now the vision in my left eye is actually better than my right eye.

For an 80+ everyday AI user, this is another reminder that technology is only one part of life.

I spend a lot of time exploring AI, trying new tools, writing blog posts, and learning something new almost every day. But sometimes the most important "upgrade" has nothing to do with a computer.

It is simply being able to see more clearly.

After the surgery, I slowed down. I stayed home, rested, and gave my eye time to recover. My eye doctor checked me on Wednesday and said the recovery was going in the right direction. I was also told that I was fit to drive again.

Today, Julie and I are back at Hillcrest Mall.

I am not here to test my eyesight or accomplish anything important. We are simply enjoying being out together.

This is also part of my AI learning journey.

AI can help me write about life, organize my thoughts, listen to my own posts, and document my experiences. But AI cannot replace the experience itself.

I still have to go out, look around, walk, eat, talk with Julie, and enjoy the day.

Perhaps that is one lesson I have learned from using AI for the past couple of years:

Use AI to help document your life—but don't forget to live it.

Today, my left eye is a little clearer.

And so is my appreciation for an ordinary day.

— David, 80+ and still exploring → learning → documenting

I Tried Turning My Blog Post into a Video with Pictory — Here’s What Happened

 

 Yesterday, I had an interesting idea.

I had written a blog post on AI123.ca called “I Let AI Talk About My Own Blog — And I Was Blown Away.”

After writing about AI reading and talking about my own blog, I thought:

Why not let AI turn the same article into a video?

So I decided to try it.

This time, I used Pictory.

I wasn't trying to make a professional YouTube production. I simply wanted to see what would happen if I gave Pictory my blog post and asked it to turn the article into a video.

And the experiment turned out to be quite interesting.

I Started with My Blog URL

I opened Pictory and entered the URL of my article.

At first, I wasn't even sure whether it would work.

It did.

Pictory read the article and generated a video script from it.

I could see the script on the screen, along with several AI editing options such as Optimize, Rephrase, Shorten, Length, and Change Tone.

For the moment, I left the script alone.

I wanted to see what Pictory would do with my original article.

Then I clicked “Next: Video Preferences.”

Let AI Do the Work

Pictory gave me several choices.

For the visuals, I selected Auto Select.

For narration, I selected AI Voice.

Then I clicked Generate Video.

And I waited.

A few minutes later, the video was ready.

I was curious.

What would my little blog article look like as a video?

Then Came the Interesting Part

I previewed the video.

The AI voice was there.

The video had images and video clips.

Everything looked like a real video.

But as I watched, I noticed something.

The story didn't feel quite like my original article.

The individual shots were interesting enough, but they sometimes felt loosely connected. One scene would be followed by another, but the connection between them wasn't always obvious.

In other words, Pictory had made a video about the general subject, but I wasn't sure it had really captured the story I had written.

And that distinction caught my attention.

My original article was personal. It was about my experience of letting AI talk about my own blog and being surprised by what happened.

The video was more like a collection of visual scenes accompanying the subject.

That made me think.

But I Don't Want to Judge Too Quickly

I'm not writing this post to tell you that Pictory is good or bad.

That would be too easy.

I only tried one article.

I used the automatic visual selection.

I used the AI voice.

I didn't spend time adjusting individual scenes or rewriting the script.

Someone else might use the same tool differently and get a much better result.

Maybe the automatic version is only the starting point.

Maybe with some editing, the story could become much stronger.

Or perhaps another type of article would work much better with this kind of automatic video creation.

I don't know.

And that's exactly why I found the experiment interesting.

What I Really Wanted to Find Out

My question wasn't:

“Can Pictory make a video?”

Obviously, it can.

My question was:

“Can AI take something I wrote and turn it into a video that still feels like my story?”

That's a much more interesting question to me.

Because as someone who enjoys writing, I don't simply want words converted into moving pictures.

I want the idea, feeling, and story to survive the journey from writing to video.

Maybe that requires more human involvement.

Maybe AI will get better at it.

Maybe both.

So What Do You Think?

I'm sharing my experiment because I think many of us are going to face this question more often.

AI can now write.

AI can read.

AI can speak.

AI can create pictures.

And AI can turn an article into a video.

But how much of the original human story survives when AI does most of the work?

I have my own thoughts after watching my video.

But this time, I won't give you my conclusion.

I'd rather let you try it yourself.

Take one of your own articles, put it into an AI video tool, watch the result, and see what you think.

Maybe you'll be impressed.

Maybe you'll be disappointed.

Or maybe, like me, you'll find the experiment itself more interesting than the final video.

And that, I think, is one of the most enjoyable things about experimenting with AI.

We don't always know what we're going to discover until we try.