EIDOS is a quarterly literary journal and weekly podcast edited by Ira Gardner. The production of EIDOS incorporates the very latest AI technology to generate content that is based 100% on the actual research done by its human editor. The content of EIDOS is founded upon Ira’s 35 year career as a professional photographer, documentary filmmaker, gallery show curator, and teacher at the college level.
Publication Intent
The fundamental concept behind EIDOS is the exploration of creative thinking, critical thinking and information literacy as a means of gaining more personal agency in a technologically driven culture.
Analog tools were neuro-biological extensions of the human body. First came the shovel, and then came the excavator. Digital tools are the neurobiological extension of the mind. First came the analog tools of books and libraries with card catalogs and the Dewey decimal system, next came digital tools of computers, databases, the internet, search engines, and hyperlinks. We now have Large Language Model AI platforms like Chat GTP, Claude, and Gemini that incorporate associative linking and probability. The trajectory for these digital tools can be traced back to 1945 with the work of scientist Vanneevar Bush and Norbert Wiener.
We are at a crossroads of technical and cultural evolution that is likely to be as great or greater than the shifts generated by Gutenberg’s press and the Internet. It is a technological renaissance; as well as a cultural disruption.
Media Theorist Doug Rushkoff describes a renaissance as a rebirth of old ideas in a new context. Unlike a revolution, which seeks to create something entirely new, a renaissance involves retrieving valuable, pre-industrial human values and applying them using new tools and perspectives. This is exactly what EIDOS is seeking to do.
We are investigating historic and contemporary ideas about art, philosophy, technology and culture to gain insight on how to navigate this period of technological disruption that will reshape the next generation of the world.
However, it is important to note that we are seeking to present these ideas without a bias beyond what is inherent to any curated work. In the case of the curation of topics for EIDOS we are revealing a bias towards personal agency through artistic expression and clear intentionality.
Controversy over Artificial Intelligence
Anything truly new will be controversial. The impressionist art movement was born out of controversy and the rejection of artists by the Paris Salon. The Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc. held their first exhibit in the Paris studio of a photographer named Nadar because they were rejected by the pre-existing Paris salon gate-keepers of the art world.
In the case of EIDOS, the use of AI technology to create content for the podcast and printed journal will immediately divide the room between those who support the use of this technology and those who decry its ethical shortcomings.
For our editor Ira Gardner, the decision to use AI resembles his earlier adaptation of computer technology. Back in the 1980s He subscribed to computer magazines long before using one. He researched the new technology and then learned how to program them.
When the internet became publicly accessible he did the same and eventually launched a database software company that took advantage of being able to connect directly with clients over the TCP/IP protocol. Customer Relationship Management Software like the kind Ira developed revolutionized how business operates.
When Adobe Photoshop came out Ira became an early adopter of digital photography technology. By 2001 the handwriting was on the wall that still photography cameras were going to become hybrid video cameras so he pivoted from still photography back to documentary filmmaking which he hadn’t done since the days of ¾ inch video tape systems.
Ira has used this same process with AI. He has been tracking its development, listening to podcasts, reading reviews, and studying how to use it in a valid way. As a creative photographer and writer Ira wasn’t alone in feeling threatened by Artificial Intelligence, especially generative AI content. He supported the writers union strike in Hollywood..
Over the past 18 months we have witnessed the same fever level interest and investment over AI technology as the original dot.com internet era. History watched as Amazon revolutionized e- commerce by starting out with an online book store.
While there was the inevitable burst of the economic bubble;tThe internet, along with its derivative e-commerce and social media platforms has penetrated every facet of society. Technology disrupts and changes the world.
Two years ago our editor sat on a fireplace hearth in a living room onThanksgiving morning having a conversation with an AI developer from Seattle. It became clear to him this genie was already out of the bottle and it was here whether he personally liked it or not. To resist it felt like he would be like the lone protester in Tianamen Square facing a line of tanks. As Ira thought about this he also thought about the tank driver who had the courage to stop the tank.
Ira decided that he couldn’t stop the technological progress of industry but he could drive it in a better direction by using it as a means towards generating critical content for education and illumination..
15 years ago Ira attempted to launch EIDOS for the same reasons he is doing so now. Ira could see a technological revolution coming and he could see the need for media literacy in a world where we are bombarded with visual imagery designed to incite specific attitudes and behaviors.
The power of the image can be seen by the way political campaigns and commercial ad campaigns are designed.
Ira was extremely proud of his first print edition but quickly realized that he did not have the bandwidth to succeed at the quality level it needed without having significant capital to hire a staff of editors and content creators. A mentor of his who Ira had deep respect for didn’t even read the first issue before telling him he needed more people involved. The criticism stung at the time but quickly realized he was right.
This has all changed. The technology has finally arrived that can make this project possible at the scale he has bandwidth for.
How the Sausage gets made at EIDOS
The process for creating content for this podcast and journal incorporates a hybrid of purely human created content using analog and digital photography tools and Generative AI content.
EIDOS publishes original essays, poems, photographs, and other visual arts created by humans. EIDOS also publishes content that has been put through an editing process within the GEMINI AI platform.
Much of the podcast content is generated by passing multiple human researched source materials and human written essays, into the GEMINI NotebookLM platform. Notebooklm creates synthesized summaries and podcast discussion source material in a concise and clear way. Ira also uses Notebooklm to generate video summaries that are sometimes used as scripts for introductions to a podcast episode followed by the discussion because these overviews are much shorter and often offer a very clear and concise overview about the topic of discussion.
If Ira is happy with the quality of the voice he will use the audio as is, but often he will take a transcription of the introductory script and bring it into Elevenlabs to generate a voiceover narration. For some episodes like this one, Ira will draft the opening intro manually and have that transformed into an audio file in Eleven Labs using a synthesized voice.
Autonomy of the Idea
You might be wondering why Ira doesn’t just read and record his own voice or bring in a co-host to discuss the material. The simple reason is this: Generative AI voice and image content serves as a paratext for the ideas he is exploring. In this podcast, Ira is not interested in the “performance” of his own personality. He is interested in the autonomy of the idea.
By using synthesized voice over narration EIDOS is attempting to remove the traditional personality host in order to allow the IDEA to be centerstage. Besides that Ira hates the sound of his own voice and he makes these episodes for his own personal enjoyment as well as for sharing with you.
As to why we use a synthesized conversation instead of having a co-host goes back to the pedagogical goals of keeping the conversation as clean and concise as possible without the distractions of host personalities. Far too many podcasts with strong personality hosts devolve into personal banter and the intent of the conversation is lost.
EIDOS is seeking extreme clarity and efficiency in the spirit of the bauhaus movement. We will try to keep the length of most of the episodes to under 20 minutes so they can be listened to within a typical work commute drive.
Data Verification:
All of the content is curated and verified by Ira Gardner and goes through a data validation protocol that is posted on our website. All content originates with manually gathered research materials. No source material is generated by AI.
The Use of Generative AI Imagery
Each episode or essay is illustrated with a Computer Generated Image that is based upon Ira’s specific ideas that he has transformed into Prompts. As a filmmaker who is accustomed to manually generating shot lists and conveying his mental image of a script into a set of visual instructions that identify camera angle, focal length, lighting, actor blocking and camera staging, as well as storyboards for a film crew, Ira is able to bring these same set of skills to the generation of prompts that yield highly customized imagery.
You may notice that the majority of these CGI images illustrations have a style that resembles the Baroque period of painting. This is an intentional homage to the historic connection between the use of the camera lucida and camera obscura in painting that stimulated the development of candid scenes that appear photo-realistic by painters like Vermeer and Velázquez.
When looking back at these paintings we see the beginning of what would become defined as a photographic image with its high contrast graphic quality or in more contemporary terms a cinematic image whose lineage can be traced from Caravaggio to Edward Hopper to contemporary filmmakers like Wes Anderson.
Transparency and Labeling
In an effort for transparency, all content posted on this website after 12/31/2025 will be attributed in the following manner.
Written Essays
- Essays 100% written and edited by human will be attributed with: Written by with the author’s name
- Essays containing original human research that is edited with the help of AI will be attributed with: Edited by as opposed to Written by
- Essays created with wording generated by both AI and Human Authors will be attributed with: Co Authored by Ira Gardner & Gemini AI
Podcast Episodes
- Podcast episodes using synthetic voices and content will be attributed as EDITED BY Ira Gardner
- Podcast episodes featuring documentary interviews or human commentators will contain notification of the date and location of the interview.
Photography & Film
- Video content will be attributed as: Film: Title, Director Name, (Year)
- Analog photographs and digital photographs that are documentary witness images will be attributed as Photograph, Title, Photographer Name, (Year)
- Digital photographs that have had pixels altered or added will be listed as:
Digital Composite, Title, Photographer Name, (Year) - Digital Images created in a 3D software platform will be attributed as CGI Image, Title, Artist Name, (Year)
- Generative AI images created from prompts will be attributed as:
AI Image, Title, Artist Name, (Year)
All other artwork will be attributed in the following manner:
- Title, Medium, Artist Name, (Year)
We Hope this statement clarifies how content created for EIDOS. Please submit any questions or comments to: ira.gardner.photo@gmail.com