Half a Year With AI — What I've Learned

When AI tools first started trending, I was like everyone else — laughing at the memes, scrolling past the hype, thinking it’s still far from being useful in real life.

Then I tried it. And things changed.

🎨 The Art Side

My first step was AI art. Yeah, I know — some people already hate me just for saying that.
But honestly, I see it as a natural progression. It gives more people the power to express creativity, even if they can’t draw by hand.

Remember back in the day when digital artists were mocked for using Photoshop and tablets?
People yelled, “You’re not a real artist!” — yet here we are, repeating the same cycle.

I played with Stable Diffusion WebUI (github.com/ai-dock/stable-diffusion-webui) and other tools, but my go-to now is getimg.ai.
Even my avatar was made with it ^_^

🎵 The Music Side

Music has always been something I wanted to do. Back in high school, me and my friends messed around with Fruity Loops, Reason, eJay (ejayshop.com) — none of us were real musicians, though I did play acoustic guitar for a few years as a kid.

And again, people used to say: “You’re not a real musician if you use a computer!”
See the pattern here?

For a while I used Producer.ai, but now I’m all in on Suno.com.
It supports my native language for vocals, has a robust editor, and even a full studio where you can tweak every track — just like “real artists.”

I put my heart and ideas into what I make. Maybe AI helps me shape it, but the soul is still mine.
So I decided to publish my work — you can find it on:

🌐 kaiyo-shard.net
🎧 Spotify
📺 YouTube Music

Maybe I’m not a “real” musician — but I’m finally expressing myself in a way that feels real to me.

💻 The Developer Side

I’ve been in tech for a long time — from frontend developer, to backend, to full stack, and eventually specializing mostly in backend systems before moving into DevOps.

Now, AI tools are part of my everyday workflow.
People love to say “AI will take your job,” but I’ve heard that before, too.

Tools like ChatGPT (and especially its Codex version) have become part of how I work.
I don’t blindly trust it — I rely on my 18+ years of experience — but it’s an amazing boost for:

• prototyping faster
• writing documentation and reports
• spotting errors in production
• helping teams focus on the bigger problems

On top of that, Warp Terminal supercharged my DevOps work — it’s like having a co-pilot for the command line.

And just last week, I was able to redesign three of my main projects entirely with AI’s help:

🎨 vladislavstoyanov.com — my main personal and creative hub
🎵 kaiyo-shard.net — my music project and artist space
🎧 bghiphop-archive.net — a growing Bulgarian hip-hop video archive

If that’s “bad,” then I honestly don’t know what to say.

🧠 Final Thoughts

I’m not here to tell you to worship AI like the crypto crowd used to push coins down your throat.
But you owe it to yourself to learn and adapt.

Yes, nothing is guaranteed — maybe tomorrow I’ll lose my job.
But I know I’m not stupid.
I’ve learned, I keep learning, and I’ll keep finding my way.

The days of sitting at a desk, scrolling social media, and complaining about your “boring job” are ending.
If AI threatens your job, maybe that’s a sign — a sign to relearn how to learn, to improve, to evolve.

That’s not something AI told me to say.
That’s what my parents taught me:
Always learn, work, and grow.