# Image Prompts — AI Memory / Open Brain

Target article: `Building an AI Memory System That Doesn’t Pretend to Know Me`

Style direction from Bert:

- ink and wash illustration style
- light watercolor washes where appropriate
- light and loose
- hand-drawn feeling
- restrained, editorial, thoughtful
- avoid heavy digital polish
- avoid glossy sci-fi chrome
- avoid literal robot visuals unless used very sparingly

## Master style prompt

> An editorial ink-and-wash illustration with light watercolor washes, loose hand-drawn linework, and a restrained palette. The scene should feel thoughtful, human, and slightly contemplative. Use soft paper texture, negative space, and minimal composition. Keep it airy and understated, like a sketched concept illustration for a serious essay. Avoid glossy sci-fi visuals, hard edges, neon colors, and overly polished digital rendering.

## Prompt 1 — Main headline

**Headline:** Building an AI Memory System That Doesn’t Pretend to Know Me

> A contemplative editorial illustration of a person sitting beside a layered archive of papers, folders, and glowing translucent note cards, with a subtle network of linked memory fragments floating between them. The image should suggest reviewed memory, provenance, and careful curation rather than raw data hoarding. Ink and wash style, loose linework, light watercolor washes, soft gray-blue and warm sepia accents, generous negative space, quiet and human mood.

## Prompt 2 — Alternate headline: archive vs memory

**Headline:** Why Archive Is Not Memory

> A symbolic editorial illustration showing a tall stack of archived folders on one side and a smaller, carefully selected bundle of annotated pages on the other, with a hand between them choosing what to keep. Suggest the difference between evidence and durable memory. Ink and wash, light watercolor, minimal composition, soft paper texture, subdued browns, slate blues, and pale gold, airy and restrained.

## Prompt 3 — Alternate headline: provenance

**Headline:** Building an AI Memory System With Provenance

> A quiet conceptual illustration of a path of evidence: handwritten notes, conversation fragments, and source links flowing into a small, carefully organized memory notebook. Show provenance as a visible thread connecting source to memory. Ink-and-wash style with loose sketch lines, delicate watercolor washes, muted blue-gray and umber palette, simple and elegant, not technical-heavy.

## Prompt 4 — Alternate headline: reviewed memory

**Headline:** An AI Memory System Should Be Reviewed, Not Assumed

> An editorial illustration of a person reviewing cards or pages at a desk, with some marked keep, some marked discard, and some marked source-only. The emphasis should be on judgment, consent, and careful review. Light ink drawing, watercolor wash, soft warm light, subdued palette, open composition, humane and deliberate.

## Prompt 5 — Alternate headline: open brain

**Headline:** Open Brain, Closed Loop: Building Reviewed Memory for AI

> A conceptual illustration of an open notebook or branching memory map forming a gentle loop around a central human figure, suggesting collaborative memory that remains governed and reviewed. Keep it subtle and symbolic, not futuristic. Ink and wash, loose and airy, pale blue, gray-green, and warm beige washes, minimal detail, editorial magazine quality.

## Best fit for this article

If you want one lead illustration for the article, use Prompt 1.

If you want a second supporting image, use Prompt 2 or Prompt 3.

## Notes

- Keep the human presence small and calm; the system is the subject, not the spectacle.
- If the image includes devices/screens, keep them faint and secondary.
- If a model tends to over-render, push it back toward linework and paper texture.
- Use more suggestion than literal explanation.