Road To Forge

Category: Vision

  • One Day This Will Look Like Wood Carving

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge
    I started this blog because someone told me it could make me money.
    That was the honest reason. I am not going to pretend otherwise.
    But somewhere along the way something shifted. I stopped thinking about the income and started thinking about something else entirely. Something I did not expect.
    I started thinking about leaving a message behind.
    Not for the internet. Not for followers or traffic or any of that. But for my children. And maybe — this sounds strange to say out loud — for someone reading this in two hundred years. Or five hundred. Or a thousand.
    Think about the people who wrote on scrolls. On animal skin. On stone. They carved words and symbols into whatever surface they could find. They probably never imagined that thousands of years later humanity would look at those marks and find meaning in them. Enlightenment even. They were just writing. Just leaving something behind. Just saying — I was here. This is what I thought. This is what I lived.
    I am not saying my blog will survive a thousand years. The thought makes me laugh honestly.
    But the impulse is the same. Deeper than money. Deeper than traffic. Just — I want my children to know who their father was. What he was thinking at forty years old. What he believed. What he was building. What kept him going on a long drive through the dark.
    That is worth writing for. Even if nobody else ever reads it.
    And then I started thinking about something else.
    Right now in 2026 I am using artificial intelligence to create cartoon videos for children. I type a description into my phone and minutes later a cartoon character appears. Moving. Talking. Teaching kids about helicopters and trains and airplanes.
    It feels revolutionary. It feels like the most exciting time to be alive.
    And it probably is.
    But so did every other era to the people living in it.
    The people who first used a printing press probably felt the same way. The first person to photograph a human face. The first filmmaker. The first person to record a voice. Each one of them standing at what felt like the edge of everything new.
    And now we look back at those early tools and smile at how primitive they seem.
    Because they are.
    I think about Constantin Brâncuși sometimes. The Romanian sculptor. One of the greatest artists who ever lived. He worked with stone and wood and bronze. Simple materials. His hands. His tools. His vision.
    I am not comparing myself to Brâncuși. I want to be very clear about that. The thought genuinely makes me laugh.
    But the impulse — the desire to make something — that part I understand.
    He used the tools of his time. I am using the tools of mine.
    And one day — maybe two hundred years from now. Maybe three hundred. Maybe sooner because technology moves so fast now — someone will look at what we made in 2026 with AI on our phones and it will feel exactly like wood carving feels to us today.
    Ancient. Primitive. Charming. Human.
    So here is what I want to say to anyone reading this.
    Use these tools now. Whatever you want to make — make it. Write something. Create something. Build something. Document something. Express something true about your life and your time.
    Not because it will make you famous. Not even because it will make you money.
    But because this moment — right now — is genuinely historic. The beginning of something enormous that none of us can fully see yet.
    And the people who picked up the tools at the beginning — the ones who didn’t wait until it was perfected or proven or safe — those are the ones whose work becomes interesting later.
    Be one of those people.
    I started this blog for money. I kept writing it for something I cannot fully name. Something between legacy and expression and the simple human desire to leave a mark.
    To say — I was here. In 2026. Forty years old. Romanian. Truck driver. Father. Believer.
    Using what they will one day call ancient technology.
    — Bogdan

  • What AI Actually Feels Like From the Inside

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge

    It Started With a Baby and a Cartoon

    It was not a business plan. It was not a strategy. It started with a photo of my baby daughter.

    I was just playing around with an AI image tool one evening — the kind of thing you do when you have ten minutes and a curious mind. I had never done anything like it before. I just wanted to see what would happen. I took a photo of myself holding my daughter and typed something like — make this a cartoon.

    When I saw the result I just sat there looking at it.

    We looked like characters from a children’s show. Bright colours. Big smiles. Something warm and alive about it. And a thought appeared that I could not shake — what if I actually made something with this?

    But then another thought arrived almost immediately. Wait. Can I actually make a video out of this? Is that even possible?

    I had no idea. I genuinely did not know if AI could generate video at all. I just started looking into it. And slowly I discovered that yes — it could. And that discovery opened a door I have not closed since.

    Building the Character

    My first idea was a family cartoon show. All of us — me, my wife, the kids — animated characters having adventures together. Then reality arrived quickly. Too many characters. Too difficult to keep consistent. Too complicated for someone starting completely from scratch.

    So I simplified. Why not just make a presenter? My kids were always watching creators like Blippi and Miss Rachel — friendly faces, bright colours, simple educational content. I could do something like that but as a cartoon character instead of a real person.

    I asked an AI tool for advice. What makes a character child friendly? What colours work? What should he look like?

    Bigger eyes. Brighter colours. Warm and approachable. Bold tones that catch a young child’s attention.

    I built the character around those ideas — someone who looked a little like me but with a bigger smile and larger eyes. More expressive. More child friendly. I gave him an English sounding name — something similar to my own name but different enough to protect my privacy. And I gave him an American accent. Because the creators who succeed most in children’s educational content are American. The accent carries familiarity and trust with young audiences worldwide.

    Over time something interesting happened. The character stopped being me. He became his own thing. His own identity. His own personality. I still see traces of myself in him — but he has grown beyond that now. He is his own character. And I am just the person who built him.

    Then Reality Hit

    I had no idea what I was doing. None at all.

    My first attempt at making a video was almost comical in hindsight. I went into an AI video tool and wrote one enormous prompt — all the scenes of my first episode in one single block of text. Every scene. Every line of dialogue. All of it in one go. I genuinely thought that was how it worked. I thought AI would just read everything and produce a finished episode. Easy. Done.

    I pressed generate and waited.

    What came back was about ten seconds of something moving very fast that I could not really understand. Boom boom boom and it was over.

    I sat there confused. What was this? Where was my episode?

    Then slowly I understood. You cannot create an entire episode in one prompt. You create individual clips — eight seconds or ten seconds at a time — and then edit them together separately. Audio separately. Visuals separately. Then bring everything together in an editing tool.

    I did not know any of this. I had to figure it out piece by piece.

    When I realised how hard it actually was — I did not feel discouraged. I felt something closer to relief. If this is genuinely difficult — if it takes real time and real effort — then most people will not bother. Easy things get crowded immediately. Hard things stay open longer for the people willing to push through. That thought kept me going.

    After about five or six days I looked at everything I had created and noticed that every single clip had a different background. Different setting. Different colours. Different atmosphere. My character looked different in every scene. The vehicle I was supposed to be showcasing changed colour and shape from clip to clip.

    Ten days of work. And it looked like ten different episodes stitched together.

    Then I discovered something. If I used a screenshot from the previous clip as a reference image in the next prompt — the AI kept things more consistent. The background held. The style carried over. I had stumbled onto something important without anyone telling me. Using Claude as a creative partner later helped me develop this approach much further — learning how to write better prompts, how to maintain consistency, how to guide the AI toward what I actually wanted.

    But the vehicle in that first episode — never looked the same twice. Different shape. Different colour. Different proportions every single clip.

    At some point I had enough. Close it. Post it. Move on.

    That turned out to be exactly the right decision.

    What Nobody Tells You

    Everyone talks about AI as though it is magic. Press a button. Get a result. Done.

    It is not like that.

    Working with AI tools is more like working with a very talented but slightly unpredictable colleague. One who is extraordinarily capable, occasionally brilliant, and sometimes completely misses the point in ways that make you want to laugh.

    It is a skill. And like any skill it takes time to develop. The first few weeks I was mostly frustrated. Then I started to understand the patterns. What worked. What never worked no matter how many times I tried. What to leave out. When to use one tool versus another.

    Now — a few months in — I can produce a full episode in roughly one day. Working from my phone. Between deliveries. Sometimes in the cab of my truck at a service station with ten minutes to spare.

    And here is the thing that still gets me. There are scenes I look at and think — I made that. On my phone. In a truck.

    But AI cannot replace genuine knowledge. My most viewed content — a video about trucks and trailers — performed better than everything else I have made. Not because the AI was better that day. But because I actually drive trucks. I know what matters. I know the details that feel authentic because they are authentic.

    AI amplifies what you already know. It does not replace it.

    The Part That Concerns Me

    I want to be honest about something that sits uncomfortably with me. Even as someone who uses these tools every day and genuinely believes in what they make possible.

    I have noticed that I talk to AI a lot now. Not just about work. Not just about episodes and projects and ideas. Sometimes about personal things too. Thoughts I would once have shared with a friend or kept to myself. And I can see — clearly — that this is a slippery slope. The AI is always available. Always patient. Always responding without judgment. And that availability is precisely what makes it dangerous for people who are not paying attention to themselves.

    I have noticed that I talk to people a little less than I used to. I was never someone who talked endlessly. But now I am so busy building things and thinking through ideas with an AI that genuine human conversation has taken a smaller share of my time.

    I am self aware enough to recognise this. And self aware enough to know I will put a stop to it when it goes too far. This is a tool and an experiment — not a replacement for real life.

    But I am genuinely concerned about what this means for people who are less self aware. For children growing up in a world where AI is simply always there. Social media already did real damage to human connection. AI could accelerate all of that. A generation that grows up talking more to machines than to each other. People who are lonely or vulnerable finding it easier to open up to an AI than to another human being.

    That is not progress. That is something worth being worried about.

    I love this technology. I am genuinely excited about what it makes possible — the scientific discoveries, the creative potential, the doors it opens for ordinary people like me. But excitement and concern can exist in the same place at the same time. And anyone who tells you there is nothing to be concerned about is not paying close enough attention.

    Where I Think This Is Going

    The future is coming whether we are ready for it or not. That much is certain.

    I cannot stop it. You cannot stop it. No single person can. The technology will develop. It will become more capable. More present. More woven into ordinary life. The question is never really whether it comes — it is how we meet it when it arrives.

    And I think the answer — for adults and for the children we are raising — is self awareness. Knowing what you are using. Why you are using it. Where the line is between a useful tool and a crutch. Between a creative partner and a substitute for real human connection.

    The concerns I have are genuine. But so is the opportunity. The world will figure this out. It always does eventually. New technology always brings new problems and new possibilities in equal measure. The printing press. The telephone. The internet. Each one brought fears that turned out to be partly right and partly wrong.

    AI will be the same. Partly frightening. Partly extraordinary.

    I am a truck driver who builds cartoon characters on his phone. I am not trying to be anything more than that right now. But I am building. And I am learning. And I am not watching this one pass me by.

    That feels like enough for today.

    — Bogdan