Outsider to Agency in Creative AI Space

Background

I will briefly go into my background. Feel free to skip to “Long-term and Mid-term Goals” if you want to get to my plan for achieving agency in the creative AI space.

I came from an underprivileged background. My mom did not graduate HS, and education was not emphasized while I was growing up. My childhood bestfriend is currently in jail for unarmed robbery. The way that I initially pulled myself out of ignorance was through an interest in literature. This opened the floodgates to philosophy, music theory, art theory, math, etc. Well, maybe it was actually animation. I watched a lot of shounens when I was 12-13. I played a lot of naruto-arena (those who know know). As I outgrew shounens, I uncovered Serial Experiments Lain, Ghost in The Shell, Miyazaki, etc. I.e, works that were more than just entertainment. I then began to read Miyazaki. Perhaps due to his relentless allusions to classical music, jazz, and other authors, I very quickly found myself in a rabbit-hole. I will skip the details, but I very clearly had a deep desire to educate and culture myself, for whatever reason. This skips over some false-starts that I had, which I will also not get into.