My Thoughts

This project reassured me that I'm safe in my creative abilities for now (at least, when I'm up against the basic AI tools I had on hand). Even if the same prompt words are used each time, its consistency abilities are next to zero. And abstract concepts aren't something AI can handle either--the program needs tangible, descriptive words to generate something of substance. However, my experience is just the tip of the iceberg. 

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Opinions on AI art are mixed to say the least. Some, like an article by Forbes, are enamored by the quickly-developing accessibility of AI art tools. In the article, they pitch it as an exciting new opportunity into the art world for people who maybe aren't as creative and have always seen that as an obstacle to pursuing creative endeavors. It claims AI is "democratizing" creative enterprise, but is that really what we want? This was an interesting take to me, especially because I see art as an extension of talent of the individual. The unique personal edge is what I love most about art; a person's inside thoughts become outside expression in ways that emphasize their idiosyncracies, whether they intend to or not. And the different mediums different artists choose to express this through only enhances this uniqueness. For me, my passion for photography is what allows me to create my photos in the most "me" way possible. And while creative AI might be a start for people that haven't considered doing art before, I believe that when scaled up, it strips art of its true essence.

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But the biggest problem with this technology of them all is what it does to artists. While some people argue AI isn't much different from new creative technologies of the past (like the camera, or like Photoshop), I disagree. These technologies still depend on the artist to generate the base content--even if they use editing technology, they still did the brunt of the work. AI is different in this way. But not only does it make art maybe a bit too easy, it also occasionally steals content from real artists. Midjourney, the AI tool used in a New York Times article about an AI art piece winning 1st place at an art fair, is actually trained on current working artists, meaning their art loses value as AI art based on their work gains value. This is unfair to the original artists, and as a digital artist says in the article, "This thing wants our jobs, it's actively anti-artist". For a long time, it was belived that creative jobs were some of the only positions that would be safe from AI taking them over. But according to digital artists like this, this isn't the case anymore.

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So what's the conclusion on AI art? Public opinion is up in the air, according to another New York Times article about an art professor trying to get his students to embrace AI as a part of their artist toolkit. "This class is about daring students to embrace the machines," says the professor. And to an extent, he's right. We can't ignore the exponential growth of AI in all aspects of our daily lives, especially in the past few years. Ignorance is the worst position to choose in this case; it's almost a guarantee that you will become obsolete in the face of this new technology. It's necessary to embrace technological change as it comes, especially one as big as this. But as an artist, I sympathize with those being taken advantage of for this technology to be successful. However, as a student (and especially after taking this class), I can also respect the magnitude of this technology, and am excited to see what its future holds. In my eyes, the best solution here--the only solution here--is to be skeptically optimistic.

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