This is a bit of a sticking point for me, and it’s such a bummer in so many ways.
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I believe art to be a uniquely human endeavor, so anything that’s created by an AI is by definition not art.
It sucks that it steals from artists. It sucks that artists get put in positions where they are now required to defend themselves against AI use accusations. It sucks that it’s stealing jobs: draftsmen, voice actors, editors, photographers, videographers, designers, etc.
It sucks that people think writing a prompt that an AI then reads, scans its rolodex of real artists, and spits out a cheap, passionless imitation makes them an artist.
To that last point, the reason that sucks is that AI user is depriving themselves of working on their craft; they’re giving up on their passion, passing the buck to an automated theft machine, then displaying the work as their own.
They’re not just depriving themselves, they’re depriving the world of another artist. Maybe that person puts the time in, develops the skills of their medium, gets creative, and becomes the artist they want to be. The world is better with more art in it.
Art is communication. If you’re letting a machine do that for you, you’ve removed yourself from humanity. If we let creative AI do our thinking, writing, drawing, etc… what’s left for us?
What’s the point of existing if we outsource the cultural enrichment of the human experience to a computer?
One other thing that sucks is that there are people I respect, some of whom are friends of mine, that do use generative AI for creative work. It sucks that I’m afraid I’ll have offended them with this strip.
But to anyone offended, I’ll present a counterargument.
When you use AI to create your art, you’re asking us to do something that you won’t do yourself.
An AI “artist” asks their audience to give their human care an attention to something that they didn’t put human care and attention into making.
And I find that offensive.
