Hey! My name is Lia and I live in your walls!
But to be honest, that is my extent of humour today because I think that itās really important we have a talk:
Generative AI
āāā
SO FELLOW HUMANS! You may or may not have seen the new images being produced by AI and frankly, Iād make a joke that humanityās doomed butā¦ uhā¦ yeah- George Orwell tried to warn us and oopsie daisy we didnāt listen.
In the past you could tell if an image was a fake piece of slop with no human input but nowā¦ itās undeniable how far AI has progressed to the point there arenāt those noticeable flaws. We live in a digital age where you can probably never tell again if that picture of that friend group is even real or that art was human and WHY? For what purpose?!
WHAT VILLAIN PLOT EVEN IS THIS?
I, for one, didnāt think I was ever going to have to worry about some robot uprising taking my job because haha, Iām a kid- and life is great! I am a kid so I can relax and spend my youth not thinking about money! Iām a kid andā¦ and I can just make pretty pictures andā¦ Ah.
Yeahā¦ kids shouldnāt be having to think like adults. And adults shouldnāt have to kill their creativity so they can live- especially when creativity has been a part of human existence since before business was even invented
In a world where employment is pretty rough and most of us are going through some sort of cost of living crisis, I definitely feel itās becoming nigh impossible to fathom how many of our basic jobs are being taken. And if youāre here, then I assume that youāre an artist or somewhat interested in art and you might know the threat to creative jobs as a whole
Iām not even an adult yet and Iām worried about a job I may never haveā¦
āāā
AND YES! Creative industries have always been competitive. I remember when I was maybe five or so my parents asked me:
āwhat do you want to be when youāre olderā
I told my parents āwhen I grow up I want to be a singerā. And so they told me I would ānever be a singer because the job market was so roughā - and as a little kid, I didnāt quite understand that but I was certainly at least a little sad about it. Like cāmon guys I couldnāt even count to 10! Way to crush my dreams- And that was before AI was seen as a real threat.
When I was 13 I sat in a cafƩ with my parents and they asked me again:
āWhat do you want to be when youāre olderā
And I told them: āArtistā
I said that with the voice of someone so so sure about my hopes and dreams. And they told me all of the ways I could never be an artist and that I should get into programming or something useful because Iām gonna be a āstarving artistā with a dusty, faded art degree and no job to show for it.
And againā¦ this was before AI was a threat.
So yeahā¦ I didnāt pick this industry because I assumed I was going to have an easy ride. But I knew I wanted to be an artist. A storyteller. And even now, a few years later, Iām still hopeful of becoming an artist
And now, In my teens being told I have potential- that brought me so much happiness. But the day after, I witnessed generative AI so convincing Iāve never had less hope.
āāā
I watched a local panel recently about creative jobs; there was a concept artist on that panel that told us in the audience āAI is a tool that can never replace a human artist. If youāre worried about AI taking your job then you probably arenāt good enough to have it in the first place, for the industry is already so cutthroat, then you wouldnāt surviveā
I have never been in the workplace, but for someone who soon will have to get a job I fully understand what he said. Art is a hard industry, but for corporations who employ artists, I donāt think they fully understand the humanity and skill behind art rather than seeing artists as commodity.
As I say, I havenāt been in the workplace so Iām just going off of what Iām hearing. But Iām worried that businesses donāt see artās humanity and now that something is quicker and cheaper than an artistā¦ I donāt want to grow up in a world where so many corners are cut we remove the human part entirely.
āāā
I feel art is a commentary on the human experience. The whole debate about āis the art more important or is the artistā. I feel weāre losing the artist from the work in whole.
Iām just a kid. I donāt understand the world like adults do and maybe I never will. But even I can see that right now, generative AI is doing more harm than good. I donāt know if I should be worried, but I am.
This was really longwinded but if you read it, these have just been some things on my mind
- From Lia, Whoās worried about my generation, due to a generation of AI āartā
