Firstly, why am I writing this? I am an artist. I have an innate desire to create art, to devise ways of telling stories, and visualizing my thoughts and concepts through drawing and creating things. I love how I feel when I am drawing.
I have also worked in the tech sector; I have written about technology and recently contributed a chapter to a book on the impact of technology on society. I am writing this because I feel we are looking at the beginning of the end of production, by humans, of original artwork and the collapse of the visual creative industries. We are looking at a visual future that will be produced by generative AI tools that feed on all the already existing art created by human artists over the last several thousand years. Nothing will be truly new or unique. That’s a terrible future and it isn’t the future I want and that’s why I felt compelled to write this now.
I discovered a new term in the marketing industry this week, it’s - the ‘visual content gap’
I discovered a new term in the marketing industry this week, it’s - the ‘visual content gap’ – it’s the gap between demand for imagery and available visual content; yes, it’s a thing. There is a huge shortage of available visual content. Demand for images and animation is enormous, social media, advertising, influencers, all of us want images to update our feeds, sell our products, and tell our stories. So we arrive at a perfect storm, one that generative AI tools stand to exploit. This is generative AI’s time to fill that ‘visual content gap’, replacing human artists and creatives on a major scale. Is this really a problem? It’s just another event in our tech revolution; the same thing happened to, for example, typists and car assembly workers. But yes, I really think there is a problem. Firstly, what a shame that there aren’t enough artists, why is that? Art is gradually removed from our education as we move through school and a career in the arts isn’t lucrative or seen as a good career choice. In the society we have created artists survive rather than thrive. Secondly, creating art is a complex task for both brain and body.
If we stop using our brains to create
There is evidence that says that if we stop using our brains to create, and for original thought, the less good the brain becomes at generating connections and new ideas. It generates joy and creates a sense of ‘flow’ that is an essential element of being human. It is the last task we should think about sacrificing to a machine. It is different to some of the other ‘work’ technology eliminated, that work was often hard, boring and dangerous. Thirdly this generative AI revolution is only possible by using already existing artwork. It is only possible by the mass copyright infringement of current and past artists’ work. AI cannot do it on its own, LLMs (large learning models – all the images it needs to generate AI art) are full of stolen art. Worse still we have to pay the gatekeepers to get access to everything they have stolen and there is no shame, no reimbursement, no licensing, nothing. Are we really OK with this?
The latest AI bubble is already irreversible
The impact of the latest AI bubble is already irreversible, but AI is nowhere near as good as we are being made to believe. The journey to this point is long and full of boosters, nerds, scientists, naysayers, concerned gov and non-gov agencies and P-Doomers making alarming predictions giving the date for the AI doomsday scenario to be fulfilled in a science fiction style dystopian end of the world - Source. The artist community has had little airtime, has not been consulted and bearing in mind the impact on creative industries has been surprisingly ignored and left out of some of the most important discussions.
I am not anti-technology
I am not anti-technology, but like the 19th Century English Luddites - Source, I am concerned about how it is applied. The Luddites were not against new technology they were concerned with working conditions and the lowering of the quality of the fabrics they were manufacturing.
Let’s also be clear AI is not sentient
Being creative is a personal cognitive experience available to us all. Why sacrifice that complex, meaningful, joyful experience to a machine? Let’s also be clear AI is not sentient, it doesn’t think, it is not like us, and never will be. The anthropomorphizing of AI is incredible, and I suppose it started when John McCarthy coined the term ‘artificial intelligence’ in 1955, giving it a human feeling that encouraged a feeling of empathy and humanity towards what is just computer code. I do not see value in predicting a date when AI will ‘take over’ either it is a false analogy that drives fear, and we don’t respond rationally when we are frightened.
So, what am I saying?
So, what am I saying? I value technology, it saves lives, it is an incredible invention but let’s have a conversation about its impact, especially when it is about to rob us of one of the most valuable human experiences; being creative and creating beautiful things. Let’s not throw that away without considering the impact on our world. A Generative AI tool cannot tell a story, it doesn’t have personal influences and experiences of its own, it has no inference, no emotion, it just follows a prompt and renders an image that already existed and was previously created by a number of human beings.
A new dark age?
I just cannot ignore the misleading framing of AI by those who will benefit from its gatekeeping as well as its spewing of our past as a model for our future, it’s just nuts. Please remember that seeing art and creativity as essential puts you in a minority. The important conversations concern the unimportance given to creativity and creatives, abuse of copyright and copying, and what happens when original creative content and thought stops. A new dark age?
