My views on AI and the discourse surrounding it
I’ve been wanting to put all my thoughts into words, and though I am just a stranger on the internet and my views likely don’t matter to anyone, I’ve been wanting to hear feedback and have discussions with both sides on how they feel and evidence for things I may be wrong about.
I come from a family of artists of all kinds; musicians, performers, animators, artists, programmers, and more. I’ve talked with a lot of them and their views, as well as the general discussion online about this all. While I am not currently active in any creative fields like my family and peers, I have always had a massive love and appreciation for art and creation as a whole.
For those who don’t want to read my extremely long post, my stance is against AI in its current form, but not necessarily against AI art. You can enjoy what you enjoy.
The discourse
Firstly, I want to talk about the drama between the opposing sides of AI. It goes without saying that those against AI have caused many cases of harassment of those who use it, which is never okay. I want to hope that those people are just a very vocal minority, but I can’t truly claim that it is. There isn’t any excuse to doxx, threaten, or harm anyone for what they enjoy.
It should be understood that labelling all AI as harmful is not my intent, and everyone should know that AI is a very broad term that extends beyond the modern interpretation and generative AI. AI is being used to assist in many things, like medical fields, the simplification of tasks in work and creation, and more.
But I have noticed that those in support of AI have caused problems too. The most outstanding problem I have seen is the frequent downplaying of the very real issues AI is causing. Something I hope both sides understand is that generative AI is, in its current state, very harmful, as is shown in countless cases of environmental damage, theft of information and art, societal harm, its constant, terrifying misuse, which is an entirely different can of worms, but denying this fact or claiming things like “it’s not as bad as _” or “you can do that without AI too” is not beneficial to anyone but the ones who own AI companies and data centers. I understand that criticism of AI is often interpreted as a personal attack on those who use it, but please understand that (hopefully) the ones criticizing you are not doing so to hate on what you enjoy, but to let you know about the problems it brings.
This goes along with a second criticism I have of some of the people in support of AI, which is the claims of being a discriminated group. As someone who is apart of a a discriminated minority, this just irritates me. No one is trying to take things away from you. Hatred for people and hobbies is found on every corner of the internet. If you go outside and talk to people, you probably won’t meet anyone who will harass you for using AI.
My opinion on AI art
Before I go on about what I think about it being called art and the use of it, I want it to be known that that is a personal opinion. What I want everyone to understand is that enjoying AI art is not a problem. If there was no harm being caused by AI generation, we should all be okay with it. It’s not something I personally like to see, but I can live and let live. If you like it, I’m happy for you. As long as it is labeled as such.
Firstly I want to address AI generation usage not by the average person, but by larger groups and companies. I cannot think of a case of a company using AI because they liked it, but rather to save time and money. We should all expect better of them when they very clearly can afford to hire someone to do a job. Now, in more complex cases like when that famous animator wanted to explore the medium of AI animation and received massive backlash, I am unsure how to feel, because of the harm that he was subjected to by terrible people, and my beliefs that AI does not have a place in such things, which I will get into.
Another thing that bothers me is that AI art isn’t something you made. The process and editing may be done by you, but it’s still being generated by the AI how you tell it to. It’s not all that different from commissioning someone since you can just ask them to change it to suit what you want. You don’t really have any ownership of it.
Now, a commonly said thing about AI generation is that it is soulless, and isn’t art. That isn’t to say you can’t view it as art, as art is nebulous in its concept, but personally, I agree. I talked with my mother about things since she has been a professional artist for all her life, and something she said that stood out to me was that art is alive. AI is not at a point where it can think for itself. It cannot feel, and has no pride in its work. It’s just an algorithm that follows what it is told. Nothing it makes is original. Now, some will argue that humans aren’t either, but there is a clear differentiation between originality and inspiration.
You can go to a museum and see art of all kinds, and feel the emotion behind its creation. When you repaint the same thing, it isn’t of the same value of the original. The emotion will not always be the same. There will always be something slightly different for every copy made, something that makes it unique to that artist. When someone plays a song, they can play every note perfectly and it will still be the same song, but when someone pours their soul into how they play it, the song feels different.
Viewing art as an end result or a job that can be done better by AI is inherently negative. Humans will always seek to create, and handing that over to an AI just removes the joy of the creation. Now, I don’t think that AI has no place in it. It can easily be used for inspiration to make something yourself. Although, I’ve always adored concept art, but if I bought a concept art book and it had a bunch of AI images, I would be upset. Even still, there are many uses I have no issues with. Using it for placeholders, having it generate stagnant in between frames of the same shot to ease the work of animation, having it help with rigging, AI can have its place in assisting in creation. But having it generate the art for you, you miss out on the love that can be found in every detail of something someone made.
Ultimately, nothing is wrong if you like AI generated images. The emotion you feel is real, even if others don’t think it qualifies as art. But I will always encourage you to try making something yourself. Don’t focus on how good it is, as it's a skill like any other. It takes time to develop. It’s always worth it.