r/outrun

Myth: History in the Making is a 2D platform game developed and published by British publishing house System 3 for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Amiga CD32, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum. It was also released on the NES as Conan: The Mysteries of Time. It was officially announced for Atari ST and a preview version was available, but the full version was never released.

Last week, I came here asking whether the artwork for my synthwave playlist captured the outrun aesthetic.

Once it came out that the artwork was AI-generated, the conversation became something much bigger: whether AI takes opportunities away from artists and whether using it is fundamentally at odds with supporting synthwave and its creative community.

I’ve thought about that criticism, and I think part of it is right.

AI is going to take work away from some artists.

If a company that previously hired illustrators starts generating its advertising instead, that’s displaced demand. If a musician intended to commission album artwork and generates it instead, that potentially costs somebody a job.

Creative careers were already difficult to build. Depending on an artist’s specialty, clientele and network, AI could make that even harder. I completely acknowledge that.

But there’s another category I think gets lost in this debate:

What about the artwork that was never going to be commissioned in the first place?

That’s me.

There’s something important about how I make these playlists: the artwork comes first.

I establish the world before I seriously build the music around it.

For Neon Main Street, I wanted a rain-soaked retro-futurist city at night. Neon signs. A black car. Police lights. Movement. A little danger. Something that feels like you’re driving through a city at two in the morning with absolutely no intention of going home yet.

Once I can see that world, I know what music belongs inside it.

And I cannot illustrate that.

Could a professional artist? Absolutely. Probably better than I ever could.

But follow that transaction through. I’d need to find an artist whose style matched what I imagined and potentially go through revision after revision:

The expression is wrong. More red. Make the street darker. Move the police car. Lose the glowing eyes. Bring that sign back. Try the composition again.

How much should a talented professional charge for doing that until the image in my head finally exists?
Probably a hell of a lot more than I’m willing to spend on artwork for a personal Spotify playlist.

And that doesn’t mean the artist charges too much.
Their time, training and skill have value. If that work is worth hundreds of dollars, then it’s worth hundreds of dollars.

It simply means I was never their customer.

Without AI, that commission doesn’t go to somebody else.

It doesn’t exist.

And because the artwork comes first for me, there’s a second-order effect. there’s a very real chance the playlist doesn’t exist either.

So my actual counterfactual isn’t AI artwork versus commissioned artwork.

If I have access to AI artwork, I can establish the world I’m imagining, get excited about it, and build the playlist around it.

If I don’t have access to it, the idea probably stays in my head until eventually I move on.

Sometimes AI absolutely replaces paid creative work.
Sometimes the alternative was nothing.

That doesn’t make me an illustrator. I didn’t suddenly acquire the technical skills somebody may spend decades developing.

What AI gave me wasn’t those skills.

It gave me access to execution.

I can take something in my imagination and say: no, that’s wrong. Change this. Keep that. Try again. Closer. Again.

Until eventually:

There it fucking is.

And I’m using that capability to build something around music made by actual musicians. I’m discovering their work, listening to it, organizing it, sharing it and creating a visual world around music I genuinely love.

So I understand the criticism better now. Some artists aren’t imagining the economic threat. Parts of their market genuinely are being automated.

But I don’t think every generated image represents a stolen customer.

Sometimes there was never a customer.

So here’s the question I’m left with:

If you knew for certain that the actual choices were “this person uses AI to create the visual world for their personal creative project” or “the artwork, and probably the project itself, never exists,” would you genuinely prefer that nothing be created?

You can absolutely answer yes.

But then we’ve identified the real disagreement.

We’re no longer arguing about whether an artist lost a commission.

We’re arguing about whether lowering the barrier to creative expression is worth what it disrupts.

https://preview.redd.it/7crkvix6lcjh1.png?width=3356&format=png&auto=webp&s=bc75fc4a6c160f55c675c99793ae7d99ad75d831

Hey everyone,

A few years ago, right before the pandemic hit and live music stopped, I spent some time on the road directing a documentary episode with Tyler and Tim from The Midnight.

The biggest challenge was the visual approach. I didn't have a massive production crew or heavy cinema rigs with me—it was literally just me running around with an iPhone 11 Pro on a gimbal. I really wanted to translate the massive, atmospheric lighting and high-contrast energy of their live sets into something that felt raw and gritty, rather than polished and corporate.

We got amazing access—cramped green rooms, the live stage shows, and sit-down interviews detailing their touring grind. It’s a pretty unfiltered look at the synthwave scene right before the world paused.

The footage sat on a hard drive for a couple of years, but I just finally finished the edit and released the episode today. I figured this community would appreciate the visual time capsule.

You can check out the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI-2yBBIlTY&list=PLBVBHn_YlrKk&t=978s

I’ll be hanging out in the comments, so if you have any questions about the shoot, the tour, or how I color-graded mobile footage to handle those heavy neon concert lights, ask away!