AI Is Inevitable

But why are we making it easier for computers to screw us over?

I no longer get upset when I see friends and colleagues embracing AI.

Well, not as upset. It’s still a little annoying.

But, honestly, I get it. AI is a useful tool that makes people’s lives just a little easier. In fact, I’m probably hampering my own long-term career prospects by being so willfully ignorant of how to use ChatGPT and similar programs. Yes, AI will eventually lead to my current job becoming obsolete, but long before that happens, I will be replaced by somebody with a solid understanding of how to use AI to study statistics and trends and churn out action plans at the click of a button. By ignoring AI, I have given myself an expiration date.

This is why I understand why people use AI for work. I don’t like it, but I get it. What I’m still not sure of, though, is why people use AI for pleasure. I’ve watched as more and more friends begin to identify themselves as AI artists - “writing” stories, “drawing” pictures, or “directing” movies with high-powered computer programs that seemingly turn dreams into reality. But those dreams ring false. Ecological concerns aside (and we must always remember that AI is very, very, very bad for the environment), it just weirds me out that folks are willingly handing over the act of creative creation to robots.

There’s a guy I follow on social media who loves posting “art” he has made with AI. He gushes every time he has a new video, picture, or story to share. I can understand a little of where his enthusiasm is coming from. Watching AI turn your ideas into reality is an exhilarating experience. It’s what I feel like when I see a comic book script I’ve written become artwork and then, eventually, a book I can hold in my hands. The biggest difference, though, is that my script was turned into art by a human being, somebody who was paid for their skills and talents. The AI “artwork” was created by a computer interpreting billions of GBs of scraped data, stolen from the internet, and repurposed to feed us more of what we already consume. It’s the difference between eating a meal cooked by a chef and eating your own throw-up.

AI will eventually replace so many of the things humans do, both good and bad. Why are we in such a rush, though, for AI to replace the fun stuff? Kids used to dream of becoming writers, painters, film directors, and musicians. Why do we want to cede these vocations to computers? And, yes, I firmly believe that there is zero comparison between actually sitting in front of a blank page and wrestling your thoughts into a series of sentences and feeding a prompt into an AI service. If you use generative AI to write a book, make a picture, or create a video, you are not an artist. You may be really good at stringing computer commands together, but the artist journey was bipassed and the result is a pretty little prize that was not earned.

Artwork is made up of the imperfections and the weird, personal choices made out of desperation and hubris. Generative AI does not include these human imperfections; it makes its own weird digital glitches - far less endearing. More importantly, if you are using generative AI for creative pursuits, you are cheating your audiences and yourself. You are stealing from other artists, and you are making yourself look like an ass to the rest of the creative community. And I say this as somebody who used to trace comics as a kid. AI is tracing, pure and simple, and trying to pass off AI creations as something you “made” is a sham.

AI enthusiasts are going to write this off as me being a snob, and that’s OK. I will gladly be a snob because I know how hard it is to make something. I will forever hold my own journey as a comic book creator over the head of somebody who churned out a comic book in an afternoon using AI.

If you are using AI to make cute little cartoons of yourself at work or as an action figure, or you’re currently experimenting with Sora to make Batman and Florence Pugh make a cake together, nothing I say is going to change your mind. You see what you do as harmless and fun, and it’s too easy to write off my concerns and warnings as the ramblings of a crank.

Humanity was built on dreams, though. Society was changed by stories and art and music and games, and if we let robots do the dreaming for us, we’re going to find our lives are a whole lot less interesting.