Skip the AI Cheat Code

When it comes to creative folks discussing the increasing use of AI, a lot of the discussion centers around the legality and ethics of these various AI comapnies 'training' their respective models using creators' legally protected works. It's gotten to the point now -- and I'm honestly surprised it's taken this long -- that Disney and Universal are suing Midjourney for copyright infringement. But over the past couple days, I've seen a more existential thread crop up when it comes to creators discussing AI. Why bother being an artist if every person who might pay for your art has the option to have a computer program spit something out for free?

The image at the right is taken from Ellen Woodbury's PizzaCake comic late last week. In the comic, she goes on to note that being a "successful" artist isn't worth much if the effort that went into creation is merely typing a prompt. And while her skills as an artist are the result of years of training and pracitce, any yahoo with a computer can type a few words and get a similar result in seconds. It will be souless and passionless, of course, but for many people, it would still fall under the qualification of "good enough." So what's the point of her continuing to make art?

It's not a new question. Douglas Adams, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, brought up this issue from an explicitly philosophical standpoint, having two philosophers-by-trade demand they pull the plug on the universe's most powerful -- and sentient -- computer...

Majikthise: I mean, what's the use of our sitting around half the night arguing whether there may...

Vroomfondel: Or may not.

Majikthise: ...be a God, if this machine only goes and gives you his phone number in the morning?

The passage is written humorously, of course, but it's a notion that is worth bringing up for any/all the humanities. At what point do the functions of being human -- of thinking and creating -- become redundant when they can be automated?

Rhymes with Orange creator Rina Piccolo coincidentally addressed the question in her newsletter over the weekend as well. In trying to make an ambient music video, she used some inexpensive royalty-free music tracks and began combining them with AI-generated art for the imagery. And it was only after she had been working on that that she remembered, "I can draw! Duh! I thought, Why do I need these cheap fabricated robo-arts?" So she switched gears and made the video using custom-drawn artwork.

But the interesting thing about her relaying the story is that she prefaced that with the notion of how a lot of her creative efforts over the years have been "pretty useless."

I often create things that have zero possibility of fitting into any viable market, or paying the mortgage...

... My career as a cartoonist and writer started out as just playing and daydreaming. At the time, my projects were just creative obsessions, and a lot of the things I made were “pretty useless.” Some of these “projects” branched out, evolved, adapted and were molded, and a lot of them (most of them!) died pitifully, and some — a tiny few — flourished.

Piccolo notes that her ambient music video has "room for improvement" but she very clearly seems to have enjoyed the process of creating "an almost useless thing, but at least a nice useless thing. A digital knick-knack!" It's the process of creation that is worthwhile, regardless if your 'content' makes money or gains you likes and follows.

Remember: passion projects and creative obsessions often fuel the creation of other “real work” projects — there’s more to it than just play and exploration. There’s learning, and the nurturing of new skills.

Woodbury ends her comic with much the same conclusion...

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