We Don't Want Generative AI: An Aritst's Perspective

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re no doubt familiar with all the discourse around generative AI lately. It’s impossible to avoid, as companies insert AI features into seemingly every single product. I have a MAJOR bone to pick with generative AI, and I’m going to lay it all out there for you. 

We haven’t asked the right questions about generative AI before rolling out the tech and adopting it. There aren’t really guardrails in place. And while the biggest environmental stressor comes from large corporations using gen AI at scale, we each have a responsibility to stop and think about these tools before jumping in blindly. 

Generative AI generic on purpose, because all it’s doing is spitting out remixes of existing work. It’s not thinking or making, it’s finding the average expected outcome. That means that generative AI will never be interesting, because it’s not meant to be interesting. It’s meant to be average and to look like already existing work. All it does it replicate; it can’t actually create a new style, merely copy what’s already out there. Have you noticed that everything looks kind of the same lately?

This is my major gripe. Consumers tend to think of art as a final product, the final piece. But what makes art interesting is the process that goes into it. WHY did the artist make the choices they did? What are they communicating, how are they problem solving? Generative AI can, indeed, produce an image. But what does that image mean? What is it saying? These questions are the entire point! Generative AI can’t art direct or actually think about why it would make specific art choices, and if the person prompting it doesn’t have an understanding of creative direction, it can’t produce anything worthwhile.

There have been tons of reporting on this lately, but studies are finding that LLMs have actual cognitive consequences. Plus, it’s not reliable. It oversimplifies, and hallucinates, and it makes up sources and quotations. 

Data centers use a ton of energy, which creates heat. Fresh water cools the systems down. Not only does it use a ton of water, but CO2 emissions are increasing. Communities near data centers don’t have adequate access to clean water and some people experience respiratory issues. And which people, exactly, do you think are most impacted by these data centers? I'll give you one guess.

Listen, if you can’t be bothered to make the art or write the book, why should I bother to consume it? Market research shows that when people see images that they suspect to be AI generated, they are suspicious and don’t bother to engage. People are craving authentic connection. Have you noticed the rise in mail clubs? Most people don’t want perfect, shiny; they want to see the humanity behind the work and to know it was touched by real people.

Perhaps a less visible aspect of the widespread use of generative AI is the additional burden it creates on human artists. In the past, I have sometimes recorded my process and sometimes not, and the only real consequence was social media engagement. But now, there are so many scammers out there that if a customer suspects they’ve been duped, they go on a generative AI witch hunt. This means that not only do real artists have to face a changing job market, but they also have to provide proof (often in the form of timelapse videos). This takes away from the time they could be spending creating art.

I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but generative AI content is meant to get your attention. The problem is that you can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t. Adaptive algorithms mean that we aren’t all seeing the same content, and that pushes people deeper into silos. 

I believe in the power of curiosity and problem solving, and that anything your brain produces is infinitely more interesting than any generative AI could ever be. Before jumping in, really think about the impacts of utilizing these tools. Like I said above, it's not ethically neutral. Do you prioritize expediency above all else? I encourage you to take some time to think about exactly what generative AI is doing to the world and to real communities.