This is a catch-all collection of thoughts that have me a bit perturbed, but ultimately steeled in resolve. There’s a great deal of people who seem hellbent on decreeing society’s entire submission to generative artificial intelligence. LLMs like ChatGPT, “art” generators like Midjourney, etc. Hell, I even went to bat for “A.I. art” myself as an artist’s tool in an article here on Universe.
And though I’m loathed to admit it, one of these is a fellow I’m fond of, Kyle Hill.
Now, everything I’m about to say is not specifically directed at him, nor a character assassination of him, nor particularly interested in him. He’s a rather fine fellow doing fine work. The video is merely a springboard, because when I hear a man ask the question “who will need architects when Midjourney can generate images no one has ever designed before,” I have to pause the video, pinch the bridge of my nose and remind myself that engineers and scientists can be some of the greatest brainlets when it comes to the arts.
At the risk of being cliché, never has there ever been a more appropriate time to bust out the Doc Malcom classic: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”
That is currently where we stand with A.I.
To be grossly regressive, you have one half of the debate living in existential fear and seemingly unable to fight back with any sense of conviction, and the other basically begging for Skynet, communism, or some combination of the two to be ushered in for an age when artificially intelligent programs, combined with automated machinery, displace most of the work force, and we get everyone accustomed to a post-scarcity society, where all of the hobbies we were supposed to enjoy once the menial work was automated...are also automated.
What particularly rankles me is that people are willing to throw art under the bus too. And this is for a variety of reasons. One, there are the engineers and scientists too dense to comprehend anything they can’t statistically or molecularly analyze. (#NotAll, but the relevant parties still apply) Two, the uncaring “normie” populace force-fed enough drivel to make the pivot towards artificially generated entertainment potentially viable. Three, weak-kneed creatives who can only curl up in a ball at the very thought and hand over their brushes and pens, just like that. Not because the government said no more creativity, not because God snapped that trait out of the gene pool. Just because someone’s computer happened to generate some decent prose or a stylish picture.
It is times like these where I have to recall two things of utmost importance to all who look at this question in fear, terror, confusion, existential dread, the works.
Keep Perspective
Fight Dread with Dread
The first one is key. I create my work principally for my own gratification, amusement, and relief. I tell such strange stories because I find them entertaining, I write in a wide array of musical styles to express a variety of emotions and moods.
And I, once again, make films because I’m a sadomasochist.
All of my expressions of creativity are brought forth into the world because I willed them, I wished them to be, and I made it so. Furthermore, I am such an old man in my tastes, I’m ostensibly futureproofed because I barely watch or listen to anything new anyway. I will keep buying my records, my books, and my home videos, I will keep burning my mixtapes and my DVD-Rs, so long as I’m alive to do so, and you’ll have to pry ‘em from my cold, dead hands.
There is no reason for me to stop. I will never be given a good enough reason to stop. And to be perfectly cruel, the kind of people who would devour artificially generated content in near-exclusivity because “it’s the in-thing to do” are the kind of Jones not worth keeping up with, if only because their Wonderbread, plastic tastes are so malleable, you could dress up shit and serve it as filet mignon. And they’ll gobble it down right to the last corn kernel, believe me.
So no matter how advanced the technology becomes, how far it goes, it will never be enough to make me hang up my many wonderful worlds both now and yet-to-come. And the great part is, I can do all of these things in analog form, which will be important for my second point.
Now, when I say “fight dread with dread,” one must remember that we live in this thing called The Universe. And as the late, great Carl Sagan once said, “The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.” But it is host a wonderful wealth of bizarre phenomena. Allow me to introduce you to your new friend, the Coronal Mass Ejection, via Kyle Hill once again.
To cut a long story short, a CME is an ejection of magnetic field and plasma from the sun that can reach Earth and, given it is of a certain magnitude, can potentially effect power grids worldwide and the internet at-large. Most famous example was the first observed solar flare in 1859, known as the Carrington Event, a geomagnetic storm of such devastating power, it crippled parts of telegraph systems at the time and even caused fires. And some killer Auroras too.
Now, the good news is that the human body is perfectly capable of withstanding such storms, so long as you don’t stare directly at the sun as you probably could see the discharge, as was observed in 1859. The better/worse news is that our current, centralized power grid would likely go tits-up.
Now here’s where the speculative fiction side of me gets-a-going. Imagine if you will, all of this hype, all this gung-ho push to integrate A.I. as rapidly and as quickly as possible, only for a CME to hit the Earth, and knocking the entirety of the power grid on its ass, internet included, and (most importantly) A.I. SYSTEMS INCLUDED.
Now you know what I mean when I say “fight dread with dread.” We are not alone in the Universe, and that doesn’t have to just mean extraterrestrial life. It means there are forces beyond our control which can do things no one anticipates. So while they may not hold true human fear or comprehend true human fear, these artificial intelligences are not infallible, and there is a hand-of-God failsafe waiting in the wings. And though it may not happen in our time, there is that sweet, succulent poetry about the possibility that helps me to keep some big-picture perspective.
So, what to do in the interim? Simply put, do not accept anything less than human in art. I can’t solve all the world’s problems, but I know a thing or two about the arts, and to leave everything up to A.I. is to forsake man’s true beauty. To Mr. Hill, I say that “intelligence” is not man’s last true defining feature. His capacity to dream, to aspire, to feel, to suffer, those are also qualities of importance, meaning, and definition. They are the mark of a true, living being. If all of Man was simply defined by intelligence, we would live in a world so dull, I’m not even sure we’d have had the gumption to even consider making artificial intelligence. I don’t think we’d have had the gumption to put a man on the moon. I dare say, the furthest we’d ever get was fire, and maybe the wheel if we were feeling infinitesimally inspired that day.
To all the tech nerds who think they can replace all artistic mediums with “A.I. art,” you are still fucking idiots. To all the pussies who can’t stand and fight for their place in the future, you’ll get what you deserve. And as for the public: I cannot condemn the masses anymore than to the fate that has already befell them, and can only hope they start to snap back to life, one by one.
And to address that elephant lingering in the room: I still think generative programs can be helpful. I’ll still generate textures, I’ll still use elements in my graphic design. I simply resent the implication that “helpful” means supplanting the soul of man merely because some pencil-neck geeks think it “can.”
Go make something of yourselves.
Well said. It’s useful the way Google is: as a source of inspiration and to answer certain types of questions, but I wouldn’t put its output inside the actual work save for the occasional name or phrase.
Excellently put!