Separating Art and AI-rtist

The art world is abuzz at the moment over artificial intelligence (AI) taking our jobs.

If you have heard anything about the Hollywood/Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) writers’ strike (here, the term “Hollywood” refers to the whole of the filmed media industry, not the city proper) and half of that strike is over the prospect of losing jobs to AI content creation. The idea, obviously, is that studios can use AI to write scripts and will no longer need to pay a dozen writers to keep a show running indefinitely.

The flaw in that logic is what happened the last time the WGA went on strike (2017). That strike led to the insurgence of reality television as well as the worst season of television in recent memory. A lot of people cite the third season of Heroes that came out of that mess as one striking example of what happens when Hollywood (still the industry) hires non-union writers to fill in where their regular writers are absent.

The point is . . . consumers of art are going to know the difference.

And there were already people gaming the system, selling work that wasn’t theirs to make a fast buck. This is nothing NEW, just another hurdle to cross. But the patrons of the arts are going to see through the soulless AI creations and stop patronizing those creations. If it looks like Amazon Prime is using AI to write their shows, people will just go to CBS, ABC, TNT, Max . . . and find something new to watch there, something that still has the soul of real, flesh and blood writers behind it.

Do I think this problem is going away? Not at all. I think now that we have it, AI “art” generation is here to stay. And for things like product descriptions for catalog sales or for an author to show their readers an image of how their characters look in their own heads, without having to use celebrity images or pay an arm and a leg for custom commissioned character art . . . It is absolutely a great tool for those jobs.

But do I think AI generation is going to replace real artists?

Honestly, my inclination is to say no, however, there is a whole new crop of youths who seem to believe technology is king and instant gratification IS all it’s cracked up to be. But I think there will always be a place in the world for artists with real heart and soul.

In the spring of 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the buzz was about the start of the next cultural era. The H1N1 pandemic of 1918-1919 helped kick off the jazz age, the age of art deco, flappers, and decadence for anyone who wanted it. To think that the pandemic of 2020 wouldn’t do the same, in some fashion, seemed foolish.

Is AI our generation’s jazz and art deco? Is that something we are meant to know in the moment, or do we have to wait another 10-15-20 years before we can really see, in hindsight, what our new art movement(s) were?

None of this is to say I don’t see a reason to worry. I also don’t see an end to the tide and maybe it’s better to ride the tide than get buried beneath it.

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