why are so many writers pro-AI art?

This is weird to me. 

Then again, my stance might seem weird too. To be clear, I'm not strictly anti-AI. I use ChatGPT pretty regularly, I find machine learning pretty interesting (I do Kaggle most days, I've taken two AI courses in college, and have Fast.AI and DeepLearning.AI slotted on my study plan), and I have Copilot at work. I am not even completely anti-AI art; I think it can be a good tool for moodboards and ideation. I've sat in on some of the Kaggle generative AI courses as well, though they turned out to be too time-intensive for me to complete alongside my current schedule. So I am not completely anti-AI, but I am absolutely against generative models being used as "art". 

Even so, ever since I started my MS in CS back in 2020 I remember thinking "why is everyone just throwing neural nets at everything?" 

When I talk about AI art, I am specifically referring to AI art as it replaces the creative process. To be honest, when Dall-E 2 first came out when I was taking Computational Creativity (which I only took because Advanced Computer Security was dropped due to low enrollment), I thought the whole purpose of generative AI was going to be for exploring the limits of what computers can do, thus seeing if we can get them closer to the level of human intelligence. I was not expecting people to just be like "Oh! We don't need artists anymore! And we don't need to learn to draw or digital paint! We can just GENERATE!" 

THAT sucks. 

THAT has the potential to wreck the dream I've had since around 2010ish when I realized that I wanted to become a serious digital artist. 

And that is NOT what I thought we were going to use generative art for. 

There's no joy in the process of mindless generation, and yes, I describe AI art as soulless, and will do so until actual AGI is achieved. 

Brainstorming with AI is totally fine. Venting to AI, roleplaying with AI, having dynamic text for NPCs, putting tools that enhance things like lassoing or implementing Lagrangian style transfer, that all makes sense. Even having it generate test written passages or test images. Just to get an idea of the possibilities. 

But I think most writers would agree that just generating books or using AI as a crutch for things you suck at is unequivocally bad for the literary world as a whole. I don't want AI sentences in my books; I want my sentences. Even if my sentences are worse, because the core of art (in any medium) is not about skill, though that is certainly important; it is about expressing who you are as an individual. 

So if that's their perspective, why do they think it's fine to use AI art on their book covers? I don't want to see that crap. I don't want wonky lighting that follows no real-world physics, jacked up hands, random visual artifacts. My digital art sucks, to the point where it's embarrassing, and yet? Absolutely no way I am going to replace my process with AI art, or use it for anything other than pure ideation and brainstorming. I am simply going to work and push and learn more and more until my art becomes as good as those artists that I idolize. I will draw and paint and model every single day in order to make this happen. I am not going to cheat the learning process. 

Screw that noise. 

To me, this is a natural extension of those people at writing conferences who go "I write because I 'can't draw'!" Anytime I hear that, I get irrationally pissed. :D Dude, you should have seen some of my drawings in Art 101. I don't care. I draw and paint and 3D model every day anyway and I will make myself amazing. I will become so damn good that no one will believe me when I tell them how bad my art was when I first started. 

I'm tired of having to go "this isn't AI, right?" every time I browse Facebook or Zerochan. I'm tired of "what are you going to do when AI takes your job?" every time I tell some smug person I'm a software engineer. I quit DeviantArt and ArtStation years ago. I should have known that giving such tools to the public was never going to bode well. Remember, the C-Suite types never care about art, creativity, soul, or human expression; it is all about the money, and what they can save in costs. 

We are not in the worst timeline, but we are in a pretty crappy one. 

AI doesn't exist, but it will ruin everything anyway

the malicious optimism of AI-first companies

I will fucking piledrive you if you mention AI again

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