Failing Creatively: The AI of it all
Talking about AI this week… sorry for the TL:DR of it all…
There has been a lot of buzz related to tech companies lately, and artists seem to be fleeing Instagram in droves. So let’s get into the TL:DR of it all this week.
Artists of all kinds have had things they put on the internet scraped for AI training at companies for years. Many have been doing their best to prevent or litigate this practice which in my opinion is done in bad faith. There are things you can do to prevent this like Glazing your images, or not posting larger crisp files, however it can still be a struggle to protect your work.
Many tech people will make the argument that it is just a tool, and it isn’t coming for your work, and my least favorite “it is the future get used to it”. These arguments are reductive and ignorant to me for a few reasons:
I doubt there are many artists who asked for this.
In fact my guess is most people who asked were people who didn’t want to commission artists.
I also don’t think that artists are opposed to learning a new tool that will speed up their work flow. I know I wouldn’t.
It feels like the main goal if this was to force creatives to take lesser salaries or commission prices in order to get work.
What I do not think that most people realize is that this type of action hits the arts first but more computer related industries will follow. Wait till AI can set up a multinational corporations finances without consultants, or run a call center without people. Any job that uses tech or computers is in jeopardy and while some people like some artists will be fine there will be plenty of who are not, and there are only so many people who can do manual labor jobs.
There is a reason that Artists like me who fail creatively are worried. Artists like me are not the huge creatives who get commissions from companies like Disney, or major publishers. Social media was already against artists like me long before Instagram decided the follower was dead and all my work was fair game to train their AI.
I am not sure how AI will shake out and I firmly believe there is a place for what it can do in our society. AI is capable of so many amazing things that I am certain will benefit society as a whole. However that does not mean I am ok with it using my work to ensure that some major company can type some prompts into a computer and kick out some art in my or other artists style without fairly compensating the artist for the hard work put in. Corporations don’t need to save a buck, they have all the power already.
I wonder if all these tech people who tell me this is inevitable really understand, that AI not used ethically threatens more than just writers and Artists. For me this means a new relationship with my social media. It means that to really see my work people will have to spend time on my website, or if I do post work it will be protected. I am looking at alternative social media experiences because I want to really connect with people. For a no name artist like me that is more important than supporters.
Side note: The artwork I shared this week is my own fan art of Garfield which I made at a Library event I went to with my kids. Garfield was one of my favorite comic strips when I was a kid and is one of the largest influences in my wanting to be an illustrator.
Till next time keep failing creatively, and see you next week with some good news.
Thank you so much for joining me on my journey.
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have you come up with an alternative?
I've decided substack doesn't work for me. there are too many people teaching other people how to use AI and too many people who think AI art is a fun game and not something destroying the livelihoods of regular people here. it's not my place in the world.
You wrote "Artists like me who fail creatively"...in my opinion you aren't failing creatively if you're expressing yourself creatively & are enjoying the process. 😀