AI slop is everywhere. A YouTube video recently informed me half of the content on the internet is now created by AI instead of humans. And it’s good enough that we can’t always tell the difference between things generated by AI and generated by a human. What does that mean for art?
Will authors soon be replaced by LLM’s?
Brandon Sanderson (fantasy writer, for those of you who have not heard of him–which, if you’ve found this fantasy author’s website, I assume is a minority) recently posted a very profound YouTube lecture on why he dislikes AI generated products. It’s not because the products are necessarily worse, but it’s because art shouldn’t be defined solely as the end product that is created. Art is also the process of creating, of learning and improving: the growing we do as we create.
Generative AI takes that opportunity for growth away from us.
It’s time for us to decide what we believe art is, Sanderson says: just the product, or also the change that happens in us by the creation of the product? Is it the destination, or the journey? (Check out the full speech on YouTube: ‘We are the art’.)
While as an author I am firmly in Sanderson’s camp, I also think that as authors of a work (and I’m talking author in a broader sense, as including illustrators, musicians, and anyone involved in creating anything) we are not the only ones who get to decide what art is.
As authors: absolutely, it’s the creation that matters.
But as an audience: does the value of art lie in who created it, or in the change that happens to you in receiving and experiencing art? And could you have the same depth of experience from a human-created product as from an AI generated product?
I believe we are living in an era that will soon give us the answer to that – and also that that answer will decide how we will value art in the future. Not just the monetary value of it, but also humanity’s willingness to spend time on art.
I think that is the specific reason why I felt propelled by Sanderson’s talk to post this.
As a creator, I fear AI will stop people from wanting to create.
Which, in my opinion, would be a crippling loss to all of us. I need art to survive. I think we all do. I think creativity is hardwired into us, whether it comes out through art, a novel, a new cake recipe, or a flower arrangement.
I choose to believe that we are innately creative.
And I hope to be proven right. Because to outsource art would be to lose part of what makes us human.
What’s your take on AI and art?