The 2020s has been a wild year for entertainment, and one of the wildest controversies to occur is the rise of A.I. generated art and animation. Ask any artist about A.I. Art and they will have some opinions, and since it is now seeping its way into animation, if it hasn't been already, maybe now is a good time to discuss why A.I. art is, and I'm being as polite as I can, absolutely worthless and should not be a thing anybody supports.
I don't think I need to explain what A.I. is, right? It's artificial intelligence usually programmed to perform one single task. Scan videos to see which ones aren't suitable for our website, beat Super Mario Bros without dying, make products to these specifications. They're simple programs designed to run a simple and repetitive task. How they work is very... complicated, but basic coding boils it all down, "If this, than that", so imagine an A.I. designed to monitor a firepit and kill the fire when something non desirable gets to close to the pit, like a piece of plastic or a soda can. "If clear, than fire. If not clear, than no fire." Over time, that A.I. would need to take other things into incorporation, and that's where it would get complicated, but that's my understanding anyway.
So, why is A.I. art a bad thing? Well, let's talk about what art is, and I mean that seriously. Ultimately, I believe that art is a form of communication, communicating desires, communicating stories, communicating ideas, communicating feelings, sure we have art that serves a purpose, but beyond that, it is primarily, in my belief, to serve as a form of communication. Think about it, think of the layout and décor of your personal space, what does it say about you? How does it convey your personality? Is it full of collectibles? Is it organized and clean? Why are the walls coloured the colours they are, and would you change them? These are all the elements of art that is made to communicate, and what it's all trying to communicate is very personal to the artist.
How would Pink Floyd's The Wall have been had Roger Waters' life turned out differently? If Syd Barrett never had to disappear from the face of the Earth, if his father never died in war, if Thatcher was never elected? How would the story of The Wall change? How would Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood have changed if Fred Rogers never turned on the TV? or if a different program, one that he didn't despise, was playing? How different would James Rolfe's life be if he never had a Nintendo Entertainment System? You look at all these pieces of art and what they're communicating, themes of pain and isolation, themes of kindness and love, themes of childhood anger and nostalgia gone sour, and you think about how the artists personal lives were influencing their work.
You don't get that with A.I., it's not personal, it's not communicating anything about what the artist feels or thinks. Sure, someone programmed the A.I., but that's not the same thing. The artist can't tell the A.I. to make something like they would, because that would destroy the purpose of the A.I., an A.I. could write an album about Thatcher era England and comparing it to Nazi Germany, but then any of the details inspired by Roger Waters' personal life and experiences wouldn't be there, and it'd be completely different. It's easy to assume it'd be the same, but that is hindsight talking, because The Wall was released in 1979, so it's easy to believe it wouldn't be different when it's become such a big piece of modern day culture.
So, okay, it's not personal, but corporate art does exist. Art that doesn't communicate ideas, but more serves a function. Okay, what function does A.I. Art serve? And no, "To look pretty" isn't a valid reason. I have seen posters that look pretty, but I never bought them because they weren't posters I wanted. I do have posters that look pretty, but they're also for things I like, Pink Floyd, The Crow, Daft Punk, Steven Universe, so even though the art may not communicate itself, it still communicates something about me. Now, think about all the other types of Functional Art, architecture, cooking, automobile design, landscaping, they all serve a purpose that A.I. art does not.
So, what purpose does it serve? Maybe it makes Art more accessible to people? Then you realize, there has never been a point that art has never been accessible to anyone, not to make and not to see. People have been using random things they've crushed up to paint cave walls, paint their faces and dye clothes for thousands of years, potentially even millions. Anyone who has access to a tool to make a mark with, and something to mark on, can make art. A stick and some sand, a pencil and paper, a keyboard and computer, and everyone can see all manner of art nowadays, thanks to online places and social media. People will say, "I can't draw" or "I can't write like you", and the truth is, they've probably never tried, because it's the old saying, "the master has failed more times than the student has even tried."
So it fails to communicate any real ideas, it fails to serve any real purpose, and it fails to make art more accessible because art never was inaccessible to anyone. So, why do people like A.I. art? Well, personally, and I must stress I don't know anyone else to who thinks this, but I think it's because people want art, but they don't want to pay people for it. A.I. gives people a chance to have art for themselves without having to deal with an artist who "Has other commissions on hold", or "Needs to pay their bills", or "Doesn't do NSFW", because nobody sees a worker as another person, they're just servants to others. The person behind the counter at the coffee shop doesn't have their own life, they only exist to serve the person ordering the coffee and pastry, they don't really exist outside of the coffee shop do they? It's the same with artists, they don't really exist outside of the Twitter-sphere, even though Twitter is where a lot of people, including artists, talk about personal things and beliefs.
A.I. art is an issue, and beyond allegations of art theft and plagiarism, it's a problem because it has the ability to take the value away from traditional artists. Imagine, why would someone pay $500 for a piece of fan-art, when an A.I. could do it for $25? I've always been worried about A.I. taking our jobs and nothing coming quick enough to replace them, and A.I. art really gets to the core of that fear, if people can't rely on making art for a living, when all the jobs are gone, what can we do? At this point, I'm almost on the side of A.I. taking all our jobs, because when the corporate fatheads realize that we need money in order for them to make money, they'll panic and probably all drop dead, but that's wishful thinking. I don't think I need to say this, but A.I. is troubling, in a world where, "In Gold We Trust", we need to replace the jobs we're filling with A.I., before the only people with money are the people who never spend it.
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