“I’ve written 200+ articles using AI, here’s what not to do.” “This prompt fools EVERY AI detector. “One prompt that INSTANTLY makes ChatGPT write better”… these are all titles I read upon opening my Medium app: instead of seeing articles that have depth, passion and creativity woven into them, the only writings I come across are on how to make art stripped of a human soul–by artificial intelligence. All these articles currently stand with over 6 thousand likes, thousands of people using something artificial to create what is supposed to be meaningful. And the artificiality doesn’t stop at a few articles, no: AI has infected thousands of art forms, from writing to painting to even acting. If we as a society continue to go down a path where art is artificial without a meaning, by 2030 art might just become a soulless world, run by AI.

The definition of art, per Merriam Webster, is the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects. Great! Now…what exactly about AI has a conscience? Or an imagination, for that matter? Everything produced by AI is algorithmic and only designed to please a user based on data. There is no intricate story, no real life influence, no creativity that goes into anything AI creates. How am I supposed to analyze the symbolism of the thousandth picture of a pink haired anime girl generated by ChatGPT if there is no story? The beauty of art is that it is created by a human, by hands, by a story, no matter if the art in question is fan art or a reimagined Mona Lisa, and forgive me, but I don’t want the future of art to be destroyed by an open AI model that can’t even tell me who the U.S president is accurately.

THE DEVALUATION OF THE ARTIST

AI art not only cheapens art, it devalues the artist themselves. AI art, of course, is not authentic or original by any means. AI must draw from other art works to create its own to substitute for imagination, which many people recognize globally. Turns out, this recognition is both a blessing and a curse. Because of a widespread acknowledgement that originality and authenticity must be watched for in a world of artificially produced art, the conversation around artistic work becomes less about the story and background of an artist’s work and more about whether the work is “original” or not–how new the art looks or feels. Of course, this is understandable. With AI art becoming so prevalent there is no doubt that people would want to see something fresh and different, original and new. But, there’s a problem: art can be made from inspiration, it can be reimagined, it can be reworked. The whole point of art is what inspired it and the story behind it, and by reducing art to a scale of how original and new it is diminishes what the artist intended by making the art in the first place. It makes it so the labor, emotion, and hard work that goes into the creation of an artistic work is nothing if that work isn’t entirely new or completely original to the artistic landscape

Charlie Engman, a photographer, puts this perfectly in his article titled “You Don’t Hate AI, You Hate Capitalism,” saying “True creative expression is posited as a sudden and novel rupture or disruption, a big bang of creativity, rather than a cumulative, collaborative process. There is a prevailing belief that the artist with the best ‘receipts’ — the claim to being the first to express an idea in a particular form — should have sovereign rights over that expression.” Engman expresses the idea of how art now has to be something never seen before to be valued in the mainstream, where un-original AI art has become so common. Artists can now barely gain recognition for their art, if it isn’t uniquely different from any other art works–even if the meaning of that art is deeply beautiful.

AI INSPIRES ART FOR CAPITALISM.
I’ve talked about how AI art is devaluing artists, but now I want to touch briefly on something entirely different: how AI inspires capitalistic art. AI is, unfortunately, shaping the future of art without a doubt, and it’s doing it in a way that makes art more of a capitalist product than human expression as time progresses. I mean, haven’t you wondered why the new Taylor swift album was so shallow with 28 different variants? Why all art is starting to look the same? Why artists are releasing new projects so quickly after their previous ones? This can be partially if not wholly attributed to AI’s influence in the artistic landscape. AI art is ideal for a capitalist system, which thrives off of efficiency and fast labor to produce profit. AI produces art for free, no labor required, no human emotions getting in the way, it looks decent, and it makes money fast…essentially, AI is the ideal employee, a money making machine for companies that need art produced fast, so why wouldn’t they use AI? Because AI is so simple and easy for people to use to generate art, artists aren’t “needed” as ubiquitously anymore, and therefore they are, understandably, threatened by the existence of generative AI. People who write for a living , do graphic design, photography etc. are all vulnerable to being replaced entirely by artificial intelligence. So, what happens then?

Artists scramble to be like the AI. Of course, they can never truly embody the fastness and efficiency of what artificial intelligence can soullessly produce, but they can at least imitate it. Release writings fast with no thought put into it, make music that fits with what the algorithms want, make drawings of a human with dead eyes behind it that has no meaning–AI’s benefits to a capitalist economy makes artists strive to be as successful, fast, and meaningless as AI to make sure they aren’t replaced by an AI entirely. This idea especially applies to less recognized artists, as they need to make money somehow more than someone like, say, Chappell Roan might. So, now, artists are trying to imitate the way AI makes art because of the threat AI poses to their jobs. If this continues, not only will AI art be shallow, but real artists that are just trying to not get cheated out of a job’s art will be as well–another role AI plays in the decline of the art industry.

SO, WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Now, I barely scratched the surface of the negative impacts that AI art has on the industry, but I’m sure you can take away the fact that I hate AI art. I think AI art is bad, it is a capitalistic influencer on today’s art that devalues the creators behind it. It sucks. But why am I telling you? What are you supposed to do about it? Well, it’s simple, really. Whether you be sitting at home scrolling on your phone or visiting an art museum this weekend, all you truly have to do to fight against the impact artificial intelligence is having on art is appreciate the art without trying to compare it to AI in any way. Come across an interesting graphic on social media? Look into it, see what the graphic is about, learn about the person behind it. See a kid in your math class redrawing the Girl With a Pear Earring? Ask them why they’re drawing it. Yes, the answer could be “I’m bored” but it could also be a beautiful interpretation on the painting and how much it means to them. The key to battling AI produced art is to explore the very thing that the AI art cannot make: a meaningful story. Every piece of art, as long as it was crafted by human hands, has a tale behind it, a tale that no artificial intelligence can make no matter how many prompts are typed into it. Isn’t that the beauty of art in the first place?