Last week, I wrote that ChatGPT and other large language AI models are “world changing technology on the scale of the wheel and the light bulb, and we’re treating it like it’s Candy Crush on our cell phones.” The snowballing enthusiasm for AI art shows just how unprepared we are for AI’s implications. We are already seeing attempts to recreate the work of dead artists or “improve” existing works of art. Sure, some of it looks cool, or sounds cool. And for the average distracted citizen of this poor ruined world, that’s enough to make it a good thing.
But it’s not good, because AI art is not art. It’s a magic trick that devalues all art and all artists. Not only that, it turns the promise of AI on its head: wasn’t AI (or automation, as it was known in analog days) supposed to replace all of the menial jobs and free human beings to create art and music, instead of doing exactly the opposite?
In a recent story in Spin by digital entrepreneur Les Borsai suggests that artists could use AI tools to keep performing music at a high level even as they age. What he does not overtly say, but which is implied by the piece, is after artists die, AI could continue to produce “new” music by them. Borsai concludes, “So let’s raise a glass to the future of music, where creativity transcends boundaries, and artists can achieve a unique form of immortality!”
Louder for the people in the back: fuck that.
It is a sad thing when artists lose their fastball as they age, or when they die, but using AI to keep them viable, or “alive,” would not represent an artistic triumph to celebrate. In life, it’s fraudulent. In death, it’s grave robbery. Many of those who are excited by it are excited about the revenue streams flowing from AI art without caring about the art itself. These people are enemies of art, who should be fought as hard as we’d fight any other enemy trying to destroy what we believe in and value.
Some other stuff that you might find interesting is on the flip: