You’ve all seen AI art before
We’ve seen this before and it doesn’t change the fact that humans love humans
Last week I had the pleasure of participating in my company’s quarterly hack week, and we were urged to learn all we can about AI. After watching lots of talks with excited people on how LLMs, AI and other acronyms work, I started to think about the human stories in this. I’m writing this post partially for my niece Nanea, a fledgling artist with fear and doubt about this new thing. I have some pretty bold things to say, but let’s talk. After all, as current developments have proven, the world is a conversation
Art vs decoration
I hear fear all around about how AI generated, or “generative” art is going to put artists out of work, and how it’s stealing livelihoods. One thing that people seem to be forgetting is that we already have this today, only humans create it.
If you’ve ever bought a frame, or been to a cheap motel, you see tons of “art” there that you would never purchase as art. There’s also tons of “art” out there that people use as decoration. for that matter, you see tons of photography on this site that people either get free or pay cheaply for it as an illustrative device. These writers just don’t have the time or money to make or commission photography for every article they write. It’s clearly decoration and no one pretends it’s anything more than that. However, when people buy art, it’s because they want a connection.
People crave stories
Provenance is something that art dealers and museum creators value greatly, and regular humans do too. It vouches for the “authenticity” of a work of art, but it’s also telling a story. Part of the reason that artists often get popular after death is that there’s a compelling human condition that drives us to remember a struggle of life.
The “provenance” of an AI piece is at the core the prompt used to generate it, or at most the series of prompts tried to get to the result. At this time in human culture, that is along a similar value as the person who “built” his bike, but actually just picked out the parts for the craftsperson who built the wheels and put together the bike itself. It is creative of a sort sure, but it doesn’t hold your heart like someone putting together a bike completely, or even welding their own frame.
“Buy Human” may rise and fall quickly
There may come a movement, much like “Buy American” to support the human artists out there. As noble as it sounds, I don’t think it will catch steam because it’s probably unnecessary. As I believe, people want stories behind their art, and one that they can connect to. People connect to sentient beings, and right now humans have a monopoly on known sentience.
There will be unique illustrations out there done 99% by AI and 1% by a human. The percentages are not relevant but the more a human is willingly involved, the more humans will value it as art. Most will have a feeling of this because humans have certain sensitivities. They can be fooled, but with more work.
Deep fakes
There will be people who use things like Dall-E or Midjourney to create an illustration, and then use ChatGPT to create provenance and story. It may fool some, or many for a short or long time. However woe to the person caught in this, because people do not like it when they know they are fooled. There will be people out there who do this, but there will also be people who will work hard to find and expose them, for there are trolls.
Do what you love
There’s a saying in Design that “Art is for yourself, Design is for others”, and that is true on a fundamental level. If you love to paint, paint. If you like to carve, then carve.
If you like to put things together with your mind, that’s ok too. Remember the artist Henri Matisse. Late in life, it became difficult for him to paint, so he started using paper cut outs, which more and more his assistants made for him. In a way, it was the first “generative” art, in human form. He prompted, and the assistants went to work. Many love this art because it’s compelling visually and has a story behind it. Generative art is no different if you put your soul into it, just like any other medium.
I do think though that people will still choose to do things with their own “hands” as it is difficult to create unique expression in a sea of art “memes”. It’s great for illustration, but not expression. I also see the rise in value of what some may see as “crude”, “naive”, or “primitive” application of the medium. People like Grandma Moses and Rousseau made great reputations because…yes they had a unique story and style.
Now as for UX Design, I have more reservations.
