— I’m concerned about this sudden rise of AI-generated “artwork.”

When it comes to Photoshop and other programs or apps we’ve come to commonly enjoy, they’re typically only doing a portion of the work. You still need to bring your artistic skills to the table to create something from it all. You have to invest time and effort at every step along the way.

But with the emerging AI programs out there (like MidJourney) you’re simply feeding your computer some words . . . and it’s creating the artwork for you. Literally. Entirely on its own, in minutes.

I don’t see that as human art any more. It’s more like alien art if anything.

My greatest worry is that seeing the caliber of “art” these computers are creating is going to highly discourage real artists — to the point of making them throw in the towel and give up. (“What’s the point anymore?”)

It’s doubtless going to flood the market with tens of millions of pieces of dazzling “artwork,” making earning an income as a human artist much, much harder.

And I wonder how it’s ultimately going to change how we as a species perceive art. If you no longer know whether human talent and ingenuity and work went into creating something that looks amazing (versus a computer generating it in minutes, all on its own), how do we make sense of what to value anymore? That’s a philosophical question we’ll need to tackle at some point.

But of course, as a human artist, that’s not the correct way to think about it. As an artist you should still want to create art of your own.

In the same way chess players still want to sit down at a chessboard and play chess, even though they know computers can play 100X better than they ever will. And in the same way actual painters (in oils and acrylics) didn’t give up when Photoshop came around. If you want to paint in oils and spend months enjoying your work at the canvas, who cares if Photoshop can render a photo into an oil painting in seconds?

In the end, real artists are going to want to create their own art.  It’s as simple as that.

Real musicians don’t type words into a computer and let it write music for them.  Real pianists don’t buy player pianos and let the piano play itself.

Getting inspired by AI-generated stuff is fine of course.  Using software that employs AI in the background to process all of the math required to create effects — no issue there.  And even taking bits of AI-generated stuff to layer into your own work isn’t a big deal, no different from using a texture or a PNG file you buy or download really.

But you still have to DO something with it yourself — make some of your own artistic decisions, exercise some of your own skills — to make it your own.

I don’t think it’s a very complicated thing to understand, and most folks are already coming around to seeing it that way too.  They WANT to create their own stuff because they want to be artists and take pride in their work.

As an artist, you’re in this for the journey — for YOUR journey — and for the simple joy it brings you when you’re tapping into your own imagination and skills and creating something beautiful and meaningful to you.

Which is why I don’t see AI-generated “art” as something to be championed or even given much attention.

I don’t care about what my computer can do. I care about what YOU can do.

I don’t care about what my computer is making. I care about what YOU are making … and what your art is making of you.

I certainly wouldn’t sit around at night and watch my computer play perfect chess against itself. I’d either play games of my own or perhaps study famous games by the greatest human players of the past.

Nor would I sit around listening to “music” my computer was able to make up on its own. Not if I wanted to play the piano myself and take delight in acquiring that skill. Not if I could instead sit and wonder at the marvels of Mozart or put on the Beatles.

In the context of our private AWAKE and KAIZEN Groups, I don’t see there is any space there for fully AI-generated “art.” (I’m sure there are dozens of other places to post whatever your computer makes for you.) And I have no intention of ever seeing it published in our magazine.

Our groups are about photo artistry and Photoshop. This should be a place where we gather as humans and share and admire art made by humans — each an artist on his or her own creative journey, investing time and care to get better at this delicious craft of ours, while creating art of our own requiring all the countless artistic decisions we have to make along the way.

Typing “monkey balloon rembrandt fire lake japanese film noir” into a program and letting it create a dazzling work of “art” for you . . .

Well, that’s just not the same thing, is it?

~ Sebastian

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PS: The lovely piece featured in this post is by AWAKE artist Nina Irvin. Nina is an actual human … with creativity and talent and a heart that can feel and a soul that can soar, ache, or yearn. And the beautiful thing is, that means something still.