By Maile Sundquist
Lately my social media has been inundated with either friends sharing AI photos and art, or ads for pages sharing it, and it got me thinking.
I’m not gonna lie, I jumped on the AI art bandwagon early on. I mean, who doesn’t want a super hot avatar of themselves in futuristic armor riding a unicorn in space? But as time has passed, and not that much time mind you, I have seen the negative affects it is having on people’s perceptions of the arts, the artist, and the value of artistic creations.
As a song writer, artist, and author, it has been disheartening, and even scary to see how many people are creating AI generated “paintings”, “photos”, “songs”, and “poetry”, and trying to sell them, or use them as click bait, or for social media followings. The best, is the essays and written projects that are being turned in by students. And it seems like the general population is either not recognizing it as such, or does not care. But we’ll probably start caring when we realize the brain surgeon we are scheduled to see only graduated because of their AI generated reports. Okay, so it probably won’t get that bad, buuuuut you never know. It is discouraging artists from creating, and students from studying, so that’s bad enough.
Both the individuals who try to sell the creations that they spent a few minutes on, rather than the possible days weeks or months it may have taken them had they created it using their own mind and body, and those who may use it instead of hiring a real professional artist, photographer, graphic designer or writer. Both of these utilizations of AI are harmful to the livelihoods of those individuals who may have spent years refining their skills.
It’s a shame that people and companies create things before they consider the sociological and geological consequences they may cause. Radithor, sold from 1918-1928, radioactive water elixir advertised as “The cure for the living dead.” And we all know what happened to those who drank it. True AI may not cause us to die an early, painful and morbid death as our jaw disintegrates and our body parts need to be amputated one by one. But we have yet to see the fullness of the relational, social, economic, psychological, and more consequences AI and technology as a whole will have upon us humans.
The Arts always struggle to remain funded in schools, and that has always flummoxed me. In fact I just had a conversation earlier this week with the head of music and art for the school district my son is a part of and she warned me that there will be a lot less offered next year, since they are losing their funding battle. She and I both just shook our heads heart broken and in disgust, agreeing that the Arts should be considered a core subject. I thanked her for her hard work, and encouraged her to keep on fighting. It has been proven time and time again that nature, social interaction, and music and art are all important foundational, fundamental, and healing aspects of humanity. A culture and a people are known by what they create. How sad when we need to fight to keep the arts alive in our schools and society when from the dawn of time, art was a vehicle for the human heart. Music and art were ways humans expressed themselves, created community, learned and passed on information to future generations.
I believe the Creator of all gave his creation the ability to create, and that fascinates, humbles, and inspires me. And not just the ability, but the desire, and passion to create. Humans are driven by an invisible force to express themselves through music, the written word and artistic mediums. And those who are not inspired to personally create are drawn to experience the created. Art can challenge, encourage, and move humans in innumerable and powerful ways.
Growing up in an artistic family of multitalented parents and siblings, I could never separate the arts from the very fabric of life and existence. Why life itself is an orchestrated transcendent song! To me, little in life is more powerful, more moving, than music. It sticks with the human soul like nothing else mankind can create. There is an inherent rhythm to life, and it calls us to join in the dance.
Okay, I’m getting a bit too esoteric here, but all this to say, it’s a given that the arts are a foundation to all societies the world over. So when we take the soul out of the creation by allowing the man-made computer to create what the man has created by way of their experience, emotions, and dreams for centuries, something important is lost, both for the creator and the audience. Rather than a human soul being met through the work of another human soul and the use of their mind and talents, the human is being met with a robotic conglomerate of images and writings that were at one time written by a human, but interpreted through a mindless, soulless entity, chewed up and regurgitated out in a new way. Eventually no one will know if what they are seeing, reading, and hearing is real, and when there is nowhere to go for truth, and no way to prove it anymore, what then?
People have mixed feelings about the fact that I have written digital songs using loops and pre-programmed sounds, or over the fact that I use Procreate to make digital artwork. The difference in both scenarios is that I am still needing to compose and write the song and shape it from scratch, and with Procreate, each line is hand drawn, and rendered as though I was working on a tangible substrate like paper.
I have seen how society always attempts to right itself, just like nature and life in general. When society goes through a technological boom, you can usually expect it to sway back towards the organic, handmade, in-person, nature-based eventually. But what happens as we continue to experience more and more surges of technological advancement over time and allow the skills it takes to create be forgotten. The pendulum won’t swing as far back to the truth, the original, the pure, the natural as it did 20 to 50 years earlier, because society has adopted and deemed such a level of technology indispensable, that we will never be able to fully return to where we started. Or it may have nothing to swing back to at all once those skills are lost. I mean, no one needs to return to cave painting, blood letting, or mullets…(wait, what? we already returned to mullets?) but as more technology is adopted, the revolt against new technology will be back to a society that was flush with technology, albeit less than the current surge at hand. Progress for the sake of progress is ignorance.
Just like clutter creep happens slow through possessions in your home until one day you open your closet and are buried by the hoard of supplements, unused sports gear, craft supplies, your Beanie Baby collection, clothes that don’t fit, and your old Thigh Master, so too technological creep (did I just coin a term?) can entwine it’s tentacles into areas of our minds, habits, daily life, to such an extent, until we have forgotten our values. Until we have forgotten how to look another human in the eye. Until we have forgotten how to have a respectful conversation with someone who doesn’t believe everything we do. Until we have forgotten that we ourselves are not computers, and should not be held to the same standards. Until we have forgotten that a human life is too short to waste on not creating, on not dreaming, and on not being with those you love, who love you, and making memories in this beautiful world full of wondrous things, like sunsets and pickles.
When we forget how to create, then we have forgotten what it is to be human.
Ask yourself what kind of world you want to live in, what kind of world you want your children to live in, what kind of world it would be if humans stop creating. Technology is a wonderful tool and an aid, but we must be careful to not let digital and technological creep take our humanity away. As with all things in life there is a balance to be struck.
Keep fighting for the arts, and never stop dreaming or creating my kindred souls!
Aspire to inspire, and Live BRIGHT!
Maile Sundquist 