Let’s talk about A.I. (a little bit)
“I sign a form to tell the robot not to steal my soul: the very thing that makes me human and the robot a robot. But the robot doesn’t steal it for itself, it steals it for other humans who have forgotten they have a soul too”
My first time prompting AI generator for this blog post. Prompt: pencil drawing in the style of Beth Kirby Bethcub.
The ability to create new things from a collection of influences is how we make art, and technically, its how the AI makes art too. But human influences come through an endless filter of lived experiences, an entire life of conscious moments, each taking on different meanings depending on the million moments that came before it. Everything is coloured by our emotions, memories, intra and interpersonal happenings. AI does not have these experiences. It cannot notice the smell after it rains and have it conjure a memory of a childhood summer. AI cannot be moved to tears by a particular combination of musical notes. The robot does not create art when we are not asking it to. It does not have an innate need to make and express itself. It has no needs, no experiences, just data. It is artificial, by name and by nature, and as much as we like to slap a human mask on the things we like, it is not a human. It lacks that crumb of the unknown, that spark which makes us alive - a soul. AI, I’m afraid, does not have a soul: it is a facsimile of one.
Art is something everyone can do, because everyone has a soul. Art can be a drawing, a poem, it can be solving a problem, writing a book, cooking an incredible meal, decorating your house the way you like it. There is art in noticing the song of a bird or the beauty of the ocean. This is something AI can not replicate. Why would we want to replicate it? Trying to get AI to make copies of the one thing that makes us so uniquely human and alive is just…sad. People have forgotten they have souls, that art lives within them. Sometimes I think the world encourages this forgetting, instead placing emphasis on pursuit of efficiency, developing desires, acquiring money,
Boris Eldagsen’s PSEUDOMNESIA: The Electrician which won Sony’s World Photography Award
AI should be replacing greedy bankers and stockbrokers, it should be compiling and communicating data from countries to their governments, it should be deftly helping us to solve wealth disparity, the climate crisis, our crumbling healthcare system, taking care of those with disabilities who cannot afford care. At the very fucking least, it should be cleaning my house and sorting my recycling. And instead, instead of all these world affecting changes, we busy AI with making things we can already make?! And what’s worse, it does it by stealing and rehashing the work of others without even bothering to process and filter it through a hard-won soul? AI lacks meaning, depth and is beneath you, as a creative, as a human. Just like humans who rip you off and copy you: it is weak, lazy, shallow, and will never be as good as the real thing.
The fact that AI exists and might steal your creations isn’t reason to stop making or sharing them. Double down on exercising your soul, reinforce your humanness, connect, experience, produce, reflect. Do all the things that the robot could never replicate. Cry at a song, remember your childhood, delight in a dog sniffing strawberries as it walks past a greengrocer. Life? AI could never.
