Rigor
So there's a whole lot of takes out there about AI art. A lot of them are really brilliant and really make you feel better about being a creator amidst this, you know, tide of total garbage. But there is an air of sadness to it all. It doesn't really feel like it can be stopped.
People like to feel like artists and not everyone can be in artists and AI art gives people a fraction of a percentage of the feeling of what it's like to actually create something. And for them, that's as close as they're ever going to get. So for them it's enough. On top of that, you have the fact that at the current moment, AI seems to be the only thing making the US economy look good. I say, look, not is. So all these takes are like, "This sucks. Not much to do about it. I guess we just keep being awesome." And I guess that's the only thing to do.
We can keep shaming people when they upload their favorite artwork so that they can do some nonsense with it. we can try and fail to get politicians to regulate it, and in some cases, sue. But it doesn't feel like any of that is going to stop anything, at best delay it. I've heard a lot of references to Pandora's Box when talking about AI, and some have gone so far as to say in the myth of Pandora's box, after the horrors of the world escape from the box, try and remember what's left at the end is hope. It's the last thing left in the box. In the end.
The thing is Hesiod's story of Pandora is still debated to this day regarding what was actually left behind in the box. Some say it's hope, some say it's not. Also is probably a jar, not a box.
We don't know what's at the end of this thing. But it has been great to hear a lot of these takes that are essentially, "This sucks, but at least we're in this together, hand in hand against the machine."
That has felt really good. So this post is not like an attempt to weigh in on AI. I think the conversation is over and what we're left with is sadly, you know, "This sucks. Here it comes."
But the reason why I wanted to talk about it, to think out loud about it, is because the conversation has caused me to think about something I've never thought about before: The effort required in the art's creation being intrinsically embedded in the art itself. The rigor as part of the expression.
When you're showing someone something that you've created you are, in addition to the story your piece is telling, you are telling them the story of how it was made. You are telling them the story of your process. Now, they may not know your process, but the story of it is still there in what you've created.
They can see that. They can see that someone did something. The work behind something great is always implied. The story behind your story is always there, and if the story behind what you made is "I pressed a button," then the creation itself is a lie. It's a lie because it implies a story in its creation when there is none.
There's a photographer in Virginia. Named Em White. Em takes pictures of the same things a lot of photographers take pictures of scenes in nature, portraits of interesting people, But Em uses a large format camera made of wood, and steel and glass on a huge tripod. A camera not that much different from some of the first cameras ever used. She covers panes of glass in photoreactive chemicals, loads them into this massive device, opens the shutter, and waits and waits.
Her pictures are monochrome and ghostly. The feeling that you get when you're trying to recall a moment in your head. You can't look at EM'S photos and not think about her. Out in the humid Virginia Summer, shoving half of her body into a dark bag as she develops these plates right there in the back of her van, you can feel it in every single photo.
The the story of everything she does is embedded in the art she makes. The two are inseparable. Now, maybe you don't have to struggle as much to make what you make. Maybe you have it a little easier, but that doesn't matter because at the end of every great work is a revelation to the audience of what we as humans are capable of. What we are watching or absorbing or reading, as much as the work itself is the story of humanity and what is achievable through passion, sacrifice, and fortitude. Every work subtly dedicated to all of us here on earth right now. Look at the things we can do.
This has led me to a really weird thought. Art isn't inherently beautiful.
It doesn't make sense coming out of my mouth, but, but that's what I'm left with. And then it doesn't make sense that it doesn't make sense. But eliminating the human element from art makes it nothing. I'm sitting here asking myself, if the Sistine Chapel was made with AI, how would I feel?
And the only thing I can come up with is, "Well, this sucks now." My reaction is, "Well, of course a machine can make this. The point is that a human did. Someone like me."
Somewhere in the ocean of AI takes, someone said, "If you're skeptical of the existence of the soul, have a look at art made without one. Now, how do you feel?"
I'm depressed by all of this. It's going to ruin the internet for a while, but it has brought a lot of clarity to me about why we do all these things. And I've had to ask myself a lot of questions that I wouldn't have had to ask myself.
And after all these questions, I come back to the most important one. Can we make it through this? Honestly, I don't know.
But look at what we can do.