Artist vs AI: Who Wins in the End?

It’s time. Yes, we’re finally going to talk about AI-generated images. I’ve honestly avoided this topic for so long because it’s just tiring. Tiring to see so many uninformed people be confused by machines creating pictures and bad takes about how that makes forms of art obsolete. But I think things have cooled off enough, for me, that I can finally put my thoughts together. I’ve got a lot of reasons ahead for why I think you SHOULD, now more than ever, learn to draw and paint. Here… we… go.

AI this, AI that. AI “art”, it’s coming for artists! It’s going to destroy the art world! biiig sigh. Of course it won’t. Isn’t it tiring, the noise you hear about AI everything? I used to have a passing interest in machine learning a long time ago, but nowadays whenever someone brings AI into the conversation my brain just shuts off. I loathe the subject. The profit-seeking middlemen. The superiority complex of people that figured out how to type a sentence into a textbox. The fear-mongering. I just want to roll back time and paint in peace. But hate it or hate it, it’s here, and there’s no putting it back. … How do we deal with it?

It’s crazy easy to get discouraged when you see the output of these image generators and wonder how it made something so quickly, when it’s taken you years of practice to get that far. Sure there are mistakes these generators make, but it’s not out of the question to assume they’ll improve over time. We’re not even going to get into the weeds of AI ethics, copyright issues, and the general downfall of society. So why bother with any of it? What’s the point in making art anymore?

All right, enough negativity. We have enough of that in the world. I want to bring things back to why we all get into art in the first place, help squash your worries, and get you back to doing what you love. I want to show how it’s entirely possible to continue making your own art as if AI didn’t exist, and how to think about everything in context.

Let’s start with what’s usually at the top of the mind here: money. Whether you make art on the side or are able to do it full-time, it’s hard not to feel threatened by AI image generation. If machines can spit this out so quickly, how can you possibly keep up? It seems like people are finding their own generated images and getting them printed, using them as their profile pictures, and sharing them around. But let’s be real here: the kind of person to get excited by AI images was never going to buy or commission art. They were never your customer. It’s disheartening to see people get excited for fake art like this, sure, but you weren’t ever going to get their support or money even if AI didn’t exist.

But y’know, there will always be people that want art made by people. That want that human connection. They want to know that YOU made it, that you spent time out of your life bringing their ideas to life. I know if you’re deep in social media and the internet, it’s hard to believe that, but seriously: you talk to people around you offline, and they tend to not care about AI images. Like, at all. They’re just as tired as you are about the AI craze, or don’t even go near it, so it’s not a concern to them. But art? Art has been around since the beginning of society. Everyone gets art and the struggles and creativity it takes to make it. True art will never go away because fundamentally you cannot replace that human connection with a machine. When people avoid calling AI-generated media “art”, they’re not being stubborn or nitpicky. It’s fundamentally not the same, no matter how much tech companies want you to believe otherwise. Money’s top of mind for corporations too. But me, and I suspect most other people? I want human-crafted art, genuinely. There’s absolutely no point in anything else.

I’ll be real, it’s… super frustrating to see animation studios dive in to trying to replace their animators with AI workflows. Hell, across the board, there are clueless executives trying to do this in many fields. This isn’t just some vague reasoning y’all. I’ve worked in the corporate world most of my life, and let me tell you, I’ve met some executives that have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. The fact that they get excited and try to do AI-everything is no surprise, no matter how terrible of an idea most of it is. AI is fancy search and autocomplete. Even with pictures, it’s not actually learning anything, even if it tricks us into thinking it has. We’re pretty damn far away from actual artificial intelligence as a society. That doesn’t make any of what’s happening today less frustrating. But I’m optimistic that some things will come back around as people come to their senses. People are showing that they want true art in the media they consume. After all, with streaming prices being so goddamn high as they are, and now stuffed full of ads, why wouldn’t people get upset when media companies want to start phoning it in with machine-generated media? It’s obnoxious!

Getting back on track here: AI does not have human expression. AI-generated media cannot tell a story, because it never had one to start with. It cannot produce images made with love and effort because those concepts don’t exist for computers. It’s math. It cannot pour emotion into brushstrokes because it doesn’t have it. (COME AT ME, ROKO’S BASILISK!) AI can’t do what you can as an artist. It can’t pour your thoughts into art. Prompts aren’t the same. You’re rolling the probability lottery over and over until a machine spits out something that looks passable? That’s not art, that’s just a pile-o-bullshit. AI can’t represent the time and skill you put into your art because it did neither. It can’t enjoy the process of creation and the celebrations and struggles of making something. It can’t share in that joy and emotion with friends. It can’t overcome obstacles to make something truly great in art. None of these things will “get better with technology” – it’s all fundamental human aspects of art that machines can never have.

Art by a real artist, by YOU, can do all of these things. Art has never been about the end product. It’s about making something with a part of you in it, that you can share with others. If it’s art made as a commission, it’s not just the picture that was made. It’s the care, time, and thought that went into it. If you commissioned someone, you and your idea were the attention of someone that you respect for hours to make a piece. That’s one of the coolest things. Care and expression like this is a part of our social language. Art by an artist is a story told, not output emitted.

This is gonna be wild for some of you to hear, but this applies to adult content too. Especially adult content, even. If you’re looking at some adult art, well… that was made by someone, and in the process a lot of raw feelings went into that piece. That’s doubled for a commission. People trusting each other that much? That they want to share in those emotions and feelings with one another and turn that into art? And then, pretty often, share that with the world? That’s bold, expressive, and beautiful in a very powerful way. Machines don’t have any of that. I’ve heard the weirdest takes about this, more than once, and it usually goes like this: “Yeah, I respect artists, I will get commissions from them instead of using AI generators.” .. But then they seem to carve out an exception for porn and try to convince themselves that that’s OK. All I can really think about there is how they’re completely missing the point. Adult art is still art. In many cases, adult art is the MOST art. Look back through history! People have made smut since the dawn of time.

What does this allll mean for you? It means that you shouldn’t give AI a second thought. If you want to learn art, learn it! Share in the human connections, the emotions, the struggles and successes. It’s not going to make the noise about it online magically go away. It’s frustrating, especially if you see a big-name artist seem to “give in” and start spitting out AI-generated media. But remember that popularity does not mean correct. Artists can and often will be wrong. Just remember that none of that stuff is art. So don’t fret. You are the artist. No one can take that away from you.