I make no secret of the fact that I despise almost everything about A.I. The one and only exception is when I see it used in medical programming to help predict and detect the onset of diseases, but that’s not what most people think of when A.I. is mentioned. They think of the image-generation and the text-writing and I hate hate hate that with every living fiber of my being.
First, it’s all theft. A.I. is trained on copyrighted material without the consent or compensation of its original authors and is therefore plagiarism. Second, it’s an environmental disaster, using massive amounts of energy and water as coolant. Third, it’s being forced down our throats by tech-bros with all the morality and conscience of a cartoon supervillain. Fuck A.I.
But what I’m going to focus on for today’s blog is not only how A.I. is robbing creators and the environment, it robs all of us of our creative potential and growth by doing the work for us. “The work” is the most important part of any creative endeavor because it changes you, and only for the better.
I’ve said many times that nothing about making comics comes easily for me. I am not a “natural” when it comes to writing or art, with the latter being a huge source of insecurity for me during the entirety of my webcomics career. But I love comics and I wanted to learn how to make them, so I taught myself how; step by bitter step, mistake by mistake, inch by frustrating inch until something resembling what was in my head started to take shape on the page.
And by the process of doing “the work” I began to view art differently. I began to read comics with more curiosity and scrutiny, looking for things that could help me improve. When taking pictures I began to think in panel composition and used that when framing shots, which led to my brief stint as a photographer for burlesque shows and dancers. When reading books I began to take notice how a story is paced and how character arcs are shaped from beginning to end. “The work” changed how I perceived things, and taught me how to teach myself how to get better.
A.I. robs every person of that experience. “Hey computer, draw this for me” or “write this paragraph for me” means you have no opportunity to grow, to learn, to shape yourself creatively in ways you would never expect. There’s no work to do, so there’s nothing happening inside you, and that’s what makes A.I. slop so empty, because the only “work” it had to do was steal from others and wreck the planet.
Do the work. In whatever form it takes and however you are capable to do it. It may not be what you expected but the very act will change you and improve you. The work is what happens inside you.
And fuck A.I.